updates. and passion.
I’m officially dating the man I met at the multi-girl sexfest. He’s going to need a name, so I’ll call him James.
Over dinner, he said, “It’s kind of weird that we met at a fivesome. I didn’t even know your name.” He didn’t even know my name, and yet he’d explored nearly every part of my body. I really like meeting people this way, sex first. No games. No small talk.
And I had a hard time remembering his name that night. I considered myself a kind of sexual tourist, just breezing through to play with girls and enjoy the occasional penetrative stroke from this very tall, very strong, and surprisingly charismatic stranger. I didn’t really imagine I’d see any of them again, and if I did, I’d assumed it would be as an easy-going, drama-free playmate on someone’s call list. I didn’t think I’d be taken seriously.
But since that night, he’s been aggressive and authentic and open with me. I’ve learned a lot about him. I like his hands. He’s chivalrous. And I think we might be at the same stage in our lives: we both have an appetite for kink and sex, but we’re also at a point where we appreciate depth.
The Writer, someone who will always be important to me, used to refer to his own love life as a wasteland of failure. He’d refer to break-ups as ‘failed relationships,’ and it really bothered me that he felt this way. I’ve always felt that there are different connections with varying degrees of depth. Some flame out after a month or two, after the sexual chemistry’s begun to burn off, and others deepen over time and become very meaningful. I don’t think I could ever see failure in a relationship, only incompatibility.
I don’t know how James and I will proceed. He’s quite serious. But then, so is my fuckbuddy, who wants to take our relationship beyond the bedroom into something much more substantial. I thought Andrew and I had gone the way of the fade-out, but I’ve started hearing from him again. I’m taking a deliberate break away from Matt. And the twentysomething… I might take a break from him as well.
Or maybe I should just take a break from them all.
*
Kiqe asked what takes my breath away.
Music, mostly. And art.
That’s a pat answer, but it’s true. Maybe it’s a partial answer.
Someone recently told me that I get very passionate when I talk about art, but to my own ear I sound like a socially maladjusted autist. I ramble without pause, sometimes I disconnect from a conversation and stare into space. Which is why I don’t go to museums with people very often, because when I do, I tend to start rambling, or I get distracted, or I need to make a conscious effort to ignore what’s on the walls. How strongly I respond makes me a little self-conscious, unless I’m with someone who has a similarly absorptive response.
Is that passion? I don’t know what it is. Addiction, maybe. Maybe passion and addiction aren’t very distant from one another.
I feel this way about music, too, and all the more so if it’s live and in a small venue. The rush I get from sex is similar to the rush I get from a live show, so the film 9 Songs hit home for me. But I don’t know if my relationship to music amounts to passion so much as subservience; I feel strongly affected by it, the way you’d be affected by cold medication or lust. And I tend to enjoy it privately because I tend to enjoy it intensely, and when I enjoy something that intensely, I feel naked.
I recognise the preference of wanting to see art alone. For me it’s an irritant – other people disrupt the pace of it, or start analyzing technique when I’m in the flow, or start talking about emotion when I’m admiring the technique…
“How strongly I respond makes me a little self-conscious, unless I’m with someone who has a similarly absorptive response.”
Those are the people to whom you want to give your time.
Addiction, passion, subservience, all synonymous with the hedonistic life some of us chose to live. So it’s obvious that music envelops and transports you to a special place, a place where you are safe and can be with yourself to explore that which stokes your inner fire.
I’d like to send you some music to keep your fires burning, possible?
Music I can understand. I can hear a They Might Be Giants song and be silly and giddy, then two minutes later be misty eyed listening to Beirut, Bach or The Beatles.
Anything that can do that must evoke passion.
Art? Being a midwest boy I didn’t have much exposure to it, but I’m certainly trying to learn to appreciate it now.
Oh…and James gets the “Lucky Duck Of The Year” award.
i love that the movie is 69 minues long.
i love your stories and find myself liking certain men for certain reasons. i was sad to hear youre taking a break from matt, but then i realized, i dont know him or anything about him (other than what you write) so ill just be quiet now.
Kiqe is perfect.You are either too mechanical or too addicted. She .. or maybe he is your greatest critic.
This last post is back on track and back to business – perfectly you, authentic and right on track. It is what I’m excited about and what I’m looking forward to reading.
Love
IB
Nine songs blew me away- It’s so rare to see people enjoying themselves when they are fucking on screen. Thats what makes for good porn – art hous eporn in this instance.
I don’t know about being perfect. I do know that the reason why I read this blog is the incredible honesty behind every word written. But you know, we are all addicts in one form or another, just that some of us have the cojones to admit it. I look forward to the next post M’Lady. By the way IB, I am a he.
i think that for one such as yourself the best kind of meetings are those that involve sex… for me that isn’t true, my libido doesn’t generally get involved until my heart is….
with exceptions of course, rare and wonderful as they are….
i never liked the idea of a ‘failure’ when it came to relationships. perhaps communication failed or sexual desire waned or lives became incompatible but why is it a failure to have loved someone?
Kiqe, the perfect thing was sarcasm. ;-) Not everyone is an addict, but if I did have cojones, I’d be able to admit my own tendencies. And, I like the D’s blog for many of the same reasons. ox
That was me, Isabella, Kiqe. I don’t know why I came up Anonymous.
“I don’t think I could ever see failure in a relationship, only incompatibility.”
ah, so true. i’ve never understood that drive to *hate* someone after the dissolution, to refer to them by some nasty, dismissive epithet (e.g., “that psycho”, etc). why do so many people feel that it’s not ok to acknowledge that there was something wonderful that drew them to that other person, even if it wasn’t for the fairy-tale forever?
and ditto on the enjoying art alone. the worst possible example of any art, from film to sculpture to whatever, is the one that you feel neutral about. there’s got to be *some* emotional response, even if it’s dislike, or the art has failed. and just like disconnected says, other people’s analysis invades on my emotional response, on where i am at the time. the best art buddies are the ones that leave you alone while you’re wandering, but regroup afterwards for a meal or a drink: you have the shared experience and the room to enjoy it on your own.
i have this ex and we couldn’t speak for three years we did such a number on each other and you know what? i never stopped saying “i miss my friend ___” not ever. i was also heard to say that i couldn’t have him around right now but eventually we did.
i can be angry at or hurt by an ex but i am unlikely to ever get into the dirty insulting; in fact i’ve defended them to my intimates. which is another question actually… why do your intimates feel the need to suddenly denigrate the ex? was my taste really that bad? did you hate him all along? what?
:)
…He’d refer to break-ups as ‘failed relationships…”
Ah, it could’ve been that thing called “expectations”, where it’s viewed as pass or fail. Most men start out that way and then find that Life isn’t that simple. It’s a matter of gaining experience.
Me, I don’t even use the word “relationship”. Unless you’re screwin’ your cousin; that’s a “relationship”.