If you coudl make your ATF your S/O would you or are you content as things are.  For me, I might consider it.  She has great to be with on overnights and two days.  We are scheduled for a four day adventure.  But I don't know if she can cook (I can), maintain a household (I can) or slow her lifestyle down to my pace.  I remember someone telling Sedona they had gone to Europe for two weeks with theirs.  Seems like that is someone who could make the transition.

Providers without SO's, any one thing they could make the transition with their ATF?

last time i did, he beat me senseless for "softening" his reputation on the boards  ;-(  

speaking entirely for myself (and my "kind") i feel (and i believe i've said this from day one on this board) one's ATF can not (and/or should not) become one's S/O

$0.02

It's all about common sense (2sense?) ... i'm afraid  

---

most-favourite apropos movie-lines, taken from MOONSTRUCK (1987):

Ronny Cammareri: "I love you."
Loretta Castorini: [slaps him twice] "Snap out of it!"

*

Rose Castorini: "Don't shit where you eat!"  

In the medical community doctors marry doctors, doctors marry nurses and other allied personnel.  Doctors have affairs with other doctors, doctors have affairs with naurses and other allied personnel.  Nurses marry nurses and so on and so on and so on.  So the argument you don't "shit" where you eat doesn't carry much water there.  I am sure it is the same among other fields.

Common sense tell you you may only meet a few people you are compatible with.  Lord only knows how they will present themselves.  If I were looking for a so why not take someone you know you are already compatible in some ways?

Your turn

most people met their mates or SO's at work.  Usually both worked for the same company.  Whether that applies to a situation where one is working and the other is playing is another story.

Having an ATF is fine, but to convert that to relationship with strings defeats the purpose for me. I've met some ladys that i knew i would never speak to again when i left the room and some that i talk with and/or see regularly as friends, but that's as far as it goes.

I suppose it just depends what side of the commitment line you happen to be standing on.

The main reason I'm a hobbyist is because I DON'T WANT an SO & all the things that go along with that.  Been there, done that!!
However, finding & having an ATF is something else entirely...it makes hobbying even better, maybe much better.  

I'd never even consider trying to make it anything other than it is...for a variety of reasons.  Plus I've seen so many posts on these boards in the past that only confirm what I would have thought anyway...it's a rocky road that usually leads to the Heartbreak Hotel.

-- Modified on 8/24/2003 7:18:18 PM

cuz the more things change ...  LOL

you my friend, seem to be perilously close to checking yourself into a room in that Heartbreak Motel greywolf is alluding to. let's hope the painful and expensive lessons of those that checked-in before you will be of (some) help

the more I think about an ATF as a s/o, the unhappier I get.
there was some philosopher who talked about how the best fantasies are the one that stay fantasies and don't become realities.  I remember all the civilians I fantasied about dating, then actually going out with them, and having the fantasy turn into a nightmare.  I think my point was you have just as much chance of success or failure with your ATF as with any other woman.

I appreciate your concern but my ATF will stay in the slot provided for her, pinch hitter.  I was actually trying to crank up a topic for cynicalman 2.0 You might tell him that if you talk to him.

That's a bridge that will never have to be crossed...I can't imagine what might "change" as you put it.  Only speaking for my own situation...I've never even considered it, & I'm more than 100% sure she never has either.  She would have her own reasons, but these are mine:  

I don't want attachments & neither does she..maybe because we both know this it's a big reason that we've continued to see each other for as long as we have.  There's a certain comfort in not having to worry about whether the other person might begin to take things seriously...that knowledge allows a freedom to simply be yourself--I doubt any explanation is needed of how nice that is.  That's a feeling that doesn't come along too often..it's one I enjoy a great deal--so why screw it up?

I've been married, raised a family, all that good stuff..none of which I regret in the least BTW.  But now it's "me" time--no obligation to make someone else happy...just be myself & enjoy others for who they are without agendas or expectations.  

I don't have the means to support her in the style which she's presently enjoying & I'm not so open-minded that I'd want an SO to continue working...for me an SO would mean a mutually exclusive relationship--I'm not the jealous sort, but anything other than exclusivity doesn't fit my definition of what a realationship is all about.  But along with that exclusivity comes the strings that I don't want.  If I felt having an SO was worth that I wouldn't be here...that was the sort of thing that caused me to become a hobbyist in the first place, it certainly wasn't because I couldn't get laid in the civilian world.

She probably turns every man's head when she enters a room.  I, on the other hand, am just an ordinary guy.  I'm not without my good points, & I'm certainly not in any way intimidated by having a beautiful woman on my arm...but it does boil down to the fact that she's quite a bit younger than I am.  The age factor is important even in the civilian world & certainly is germane to this question as well.

To sum it up I'll use a word that she once said to me meaning it as a compliment...I'm a "realist."  

Wow! Loaded question for sure.
To be honest with you orthodx as well as with the board it was my ATF that caused this soft-hearted romantic known only to a select few to morph into the case-hardened Cynicalman.
  I could care less if she cooked. She is already a neat-freak so housekeeping is covered. Naturally I love the sex and neither of us has or wants kids. The problem with turning Cynicalmans ATF into his SO would be the Million to buy her client book plus what she would want for her yearly salary.

  You see now why I say..."It's all about the money"

      Cm.

It is impossible to answer, for each lady is different in where she is in life and so, what it true for one may not be for another.

The last thing on my mind is the possibility of a transition to a SO.  I got into this endeavor for many of the same reasons that gents are.  I do not want the emotional ties at the moment.  Two failed marriages and I am at the point in my life in which I do not want to plunge into something serious right now.  When dating, it seemed every guy I dated was marriage orientated and had me running for the hills the second the prospect was bought up.  This endeavor is fulfilling my needs in that regard for I do not want to get involved period!

Will that change?  Yes, I do think the time will come in which I will be ready to try again, but once that time comes, I will be retired from this.  As to whether or not that person would be a client?  Given that gents normally do not look for such in this forum, I don't open my mind up to the possibility.  Hell, it could have already been right there in my face and I could have been that blind in seeing it.  

Only cupids arrow could fore tell who and when, but I do think I am disciplined enough and in tune with my emotions to know when the time is right and only then will I open up to the possibility.  In between time, I will just be having fun here!

Lauren  

Reading this...I wondered if I posted it and had forgotten.  So alike, even our name.  Ironicly: safe, fulfulling, real, a constant, and adventure this endeavor.  This is a good place.

I have a SH that shares my ambivalant ways.  This keeps us in check.  When I want more-he knows it will pass and visaversa.  We're in a good place.

Why do we always want more when we know it's just more????....COMPLICATED THAT IS.

-- Modified on 8/29/2003 2:11:30 AM