Could I Be Wrong?

Before I get to the the main crux of my post I wanted to mention one thing. I love 24. It is a great show, very exciting. I have seen every episode and as I am watching it now I noticed how skeptical people are of everyone else. Nobody trusts anyone. I thought to myself that isn't reality, I don't go around assuming everyone has nefarious plan. But then after further consideration, if I had gone through what Jack has, I'd be skeptical too.

Oh, I also noticed that I'm getting a bit of encouragement from my family to post more regularly.

This past weekend my good friends and former roommates and I went on our annual ski/snowboarding trip. This is our third year in a row, and as usual it was awesome. It will get it's own post in the next few days. We went to Snowshoe, West Virginia, which is about 4 1/2 hrs from Washington D.C. We had plenty of time to discuss all sorts of subjects.

I didn't suddenly become a patron of the arts, this is Vermeer's "The Love Letter"

As we were driving home, one of the guys mentioned that someone had sent a love letter to the girl he had been dating. He said he wasn't bothered by it (and I believe him). This lead to a lengthy discussion about the topic of how forward is it appropriate to be when you know someone is in a committed relationship.

I very adamantly felt that a man has no business inserting himself into someone elses relationship. I felt it is unseemly, dirty, and overall scumbaggy. So I am setting up the following scenario.

Let's say there is a person that you like, for whatever reason you haven't told them how you felt before, you find out that they are in a committed (but not engaged) relationship. Is it ok to send them a love letter, or call them and tell them where you are coming from?

Now one school of thought would say, all's fair in love and war and do what you have to do. I however do not fall into that category. I feel that you should respect others relationships and wait your turn.

Then comes the problem with soulmates. We are counseled that there are no such things as soulmates only that there are some people that are more compatible than others. Some would say that you owe it to yourself to tell people how you feel, to present all available options and allow a person the opportunity to make the decision themselves. That may sound nice but in reality that is just an attempt to sabotage someone else's relationship.

Now I don't think that writing someone a love letter who is in a relationship is immoral, I do think that it is tasteless. It is not gentlemanly. After about an hour of discussing this we could only agree that "dating" is not the same as being in a relationship and that if that is the case go for it. John accused me of acting German, which I assume meant stubborn and unwilling to be open minded. Guilty as charged.

I did pronounce unequivocally that I knew Andrea would agree with me. When I got home that evening I wrote down two scenarios.

1. Is it okay to send someone a love letter when you know they are in a committed relationship?

Yes or No

2. Is it ok to tell someone how you feel when you know they are in a committed ( non engaged ) relationship?

Yes or No

I gave them to her and turned my back as to not influence her choices. Surely my girl would agree with me on this. WRONG!

I gave the two scenarios to my coworkers...they disagreed with me. I was shocked, apparently people that I associate with think it is ok to meddle in others relationships.

Sure I have my biases and that is where you come in. You the reader, click on the Pete Chat link in google reader and I want you to comment. How do you feel about this? Is it ok? Am I wrong? Enlighten me.