What are you going to do when the world comes tumbling down? It sounded like she was singing a song: “is that a song?” i made up some notes to break through your defenses; I was beginning to realize that Ursula liked to play around—better than boredom, i figured, so fine. As long as she wasn’t putting off the real conversation that would’ve gone somewhere, taking us both to a satisfactory point. People want to be heard—and you underestimate, sometimes, the power and the influence you wield when you engage in conversation that is meaningful to both parties. I’m talking about the kind of conversation that can only stem from a romantic partner—you can have great conversation with others, too, but you live with your partner: that’s different.
A lot of people think that getting to know someone involves learning what their favorite color is—and they avoid the deeper questions, like where the relationship is really going—and how it’s going to get there. I wanted to talk about the mechanics of the relationship as well as all the seemingly unimportant details such as what your favorite color is. that should come later—a date should be serious without being a job interview—you should talk about your day and what’s going on in your life; you should talk about your friends and family, even if you have friends that are the opposite sex. That’s generally a red-flag, so maybe you should stick to talking about your family on your first date—not the people you already had sex with or the people that, given an argument and a two bottles of wine, will become a sexual partner soon enough.
i was a waitress i knew that, but maybe she didn’t know that, or maybe she was on the verge of telling me something else. i don’t want to go back to being a waitress—and i want to make things right so that you can be a waitress and make enough money to live on your own, date, and or raise a family. Everybody should be afforded two kids by the government. I almost didn’t know who was doing the talking. I totally agreed, of course. now do you know why i got into politics? “Besides the fact that it’s better than being a waitress?” “Just kidding,” I said, determined not to make her angry; i wondered, a little, what did make her angry—i had some sense that democrats with corporate donors made her angry—they divided the party. Now she wanted me to say something—this is just like being on the phone; i know some people get mad at you if you don’t have anything to say on the phone—quality time for me often involves watching tv together in silence, maybe talking about the show a little, and then, if there’s something to delve into, we can have that conversation in person. Real conversations must take place in person, and you must let them happen without this thought that you needed to have sex to do that, or this thought that, after having sex, you should suddenly be able to do that. The conversation itself is actually more important than the sex—unless you’ve agreed on getting pregnant—then the sex can be totally honest. that’s great, and it doesn’t happen very often—so you need to learn how to talk about what moves you—and what you’re next event, together, is going to be: (a date, a card game, a party, a dinner, a TV show) something that gets at who you are, and where you want to go.
you’re the real deal—aren’t you? “yeah, all things considered, i guess I am, but, given my experience, i can only hope that my energy aligns with yours—that i’ll deem you an honest person, and then, hopefully, i’ll feel the necessary desire that makes back channeling possible—that’s how i thought of sex—as back channeling. It served a purpose—or I wasn’t interested, no matter how much I wanted a relationship to evolve—or how much i wanted to think the thoughts that come when all those chemicals are released throughout your body. so the way it works for me is that I feel desire for Ursula when I see her—but I don’t feel that an erection is a possibility—and, when it comes to men, at least in my experience, backchanneling might be ok if i met someone that I really liked—like I liked Ursula, for example, but, more often than that, i wanted to be a little high like you are when you have sex—without any expectation that I’ll need an an erection—once everything got started, then i was much more likely to connect.
“Can you handle that?” i don’t know who you’ve been hanging out with or what you’ve been watching, but you seem completely normal to me—normal, that is, when it comes to being an all around good person. “So we’ll see where this goes when the time comes.” Absolutely—100 percent! She sounded so Swedish when she said that; she must’ve guessed that I was a fan of Swedish people—or even Scandinavian people in general, and i got the message loud and clear; she was going to make me choose her voluntarily—no matter how much I liked Swedish people. you can have sex with me without needing an erection, too, she said, and, if she wanted that, then I wanted that too, so, basically, the more I talked to Ursula about my insecurities, the more she seemed like a real person, just right for me, if, that is, she wanted this to go somewhere without necessarily having to get there in a hurry. She was such a magnificent woman that I didn’t want to miss out on the foreplay that leads up to a commitment between two people—i wanted to learn from, and absorb, the richness of every experience we were bound to have.