Posts tagged with "relationships"

dry spell

I was spring clean­ing and found a box of con­doms due to expire this sum­mer. What’s the lifes­pan of con­doms kept out of the sun­light and in a cool place?

Five years.

Which pret­ty much means I haven’t been in a rela­tion­ship in as long, cause I’ve always shied away from any­thing pure­ly phys­i­cal. Sex is very men­tal for me. Someone once told me she thought we were sex­u­al­ly com­pat­i­ble, but I nev­er felt like we were par­tic­u­lar­ly well-matched. We sim­ply loved each oth­er on a very pro­found lev­el, and that kind of inti­ma­cy and con­nec­tion is what made the sex so good. Without that, it’s not even worth it.

Maybe it’s just my inter­ver­sion that’s lead­ing me to think that no sex is bet­ter than bad sex.

The last thing I did was hold hands with some­one after she jumped into bed with me, com­plain­ing she could­n’t sleep. She had these tiny hands, with slen­der fin­gers. It was nice. But I could­n’t bring myself to take it any fur­ther cause I could­n’t see myself with her.

Luckily, I can do dry spells. Easily. Considering I had a 15-year one until I lost my vir­gin­i­ty. Now I’m at an age where peo­ple want to intro­duce me to some­one, and some­times they’ll add, “…but she has a kid”, when try­ing to sell me on the idea.

romantically vulnerable

I’m left feel­ing very vul­ner­a­ble and won­der­ing if I can be tru­ly attract­ed to some­one for who they are, instead of the idea of a rela­tion­ship and the asso­ci­at­ed com­fort of famil­iar­i­ty and phys­i­cal con­nec­tion. I miss affec­tion­ate text mes­sage con­ver­sa­tions, spon­ta­neous plans to cud­dle, and hav­ing some­one to spoil, but I need more time to sort out my feel­ings, and to get over the last one.

This is the exact rea­son I had to take a break from her. I haven’t had any con­tact in a while, and even though I sel­dom think of her these days, I’d be lying if I said I’ve for­got­ten com­plete­ly.

There are morn­ings I wake up with the mem­o­ry of her next to me in bed, pass­ing hours with only del­i­cate grazes between us. It’s as if my sub­con­scious is still lin­ger­ing on what we had, even though my con­scious has giv­en up on what could have been. Wanting to live my life with her became such a habit that I still catch myself wish­ing she could be there to share in my con­tent­ment when I’m sit­ting out­side with the breeze against my skin on sun­ny Spring days.

She nev­er under­stood why such a break would take so long1, or why I could­n’t give her a sol­id time-frame, but now I know it was the right deci­sion. Even though the pain and jeal­ousy have left me, I have to let go of the good mem­o­ries just as much.

Not that I can’t be in a rela­tion­ship with some­one right now. Rather, I should­n’t, cause it’d be unfair to the oth­er per­son; I still catch myself mak­ing com­par­isons to her, believ­ing that no one will be as dynam­ic, inspir­ing, or good for me. Or wish­ing I could some­how relive those mem­o­ries through some­one else, even though I know that new, won­der­ful, unique expe­ri­ences are cre­at­ed with every rela­tion­ship and every part­ner.

I know where I need to be before I’m ready to be with some­one again. I’ve been com­plete­ly tak­en with peo­ple in the past, and even­tu­al­ly I tru­ly get over them. It may take years, but one day I wake up and the mem­o­ries don’t affect me any­more, though they remain as beau­ti­ful as they are impor­tant.

  1. And this break was with the expec­ta­tion that we’d even­tu­al­ly be in con­tact again, which would assured­ly take even longer! [↩]

Relationship Drama

Whenever I’m catch­ing up with my mar­ried friends, it feels like I’m the only one talk­ing. I felt real­ly self-cen­tered, until I real­ized I’m the only one with any updates. Aside from some con­struc­tion or new fur­ni­ture, they don’t have any news, much less, dra­ma.

I won­der if I’ll ever be set­tled like them. If my life will ever be dra­ma-free, with­out all the insta­bil­i­ty in my rela­tion­ships, both good and bad.

Unwitting Puppet

If it has­n’t been painful­ly obvi­ous, I’ve fall­en off the wag­on. I’ve been think­ing about her again.

But it isn’t my fault.

You see, she came by my work and gave me a box of home­made short­bread cook­ies in a cute lit­tle box (as well as some for my oth­er co-work­ers). I would nor­mal­ly say that it’s a nice ges­ture, but in this case, it was a cru­el and painful reminder of what I had lost. But that pain sub­sided as I ate them (admit­ted­ly, in one sit­ting) and I decid­ed to for­give her for that one. It’s hard to stay angry when the sug­ar and but­ter hits your brain.

Then she walked by at a con­cert, and squeezed my arm as she was pass­ing by. I did­n’t even know she was there until it hap­pened. Then she did it again.

This whole time, I’ve been try­ing to get over things by stay­ing away, and I was doing pret­ty well, until the touch1 of her hand fanned the ash­es of pas­sion that were left smol­der­ing in my chest, revers­ing sev­er­al weeks of emo­tion­al recov­ery.

I told my friends I knew I was being self­ish, because I’m the weak­er one for not being able to han­dle it when she’s dat­ing some­one else2. But they tell me it’s not self­ish, it’s self preser­va­tion. That I’m just tak­ing care of myself, and she’s the one being self­ish and incon­sid­er­ate, because she’s not respect­ing my wish­es to keep a dis­tance. I’ve since stopped feel­ing guilty for stay­ing away.

Still, I’m left with this won­der­ing. What do her actions mean? What is she try­ing to com­mu­ni­cate? What does she want?

I can only guess that she wants to remain friends, but there’s this stu­pid hope in the back of my mind that it meant some­thing more. Maybe it’s a habit; I lived with that hope for more than a year as we fell into a rela­tion­ship at arms length.

I’ve con­sid­ered going back to her and ask­ing for some clo­sure — some real clo­sure — but I don’t think even she can explain her actions at this point. And if she could, her answer would prob­a­bly be the same as it’s always been.

But I real­ly don’t know for sure because she’s cho­sen not to stay away, against my wish­es, and my heart feels like it’s hang­ing by a thread. I doubt she’s doing it on pur­pose, but yet again, she gets to fig­ure things out at the expense of my emo­tion­al sta­bil­i­ty. After all, it’s hard me to move on when mixed sig­nals are hold­ing me back, like an open, gap­ing wound con­stant­ly being picked.

  1. This is the same sort of caress that can melt one’s resolve when com­ing from a per­son for whom one has a weak­ness. Humbert Humbert refers to this at the end of Lolita when he says to her, “Don’t touch me. I’ll die if you touch me.” [↩]
  2. Then again, at least I know enough to stay away, instead of stalk­ing and going psy­cho. [↩]