think I'm gonna blog

Over at my real blog. I think. I'm drafting it. It'll maybe be tamer, easing myself in... not sure...

It has me thinking, though, again again again about passion. How as a kid in my teens and 20s I mistook drama for passion. How as a young adult in my later 20s and 30s I mistook passion for "unhealthy behavior." And how now, passion is what I crave in my life. I don't want it suffusing every part of my life. I don't compartmentalize, ever, but containing with loose and flowing edges or... anyway, passion. I love heated arguments. I found one thing I value immensely is noticing differences. That's not something women are trained to do. We're supposed to always find the common ground. In my female friends I find I'm drawn to women who have enough in common with me that they "get" me (I think that means they are highly intuitive and/or empathetic). I think that's true for what I look for in male friends, though, honestly, since I was married for so long seeking out the friendship of men wasn't high on my list of priorities.

As for an intimate relationship (like, y'know, including the sex) I want different. Or, I don't know what I want. But I loved having different before and I would like to have that again. I would like for "my man" to be so different from me that the risk of melding into each other like so many couples do wouldn't be very great. I felt so very, very known in the relationship I had where we had such significant differences.

That reminds me of a thought I was going to craft into a tweet but decided it'd come off as too lonely for Twitter. It had to do with the idea that more than sex, more than love, what I want is for a man to look into my eyes and know me just as I am (and me the same to/for him). Like, my essence is "being heard" in that therapy speak way. As I am, how I am, who I am.

Anyway, the blog post I'm pondering, chewing on, considering, sort of writing, feels a bit like I'm disagreeing with a generation. Or... I don't know... it's fun, the stuff I've been thinking about. But in this hormonally dark place (or, c'mon, sometimes my places are just dark and that's that) I'm particularly sad that I don't have that "special someone" to disagree with. Or to learn from or with. Fuck. God dammit and fuck fuck fuck.

It's okay. I am alone. I will be alone. It's all okay.

This isn't bright-sided bullshit (THINK POSITIVE AND POSITIVE THINGS WILL HAPPEN, god, what a crock of hot steaming shit). It's just how it is. It's very positive, it feels, to be thinking about issues beyond myself again even if it's only a little bitty bit...

broken

No time to address this as fully as I'd like. It hasn't fully formed in me yet, anyway. But I've been thinking a lot about how all of us are broken in our own ways. In my last relationship, I felt we were like gears. Our parts fit in complimentary or opposite ways and it kept things moving but together. There's another relationship forming in my life that feels entirely different but has echos of that. Taking the differences in the fractures and instead of being on the search for the puzzle piece that fits and makes a whole, it's more like the pieces are examining their own edges and peeking over there at the other's edges and the search for a fit isn't the point.

Someone posted on tumblr last night a reference to The Royal Tenenbaums. That movie totally ties into the stuff I've been thinking about as I'm working my way through Freedom. This morning I woke up thinking about a movie that I used to resent because it was so fucking COOL to like it. But, I did like it. I do like it. That's Harold and Maude. A beautiful story of oddness, quirkiness, broken-ness, acceptance, and love. Since I'm also thinking about aging lately at first I was thinking about being Maude-like. I am certainly partially Maude-like in finding pure joy in life. But parts of me identify more with Harold, maybe. Learning to let go, lighten up, something like that.

Today will be a computer-off day and I'll come back tonight so glad it was off all day long. Knowing I'm broken in ways that will never change (I don't use "broken" as a problem, if that's not clear) means sometimes I scramble to try and fill up the cracks and crevices. That's related to my over-use of the online life. Filling spaces.

I need more free space in me even if it means exposing rawness to bitter or harsh elements.

trust

Despite all my complaining about lack of sex, I miss trust more. My non-sexual friends (including STBX) provide safety and trust for me. But the kind of trust I developed in my last relationship is what I want again. It was the trust that made the sex hotter than the Earth's core. The relationship was entirely online but it touched me more than any other sexual/love/intimacy relationship has.

Happily, very very happily, finally, I've moved on. Healed enough that I can feel it is over. We are no longer a "we." It's freeing, of course, but I'm left with just this.

Last week I had a very brief online encounter with a "natural Dom," and it was exciting. It turned out he was looking to "just play around online" and that's not what I'm looking for. It's too bad because I could tell he would have challenged me in ways I would have enjoyed. There wasn't a sense, though, that there was a mutual desire to be challenged. That's where the trust comes in. When a relationship is mutual, two people involved as equals, taking risks and chances and sharing themselves.

Since my D/s experience has been almost exclusively online, I have no real idea how much of it I need offline. It's a particularly frustrating place to be since I've made peace with the idea that I simply need to have sex with someone (see "the cheeseburger experiment"). I'm not going to find the perfect mate to fill this need. In fact, it's possible I've got someone who's interested/willing (whatever) to have a mutually pleasurable experience just to get this out of my system. Just waiting for his email to set it up.

What it boils down to is I've put my longer-term goals on hold. Paused my deeper need for authentic trust so I can satisfy what a Twitter friend called a "real and primal need." It feels strange because both things are me, the physical need and the soul/spirit/heart/self desire. Acting in ways consistent with who I am is one of my highest priorities. In these decisions I feel both like I'm going against who I am (seeking intimacy and trust) and also being exactly who I am (identifying and meeting my needs).

Still, if I had to choose never having sex again but getting to have an emotionally intimate trusting relationship I'd choose the latter. (Latter means the second one, yes? That's what I mean.) It'd be so cool if I could eventually have both.

casual

A few weeks ago the prospect for sex appeared. I flipped the fuck out and went into insta-intimacy mode. Like, okay, okay, okay, we're gonna have sex, we need to really know each other and trust each other and... I tried to cram all that in as fast as I could. I succeeded in doing a few things. First, I freaked him the fuck out. Turned him off of me about as effectively as a person can. Second, I realize, shit shit shit, maybe I can't do casual sex. FUCK.

Or, can I?

I've had casual sex, for sure. I've even had really good casual sex (two times of my three best offline sex experiences were very, very casual). Most of the casual sex I've had, though, has been either "meh" or I pretty much tuned out for most of it (not that the guy would've known, of course). So, can I satisfy my physical needs knowing my emotional needs won't be met?

This is what I'm not sure about, what I want to figure out. I know for sure I don't want to have casual sex on a regular basis. I know for sure sometime down the line I want to have a relationship with one man where we build trust. More than sex, I want trust.

But, I do want sex, too. And that is something that I could get a lot quicker than I can get the trust and intimacy stuff.

The trouble is I really don't want to have sex with most men. This seems like an obvious statement, I guess, but I think part of what makes me so strangely insecure is how absolutely ridiculously particular I am about what it takes for a man to be interesting for me. If men had the kind of standards I have no one would ever want to have sex with me. (Men are different, definitely.) Add to that the element of finding a man physically attractive and the pool is even smaller. Like, almost no one.

I'm 41. I have two small children. I don't "go out" so I'm not going to meet anyone that way. What I'm considering is lowering my standards. Like, a lot. Just to have some physical sex even though I know it won't be great (no trust) because IT HAS BEEN TOO FUCKING LONG FOR FUCK'S SAKE.

So I go on Twitter and look around (way better than Craig's List) and, well, I don't know. I wish this kid had worked out. It's such a fucking rarity, wanting to have sex with someone. Still, it's probably for the best because I really don't know. Am I kidding myself? I try to imagine it. A lot. Like, some guy I've decided is tolerable getting a hotel room for us in Boston or something (I figure the odds of someone here in Maine is even slimmer) and we show up and introduce ourselves and just start having sex. That wouldn't be that big a deal for me. But I worry that I'd go into automatic pilot mode. Not that I wouldn't have a good time, but I wouldn't have an orgasm (no trust) and it's possible I'd just end up giving him head to end it. Again, it wouldn't be awful and at least I'd get some skin on skin heavy breathing pelvic thrusting heat for a little while. I don't know.

A friend said to me a while ago, "What's the big deal? It's just sex..." when I was complaining that I hadn't had any and they were saying why is it a big deal to go without. And, of course, it's "just sex" but... it's sex, y'know? Those of us who really enjoy it ought to get to have it.

When I write the stuff about casual sex I feel a bit like I'm betraying myself, though. I know in my deepest self that any sex without deep trust will kind of suck for me. My question is, would it be better than nothing? At this point, I'm leaning towards yes. It would be better than nothing. I am so god damned tired of my vibrator and the idea of really making love to myself with a long and luxurious hands-only masturbation session only depresses me. That might be nice if I was also having sex with a man, but at this point all it does is accentuate the not-with-anyone-else-ness of my life.

There's a guy I sort of know through Twitter. I've seen photos of him and he's attractive. Normally he wouldn't "do it" for me, but, he's not bad to look at. He writes well. He's not short. I think he's got the kind of money where asking him to get us a hotel room wouldn't feel obnoxious. He strikes me as the kind of man who might find this sort of just-for-fun thing worthwhile. I'm sure he's not someone I'd want to get involved with for the longer-term, but, I don't know if pursuing something casual is a good idea. So I think of that and I think, should I? It would be ultimately empty, of course, but would "just doing it" get it out of my system for a while so I could fucking concentrate on just living life...?