The Plot Twist No One Saw Coming (edited)
It has now been a full week since I reached out to the ex, the text message conversation where I learned he no longer had my number. Until I'd texted him, that is. The week that followed was full of texting and a few brief Google chats, and with one main theme running throughout: sex. Oh sure, there'd be other, much more innocuous texts and messages, but sex always came up at some point.
Now that I'm being more and more open with selected friends about the situation, there has been more discussion about what may be going on. Men are sexual creatures, and some have an even bigger sex drive than others. This is not news. Even a year or more ago on this blog, I wrote about how men need sex to feel emotionally intimate, while women need emotional intimacy to feel comfortable enough to have sex, all based on some very interesting reading I had done. It's all part of our yin-yang pairing, the "women are from venus, men are from mars" stuff.
The discussions with my girlfriends have largely been centered on this one dilemma: is he just coming back for sex and nothing more? To be, to put it crassly, "fuck buddies?" Or is he trying to work his way back into my life for something more, and being scared of rejection and uncertain about how I may really feel about him post-break-up, he's using sex as his way in?
Did the chicken come first, or the egg? If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it... you get my point. Is there really an answer to that question? People can and do pursue various types of relationships with each other, and perhaps they go in with certain ideas and goals, but rarely does it work out that way. I know more than one couple that is happily married after starting with no great intent other than a single night of sex. I know couples that were friends forever, even to the point of marrying other people, before coming to the realization that they should have been together. Certainly we all know people who have met someone and entered into a relationship starry-eyed, certain they have found "The One," only to be heartbroken or to eventually leave that person who turned out to be, well, not "The One."
Yesterday I'd promised myself that I was not going to be the first to initiate contact. Save one day in the past week, we've communicated daily. As I keep saying, I'm so busy right now I don't have the luxury of time to spend on a new relationship. Sex, and nothing more, sure. But relationships take work. They take nurturing, time, care. They are not easy, and can be quite stressful. They demand time commitments more than a couple hours here and there. So even though at dinner with a good girlfriend I'd come up with a teasing, flirty text message to send him partly as a joke, I didn't.
Sure enough, about an hour after I got home from dinner, I heard his text message tone. Two in rapid succession came from my purse, which was across the living room from me. (The rapid succession doesn't surprise me; he's one of those who'd rather send 7 short texts than one long one.) I was not prepared for what the texts said.
What was I prepared for? Either more flirting/sexting, or a text saying he didn't want to do that anymore. These texts were neither.
"I lost my job today. :-("
That knocked the wind right out of me. I am extremely empathetic, and I have been in that position more than once where I've lost a job unexpectedly. I've been downsized due to budget cuts, and I've been terminated for cause. I know the pain, the hurt, the frustration. Add to that the fact that I'm a big ol' momma hen, and you get a pretty clear picture of how I felt when I read that.
I replied with the appropriate, "oh, no! I'm so sorry to hear that" kind of stuff, and asked if he needed to talk about it, making it clear that if he didn't, that was perfectly fine with me. I don't know where the line is -- back to the sex or something more question -- so I didn't want to be pushy or clingy or anything like that. I was just being a friend.
His reply to that has brought on the latest round of over-analyzing from me. My typical "does he mean a or b or q or h or z" is running in high gear. Which is why, of course, I'm blogging!
"Nothing to offer you other than great sex!!"
I see two possible meanings to this -- and I'm not entertaining "text message delay" as one of them. By "text message delay," I mean when texts aren't received quickly and you end up getting your answer a couple texts later... that the order the texts show up on your phone don't match the order they are showing up on the other person's phone.
Meaning #1: All he wants to offer me is sex. He isn't interested in anything more than getting together once or more often for some adult clothing-optional fun. Let's not have life conversations, let's not connect in any way other than physically, let's only have enough non-sexual connections to ensure sex will happen. He continues to make it clear that he thinks I'm "HOT" and have "amazing skills." To paraphrase Lady GaGa and R. Kelly, he's only interested in doing what he wants to my body. He doesn't want my heart, he doesn't want my mind, he wants to do what he wants to my body.
Meaning #2: He's afraid that now I won't be interested in him. My long-time readers may remember that he has a great need to express himself in status stuff. He goes to classy cultural events, often having season tickets, he dresses well, and he has a good, relatively high social standing. He sits on boards and tries to maintain philanthropic ways. He loves good food and fine restaurants; one of his favorite pastimes is eating out, and knowing where the good, "locals only" restaurants are. Not only does he love to eat out, but he loves to take others out with him -- and pick up the check. And we can't forget the pleasure he finds in alcohol, too. All those things take money. He was saddled with a ton of debt he didn't create after his last divorce which he worked very hard to rid himself of, so he's very cognizant and leery of being in debt. Being without a job hits him in one of his most vulnerable places, and in turn hits him in his self-confidence.
To be honest, in my gut and overall "feeling," I think it's Meaning #1. Perhaps I'm just being pessimistic. Perhaps my "once bitten, twice shy" protective walls are up again. Maybe I just know him that well. My head knows that Meaning #2 is a realistic possibility, but it's having a hard time convincing my gut. My heart hasn't really chimed in all that much, but I think it's siding with my gut. And because of that, my brain is saying, "Hey guys, let's not waste too much time on this. We've got a recital to memorize and that won't get done if we're obsessing over an ex-boyfriend."
As the conversation continued and wrapped up, I made it clear to him that he wasn't just a chunk of male genitalia to me. "I do consider you a friend. Always have. Saying extra prayers for you," I texted him. He was quite appreciative of that, and thanked me. He had told me earlier in the conversation that he'd be "on the down lo" for a while, so I have no idea where this may go. My empathetic side is on high alert right now. Just like when my kiddos at school are in tears over something big, like a first grader not understanding why police came and took her cousin away to Mexico, and all I can do is hug them, I wish I could just give him a hug right now. Nothing sexual, just friend-to-friend contact. But we aren't at that emotional point. I dare say we never really were, save a few random moments. He doesn't open himself up emotionally very well. So I am respecting his boundaries, whatever those are at each passing moment. He knows I think of him as a friend, and that I bear no ill will towards him. But I can't force him to be open with me, to trust me, to confide in me like so many do.
So I wait. Again.
And memorize my recital.
Now that I'm being more and more open with selected friends about the situation, there has been more discussion about what may be going on. Men are sexual creatures, and some have an even bigger sex drive than others. This is not news. Even a year or more ago on this blog, I wrote about how men need sex to feel emotionally intimate, while women need emotional intimacy to feel comfortable enough to have sex, all based on some very interesting reading I had done. It's all part of our yin-yang pairing, the "women are from venus, men are from mars" stuff.
The discussions with my girlfriends have largely been centered on this one dilemma: is he just coming back for sex and nothing more? To be, to put it crassly, "fuck buddies?" Or is he trying to work his way back into my life for something more, and being scared of rejection and uncertain about how I may really feel about him post-break-up, he's using sex as his way in?
Did the chicken come first, or the egg? If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it... you get my point. Is there really an answer to that question? People can and do pursue various types of relationships with each other, and perhaps they go in with certain ideas and goals, but rarely does it work out that way. I know more than one couple that is happily married after starting with no great intent other than a single night of sex. I know couples that were friends forever, even to the point of marrying other people, before coming to the realization that they should have been together. Certainly we all know people who have met someone and entered into a relationship starry-eyed, certain they have found "The One," only to be heartbroken or to eventually leave that person who turned out to be, well, not "The One."
Yesterday I'd promised myself that I was not going to be the first to initiate contact. Save one day in the past week, we've communicated daily. As I keep saying, I'm so busy right now I don't have the luxury of time to spend on a new relationship. Sex, and nothing more, sure. But relationships take work. They take nurturing, time, care. They are not easy, and can be quite stressful. They demand time commitments more than a couple hours here and there. So even though at dinner with a good girlfriend I'd come up with a teasing, flirty text message to send him partly as a joke, I didn't.
Sure enough, about an hour after I got home from dinner, I heard his text message tone. Two in rapid succession came from my purse, which was across the living room from me. (The rapid succession doesn't surprise me; he's one of those who'd rather send 7 short texts than one long one.) I was not prepared for what the texts said.
What was I prepared for? Either more flirting/sexting, or a text saying he didn't want to do that anymore. These texts were neither.
"I lost my job today. :-("
That knocked the wind right out of me. I am extremely empathetic, and I have been in that position more than once where I've lost a job unexpectedly. I've been downsized due to budget cuts, and I've been terminated for cause. I know the pain, the hurt, the frustration. Add to that the fact that I'm a big ol' momma hen, and you get a pretty clear picture of how I felt when I read that.
I replied with the appropriate, "oh, no! I'm so sorry to hear that" kind of stuff, and asked if he needed to talk about it, making it clear that if he didn't, that was perfectly fine with me. I don't know where the line is -- back to the sex or something more question -- so I didn't want to be pushy or clingy or anything like that. I was just being a friend.
His reply to that has brought on the latest round of over-analyzing from me. My typical "does he mean a or b or q or h or z" is running in high gear. Which is why, of course, I'm blogging!
"Nothing to offer you other than great sex!!"
I see two possible meanings to this -- and I'm not entertaining "text message delay" as one of them. By "text message delay," I mean when texts aren't received quickly and you end up getting your answer a couple texts later... that the order the texts show up on your phone don't match the order they are showing up on the other person's phone.
Meaning #1: All he wants to offer me is sex. He isn't interested in anything more than getting together once or more often for some adult clothing-optional fun. Let's not have life conversations, let's not connect in any way other than physically, let's only have enough non-sexual connections to ensure sex will happen. He continues to make it clear that he thinks I'm "HOT" and have "amazing skills." To paraphrase Lady GaGa and R. Kelly, he's only interested in doing what he wants to my body. He doesn't want my heart, he doesn't want my mind, he wants to do what he wants to my body.
Meaning #2: He's afraid that now I won't be interested in him. My long-time readers may remember that he has a great need to express himself in status stuff. He goes to classy cultural events, often having season tickets, he dresses well, and he has a good, relatively high social standing. He sits on boards and tries to maintain philanthropic ways. He loves good food and fine restaurants; one of his favorite pastimes is eating out, and knowing where the good, "locals only" restaurants are. Not only does he love to eat out, but he loves to take others out with him -- and pick up the check. And we can't forget the pleasure he finds in alcohol, too. All those things take money. He was saddled with a ton of debt he didn't create after his last divorce which he worked very hard to rid himself of, so he's very cognizant and leery of being in debt. Being without a job hits him in one of his most vulnerable places, and in turn hits him in his self-confidence.
To be honest, in my gut and overall "feeling," I think it's Meaning #1. Perhaps I'm just being pessimistic. Perhaps my "once bitten, twice shy" protective walls are up again. Maybe I just know him that well. My head knows that Meaning #2 is a realistic possibility, but it's having a hard time convincing my gut. My heart hasn't really chimed in all that much, but I think it's siding with my gut. And because of that, my brain is saying, "Hey guys, let's not waste too much time on this. We've got a recital to memorize and that won't get done if we're obsessing over an ex-boyfriend."
As the conversation continued and wrapped up, I made it clear to him that he wasn't just a chunk of male genitalia to me. "I do consider you a friend. Always have. Saying extra prayers for you," I texted him. He was quite appreciative of that, and thanked me. He had told me earlier in the conversation that he'd be "on the down lo" for a while, so I have no idea where this may go. My empathetic side is on high alert right now. Just like when my kiddos at school are in tears over something big, like a first grader not understanding why police came and took her cousin away to Mexico, and all I can do is hug them, I wish I could just give him a hug right now. Nothing sexual, just friend-to-friend contact. But we aren't at that emotional point. I dare say we never really were, save a few random moments. He doesn't open himself up emotionally very well. So I am respecting his boundaries, whatever those are at each passing moment. He knows I think of him as a friend, and that I bear no ill will towards him. But I can't force him to be open with me, to trust me, to confide in me like so many do.
So I wait. Again.
And memorize my recital.
Comments
Post a Comment
We are all adults here. Comments are welcome, but they are also moderated because there has been a marked increase in spam, trolling, and generally snarky and nasty comments being submitted. Different opinions are welcome when expressed maturely; rude comments and links will not be published.