Once upon a time, I went on a date. (I actually prefer to call these first meetings with Men From the Internet "meet-n-greets" because, to be honest, "date" is a heavy word in this application.)
Literally from the first moment, it was sparks and fireworks and chemical reactions. He was cute, funny, smart, sensitive, and even a tiny bit romantic--the kind of guy who seemed to wear a little bit of his heart on his sleeve.
We sat at a bar in St. Paul for hours, laughing and getting to know one another. We easily moved from topic to topic, from work and tattoos to politics and parenting. When he reached out and touched my hand from across the heavy oak table, electricity flowed between us. He shyly smiled and I let my guard down enough to allow my eyes sparkle back. When it was time to go, he slipped his arm around my waist and guided me out the door. I was floating.
He walked me to my car, which was parked on the now-quiet downtown street. It had rained all evening, and the pavement shone with the soft glow from the street light. We said our goodbyes, our eyes locked, each of us not ready to leave. He pulled me in for a kiss and suddenly it was like a Ryan Gosling movie. His hands were in my hair, my arms were wrapped tightly around his broad shoulders. When I finally opened my eyes, everything just seemed a little bit more magical.
Alas, there isn't a lot of actual magic in this world.
Fast forward a little bit...we had, you know, relations, and I instinctively knew something was off right away. He grew distant and when I asked him if he was okay, he said he was overwhelmed because I was so pretty. Instead of letting my inner alarm sound in caution (because really - who says that?!), I smiled and nestled down inside what seemed to be a compliment. The next day was even more quiet which was so unusual compared to how he had previously been--texting, sending silly photos, chatting about his day. By the following day, it was grossly apparent that things had gone pear-shaped. I finally brought it up since he wasn't forthcoming, and the bomb dropped--the list of reasons why things likely wouldn't work out (opposite sides of the Cities, kids, schedules). Read: I had a good time and take care.
The main takeaway from this painful experience could be this: don't believe in magic. Leave it to Harry Potter or Cinderella and keep your own feet firmly in this real world. Life doesn't take place on the set of a Ryan Gosling movie. The streets don't glow and sparks don't fly. To let your guard down is to go to battle without body armor.
But as much as I want to be this jaded - and believe me, I do! - I fight to quiet my inner skeptic. As much as this interaction seemed to rip into me so painfully at the time, in the long run it's nothing but a bee sting. So, okay, I made an error in judgment and got a little burned, but to let this incident color my view of dating or men or even the world is to let his carelessness infect me - and he doesn't get to have that power. I want to let the streets glow after a long rain and allow my eyes to sparkle. Because whether I choose cynicism or optimism, life is going to march on. And the days are happier with a little tiny bit of magic.
Showing posts with label sex. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sex. Show all posts
Saturday, April 30, 2016
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Friends With Benefits (?)(!)(.)
Author's note: My friend, "Jim," asked me to write about this topic. No, we're NOT friends with benefits. Just friends. No benefits. I promise.
Friends with benefits. No strings attached. Pillow pals. Lots of names for what is essentially the same thing: repeated sexual encounters with the same person, without a romantic relationship or commitment.
Urban Dictionary's definition:
The trouble with all of it is that one person (usually the female in heterosexual relationships) ends up falling for the other. Even with the best intentions, with the expectations clear and managed, we girls end up falling for the guy and making a mess of the whole thing. I wondered why this was...so, naturally, I turned to the Internet for answers.
As it turns out, there's a scientific answer. Scientific studies have shown that humans experience a hormone release following orgasm. In women, the hormone is oxytocin--the so-called "cuddling hormone" because it lowers our capacity for fear and increases our sense of bonding. Men, on the other hand, release dopamine--the pleasure hormone. So while men are laying in bed, feeling happy and sleepy, women's hormones are busy convincing us that we are bonded, in love, and ready to commit to this guy.
Mother Nature is a real *%$^, isn't she?! That's not even fair!
This, dear readers, is why I do not believe in the concept of "friends with benefits" (FWB). It's scientifically impossible for women to handle. Unless.....
1. The sex is bad. It's basic: if women don't reach orgasm, then the oxytocin release won't happen and the whole let's-fall-in-love-and-get-married-and-have-a-zillion-babies reaction is stopped cold. HA! Take that, evolution!! Of course, the downfall is that bad sex is no fun and negates the entire reason for the experience. Hmm...maybe this isn't a plausible answer...
2. You avoid cuddling afterwards. Shaking off the whole experience before the hormones can really kick in seems like it would help. Get out of bed, take a cold shower, and WAKE THE HELL UP. This isn't love; it's sex.
The concept gets even more convoluted when you have a real friendship with the other person. As I was talking this over with a gal pal, it occurred to us that there's a difference between friends with benefits and acquaintances with benefits. A friend--someone you're connected to, that you share a bond with--complicates the FWB sexual relationship even more. If you are invested in his/her well-being by virtue of the friendship, AND you're sleeping with him/her...how is this not dating? How is this not a romantic relationship? At least in the acquaintance scenario, you are not bonded by anything other than a mutual appreciation for a satisfying sexual relationship. It seems it would be a lot more emotionally safe to keep the friendship out of it.
There. You've been warned.
Friends with benefits. No strings attached. Pillow pals. Lots of names for what is essentially the same thing: repeated sexual encounters with the same person, without a romantic relationship or commitment.
Urban Dictionary's definition:
Friends with Benefits (verb): A healthy, fun sexual relationship between two people......Until one falls for the other, the friendship blows to pieces, and those two people find themselves worse off than they were before.That sounds pretty accurate, given my training (none) and experience (limited). Still, I have friends (mostly men) that swear by this act--they believe that not getting involved emotionally is better than the risks and pitfalls of a committed relationship.
The trouble with all of it is that one person (usually the female in heterosexual relationships) ends up falling for the other. Even with the best intentions, with the expectations clear and managed, we girls end up falling for the guy and making a mess of the whole thing. I wondered why this was...so, naturally, I turned to the Internet for answers.
As it turns out, there's a scientific answer. Scientific studies have shown that humans experience a hormone release following orgasm. In women, the hormone is oxytocin--the so-called "cuddling hormone" because it lowers our capacity for fear and increases our sense of bonding. Men, on the other hand, release dopamine--the pleasure hormone. So while men are laying in bed, feeling happy and sleepy, women's hormones are busy convincing us that we are bonded, in love, and ready to commit to this guy.
Mother Nature is a real *%$^, isn't she?! That's not even fair!
This, dear readers, is why I do not believe in the concept of "friends with benefits" (FWB). It's scientifically impossible for women to handle. Unless.....
1. The sex is bad. It's basic: if women don't reach orgasm, then the oxytocin release won't happen and the whole let's-fall-in-love-and-get-married-and-have-a-zillion-babies reaction is stopped cold. HA! Take that, evolution!! Of course, the downfall is that bad sex is no fun and negates the entire reason for the experience. Hmm...maybe this isn't a plausible answer...
2. You avoid cuddling afterwards. Shaking off the whole experience before the hormones can really kick in seems like it would help. Get out of bed, take a cold shower, and WAKE THE HELL UP. This isn't love; it's sex.
The concept gets even more convoluted when you have a real friendship with the other person. As I was talking this over with a gal pal, it occurred to us that there's a difference between friends with benefits and acquaintances with benefits. A friend--someone you're connected to, that you share a bond with--complicates the FWB sexual relationship even more. If you are invested in his/her well-being by virtue of the friendship, AND you're sleeping with him/her...how is this not dating? How is this not a romantic relationship? At least in the acquaintance scenario, you are not bonded by anything other than a mutual appreciation for a satisfying sexual relationship. It seems it would be a lot more emotionally safe to keep the friendship out of it.
There. You've been warned.
Monday, March 11, 2013
On Loneliness
Mark Twain once said that "the worst loneliness is to not be comfortable with yourself." I think most of us would agree that loneliness is one of the worst feelings in the world. Solitude is the celebration of being alone; loneliness is being alone when you don't want to be.
We all handle our emotions in different ways, and loneliness is no exception. Some people eat or exercise, some people watch tv, listen to music, or read. Still others among us try to resolve loneliness through substitution--by finding someone else to fill the void while what they really want is somewhere else. A healthy way of doing this is to find a friend to hang out with when our feelings are the most raw. A good night out with the gal pals often cures me of my worst anxieties. We find commonality in our emotional experiences, laugh at our own frailities, and lift each other up out of the mud.
But sometimes people choose sex as a mask for loneliness. They find that being intimate with someone can be a temporary bandage on a wound. Getting lost in someone else, tangled up in them and the sheets, definitely dulls the pain of loneliness.
But it can have devastating effect on the other person, especially because of the high likelihood that they don't know they're being used as a cover. In talking with a few dear friends tonight about a friend's experience as the mask, no one would admit that they had engaged in a one-night stand for that very reason. Still, it went unspoken between the lines. "I was younger" and "alone" and "selfish" were frequent sentiments.
Being a social scientist...I commenced a survey. I asked my male friends the question of why a guy would not call back after a sexual encounter on the second formal date (the fifth informal date, if you include working out together on several occasions). I received back lots of answers, from "he's probably just a jerk" to "maybe he's seeing someone else, too" to "what if he's embarrassed about something." And yet, they all basically admitted that, at one point or another, they had done the post-sex disappearing act and had felt badly about it.
As I was talking it over with my bestie, she said that her guy friend had admitted to using a girl once when he was lonely. And that's when it hit me: that loneliness can make us do some pretty stupid stuff. Hurtful stuff, even. Sometimes we hurt ourselves by diving face-first into a pint of Ben & Jerry's, and maybe other times we hurt others by presenting a false front on our emotional state.
A friend once told me that "only after a person has seen themselves at their lowest, most depressed, and vulnerable can they rise to the heights that they are capable of."
So guys (and girls, I suppose!): next time you feel lonely, I challenge you to spend a Friday night alone, with yourself, making friends with the person inside your head. Grab a spoon, a pint of ice cream, and a cozy blanket to wrap up in. You might just find that you can turn loneliness into solitude.
We all handle our emotions in different ways, and loneliness is no exception. Some people eat or exercise, some people watch tv, listen to music, or read. Still others among us try to resolve loneliness through substitution--by finding someone else to fill the void while what they really want is somewhere else. A healthy way of doing this is to find a friend to hang out with when our feelings are the most raw. A good night out with the gal pals often cures me of my worst anxieties. We find commonality in our emotional experiences, laugh at our own frailities, and lift each other up out of the mud.
But sometimes people choose sex as a mask for loneliness. They find that being intimate with someone can be a temporary bandage on a wound. Getting lost in someone else, tangled up in them and the sheets, definitely dulls the pain of loneliness.
But it can have devastating effect on the other person, especially because of the high likelihood that they don't know they're being used as a cover. In talking with a few dear friends tonight about a friend's experience as the mask, no one would admit that they had engaged in a one-night stand for that very reason. Still, it went unspoken between the lines. "I was younger" and "alone" and "selfish" were frequent sentiments.
Being a social scientist...I commenced a survey. I asked my male friends the question of why a guy would not call back after a sexual encounter on the second formal date (the fifth informal date, if you include working out together on several occasions). I received back lots of answers, from "he's probably just a jerk" to "maybe he's seeing someone else, too" to "what if he's embarrassed about something." And yet, they all basically admitted that, at one point or another, they had done the post-sex disappearing act and had felt badly about it.
As I was talking it over with my bestie, she said that her guy friend had admitted to using a girl once when he was lonely. And that's when it hit me: that loneliness can make us do some pretty stupid stuff. Hurtful stuff, even. Sometimes we hurt ourselves by diving face-first into a pint of Ben & Jerry's, and maybe other times we hurt others by presenting a false front on our emotional state.
A friend once told me that "only after a person has seen themselves at their lowest, most depressed, and vulnerable can they rise to the heights that they are capable of."
So guys (and girls, I suppose!): next time you feel lonely, I challenge you to spend a Friday night alone, with yourself, making friends with the person inside your head. Grab a spoon, a pint of ice cream, and a cozy blanket to wrap up in. You might just find that you can turn loneliness into solitude.
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