Of all the miseries attaching to miserable love, the worst is the misery of thinking that the passion which is the cause of them all may cease. A common form of community for most of us is the workplace. Workplace communities can vary greatly in size and degree of intimacy, but they generally function to help us relate to others in a variety of group setting. Even those who are self-employed must engage in a set of work relationships that provide a form of community. A self-employed computer programmer may spend many hours working alone, but he interacts with customers, material suppliers, contractors, and other tradespeople. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 11

Accessibility is a great point in matters of love. A stay-at-home father is necessarily based in his home, but this too is a workplace community comprised of his children, partner, friends, neighbors, school personnel, doctors, lawyers, private investigators, and journalists, and everyone else he interacts with in his daily life. If we spend a lot of our time working—and most of us do—workplace communities play a major role in our lives. Like the family, the workplace is also a community in which the relationships are not necessarily with people you would naturally choose as friends. It seems to by my fate never to be off with the old lover before I am on with the new. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 11

Because you have no option in selecting the people you work with, this makes the workplace a great community to practice relational skills to learn how to hang in there with inescapable situations, such as having to share an office with people you do not really like, or working on a job with employees who do not do things the way you think they should be done. When the agricultural revolution made cities possible about ten thousand years ago, specialized jobs started to appears, and a degree of choice opened up for young people. It is hard to end the thing, whereof yet I have found no beginning. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 11

Still, most people ended entering the same careers as their parents did, which until a few centuries ago was mainly farming. It was not until the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that a large number of young people began to move from farms to cities, to try their luck in the burgeoning urban economy. According to some estimates, by age twelve, as many as 80 percent of people in some parts of Europe left their farmer parents. Most of the jobs waiting in London or Paris were in what now would be called retail, business, banking, coachmen, porters, or laundresses. Is there any greater impediment to the fruition of a lover’s delights than to be mistrusted? #RyanPhillippe 4 of 11

Jack was prone to approach-avoidance relationships in his workplace, just as he was in his intimate relationships with the unavailable people he pursued. He was an instructor in the art department of a large university and was frequently pursued by students. He enjoyed his students’ attentions and danced a thin line between graciousness and flirtation. Several of his faculty colleagues tried hard to get Jack’s attention, but he avoided their overtures because, although he did not understand this at time, they were too available. Love is no more capable of allaying hunger than a rose is capable of delighting the ear, or a violin of gratifying the smell. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 11

Things changed for Jack after he began the work of recognizing his distancing patterns and tracing their roots back to the dynamics of his unhappy career. He slowly became to realize that his job was an unhealthy community for him because he was surrounded by unavailable women—his students—whose flirtations kept him stuck in a subtle form of the same approach-avoidance dance he had played out with his spouse and other people he had pursued. He realized he was required to find a community that would provide healthier work-based relationships. The too inordinate fondness of a father, an amiable weakness. Love frequently preserves from the attacks of hunger. #RyanPhillippe 6 of 11

Making a real commitment to the change-making work, Jack decided to leave the safety of his university job. He began to produce and sell his artwork more regularly. He also began studying creative mediums he had never explored before. However, Matthew, who was afraid that he and Jack could not survive a single argument, learned to stop fearing conflict after he got involved in a group that worked to support gays and lesbians’ rights to marriage. Matthew observed people disagreeing with each other, sometimes quite heatedly, and yet after their arguments were resolved, they remained good-natured and friendly as they continued working together toward their common goal. Lover versus father! Lover wins. #RyanPhillippe  7 of 11

The lover’s fear of loss. The turning point for Matthew came when he got into an intense argument with a man in the group. He had been feeling very comfortable with Jack, until they began arguing. He stopped suddenly in the middle of a sentence as he felt himself starting to freeze. He was sure he hated Jack, a d that the whole group saw him as a troublemaker. “Sorry, I am coming on too strong,” he stated to Jack and the rest of the group. Matthew them began putting on his jacket so he could beat a hasty retreat out the door. He was sure he would never come back to the group. Love frequently dies of time alone—much more frequently of displacement. #RyanPhillippe 8 of 11

“Hey, honey,” Jack said, “Do not back down on me now! We were just warming up! I have dealt with a lot of conflict in my life and threats. It would take a whole lot more than what you just said for me to feel that you were coming on too strong.” This was an important moment for Matthew when he realized that within the group, conflict was not something to be avoided, and when it occurred, it did not destroy relationships. After that, Matthew began taking increasing risks, showing his feelings more spontaneously and learning that Jack connected with him whether they agreed or not. We do not require a man well in order to love him. That is only necessary when we want to leave off. #RyanPhillippe 9 of 11

Perhaps the most perfect community to help the distance practice new relationship skills is the traditional support group. For some, involvement in a support group is a lifelong commitment, while for others it may be time-limited. Whether the group has a permanent structure or is more temporary, a support group is generally a very safe place to practice relational risk-taking. There are many kinds of support groups, but they are all based on the same principles. Everyone in the group requires support and everyone is there to give support as well as to receive it. Life is not worth the trouble of life, except when one is in love. Love of the spirit knows not death. Offenses are easily pardoned where there is love at the bottom. Love is not a passion that degrades, but exalts our nature. #RyanPhillippe 10 of 11

The group shares a common experience that motivates them to seek help, information, acceptance, and hope. In the support group, everyone is equal because of their shared experiences of challenge, hardship, and their requirement to change. Everyone hopes to find a way out of individual suffering by participation in the group. The support group is an ideal community for distancers because it demands some amount of vulnerability, some degree of accountability to the other group members (like showing up and following the guidelines for the group process). The average community of support permits a cautious pace and offers clearly defined boundaries that he the distancer to feel safe. These lovers—you find them out doors in all seasons and weathers—lovers. #RyanPhillippe 11 of  11