The rules we follow
Birthday came and went as did birthday party. An unexpected text from Surfette made the day complete. Also made me consider my situation.
I still don't know why Surfette went from 60 to 0 in the span of six minutes. She couldn't have thought that I was trying to get a relationship or anything out of the situation - I live across the country and have grad school next month. I assumed that she'd developed a boyfriend in the time between our first night and my travel out there. She never told me about him if he was there, but something suggested that that was the situation, like when friends of hers asked if I was her boyfriend. Could have been hitting on me, could have been wondering if I was the guy she'd mentioned. Don't know, and frankly, don't care.
Many years ago I came to grips with the fact that not everyone shares my belief that there is a spectrum of intimacy. It's all about what you want and agree on, not what everyone else says you have to do. I had friends who I would kiss hello like a lover, and lovers I would be very cold to in public because that was our arrangement. As long as everyone involved was on the same page and everyone knows and agrees on the boundaries, it's fine. As I told The Evil One - it's only cheating if you lie about it or we didn't agree on it. She and I broke up because of exactly that - she didn't tell me what she had done and that was a betrayal. When I found out, I didn't care, except for the lie.
I have conflicting impulses, which is part of the problem. My parents pair bonded at age 20. It was a different era then, and they've been inseparable ever since, hardly ever even sleeping in different beds. I have an impulse in that direction, but my impulse to the contrary is also quite strong. Before I met him, Lex was an inspiration (as he is for many men, I suspect) and of course, now he's a friend and inspiration. Similarly, one of my friends asked me yesterday if I was comfortable with his wife sleeping with The NewYorker. I told him that was fine with me, and probably would have been fine while we were dating too.
I heard from Star the other night, who lives in Chicago. Readers of the predecessor mailing list to this site will recall that she is the woman I had a three night stand with just before I met The Freshman. She and I were talking about distance and picking up where we'd left off seven years ago. Her boyfriend of several years just precipitously left her, and we joked about her flying in for the weekend to relive old times. While we aren't going to do that, it reminded me that the rules we follow are the ones we set.
Comments
"the rules we follow are the ones we set"
Amen to that. I completely subscribe to that attitude.
How did i never read you before today? Man. Unbelievable. (*shakes head in wonder*).
Kisses,
Juno x
Posted by: Juno Henry | August 13, 2007 11:11 PM
My site went down in '05 and '06 for various reasons and came back in '07 when my life changed.
My only disappointment in coming back is that I used to have a rich comment section and that was lost when I took the site down.
Posted by: Bad Man | August 15, 2007 12:21 PM