The Curse of (Making) Love

Well, folks, here we are, the long awaited post has finally arrived. Like all the other posts, I just sat down and wrote it all out at once. I left some stuff out of it to keep it shorter and b/c I thought it might distract from the discussion. Let’s see where it goes...

I will not even pretend to know all the ins and outs of the subject of sex as my experience has been, in some ways, very limited and yet in some ways, not. To some extent I am thankful for this but to a larger extent I am also quite resentful. As I have mentioned before, the timing in my life is a bit, how should I say it ... off. I grew up way too soon and have been forced to attempt a recovery of some of that youth at a later age. Unfortunately, my attempts at recovering a sexual exploration (that did not occur as it should have on its own time due to ethical standards/beliefs) have been a significant challenge. I was one of those few people who decided to wait until marriage to lose my virginity. By this, I mean that I did not have actual intercourse until after marriage. Now, just like all others who have done so, I did virtually everything but the actual act before that time. Therefore, the first time I had sex with someone was with someone I deeply loved. It wasn’t sex and it wasn’t fucking. It was making love.

For some of you, this may seem an honorable thing and I would not disagree with you. But the consequences of doing such a thing (now that I’m no longer with that person) have been rather frustrating. Here’s why. I have dramatically changed since I lost my marriage a few years ago. I am far more confident in myself, sometimes too much so, and I approach life (and romance) differently. As a result, I have had more opportunities to be with women (of all types and ages) than ever before. On any given day, there are a handful of girls, some extremely attractive, others only marginally so, that I could sleep with (from work and social life) if I just gave it some effort. For some, it would probably just be a matter of asking. For others, I’d simply have to work at it some. For someone like me, who has never really experienced that kind of thing until now, it’s both enticing and downright scary. Seeing that I’ve been in a stage of ethical rebellion for a while now, this kind of thing is handy to have in your pocket, pun only halfway intended.
But since my first act of intercourse was an act of making love, it makes doing such things virtually impossible for me. Now, my first sexual experiences in life did not involve love. Just like everyone else, there were the usual teenage flings with this girl and that while I was in high school. While none of these experiences involved love, they also did not involve intercourse. Well, here’s what I’m getting at.

I believe that when a person sleeps with someone, something happens above, beyond, and yet through the actual physical act. It’s a physio-spiritual experience, unlike any other. I have used the example many times of the scene in the movie Vanilla Sky where Cameron Diaz is driving in the car about to drive off the road to kill Tom Cruise and she tells him that when you sleep with someone, “your body makes a promise whether you do or not.” I think there is a significant amount of truth to that. Now, does that mean that a one night stand or even a string of experiences mark you for life? Well, yes and no. Let me give you an example. I was having a conversation one time with the same girl that I mentioned in the Vandy paper about this very thing. It was right after I found out that she had a regular “fuck buddy” on the side. At the time I was pretty pissed b/c, knowing that I was interested in her, she didn’t tell me about this guy b/c it never occurred to her that that might be an issue with me. Not to mention the fact that she was letting her friend use her like a piece of meat. She considered this guy to be a fuck buddy and nothing else. She said that she had “needs” just like everybody else and that it was none of my business what she did with her sex life. (Which led me to ask her, “so you fuck your friends?!?”). Now, it’s true that on the greater level that’s none of my business but I was frustrated b/c I felt that she was leading me along for no good reason. She apparently had been sleeping with this guy for months on end. So, I was like, “you mean to tell me that you sleep with this guy on a regular basis but you have absolutely no feelings for him at all?” And she responded by saying “that’s right.” I, of course, was unsatisfied. I said “there’s no possible way that you can have that kind of intimacy with someone on a regular basis and have no romantic feelings for them at all.” She furiously disagreed with me at the time. A few days later she came back and told me that she had thought about what I said some more and had realized that she did actually have feelings for him and had just never realized it. She just got burned by a boy from a 3 year relationship and she feared attachment. Therefore, she was trying to have her cake and eat it too (and here comes walrus, the asshole, to prove her wrong). At this point, I was no longer interested in her at all and so I was actually sincerely glad she came to the realization that she cared for this guy. She was still a friend and I was glad that she was able to see it.

So for someone like her, who has no sexual standards whatsoever, the same principle holds true. Having sex with someone causes something to happen that is beyond our control. Now, back to me. It’s because of this very principle that I have been unable to do the kinds of things that she does. I can’t just go out and get laid whenever I want to (which is about every half hour or so, give or take a few minutes). I could but I can’t. I have been “cursed” by this very principle which is compounded by the fact that I have never experienced any act of intercourse with someone I did not love. I’ll be honest. I have tried. I went very far with a random girl one night only to have to stop because, despite my immense physical attraction to her, I just couldn’t keep going. My body shut down. It’s like everything is cool all the way up to the act and then somebody flicks the power switch of love. So, here I am at 28 years of age with every ounce of potential, if not more, of being like the “normal guy” who can charm a girl into bed, be cool with it, wake up the next day and go my merry way. And yet...I can’t...because I’m cursed with knowing love...

Sometimes I often wonder whether my beliefs on this stuff have really gotten me somewhere. Sometimes I don’t. But what I wonder all the time is why I even bother thinking about it...much less writing about it... What I wonder all the time is why I can’t see anymore that these things are good...that these things are virtuous, honorable. I’m my own worst enemy...and I’m so damn good at it...which, I guess, brings a whole new meaning to the phrase “keep your friends close but your enemies closer”... Well, I’ve written enough. These are just some things that have been on my mind for a while now. Hope you all are well and my apologies for the lack of posting lately. E is doing a really good job of keeping me distracted. And, yes, of course, I am thewalrus.