9:22 p.m. - 2005-02-23
Friends of the opposite persuasion

Let's examine this a bit

Ok, I got a rousing response to my poll a couple of days ago and let me start off by saying that the lady involved in this long term, serious relationship is neither a bitch nor insecure. She is not worried one little bit that her man will cheat on her....and she never told her significant other that he had to cease being freinds with his female cronies.

Now...that being said, I will state my opinion with explanation. Call me old fashioned but once a couple get serious about each other, freindships with the opposite sex must CHANGE to accomodate the relationship or someone is going to get hurt.

The compromise this couple reached (and he is happily compromising becuse he loves her and doesn't want anything to undermine the relationship) is that he doesn't have to dump his female freinds. As a matter of fact, his lady love has stated that she wants to get to know the freind better. It is just that the female freind of the fella had a knack for coming over precisely when his lady love was NOT around.....often. Also, the female freind never once made an effort to get to know this fellas lady.

It sort of reached a peak when the young lovers were out for a romantic Valentines day dinner and "female freind", obviously not enjoying Valentines Day with her own boyfriend, text messaged the fella repeatedly to the point where the fella just called her back to get over with, whatever the freind just HAD to talk to him about. This catering to this female freind at the cost of ones romantic Valentines Day dinner was the last straw.

Other female freinds of this fella include a woman who is pregnant by someone she does not have a relationship with and another who is a stripper, yet doesn't want her own brother to know she is a stripper...yet she feels it necessary to talk to the fella about her stripping escapades. As a matter of fact, when a group picture was being taken of the fellas crowd of freinds, the stripper reached out and grabbed his hand and put it on her boob just as the shutter was about to click.

Now.....on top of all that....sex isn't even the issue. Men and women can develop such deep emotional freindships with each other and that relationship can become bonding...even without sex. As a matter of fact...the lady in this situation is not even worried about the relationships being sexual.

I guess to sum it up....Everyone hopes to wed their soulmate. A soulmate has less to do with sex than it does a deep bonding of a kind that the couple has that is not shared with anyone else. In a relationship...there is only room for deep bonding of the people in that relationship....Once that relationship deepens, the other relationships must change....not disolve...but change into something less formal than it was....or someone is going to get hurt.

I'll never forget a couple I knew, where the guy had freindships with other women. The couple broke up temporarily and while they were broken up, every one of these girls couldn't wait to come over and "console" thier male freind. This consoling took the form of running the other woman down, bringing the guy home cooked food and sitting on the sofa next to him scratching his back. Seems to me they were sniffing around trying to gather up the spoils.

I've had male freindships outside of my marriage. One was just a good platonic relationship. One fellow I was freinds with was interested in me physically. Guess which one was more of a threat to my marriage. The platonic one. It was such a comfy cozy freindship. It got to the point where I enjoyed this persons company more than anybody elses. I enjoyed doing "couple" things with him. Being that my husband never went anywhere with me, this freind became my going out buddy. I'll never forget when we were bumming around a local carnival together and ran into some freinds of his who were married to each other. We went to their house and sat around and talked and all I could think about was that it was one of the most pleasant evenings I had ever had as an adult. I was telling my Mother about what a nice evening I had and she blurted out "Does Mike know that you're cheating on him?"

I said, "I'm not cheating on him, he knew where I was and who I was with and this guy is just my freind."

She said, "I know but it just seems like cheating."

I thought it over and decided that she was right.

My freind eventually met a nice lady and married her...and guess what. He dropped me...even as a freind. It's OK...I understand. If we ever run into each other again, I am sure he will be freindly and we will talk, but our days of hanging out together or even having a long private telephone conversation together are over...out of respect for his wife.

Well....now I've explained how I look at this....it is a much foggier situation than first put in my poll and is defintely not one with a black or white answer. It depends on the people, the situation and the depth of the relationship.

Have a good nite..

Paula

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