Recently I started seeing an old friend again. We first met 7 years ago. He was the first person I befriended on our first day at university. It would be more accurate to say he was the first person who befriended me. I had a boyfriend, lets call him Salem, at the time so we were just friends but a week after I broke up with Salem, him and I were at it. I was totally surprised. He wasn’t my type really, but he’s good looking. He’s charismatic and also quite enigmatic and his personality takes over his demeanor. When I met him he had curly brown hair, he was a touch over weight and had the attitude of a determined bulldog, although in terms of appearance I would consider him more of a bear. He has brownish eyes that sparkle when he becomes animated and I think that was the feature that most attracted me to him initially. He has thick lips and a completely unobtrusive, roundish nose. Quite nice actually in terms of noses. Today he looks a little different. 6 years ago, when we were in the throws of our little love affair I shaved his head once and we discovered together he was balding. Since then he shaves his head. It didn’t take him long to get to that deduction and he went with it head on as he does with everything in his life. Now he’s lost that extra touch of weight and his bulldog demeanor is softened. Matured into a more subtle confidence. He walks around with knitted hats a lot and the look works for him. Occassionaly he’ll put on glasses and wears what I think is a brown tweed jacket and the whole apparel makes him look a little like a dissident professor, an image I’m sure he would absolutely love and absolutely agree with.
One of my favorite bands at the moment
A little over six years ago we started sleeping together… or rather having sex, fucking. It was awesome. I was a little repressed sexually, comming out of a relationship that was a little problematic in terms of sex. Salem is an incredible man but I’m not sure we were compatible sexually. We were having mad sex, the Bear and I. There was even a short time when we were seeing each other regularly and I think we experienced a mutual infatuation during that time. But he was always certain that I was not right for him, something we sort of agreed upon a moment before we started the whole thing. He was certain he was in control and wouldn’t fall in love. Didn’t quite work out the same way for me though. You could say I was inlove with him and it wouldn’t even be a slight exageration. But I had to protect myself from him so I made up silly boundaries and limitations. I wouldn’t give him a blowjob which drove him insane. Eventually I started going mad with the conflict and trying to pretend I was all cool when I was being torn up inside. This of course changed who I was with him and things started to unravel from there. We started having sex in June, by September we were seeing less of each other, but things were still going strong. In October, just before the new school years started we decided we were definitely going to stop. I believe he saw that I was getting hurt and was drawing away. Maybe it was something else, maybe he was just getting bored I don’t know, we never talked about it. We had sex again twice that year and it was aweful and not a little humiliating both times and I regret that those two times ocurred. By April we were like mere acquaintances at school, that’s when I met the Tank… the five year ex. After we finished school we didn’t see each other again, we each went our own directions, our own paths and they took us to entirely different places. I got over him, I was inlove with another man who was capable of giving me what I wanted at the time. Security, attention, love, and I entered into the most codependent and self destructive period of my life. He went on to start a band with two good friends and they started performing in the streets, which led to more performances abroad and off the streets and finally to a successful television series based on the concept of the band which is unique but I won’t say more because it would be very revealing. Somewhere along that route, because of media attention amongst other things, he entered my world again. I was really moved that he had decided to make music as well and that he was successful, really proud. Of all three whom I know. I don’t know what is at the base of that feeling… perhaps I’m happy for him because through this I am vicariously sharing in his success? Because I was there at the beginning? I don’t know, it isn’t a logical sensation but I prefer it to feeling jealousy which is what several others that went to school with us resorted to.
About three months before I broke up with the Tank the Bear and his band were doing a round of shows and I decided to go see it with a couple of friends from my school years. I called him. I think I felt I had a great reason to call him at the time, although later I realized it was a ridiculous reason and now I can honestly say that I was absolutely lying to myself which just goes to show how distant I had grown from myself. I pride myself that I am honest with myself. Brutally so at times. He was happy to hear from me, we went to the show. A few days later he called and we began to meet for coffee when I was in the area for my piano lessons. After a few meetings I came up to his apartment. He tried to kiss me and I had to stop him. I was still with the Tank and that was the closest I ever came to cheating on him in the five years that we were together.
Truth? I wasn’t into making out with him then and it was a comfortable excuse. Would I have done something if I was in heat? I don’t think I would have gotten to that state considering the emotional lock up I was in because I was in that relationship… so its almost a trick question. Is the fact that my inner truth led me to that situation considered cheating anyway? Maybe. But we’re always smarter in retrospect. I wanted out of my relationship and if there was deceit then I consider myself as much a victim of that deceit as he. After that scene we stopped meeting for coffee. And then, a few months later, right after I had broken up with the Tank and moved out of the house I went out to sing in the street for the first time and he walked by as I was performing.
Its not like I hadn’t imagined that scenario in my mind but it never occurred to me that it would happen so fast. So we met and we had sex again. My constant rebound guy. Its good to have someone to rely on for that. And after we had sex I went into a period of hybernation. For three months I didn’t want to be with anyone, I was just not interested. We met and talked once more and then he flew to NY indefinitely with his band. And here’s where we’re getting to the present. They came back but he didn’t call. I sent him a welcome sms one day on a whim when I was in a particularly good mood. We exchanged sms’s for a bit and discovered that we are now semi-neighbors. Since then we’ve met a couple of times at his place and I’ve gone to see another of their shows. When I’m there, we just talk… although the sexual innuendo is there. Its been good to take it slow, even though it has more to do with lack of time and the fact that I was having my period last time I was there. But I think its also about making a connection again. As old friends. Shit… a lie? lol. But we are old friends.
I was so inspired by her as a girl, I shaved my hair off
And as I sit at his house listening to him talk and getting to reknow him, I remember why I fell in love with him to begin with. At first, this was just a fun opportunity, also in terms of experimenting with non-monogomy. Like I said before, I’ve been sleeping with the Fox and still am. But while he’s not practicing monogomy, I seem to be. By accident. By being picky perhaps. But in my conversations with the Bear he forces me to remove the frivolous exterior and to talk about the real issues at hand. And by doing so he’s also reminding me how much I appreciate that quality in him. How rare it is to find someone who catches you at your bullshit. Especially when I’m rather gifted in rhetoric. A quality that has been rather useful and at times harmful in my life. Salem, my ex-ex is also a great conversation… but that’s another story altogether.
The Bear… always seems to be two steps ahead of me on the same road I’m treading. I guess I’m drawn to him. I also, cannot expect anything from him. The fact that since our last meeting he’s been on my mind more than before has already led to an imbalance as far as I’m concerned. The day before yesterday I invited him out for drinks and he couldn’t make it. Yesterday I was out with a friend getting drunk at a bar right by his apartment (we are neighbors after all) so I gave him a ring and he was out again. Couldn’t make it. I was drunk and thinking about having sex with him and sourly disappointed.
And what do I want? Well, I don’t want a standard relationship with him. I don’t want that with anyone. I don’t want to be monogomous. I don’t want to see him every day. I want to know if I mean something to him. Scratch that. I want to know that I mean something to him. I want to mean something to him. I want him to be a part of my life and I want to be part of his. I feel like he is part of my journey in some way. To what extent, I don’t know. In any case, its like playing with fire. I’m wondering if I could fall in love with him again and what does it mean if I can? And do I want to stop it or take the risk?
I am after all in a place in my life where I am experimenting with truths. Trying to find my inner truth. So the first point for him is that he is actually someone I can talk to about a subject like that which is not commonly found, unfortunately. Also, in terms of relationships and love, I’m not in the same place I once was. I’m trying to break down the concepts of ‘relationshiphood’ to find out what is real and what is false. Jealousy, possessiveness. Committment. Love. Exclusivity. Friendship… I’m in a relationship with the Fox that has a lot of warmth in it and yet I don’t mind the fact that he has other women, or even a single other woman as well. It makes the situation less constricting. It’s interesting. I don’t need to see him everyday, although we’re in touch on a daily basis. We make music together. But I’m not inlove with him, so it only partially displays the qualities necessary to test pluralist relations. That, and not having slept with anybody else, although I am actively flirting and searching. We sleep with each several times a week, and in this case, sleep with each other is accurate and I don’t need to own him. We enjoy each other without giving each other a status title. Without defining every experience we have. I’m happy with that and it proves that relations can be different, but it hasn’t been ultimately tested.
The same type of relationship seems possible with the Bear as well. He’s a free thinker. In fact I think its the exact same relationship we had when we first had our little ‘thing’, but then of course, I was a different person. And so was he possibly. The question is, will the same type of relationship be possible for me with the Bear, and in either outcome, its ramifications regarding love and relationships and myself in particular. The second question is, is it possible to have that kind of meaningful relationship with two people simultaneously? Particularly if you don’t want to be occupied singularly by your love life and have a busy schedule as is. The Fox seems to be capable of having two such relationships simultaneously, but first of all, he is occupied with getting laid all the time, and secondly, as I asserted before, we are not in love. Perhaps with the Bear, if it goes deeper, it might change things. In fact, having written all that down, I’m pretty certain it would.
The Bear suggested I read Osho. I’ve been watching video clips of him and I agree with a lot I’m hearing. I feel like I’m embarking on a real journey. No compromise. Stating as my true mission to learn and discover a way in life in which I will be free, brave, creative, happy, productive and true to myself. This is not a short trip and perhaps I am only at its precipice. But there can be no judgement and no preconceptions. And it has to be open. The Bear helped me phrase this in words last time I saw him. Perhaps this is the extent of his participation in my life. That would also something. I hope there’s more.
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