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Women: Do you get upset when male friends ask you out?


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Posted

Then you get to know them and over time their second, third, fourth impression can change what you think about them. Then the unthinkable happens.... you look at them in just that right light and see them like you have never seen them before. Suddenly they are the most beautiful woman in the world and you have gotten to know her well.

 

 

This is all well and good MrLonelyone, but you also should listen to her. If she has outlined what she likes in a man, and you are the opposite of that, then obviously the chance that your move would be desired is a long shot. And the fact that some guy would make the move in that situation, tells me he doesn't value the friendship, he would rather risk the 0.001% chance that I wasn't serious about what I had communicated.

 

That tells me he doesn't value the friendship, so maybe the friendship was an act.

Posted

why not just be direct from the get go? I can see how women would be upset. I think they would respect you more from being honest from the get go, rather than lead them to believe you're only just a friend, then turn around and try to make it more.

Posted

I think I've just figured out something.

 

I'm noticing a pattern of woman saying "I've shared things with him as a friend that I'd never have shared if I knew he had those feelings for me."

 

So, to these women, friends are your inner circle, people you feel comfortable with, people you care about, people you can be yourself around.

 

Men, however (by which I mean guys who could possibly be interested in you as a woman) must be kept at a distance. They must never know your secrets, never see you at your lowest point, never get too close! Only your friends are allowed to get that close. Lovers or potential lovers must never see what's behind the curtain.

 

Baffling. To me it's a given that a lover would be at least as close as, if not closer than, a friend. I guess it's not that way for everybody.

Posted
I think I've just figured out something.

 

I'm noticing a pattern of woman saying "I've shared things with him as a friend that I'd never have shared if I knew he had those feelings for me."

 

So, to these women, friends are your inner circle, people you feel comfortable with, people you care about, people you can be yourself around.

 

Men, however (by which I mean guys who could possibly be interested in you as a woman) must be kept at a distance. They must never know your secrets, never see you at your lowest point, never get too close! Only your friends are allowed to get that close. Lovers or potential lovers must never see what's behind the curtain.

 

Baffling. To me it's a given that a lover would be at least as close as, if not closer than, a friend. I guess it's not that way for everybody.

Leeway not all women are that way.

 

First of all it makes kind of sense. Friends can't hurt you in the way lovers can. Yet the truth is once they find that ultimate lover... the kind they can marry... that person will with time come to know all of those things. That person will come to know all of those things and then hopefully still like them.

 

IMHO. I will always think that liking someone after you have gotten to know them at their lowest point is if anything more real.

 

Perhaps ... what these women aren't willing to admit... is that these male friends are offering them something too real. Something more real than what they are willing to get into at that point.

 

This last point dovetails with what , I belive SummersEve, was saying... that with age and being married for umpteen years the focus comes onto spouse and children and family not "friends".

 

When IN a sense Summers was describing the process of the husband/wife becomming the absolute best friend and ally that they should be. These younger women know this and don't want it yet. A friend who knows all their BS and still falls for them... would be falling for them harder than they are ready to be fallen for.

 

When these same young women are 10 years wiser... they will probably wake up to find that their lover is either their best friend and be happy... or find that their lover is someone they barely know and wonder where they went wrong.

 

That's just my $0.02 .

Posted

 

First of all it makes kind of sense. Friends can't hurt you in the way lovers can. Yet the truth is once they find that ultimate lover... the kind they can marry... that person will with time come to know all of those things. That person will come to know all of those things and then hopefully still like them.

 

This is the truth of it.

 

A lover/partner is in your space alot of the time once things are established. It's easy with friends to distance yourself if there is a disagreement, maybe decide to only see them once a week or less and not talk at all inbetween, not call them for weeks while the dust settles etc. So friendships can cope with occasional oversharing.

 

Relationships can't. Things you said are remembered forever, and no doubt thrown in your face during an argument. Not calling your SO for 2weeks without explanation is akin to breaking up (or at the very least more trouble), if you're living together there is no escape (sure maybe a couple of hours), which isn't the same not talking or seeing that people for a while.

 

And their is more vunerability with relationships. How many partners would for comfortable and happy while you wax lyrical for 10mins straight about the hottie you saw today, but your friends have no problem with that stuff, they probably find it entertaining. (Just one example)

 

So yeah, full disclosure in a relationship of every little thought that crosses your mind or thing that happens is probably not a good thing.

 

Likewise I don't tell friends everything, I have friends I will mention different things to. There is no one person that gets to know all of me, nor should there be. Why would you want to spend your life getting to know someone, if you knew it all at the start.

Posted
Leeway not all women are that way.

Sure, I know. But the ones that are insisting it's a "betrayal" and "sneaking into the pussy" (WTF?!?) when a male friend develops deeper feelings, I can't think of any other explanation.

Posted
A man can be attracted to a woman yet find her first impression personality repulsive.

 

Then you get to know them and over time their second, third, fourth impression can change what you think about them. Then the unthinkable happens.... you look at them in just that right light and see them like you have never seen them before. Suddenly they are the most beautiful woman in the world and you have gotten to know her well.

 

To some people this freaks them out. They are people like Easy Heart.

 

To some people like me and Woggle and others here... that's just like right. What could be better than having a relationship with someone you get along with and know pretty well already? I'm sure there are plenty of women who see it that way. They just don't complain and odds are they are taken and tend to stay taken once they make a commitment.

No one's talking about third or fourth impressions; we're talking about 3000ths impressions.

 

I still think a lot of you are confusing "friend" with "classmate", "co-worker", "the girl I see in the cafeteria on Thursdays", "Jenny from Accounting", "my buddy's girlfriend's best friend", "the woman I talk to in the coffee shop", "my sister's roommate's cousin", "the woman in the office down the hall", "that cute girl on my kickball team", etc.

 

Those people are not your "friends", regardless of what Facebook tells you.

Posted

@Easyheart

 

Even with 3000th impressions I know people who were just friends in highschool who are now married with kids.

 

I mean real friends with eachother. Each dated and married other people before divorcing then marrying eachother now 13 years latter.

 

Can we at least agree that there are different but valid approaches to relationships. That some people cannot count as a "friend" someone they find attrractive for whatever reason... while other people can... without one side or the other being dishonest, or bad in any way?

Posted

I have this female friend that I actually don't have a problem being friends with

 

We used to go to movies together, even had in-depth conversion, completely platonic....I couldn't date her because she's got an entirely different belief system than mine though.

 

 

 

 

....until....well, one day I noticed she had a "girls night out" pictures on her FB...apparently, her and some other single female friends went out dancing....she did this occasionally with her other single friends.

 

I noticed the pictures, and suggested the next time we could do all of this together next time we go out, join her and her friends.

 

Her comment, "Okay, but promise you won't hit on any of them, okay?"

 

I was kind of taken aback by that personal request, actually quite insulted.

 

Hell, I can't make a promise like that, esp. with being a single, unattached man.

 

I said, "Well, that's cool, as long as they don't hit on ME, okay? LOL" and kind of laughed it off.

 

So much for your female friends trying to be a "wing man/woman" or help a single guy out, eh? :p

 

She made some remark that I should try some Russian introduction service, and I almost said, "What, you won't introduce me to your friends?" lol

 

So, thus, since that day, I keep her at a distance, and not much of a CLOSE friend at all, since she's not someone you can rely on to introduce to other people.

Posted
Leeway not all women are that way.

 

First of all it makes kind of sense. Friends can't hurt you in the way lovers can. Yet the truth is once they find that ultimate lover... the kind they can marry... that person will with time come to know all of those things. That person will come to know all of those things and then hopefully still like them.

 

IMHO. I will always think that liking someone after you have gotten to know them at their lowest point is if anything more real.

 

Perhaps ... what these women aren't willing to admit... is that these male friends are offering them something too real. Something more real than what they are willing to get into at that point.

 

This last point dovetails with what , I belive SummersEve, was saying... that with age and being married for umpteen years the focus comes onto spouse and children and family not "friends".

 

When IN a sense Summers was describing the process of the husband/wife becomming the absolute best friend and ally that they should be. These younger women know this and don't want it yet. A friend who knows all their BS and still falls for them... would be falling for them harder than they are ready to be fallen for.

 

When these same young women are 10 years wiser... they will probably wake up to find that their lover is either their best friend and be happy... or find that their lover is someone they barely know and wonder where they went wrong.

 

That's just my $0.02 .

 

 

Right....these are the people that jump into relationships without full disclosure or enough disclosure, and wind up they find out their boyfriend is a looser drug dealer or something.

 

This is why you hear stories of terrible break ups or divorces, because they found out something about their sig other that was never revealed to them during their dating process.

 

And their friends can figure out how they were never able to find out they were a drug dealer?

Posted
I have an issue where I easily fall for a girl if I spend a lot of time with her.

 

Even then, just because I wanted to date them, doesn't mean that I wasn't their friend.

 

There is a reason why it's called a boyfriend.

 

I'm not saying a BF shouldn't also be a friend, but someone pining away under the pretense of friendship is a very different thing. If the attraction exists, I think it needs to be brought to the surface and acknowledged in some way, for the friendship to stay honest. To me, honesty in friendships is important.

 

Aren't most successful relationships built on a good friendship? Why do some women seem to have a problem being romantic with somebody they actually get along with?

 

I would say most of my exes were my friends, in ADDITION to something more, but they didn't pretend their interest was purely platonic. To me, that is a different thing.

 

I think there have been a lot of good points made, but I'll make one more----

 

The biggest issues I'd have with male friends who were hanging around because they wanted something more (but didn't say so) is that (a) This seems to make men angry later on, and I don't want to be caught up in all that drama and (b) Once they realize that I'm never going to date them, what will happen to the friendship? It will crumble. Because it was built on unsteady stuff, the stuff of dishonesty.

 

Honestly, the best way to tackle this is straight ahead. I don't have any male friends who I'm chemically attracted to/are chemically attracted to me. Some of them find me attractive and vice versa (as in "She's a pretty girl") but you can get past that point to friendship if you see them as a person, rather than a potential romance, and both acknowledge that potential romance is never going to happen for whatever reason (no physical attraction, different values, whatever). But it has to be dealt with honestly, which really has never been that hard for me but seems to be a common issue on LS.

Posted

I would never become really close with a guy I am sexually attracted to in the context of "friendship." I am usually in relationships and I would expect my partner to stay away from situations like that too. That leaves only men I am in absolutely no way attracted to as potential friends. I am not going to date someone I am not attracted to.

 

I'm not sure why anyone would think that a BF wouldn't actually know more about me than a friend. Like someone else mentioned, I tell friends different things. The BFs though, they get all the crazy going on in my head and they do become my best friend over time. I generally tell my BF everything (except maybe the 20 minutes of waxing poetic about some guys abs like mentioned above! lol)

 

In my experience though, male friends were just hanging around waiting for their opportunity. Listening to me and supporting me was a way they were trying to get me to like them. That is dishonest and honestly not the stuff of friendships. Why would I ever be attracted to a trait like that in a man? I wouldn't.

 

And like Tatianna said: If she has outlined what she wants in a man and the guy friend isn't anything close, why even go there. We know what we want and we probably aren't going to budge off that. I feel like I've seen a lot of guys who try this friend to romance move knowing the woman likes a different kind of guy. I have no idea how or why any of them think it's a good idea.

Posted

I don't know about other guys, but I would actually prefer to date a female friend over some girl I don't know.

 

With a female friend I already know if we get along or not and if we have fun. I know what interests we share and it's very easy to come up with activities to do together.

 

Really the only thing that gets in the way of friends dating is that women are very picky and only attracted to a very small percentage of men.

 

So while they might make a great couple it doesn't matter because she doesn't feel any "chemistry."

 

That really is a shame.

Posted

This entire thread is the reason why I believe that only very rarely can same aged, single, comparably attractive (in all ways not just looks) men and women truly be friends. Doesn't mean it's impossible, just very rare.

 

And it's not always the result of someone purposely befriending someone to secretly make a move (though that happens) it's also because people get their signals crossed, or things happen to make someone more attractive to someone, or people just change their minds. Human relationships don't always fit into unchanging, neat, clean categories. We may sometimes want them to but they don't.

 

This seems like a debate without end.

Posted (edited)
However, it is very interesting to hear all the different points of view. I learn a lot on here that I just had never thought of before, because of that. I did not even realize a woman would ever be insulted by a guy telling her he had developed feelings for her, and other things...

 

Yeah, well in my case not so much someone confessing their feelings verbally, but rather trying to stick their tongue down my throat, and going for the grope and when pushed away thinking I am just playing hard to get. When I have known them 6mths and am starting to drop my guard and feel like I not only like them, but respect them, and they suddenly shift into a lust animal, that is really disconcerting.

 

And alot different from letting me know their interest, and leaving it to me to decide if I am interested. I will initiate if I decide I am interested, especially considering getting the green light.

Edited by Titania22
wanted to add last paragraph
Posted

Titania22, your situation is pretty extreme and nobody would be happy with that.

 

But what I've seen on this forum, some women will feel betrayed and deceived if a male friend even hinted that he liked the her.

Posted
Titania22, your situation is pretty extreme and nobody would be happy with that.

 

But what I've seen on this forum, some women will feel betrayed and deceived if a male friend even hinted that he liked the her.

 

Ok :)

 

 

ten characters

Posted
I have this female friend that I actually don't have a problem being friends with

 

We used to go to movies together, even had in-depth conversion, completely platonic....I couldn't date her because she's got an entirely different belief system than mine though.

 

 

 

 

....until....well, one day I noticed she had a "girls night out" pictures on her FB...apparently, her and some other single female friends went out dancing....she did this occasionally with her other single friends.

 

I noticed the pictures, and suggested the next time we could do all of this together next time we go out, join her and her friends.

 

Her comment, "Okay, but promise you won't hit on any of them, okay?"

 

I was kind of taken aback by that personal request, actually quite insulted.

 

Hell, I can't make a promise like that, esp. with being a single, unattached man.

 

I said, "Well, that's cool, as long as they don't hit on ME, okay? LOL" and kind of laughed it off.

 

So much for your female friends trying to be a "wing man/woman" or help a single guy out, eh? :p

 

She made some remark that I should try some Russian introduction service, and I almost said, "What, you won't introduce me to your friends?" lol

 

So, thus, since that day, I keep her at a distance, and not much of a CLOSE friend at all, since she's not someone you can rely on to introduce to other people.

 

You told us this story already once before.

 

I would be insulted too if a girl said that to me, it means she clearly has no respect for you as a man. She sees you as someone who has no value to her or her friends as a potential partner. You need to figure out why she thinks that about you, see if there's something you do that gives off an impression that you aren't intentially trying to portray, and then adjust your behavior. Or, if it turns out she's just a bitch, then you can drop her, and hit on her friends anyway.

Posted

I think it was mr.lonely one who said about is all having different approaches and different attitudes - I completely agree with that. I was one of the ladies who said I would feel betrayed - but thats just my personal opinion.

 

You see- I've had a handful of bad experiences where I have become close to a guy as a 'friend' and their intention was to ask me out at some point. For me (personally) it has always ended in tears but this may not be indicative of the general population.

 

I guess I'm angry a lot of the time that they were dishonest with me and just let the feelings fester hoping it would work out. I know people can develop feelings over time but in all of those cases I really valued and needed the friendship and their feelings towards me became such a nuisance I could never get that closeness back with them again. Because I am always single I lost the most valuable thing that I had: what i thought were my true friends.

A true friend is always more important to me in my heart than any lover. Period.

 

If that 'lover' in time proves themselves to be a 'true friend' over time as much as my other true friends, then they will get status as being more important. But not a second sooner.

 

A person I have been sleeping with for 6 months has got absolutely ZERO chance of me trusting them as much as a friend I have had for over 10 years, for instance. Thats just common sense to me. But we have this ridiculous situation where people feel like they have to disclose everything to a lover right away - why?? Shouldn't you be vetting them out just like you would a potential friend? For suitableness etc? Why should I feel like I have to share everything with a boyfriend? For me there is ambiguity in all of the terms we apply to our relationships anyway.

 

For me, 'lover', 'boyfriend' are all pretty casual and mean not a lot. SO to me means marriage. If I am having sex with you and you are my boyfriend, you are not my SO or my partner. My significant other to me means someone I am absolutely sure about, same with partner. But my boyfriend is just someone I'm sleeping with.

 

I'm sorry.

 

Anyway... I digress. These are just my personal opinions.

Posted

@hurtbunny

 

Your point of view towards the BF GF relationship in general is not very different from mine. Such "relationships" are really ephemeral and temporary and as such should be treated as the casual things they are. Not everyone looks at these things that way.

 

To me though... I want my lover to be a good friend if not my best friend right off the bat. I just don't see exchanging bodily fluids with someone I barely know.

Posted

Well this seems to be the right place to post this, I've never been able to discuss this with anyone because well if it got out in our social circle it would cause all sorts of hell. Always been curious if people have had a similar situation.

 

Basically as some of you may be aware I refuse to be "friend zoned" with any girl that i have/had romantic feelings for as I believe the friendships would be forced and fake.

 

That been said I do have a few female friends who I see purely in a platonic way. One of them lets call her Amy, I was introduced to her about 4 years ago we were both in relationships at the time.

 

Anyway we ended up becoming friends would talk to each other about our relationship issues, she has been awesome I've learned a lot from her and she has learned a lot from me. Helped each other through some hard times.

 

Now last year when my ex and I broke up. Amy had just broken up with her boyfriend about a week earlier. We met up at a party about 2 weeks later both feeling pretty horrible, not really wanting to socialize with anyone, only had gone out to try and get our minds off our failed relationships.

 

We both got sick of putting brave faces on and decided to go for a walk, ended up at a park at about 12am sat on the swings talking to each other about what had happened with each others relationships and how lonely we were etc.

 

We ended up making out for about an hour, it was a very strange experience for me because I see her as a sister and it felt almost borderline incestuous but at the same time it was really comforting having her there at a difficult time for both of us.

 

She told me she felt the same way we ended up holding each other for quite a while and talking some more. As I said a very strange experience but a very special one too. Anyway we both agreed we wouldn't tell anyone about what had happened because I'm still friends with her ex and she is loosely connected to my ex, all sorts of hell would break loose if it was to come out.

 

We are still really good friends today, she has a new guy and I'm honestly thrilled for her, hes really nice. She's constantly giving me support and honestly I really value her friendship :o.

 

Has anyone else had an experience like this or is our friendship an oddity?

Posted

Mr Lonely One - I admire your approach in keeping sex out of the question until a firm knowledge of the person and a trust has developed. You've gone up in my respect for that. I do think the longer you wait the better. You're a top guy.

 

In my dating experience the percentage of guys like you who want to get to 'best friends' status before having sex? Slim to none. Unless they hide under the radar posing as 'JUST a friend' whilst bogusly trying to work their way in there.

 

I see the sense in becoming best friends first but I think it is a risky game. On the one hand, you have built this solid foundation of trust and a knowledge of each other as you really are.

 

But on the other hand, you risk either one person not feeling the same way or becoming too comfortable with the friendship to want to risk it for more. The brother / sister analagy rings completely true to me. OP''s - don't you find it weird to treat someone like your brother for years and years and then switch to thinking about having sex with him? Its a step too far for me. The boundaries in my head are too long in place to reverse the situation.

 

And no, I wouldn't consider my lover my best friend under any circumstances. They can BECOME my best friend, but its a hell of a long journey to get there. They are not my friend - they are my lover first and foremost. I see lover and friend in two completely different categories.

 

The idea of the ultimate soulmate; the lover and the friend; the other half which fully completes you is a load of commercial bull**** and causes stress and heartache to anyone who believes in it. People who live like this are usually happy for a while then discontentment sets in and they find themselves completely without any support network.

Posted

Thanks hurtbuny that means allot.

 

It's just the way I am. Right now I am dealing with this online dating issue. I have a second date with someone but TBH I'm not really feeling it. I mean compared to how it felt when I did get to date someone I already knew well. This person is basically a stranger....whereas the friend who becomes a lover... and I have had many of them... is so much better. It feels so much more right that way.

 

Perhaps the reason that has worked for me many times is because I don't try to "fly under the radar". I simply do not open up to people until I have got to know them. I don't want to share feelings with someone I just met no matter how attractive or unattractive they make me. Plus I have had too many experiences where an attractive person would act really really ugly. Which I was glad I found out as "just" a friend.

 

I think the percentage of men who would really like to have a lover who's a true friend and ally is higher than you think. If anything life teaches people to separate those two things.... then life reteaches us that just such a relationship is what we really wanted.

 

As for being a soul mate yes that's BS. It takes work to have a relationship any relationship. Being friends seems to be harder now than being lovers. How many websites are there for making new friends these days (FB and Myspace) VS how many for dating, or just hooking up? It's absurd.

Posted
I think it was mr.lonely one who said about is all having different approaches and different attitudes - I completely agree with that. I was one of the ladies who said I would feel betrayed - but thats just my personal opinion.

 

You see- I've had a handful of bad experiences where I have become close to a guy as a 'friend' and their intention was to ask me out at some point. For me (personally) it has always ended in tears but this may not be indicative of the general population.

 

I guess I'm angry a lot of the time that they were dishonest with me and just let the feelings fester hoping it would work out. I know people can develop feelings over time but in all of those cases I really valued and needed the friendship and their feelings towards me became such a nuisance I could never get that closeness back with them again. Because I am always single I lost the most valuable thing that I had: what i thought were my true friends.

A true friend is always more important to me in my heart than any lover. Period.

 

If that 'lover' in time proves themselves to be a 'true friend' over time as much as my other true friends, then they will get status as being more important. But not a second sooner.

 

A person I have been sleeping with for 6 months has got absolutely ZERO chance of me trusting them as much as a friend I have had for over 10 years, for instance. Thats just common sense to me. But we have this ridiculous situation where people feel like they have to disclose everything to a lover right away - why?? Shouldn't you be vetting them out just like you would a potential friend? For suitableness etc? Why should I feel like I have to share everything with a boyfriend? For me there is ambiguity in all of the terms we apply to our relationships anyway.

 

For me, 'lover', 'boyfriend' are all pretty casual and mean not a lot. SO to me means marriage. If I am having sex with you and you are my boyfriend, you are not my SO or my partner. My significant other to me means someone I am absolutely sure about, same with partner. But my boyfriend is just someone I'm sleeping with.

 

I'm sorry.

 

Anyway... I digress. These are just my personal opinions.

 

And here is the core issue at the heart of this entire thread: human relationships are not an exact science. You are perfectly within reason to feel the way you do, just as others are within reason to feel the way they do. I personally disagree with the part that I bolded in your post, but that's in regards to my own personal life. How you approach boyfriend-girlfriend relationships, sex etc. has probably worked for you, it would not work for me. And that's ok, nothing wrong with it. Different strokes for different folks.

Posted
I think it was mr.lonely one who said about is all having different approaches and different attitudes - I completely agree with that. I was one of the ladies who said I would feel betrayed - but thats just my personal opinion.

 

You see- I've had a handful of bad experiences where I have become close to a guy as a 'friend' and their intention was to ask me out at some point. For me (personally) it has always ended in tears but this may not be indicative of the general population.

 

I guess I'm angry a lot of the time that they were dishonest with me and just let the feelings fester hoping it would work out. I know people can develop feelings over time but in all of those cases I really valued and needed the friendship and their feelings towards me became such a nuisance I could never get that closeness back with them again. Because I am always single I lost the most valuable thing that I had: what i thought were my true friends.

A true friend is always more important to me in my heart than any lover. Period.

 

If that 'lover' in time proves themselves to be a 'true friend' over time as much as my other true friends, then they will get status as being more important. But not a second sooner.

 

A person I have been sleeping with for 6 months has got absolutely ZERO chance of me trusting them as much as a friend I have had for over 10 years, for instance. Thats just common sense to me. But we have this ridiculous situation where people feel like they have to disclose everything to a lover right away - why?? Shouldn't you be vetting them out just like you would a potential friend? For suitableness etc? Why should I feel like I have to share everything with a boyfriend? For me there is ambiguity in all of the terms we apply to our relationships anyway.

 

For me, 'lover', 'boyfriend' are all pretty casual and mean not a lot. SO to me means marriage. If I am having sex with you and you are my boyfriend, you are not my SO or my partner. My significant other to me means someone I am absolutely sure about, same with partner. But my boyfriend is just someone I'm sleeping with.

 

I'm sorry.

 

Anyway... I digress. These are just my personal opinions.

 

I completely disagree with this. You're supposed to marry your best friend, not your sex partner. I don't view friendships and relationships as anything different when they are with the opposite sex.

 

I would trust a partner over a friend. They come first. You are supposed to hold your SO or boyfriend in the best light, not the least.

 

I'm sorry, but your post made no sense to me.

 

I have plenty of "friends". What I need, is a husband. <3

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