Re: Emotional Affairs
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blarg,
this isn't about casual friendships or flirting, it is about being 'emotionally intimate' (however you want to define that) with someone of the opposite sex. like others have alluded to, i think emotions are tied to physical attraction and sexual desires. i don't think a man a women can be emotionally intimate without being attracted to each other and desiring each other, atleast that is my experience.
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I was talking about being friends, which I think you were originally talking about too when you said that men and women can't be friends.
I think "emotionally intimate" is a bad phrase, too, in that it conflates being emotionally connected with the kind of intimacy that one would expect from a boyfriend/girlfriend or husband/wife, as if there is no other way to share deep emotions. Yet we grow up sharing them with many people we don't want to boink -- parents, siblings, relatives, friends at school, etc. It takes a determined turning away and turning off of emotional possibilities to claim that there really are none outside of one's relationship with one's partner. It just isn't true.
Can you confide in guy friends? Get great advice from them, some real empathy and good feedback and some concern sometimes? I can. Some of that stuff can go down real deep. But I can also get that from a female. And not necessarily have the slightest physical interest in her, or at least be able to keep it well in perspective.
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My understanding of the term emotional affair is that you develop very strong feelings and desires for another person, only you don't act on them physically. In other words, you are Bill Murray in Lost In Translation. You are close to someone and feel strong energy between the two of you and open up yourself to them in an intimate way that you would only do with someone you were physically attracted to... i think you can see how this is different than discussing politics over lunch with a female and not feeling anything for her.
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You seem to be moving the goalposts back every time the ball comes near. First you said men and women can't be friends, then said they can't be emotionally intimate, and now are speaking of emotional affairs. I'm with you when it comes to emotional affairs being out of line, but that seems pretty much basically self-evident. To be fair, these terms are so fraught with assumptions, prejudice, and sexual fear or braggadocio that it can be hard to nail down what we really believe or want to say.
Up to that point, though, women are still great to be around, without it having to "mean" anything. In other words, there is a line to be crossed, but it's not simply one of which gonads you are born with. And sometimes more than others, you may have to finesse this line and remind yourself to keep your head on straight. But it's not like we don't do that every day of our lives with others, too -- bosses, subordinates, co-workers, our kids, friends, or partners when we're pissed off but don't want to show it or take it out on them, etc. Life requires a lot of fine control. That's not beyond our abilities. Saying that it is paints us all as children, animals, or idiots.
I think the lack of confidence both in one's own ability to handle that combination of emotional openness and sexual responsibility, and the fear that one's partner might be as incapable as we fear or know ourselves to be, is what makes silly phrases like "Men and women can't be friends" such a relief to espouse and suggest others agree with and live by too. It justifies, even declares as some sort of law of nature or worldly-wise fruit of maturity, our own fear of ourselves and instinctive, childishly unflattering distrust of our partners.
Perhaps it also brings to the fore how our choices in partners might not have been good ones.
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Blarg, you make a lot of good points, and believe it or not, I agree with most of them. However, I think your statements live in a "perfect world" where "this is how it should be." Most of us do not.
Should men and women be able to be friends, even if they are in relationships with others? Of course they should. In the real world, does this often lead to unfortunate complications, jealousies and misunderstandings? Yes, they do.
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