osprey_archer | (Reply)

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I shouldn't have cut that "love is fatal to friendship" quote short (although it's soooo long); it goes on, "The specter of friendship is sometimes invited to haunt the home of the lovers after marriage; but when their happiness has been flaunted in its face, when it has been shown the new house, the new china, the new carpets, the new garden, it is tacitly exorcised, and is not always called back again except to be shown the new baby. The young spouses are ever so willing to have the poor ghost remain; the wife learns whether it takes two or three lumps of sugar in its tea; the husband bids it smoke anywhere it likes, and the wife smiles a menacing acquiescence; but all the same they turn it out-of-doors. They praise it when it is gone, and they feel so much more comfortable to be alone."

So yes, I think the presumption is that after the marriage you will indeed see your chums ONLY at "the club," whereas before they could drop by your bachelor pad at all hours and smoke up a storm.

I will say I see something of this same dynamic in recent discussions about female friendship; obviously not everyone is like this, but it's apparently a Known Thing where your friend pairs off and then she practically falls out of your life. I think there must be a certain quantity of people who basically see their friends as temporary spouse stand-ins, to be left behind when Real Spouse shows up.