Do you believe there's such a thing as a soulmate?

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Good Dates and Other Things

(The following is a re-print of an article on the blog My Life As A Serial Dater.)

This has been a good week for my dating life.  I shed some dead weight and realized some things about myself in the process.  I also had a two day long texting and Skype tryst with a possible crush back home and had two dates.

Lewis and I have made a healthy transition from lover to friend and it turns out I was right.  I love him, but I was never in love with him.  That is why we can be friends and I can hear about his dates without any sadness or pain.  I have not been in love in a very long time.  It's hard to realize that you are not in something, until you think back and remember what it felt like to be in it.  I have been thinking about my ex a lot.  Not the most recent one, but a few back and I remember what it felt like to just be head over heels.  It's been a while.

Everything with Todd has come to a full close.  I am not sure what I was doing there.  In the end, he was right.  I never fully wanted him.  I liked him, but I never got that feeling for him.  I never once felt for him, the way I feel right now.  (I'll explain that statement later.)  Todd and I never made love.  We had sex.  This is what I do.  I climb up on the counter, I bend over the sink, I straddle on the hard wood floors.  I put my hands to the wall and I brace for the impact.  But I never, never fully fall.

I have rough sex.  I have playful sex.  I let them close enough, long enough to have an orgasm and a good time, then back at arms length they go.  I joke that I'm always in love after good sex.  It's a high that I have come to see as my most intimate of emotions with men, right now.  I am guarded.  I make no excuses.  I wanted to be this way.  I had been disappointed and stagnant in my self for too long.  I wanted to put up a wall and let my garden grow without the added fertilizers and boot prints that "boyfriends" can leave.  I did not realize what would come of this, but I just went for it.  There was really no other option.  I could keep trying to jump into relationships, or I could just be me.  The strange thing was, just being me was the harder option.  Little to no distractions makes you take a step back and analyze some shit.  And forgetting what it's like to be in love, can sometimes make you feel like you could fall in love with anyone for a brief period, and at the same time, feel like you can't find a connection with anyone at all.

I go on dates.  I had one just the other night.  We met for drinks.  We went to dinner and we went dancing. We had a really nice time.  We didn't go back to my place.  We didn't have sex in the bathroom.  We just drank, ate and danced.  We didn't fall in love.  We didn't have share each other's bodies.  He's going through a divorce and I am having a good time and exploring myself.  It was perfect.  It was so clear and we talked the next day with no pretenses or games.  It was nice, refreshing.  It wasn't intimate on any exceptional level.  It was like making a new friend.  We don't have to look to the future, just have a good time in the present.  It set the tone for a new step in clarity.  I liked him.  He liked me.  I will never be with him and I will never be in love with him.  I don't have to be curious about where it's going or if I have to worry about hurting him or myself.  We can just be.  It's like friends with a twist.

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That having been said.  Last night was a whole other situation.  I finally met "The Newest Favorite."  He came to my place and we had dinner and watched a movie.  Then, he turned all of my clarity on its head.  It was perfect in a whole new way.  I'm sure I'll name him, but I can't write about him yet.  I'm still really confused and I am tired from not sleeping.  I can't respond to his texts, I can't write about him. I can't think straight, so I think, for now, I'll just go to sleep and dream.

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