I realize I’ve been pretty quiet on the personal front lately. This mostly has to do with the fact that I’ve spent the last four months hashing out a relationship of the more-than-friendly kind after six years without.
It’s weird. See, I’m not one of those people who has to be attached at the hip with somebody else all of the time. I was waiting around for something that felt right. When that failed, I figured I’d spend the summer going on casual dates and getting to know new people, because I realized it was a shame to waste a sex drive like mine.
Then I bumped into B, and things all sort of went upsidedown and backwards. I mean, here was this guy who’s mom was the president of the local chapter of NOW for four years, who spoke in feminist language, who kept a sports blog, who followed boxing, who had the entire collection of Doctor Who tapes and DVDs, who was passionately involved in pursuing a career in Counseling Psychology, knew how to bang out a fucking fantastic furl of writing on a wide variety of topics, and loved people watching and history just as much as I did.
It was completely baffling.
The first night we spent in bed together, we spent most of our time just looking at each other.
It was like we were both going, “I can’t believe you exist.”
But that whole, “Ohhhhh he was so great!!!!” thing doesn’t mean everything’s been perfect and easy and a fucking cake walk.
No, no. We both bring our own stuff to the relationship, and it’s become abundantly clear to me that my ideas about what constitutes a romantic relationship are pretty pessimistic and flawed. I’ve seen relationships as the enemy, the one thing that’ll finally bring me down, halt my life, turn me backward into all the awful things I never want to be. My first time around was fine and normal so far as highschool relationships go at the start, and then it exploded into my worst nightmare at the end, so I didn’t exactly have a great template. I’ve spent most of my life being told that boys were only out for sex, that they never really cared about you, that they were selfish and only wanted one thing and they would fuck you and dump you (and that was something, of course, that you really didn’t want, you know, the casual fucking part ha aha ).
I solved that problem by having a lot of guy “friends” who I just didn’t sleep with. I enjoyed thinking of my friends as people instead of the Evil Other, and being friends made that a shitload easier.
The more it becomes clear that my current relationship is a keeper, that I really adore this guy and really, truly, he adores me, the scary and wackier it’s been for me, because I keep waiting for it to all go to shit, and I start picking it all apart and saying, “Aha! But it’s *not perfect*!! That must mean it’s doomed! I should end it now before it’s too late and I gain 70lbs and have no money!”
Well, no, no relationship is perfect. Nothing is perfect. The question is do you trust and respect and adore each other?
Of course we do.
But you know what, that’s damn scary.
That’s damn scary because to some extent that’s what I feel I’ve been running from in fear and yet desiring all along: I love having buddies, I enjoy having a great run of people, and having a true partner is the coolest thing ever. Negotiating that partnership is a shitload more work that I could ever imagine, but ultimately incredibly rewarding.
I don’t know how long our run will be, but I have high hopes. We both adore each other, and we’re stubborn talkers and both very big on compromise without self-sacrifice.
It’s a tough road. I’m on it.
We’ll see where it goes.
