Relationships

Romance is fun.  The stress of it.  The little successes.  Butterflies.  Timid glances.  Lustful looks.  Discussing it.  Rationalizing it.  The first kiss.  Yeah, it's a good time.  I've been thinking about relationships a lot recently, mostly analyzing my own experience.  This seems silly to me because I'm leaving in just over three weeks; I have no time to have a real relationship; I have no desire to get strung up before I leave.  While opportunities to be amoral have abounded, the one person I would have gladly accepted a promiscuous proposition from has received me with innocence, virtue, and simplicity.  Which, while I doubt she knows it, is exactly what I need and probably what I want.

In my endeavors to expose the whimsical woes of my many mischevious deeds I came upon two conjectures.  That the first kiss bares an alarming amount of importance and that the break-up really only allows concise closure to one party.

The break-up always bites.  Royally.  Having someone break up with you, no matter the reason or excuses, feels like a punch to the stomach.  I have some personal rules about breaking-up with someone, that I won't go into right now, that I hope makes it easier for the other person, but it hurts no matter how it's done.  But what about breaking up with someone.  A relationship can end well; neither person was really dependent on the other, both parties understand why it happened, and friendship is still available afterwards.  A relationship can end poorly, for any number of reasons.  Either way, when it ends, both parties need to move on.

The person who got broke up with though, has a much easier time of this I feel.  They have no choice in the matter.  The other person doesn't want to be with them or can't be with them and is leaving.  When broken-up with, often one feels anger at the other person and this acts as a catalyst to speed up and improve the moving on process.  While it often happens, feelings of "what could I have done" or "I'll try and win them back" do little good because they rarely help much.  You've been broken up with, just move on and be happy.

But what about the breakee-uper?  That is the silliest looking word...  We'll just call it the scumbag.  :)  I mean no offense to anyone, I've broken up with several people (I'm actually almost at 50% even for being in both positions) and I think it applies to the way one feels afterwards.  So, what about the scumbag?  They had a choice.  With that choice comes  the resolves from fretting over whether to do it or not over several weeks, which also forces one to endure the perpetuating poison of a rotting relationship and does not, in any way, ensure the relief from remorse one would hope for.  Or the gutwrenching guilt from ripping out the tender heart of one you care(d) about (which doesn't always happen, but I still feel bad).  Neither is all that fun.  Also, once it happens, you have the opportunity to doubt your decision for no limited length of time.  THERE IS NO LIMIT TO YOUR GUILT AND REMORSE!!!  I feel that should be made clear.  Seriously though, you know it's your fault it ended; even if they were a horrible person, you ended it; even if you had no choice, you ended it.  That kind of sucks to think about.  Which is why I think if we do break-up with a person, we've really got to make a point to move on, because I don't think we scumbags have the social right to feel contrition about our actions, because that is a royal mental-disturbance to the person broken-up with.  We're all going to have to break up with someone at some point I'm sure, but we've got to make it easier on both parties.

The first kiss.  So much history and delight held within one brief congress.  Hopefully followed by several more.  I find it best when spontaneous and spun upon unsatiated tension tying two up in unusual defiance aimed at the remaining world.  But, who kisses whom first?  I had a very close friend tell me that the guy should make the first move.  I actually agree with her for many reasons.  But I don't believe the first kiss is the first move.  A guy can declare a great deal of interest and sexuality towards a girl without kissing her.  Also, what do you do in a lesbian or gay relationship?  (I guess both guys could just ravage each others face at the same time, but that leaves the gals high and dry...literally.  Well, at least the dry part.  They can get high without other people.  Guys too actually)  Well, in all my conquests and submissions I've noticed one commonality and I actually noticed it from one of my biggest failures this last year.  That first kiss really decides who gets to hold the safe word.

There is something to be said about being submissive.  You get to say stop.  This isn't culture breeding or some secret nurture device trained in us.  I've yet to find a culture where the person receiving doesn't have the right to say stop.  When one is the initiator, one has the responsibility to keep things moving and to not stop until asked to.  I hate this rule, because I can't blame it on anything but human nature.  It like the play Dolls says, "A guy is just supposed to take whatever comes along, right?"  I always wanted that part, because I've been stuck in that situation.  Guys are traditionally the aggressor, even sexually, which means they are expected to be...aggressive, make the first move, go in for the first kiss, and not stop until their partner says stop.  I'm here to say I have limits, especially sexually, and if you push me I will break because I hate feeling awkward and have little control once I shut emotionally down (which happens when pushed past my limits), but I will be broken for a long time and you won't like me in that state.  It's scary.  And I've known (and dated) girls who have made the first move and went in for the kiss first and their partner said stop and the girls got offended or confused.  That first kiss kind of defines who has the right to say stop, because the person who initiated it is supposed to keep going.  I find the longer and healthier (if only one adverb exists, I haven't really noticed it) a relationship is the more balanced and less aggressor/submissive it is and becomes.  It's really good to see when it works.

Dreams

I dreamed last night. This is a rather unusual occurrence, as some of you may know, but not unheard of at any given time. On one hand, my dreams are strange and difficult to define, but, on the other, they are rather exciting. Ultimately, I don't like dreaming. Oddly, last night was . . . intensely pleasant.

First, some background physics. There is something called the event horizon; it is the point past which light cannot escape a black hole. Now, for years, I had believed that light would just get stuck once it reached this point, in a perfect situation. It would constantly be trying to escape the pull of the black hole and the black hole would constantly try to suck it in. Last night I realized the folly of this thinking because the gravity of a black hole is constant (ha, I made a pun) but the velocity of a photon of light (which for no conceivable reason acts like it has mass) is not accelerating, so gravity, no matter how small, will overcome the speed of light after a given amount of time. WHICH IS AWESOME! So pretty much what would usually happens is something like a yo-yo, the light speeds past the black hole, through the event horizon, and is suddenly pulled back to never be seen. This is what I was thinking about as I drifted into slumber. Well, that and a couple specific different girls and some teachers and . . . stuff really.

Anyway, the dream (and I was promising myself this would be short). I'm in some sort of alley, there are brick buildings, lots of cement walls and such. A nuclear explosion goes off nearby. In the process of being disintegrated (I die a lot in dreams) my old concept of the event horizon comes up and just a couple of atoms manage to keep themselves from moving in any one direction, so I, rather my spirit, attached itself to those little specks and materialized itself (sorry if there is any confusion. I've never dreamed or remembered anything in first person, always third-person omniscient). In hindsight, upon waking up, I decided that it was kind of like a ghost; my identity had attached itself to a the physical plane and refused to leave, but I am also able to interact with the physical world, I find shortly. I'm dead and I realize this, so I wander.

In my wanderings I come upon an alley with more brick walls and there is a car and I see this girl. I recognize her from this life as someone who I really care about. There are other people there, but none of them of any consequence. I see that she is in a similar predicament to me. She exists, but is only the veneer of a body. I, almost instinctively (which is strange, because I haven't ever in real life), went up to her, grabbed her behind the nape of her neck, and, with my other hand, connected myself to her waist. I began to kiss her. I realize this is a dream, but I have never kissed anyone so deeply and richly as I kissed this girl right then. Her taste and touch were terrific and tempting. The embrace was returned just as readily and amorously. As we continued to embrace, it seemed that each moment caused us to connect even more deeply. As we kissed, she wrapped her hands around my neck and lifted her legs around my hips. We drifted from the hood of the car to the side of it to the wall and down the alley. The dream continued for quite some time, with variously levels of confusion and disturbance on my part, but the part with the girl stopped. It was sad.

As I said, I realize this was a dream. I can hope that this would happen. And to some degree it might someday. I doubt I'll ever experience a nuclear explosion while in a brick-laden alleyway lit only by the dream of industrialization and destroyed by the vision of expansionism, but who knows? I can say that I haven't had the benefit of such unsatiating pleasure.