Posted on 06/21/2012 10:45:05 AM PDT by servo1969
No where did I say it never happens. My contention was this video was nonsense and men and women can be just friends.
All I have learned on this thread is there are a lot of men with serious issues, and I’m perfectly happy none of them are in my life, other than as online acquaintances.
With that said, my husband suggested I head out this afternoon and spend some adult time with some friends because he has the afternoon of and I have been cooped up in the house all week with our daughter. Most of the group I’m meeting are male, some married and some not. I have a feeling we’re all going to have some interesting laughs over this discussion.
have a good afternoon.
Says you. I don’t have any such problems like you describe maintaining female friendships. Since I’m into extreme sports and my isn’t, I’ve traveled all over the country with a woman who does share my interests. The closest thing to a flirtation that has occurred is that she claims if something does happen to my marriage, I’m taken.
it’s more about not putting myself in the position where I may be tempted rather than a ready made excuse. Everyone has their weaknesses and areas where they might be easily lead off track. For some it’s the ladies, others money or booze, drugs, vanity, violent behavior. If you haven’t found one in yourself yet then God bless ya but I have all too many and find it is easier to avoid temptation rather than have to deal with it when it is right in front of me.
Mel
It usually feels like a slap up the backside of my head to me - God is good!
Mel
I have a few things where if I start down the path putting the brakes on is nigh impossible, gambling high on the list, but I just don’t start. And even there I’m OK being near “temptation”, one of the best concert venues “in” (way outside) Tucson is attached to a casino, I go to shows there all the time, eat dinner in the restaurants before the show most of the time, never touch any of the tables or machines. They’re not why I’m there, I already know the results, no reason to start.
It just seems sad and kind of silly to me. “I can’t be friends with half the population because I might have sex with them” it just doesn’t add up for me. Maybe it’s the large quantities of females in my life growing up, I can separate the “fun” part of women from the “people” part of women, declare the “fun” part off limits and be friends with the person. For me the physical attractiveness of my friends is kind of like stuff on a food TV show, yup looks nice, probably be a lot of fun, not gonna happen, moving on. I don’t know, maybe I just compartmentalize exceedingly well, it’s all a no brainer to me.
It's awesome that you are able to control the urge to gamble - you have my sincerest admiration for that as I have seen people who have succumbed to it and it is a destroyer of lives. Continued success to you!
Mel
Actually walking through the casino before and after concerts really helped the gambling thing. It’s amazing how little fun people are having in the casino, really makes it not tempting. It’s good aversion therapy.
So...there is an understanding if “something” happens to your marriage you are “taken”. This supports my theory far more that it supports yours.
I'm not sure anyone is saying that exactly. An incontrovertible fact is that affairs happen and while they don't happen by accident, a lot of people report that they never set out to have an affair, it "just happened". Now, you can tell me how strong your will is, how strong the will is of your significant other is, how moral you both are, how neither of you would ever contemplate such a thing etc. You may even be perfectly correct. The divorce statistics and the high incidence of infidelity among virtually all races, creeds and religions in America suggests that you are not the norm. Healthy attractive heterosexual contemporaries of the opposite sex that spend a lot of private time together either resist natural feelings of desire or don't. Granted we are not animals and we do not have to give into base desire, but culturally we seem to have a big problem with that.
Anybody saying the “just happened” is excuse mongering. As I said before, every part of the act of having an affair are voluntary actions, there aren’t Fu Manchu women out there, they don’t have mind control power. At some point in the process, probably multiple some points given how the path from the bar to the bedroom generally works, the person having an affair DECIDED to take that next step.
I’m not saying my will is strong, or that I’m exceedingly moral, I’m just pointing out that the people saying they can’t be trusted to be friends with women are skipping some portion of the decision action matrix.
And if you really want to talk about the stats how about the surveys that say that most affairs are not friends turning into mistresses, they’re hookups with random people, on the road in the bar, nights “out with the boys” that really aren’t. The female friends are NOT the danger zone, neither are the co-workers, that chick in the tight skirt at the bar where you went to unwind is.
I don’t think culturally we have that big a problem. The divorce stats get skewed. The problem is there’s this chunk of the population that doesn’t seem to get the idea of “til death do us part” and they wind up on the Larry King/ Liz Taylor path. So they get married and divorced and married again and divorced again. Most of the folks over 40 I know that have 1 ex have more than 1 ex. And these folks with 3, 4, 5 divorces in their life represent a lot of people with none. It’s really telling when you see the divorce rate sliced up by people rather than by marriages, that’s when you start seeing that it’s 20 to 30% of the people getting the divorces, rather than 50% of the marriages failing.
Do you have a link to that? Maybe for some men. Nearly every case I have seen(including mine) it was between friends and coworkers.
Women don't normally have one night stands with strangers when they are married. Women have affairs because of their perceived lack of love and affection they are not getting from their husband which leads them to having an affair. Most women need an emotional basis with the man to have sex with him...not all cases but generally.
Men are the complete opposite..we don't need an emotional connection or have to feel love with the woman-might not even like her...we just want the physical release.
I’ve never bought into the whole women are one way men are the other thing. Largely because it doesn’t make statistical sense. If women mostly need to bond with a man for sex and men are mostly into one night stands well who are they having sex with? Clearly a significant portion of one side is willing to do things the same way the other side does.
Don’t know where I saw that the real danger was the stranger run, one of those articles that floats around. It makes sense if you think about it. For one thing the person being cheated on will always be more suspicious of the spouse’s friends, which makes them a bad target right away. Plus the situation is too internal then, walking away is more sticky when they can turn you in. Strangers are safer, and they have the air of mystery and spontaneity, two things that are very attractive and hard to keep going in an ongoing relationship. Of course as always remember for something to be the most frequent case it only has to happen more often than the other, not necessarily the vast majority of the time. If it’s strangers 35% of the time, and friends 32.5% of the time and co-workers 32.5% of the time that makes it strangers most often.
Of course they are.
every part of the act of having an affair are voluntary actions
Of course they are.
...the person having an affair DECIDED to take that next step.
Of course they did.
I’m just pointing out that the people saying they can’t be trusted to be friends with women are skipping some portion of the decision action matrix.
I can't speak for "most" people but personally I'm not saying that at all. What I am saying is that spending a lot of alone time with an attractive member of the opposite sex causes perfectly natural biological desires occur. Now we don't need to act on those desires, just like we don't need to have lots of sugar and carbs, just like we don't need another beer, just like we don't need to smoke another cigarette, have another cup of coffee, watch another network TV show, (which incidentally desensitizes the culture to infidelity) or spend another 2 hours watching some sporting event. Culturally people do all of these things and more. We live in a licentacious society surrounded depravity and an obvious lack personal responsibility.
And if you really want to talk about the stats how about the surveys that say that most affairs are not friends turning into mistresses, they’re hookups with random people, on the road in the bar, nights “out with the boys” that really aren’t.
Please point out what surveys you are referring too? Serial adulterers would tend to skew this I think. I know both men and women who happily cheat with whomever says yes but they have no intent of ever losing their spouses over it. Then there are those that are looking for replacement spouses.
I don’t think culturally we have that big a problem.
I think culturally we have really big problems.
While I tend to agree with you concerning divorce stats, not all affairs result in a divorce so I'm not sure where you are going with this.
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