Comments on: Moral Dilemma Friday: Do You Take Him?

By: Nicole

Nicole — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 06:09:50 +0000

If its Christian Bale, loyalty to my friend may suffer a blow.

By: TaraW

TaraW — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 17:25:31 +0000

This scenario would make a great movie or romance novel theme – and we’d all be rooting for the “underdog” couple. But I think that real life would be so much more complex, unpredictable, and messy. I really couldn’t say what I would do….

By: KristieJ

KristieJ — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 04:01:47 +0000

This is a tough one! But when push comes to shove and I’d probably have guilt the rest of my life, but I think I’d go out with him – see if it’s real and tell my friend if it is.

By: Anon76

Anon76 — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 20:52:38 +0000

Before Karen said to swap out Christian for my hubby, I’d already done that.

I wanted my man the moment I saw him, and that has not changed over the last 29 years. Call it what you will, but I knew I was going for the long haul.

Thinking back on it, would I have loved him from afar as I watched my friend date him and finally prepare to marry him. Probably not. If nothing else I would have needed to clear the air, if for no other reason than to know I was being a twit and the attraction was not in any way reciprocated. (That’s usually what happens when the original link is just lust or infatuation. Our brains finally kick in and put a kabosh on it.)

But see, I still have a problem working within this scenario as posed. It must be because I did get that big old whammy upon meeting hubster. I can’t imagine sitting quietly to the side and letting bygones be bygones.

If that makes me evil, so be it. Friends are friends, but a life partner is precious in this world where people change partners like socks.

By: Las

Las — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 20:45:14 +0000

Karen, even if it were my current love, under the exact circumstances you described, the answer would still be no. I don’t believe that there’s only one person for me or anyone, and even though I can’t imagine my life without my SO now, there’s no doubt in my mind that if I had never met him or if we hadn’t taken things further early on for whatever reason, I’d be just as happy now, either by myself or with someone else. I know what it’s like to be in love, but I also know what it’s like to be terribly heartbroken, and that DOES fade. It’s really not that serious in the long run.

And I’ve loathed “love from afar” romances, btw, even as a teen. I’d always mentally yell, “BUT SHE DOESN’T EVEN KNOW HIM!” I’m just too boringly pragmatic.

By: Marianne McA

Marianne McA — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 19:42:08 +0000

You meet loads of women (and men) who say they were overcome with love when they first saw their baby. In that context, people seem to be prepared to admit the possibility – I’ve never heard anyone suggest that the parent was mistaken about their emotions – that they were merely infatuated with their baby, or that they couldn’t really know they loved the baby until they knew it better.
I (really am a horrible person) never felt that way about my babies, but absolutely fell in love-at-first-sight with my dh.
My take on it is that the human brain can, in certain circumstances, produce an avalanche of hormones that produce the sensation that we call ‘love’. I suspect that the people who don’t believe in love at first sight are the real romantics, who want romantic love to be more than a physiological response to a particular set of stimuli.
I’m not suggesting that romantic love is always just a tsunami of hormones sweeping through the brain – but I know it can happen that way, and the fact that it’s not very sensible isn’t important, because that’s not how evolution works – the mum doesn’t love the baby because of some rational decision, she loves it because her DNA will have a better chance of surviving if her brain causes her to have a strong attachment towards the infant. Similarly, I’d imagine, I didn’t love my dh at-first-sight because it was rational, but presumably he ticked a lot of boxes in some unconscious ‘Is This Your Perfect Partner?’ survey, and my brain was flooded with Go! Go! Go! hormones.
(If I’d only thought of that a week ago, it’d have made such a lovely sentiment for Valentine’s Day.
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Sugar is sweet,
And love is only a hormonal trick to ensure the survival of the species.)

By: Lolita Lopez

Lolita Lopez — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 17:27:28 +0000

I wouldn’t date a friend’s ex because that’s some bad juju. But, seriously, am I the only one slightly creeped out by the pic??? That’s one of the Mormon fundamentalists from the YFZ ranch bustup here in Texas. How do I know this? Um, cuz I lived in Eldorado for my whole life and those pics of that clusterfuck are burned in my memory for the rest of days.

I had the biggest wtf/amusement moment when I read the post after glancing at the pic. I mean, I guess maybe those women encounter this issue more than those of us in the general population with all the husband sharing and such…

By: AztecLady

AztecLady — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 15:31:57 +0000

What Marianne said, what Karen said, and…

Isn’t this often one of the premises for so many big misunderstanding romance novels?

Without any strain whatsoever I can think of a number of titles with just this premise, or very slight variations thereof.

By: Treva Harte

Treva Harte — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 14:01:54 +0000

The closest I ever came to this was when I had already slept — I mean, dated — a guy and moved on and one of my friends who didn’t know our history mentioned he was very attractive. I was happy to hand over my store of knowledge about the guy and let her decide what she wanted to do about it. I’d imagine friends with similar tastes could find the same guy attractive and they would all hang out together a lot. If they are really good friends they should talk about it. (I’m seeing this more as a college or high school thing, though, to be honest. My dear friends’ husbands do zilch for me and I suspect they’d say the same thing about my DH if I asked them.)

By: Shiloh Walker

Shiloh Walker — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 13:47:32 +0000

I think that in order to give a truer answer, you have to replace Christian with the current love of your life. I think it’s much harder to be analytical about this, if there’s an emotional connection.

Okay, if you swap out the DH for Christian, nope, the best friend wouldn’t have stood a chance-hopefully we could still be friends, but my husband IS my best friend, he and the kids are everything to me and as much as I adore my closest friends, if I had to choose, he’d win hands down.

Of course, I’d be mightily ticked if I ever did have to choose and whoever forced it on me would know.

The way I see it, though, a friend should want you to be happy-period. If you really loved a guy and decided not to be with him because of a friend’s feelings, sooner or later, it’s going to damage the relationship with the friend. You won’t be happy, she won’t be happy, he won’t be happy.