Greater of Two Evils: Emotional or sexual infidelity?

[Drolefille]

Either, though at least at this point I'd understand emotional more than sexual infidelity. My significant other would know my views about relationships and be willing to talk about opening up a relationship, assuming it wasn't open to begin with.

You can't always help who you fall in love with, but you can help what you do about it.

[psusue]

Originally Posted by Drolefille

You can't always help who you fall in love with, but you can help what you do about it.

I would say that I disagree with this statement. I think that you can't help who you're attracted to, sure, but you can help who you fall in love with. The distinction in my mind would be that falling in love takes time and effort-- attraction is typically instantaneous or happens after a short period of time. Maybe I'm just mincing words here, but I think in this discussion the difference is pertinent-- you can't help that you thought that guy/girl is hot, but you can choose to not give in and try to pursue interaction with them/choose not to react when they try to interact with you.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by psusue

I would say that I disagree with this statement. I think that you can't help who you're attracted to, sure, but you can help who you fall in love with. The distinction in my mind would be that falling in love takes time and effort-- attraction is typically instantaneous or happens after a short period of time. Maybe I'm just mincing words here, but I think in this discussion the difference is pertinent-- you can't help that you thought that guy/girl is hot, but you can choose to not give in and try to pursue interaction with them/choose not to react when they try to interact with you.

You need to go knock on wood after posting this. Seriously.

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by psusue

I would say that I disagree with this statement. I think that you can't help who you're attracted to, sure, but you can help who you fall in love with. The distinction in my mind would be that falling in love takes time and effort-- attraction is typically instantaneous or happens after a short period of time. Maybe I'm just mincing words here, but I think in this discussion the difference is pertinent-- you can't help that you thought that guy/girl is hot, but you can choose to not give in and try to pursue interaction with them/choose not to react when they try to interact with you.

You can still pine for them from afar. Depends on how fast you think love occurs. Or how obvious it is. I ended up in a relationship without quite knowing how it happened, at some point in our chatting we developed an emotional connection and I fell in love, but I couldn't have told you when that happened.

I understand the distinction you're going for, I'm just not sure there's an obvious line or that it always starts as "oh s/he's hot; crap better avoid them" instead of "hey s/he's nice and is a great workout buddy or somehow fulfills a friendship role.'

[honeychile]

Am I the only person who thought of Bull Durham, when Annie yells, "Crash!" while in bed with Nuke? Her response: "Would you rather me be making love to him, using your name, or making love to you, using his name?"

But in answer to the question, they're both cheating, so why bother wondering which form of cheating is kinder? You can deal with a fantasy, but not an "emotional infidelity"; and AOII Angel is right about the affair.