Dear Amy: I am a 50-something devout Catholic who has been divorced for over 20 years.
Since my petition for annulment through the church was rejected, I am not in the position to remarry. Accordingly, I fully accept the church's teaching that only permits sexual intimacy within the marital bond.
Given these facts, I can only offer women platonic friendship, which I disclose early on whenever there is a mutual attraction.
Without fail, women become disinterested — although they remain very friendly in future encounters.
Is there a reason why a woman would NOT be interested in having a healthy nonsexual friendship with a male?
— Devout
Dear Devout: Speculating here, but a woman might not be interested in a relationship with you because she wants one or both things you must deny: sex and/or marriage.
Your best bet might be to connect on a Catholic matching site, such as Catholicmatch.com. Other devout single women who remain "married" but without partners because of the church's rules might be interested in a longer-term, chaste, platonic relationship.
Otherwise, do your best to develop all kinds of friendships with all kinds of people.
This guy's letter bothers me a bit, b/c his line "Is there a reason why a woman would NOT be interested in having a healthy nonsexual friendship with a male?" feels like he is blaming the women. Nobody - man or woman - has to provide a reason for not wanting a relationship with another person.
I am curious as to where he is meeting these women.
Probably because a lot of women are not going to have a lot of time to pursue a platonic friendship with a man. Sure I have male friends but we do not hang out one on one. We hang out in groups with my husband and their wives and other friends. If I am trying to find a partner then I am going to reserve most of my friend time to the man I am dating and won't have a lot of time to hang out with my male friend. I mean I would hang out with him, but it would be like once a week compared to me seeing the man I am dating several times a week.
So he either needs to find someone that thinks like him which might be hard or just accept that he can have friends but it is not going to be a woman that meets him often just the two of them. That probably won't happen.
Dear Amy: I am a 50-something devout Catholic who has been divorced for over 20 years.
Since my petition for annulment through the church was rejected, I am not in the position to remarry. Accordingly, I fully accept the church's teaching that only permits sexual intimacy within the marital bond.
Given these facts, I can only offer women platonic friendship, which I disclose early on whenever there is a mutual attraction.
Without fail, women become disinterested — although they remain very friendly in future encounters.
Is there a reason why a woman would NOT be interested in having a healthy nonsexual friendship with a male?
— Devout
To me "mutual attraction" means that at some point a couple will want to move forward to a sexual relationship. If a woman finds out right away that the relationship will never progress that far, she may not want to invest very much time on the friendship.
Richard, it's easy for those of us who aren't very religious to say he should change religions. It's not so easy for someone who deeply believes the tenants of his faith, even if one of them is not really what he wants.The letter writer must be very devout to accept the prohibition against pre-marital sex. I know a lot of Catholics and most of them have broken that rule.