I understand the confusion. It was late and I got lost in my own thoughts. In fact, I believe I may have spun a new topic, using the original article as a springboard. I think what I was trying to point out was that (at least in my experience, and that of my friends) we have a tendency to categorize girls into two sets: lovers and friends. I don't mean to speak for every man in his early twenties, but I have found that we generally pursue a girl based on how she fits into our ideal of female sexuality. Whether she's the girl with the great legs and intense gaze or the the one doing a lap dance for a toilet seat, is certainly a matter of personal taste. The women we want to date are the women we are attracted to; the women we are attracted to are those who fit into our particular ideal for lovers. Generally, that doesn't include friends. She's usually a stranger at a party or a friend of a friend. In my previous comment, I believe I specified that the cough-sipper was an old friend. Even if that same old friend were also the "toilet monster" (or anyone else for that matter) it's still fairly unlikely that you would let yourself think of her romantically. Which brings me back to the question, do we really know what we want? As I said before, our ideals for both lovers AND mothers are rarely embodied in one woman. Or at least, it seems so to many of us. A couple of years ago, a girl I have been friends with for a long time told me that she cared for me and hoped that we could have a relationship. I declined as delicately as I could. She was very disappointed and our friendship suffered, but I just couldn't see her in the light of a lover. She was pretty in her way, but I never felt the potential for passion, or "sparks". In the following year, I dated several girls with great passion, but I would find myself sometimes thinking, "what if?" What if I had dated my friend? I already loved her because we shared a meaningful history together as friends. I had few memories that she was not part of, and all of those memories were of good times. She was dependable, she was funny, she didn't want to change me- and I wouldn't change her. We are both seeing other people now, but I still wonder and resent the lack of reason in my decisions of the heart. Don't get me wrong; I love my girlfriend. But think how much more I could have shared with my friend. I think that as a culture we give of ourselves too freely and yet we have such impossibly high standards for love. We have hundreds of "friends" on myspace and facebook- people we don't even know -and yet we have the audacity to believe we will recognize love when we see it. But we don't. Because real love doesn't announce itself with fireworks, shooting stars, or any other Hollywood bells and whistles. It just IS. Love is only love, and it's wonderful enough.

There again, I've completely lost track of the topic at hand, but it's hard not to get on a public soap box when you have the power of anonymity. What are your thoughts?