madness takes its toll... please have exact change
one of the clearest signs that i'm slipping from "tired" to "exhausted" is the disruption in my sleeping patterns that leaves me having anxious and urgent conversations with matthew in the wee small hours of the night... only neither of us is awake for them.
i don't remember the dream, but i kinda remember desperately needing to tell matthew something about people in red and black - so desperately in fact, that it burbled from subconscious to barely-conscious and back without either of us the wiser. i remember him telling me i could tell him what it was all about in the morning, and i *remember* (but i can't tell you from what side of the dream-state this memory comes) him saying that "as long as i wasn't trying to tell him that red and black were Mr bdcooper's colours, we'd be all right."
i don't know if *matthew* remembers that part :) (if not, then maybe i dreamt that piece of the exchange.)
suffice to say, this morning i remember the weirdness of the talking-in-my-sleep incident, but not the dream itself. at least i wasn't dreaming about The Drink again :) and ben, if knowing that a woman is talking about you in her sleep to her fiance is the kind of thing that makes your manly ego sing, then by all means, fill yer boots :)
yesterday also brought another interesting piece of self-revelation.
many months ago, i remarked to matthew that i had discovered in myself something about my "retail therapy tendencies". (i may have written about this already, but it was pre-tags and not a memory). it had to do with discovering that when i went wandering in the malls, it wasn't actually for the purpose of buying anything - generally - but rather for simple visual stimulation. looking at pretty things makes me happy. i had thought i hated shopping, but the fact is, i hated the tension that came from looking at pretty things and thinking that, because i found them pretty, i had to buy them, and being frustrated by absence of supporting budget. i thought it was the "i want and can't have" gig that was putting me off. but having discovered that i simply like going and looking for looking's sake, that pressure has almost completely gone away. i go and look and imagine, and *don't buy*... and go home happy.
this, however, wasn't the revelation from yesterday - i'm simply laying the groundwork, because this background ties in with the epiphany.
being bored at work yesterday, i spent part of my afternoon baiting The Drink, which is always fun in and of itself, but sometimes goes awry in the "i meant this to be mildly diverting flirtation and here we're having a Serious ConversationTM" kind of way. one of the things we'd talked about was the scale of possible activity between two attracted parties, where one end of the scale is "i don't know you exist" and the other is "sexual consummation of the attraction". we're both of the opinion that people can get to about 75 or 80 per cent of the scale towards consummation - acknowledged attraction with no overt further movement towards consummate the attraction. we enjoy the game, the getting to know someone, the building of a certain degree of tension - but for various individual reasons, it will go no further.
it's much fun. in previous incarnations of myself, i didn't recognize that obvious potential stopping point: my ego and self-esteem needed the notch in the lipstick case, as it were, to prove to myself that the target of my attraction *liked me*. much later, once i realized that "liking me enough to have sex" and "liking me as a person" were two very different things, i stopped that behaviour. it wasn't what i wanted.
last night on the drive home, i was mulling all of this over in my head, and it occured to me: i build relationships in this model with people to whom i'm attracted, for the same reason i go "window shopping" without the intent to buy anything: i'm looking for the stimulation without the commitment to a specific end result. in the case of shopping, i'm not pre-commited to the idea of having to buy something every time i'm in a store. in the case of new relationships like my friendship with The Drink, i'm not pre-committed to the idea of proving whether or not he likes me. we've already explictly stated the fact of the mutual liking between us.
and i am content with that. it's a *hugely* liberating thing to say, actually. don't get me wrong, i still imagine all kinds of Extremely Inappropriate Things about the people to whom i'm attracted (you'll know you've hit the Big Leagues when you've become part of The Arnora's Masturbation Fodder :)... but i don't suffer the compulsion to achieve that Victorious Bedpost Notch, as it were. i don't need *that* kind of validation any more.
i like it well enough, sure...
but i don't *require* it.
i am happy to engage in this model for the sake of the enjoyment of the relationship *as it is*, not as i think it could be if pushed past stated limitations. i've done that too often in the past (with myself, with others), and with negative results more often than positive. i get far more sustainable satisfaction out of the ongoing banter and discussion i have with people like The Drink: honest, open, potentially vulnerable learning conversations about someone i'm interested in, someone i can see becoming invested in a friendship with, someone i'm reasonably sure i'd work to keep in touch with. the tinge of "attracted tension" is a nice little icing on the cake - but it's not the cake. i like being able to make that differentiation (now).
it still leaves me sometimes distracted and carbonated throught the long stretches of a tedious afternoon at the office, but it's a small price to pay for the overall value of the friendship-in-progress. (and if matthew gets jumped when he gets home and has someone else to thank for doing all the work of helping my mindset along in that direction, well, really... what are friends for??)
and yes - the best thing in all of this is going home and telling matthew how my day went, how i'm feeling, what i'm perceiving - and having him be the cautious watchdog of my congruency. happy for me in new friendships, yet challenging me to look closely at my motivations, clarifying my word choice when the occasional weasel slips past the sentinels. if i *couldn't* share all of this with him, it wouldn't be worth the doing, IMO.
so... the takeaway from yesterday (other than pennsic projects) is the understanding that i can experience New Relationship Energy in many different types of relationships, including the ones i indulge in simply for the sake of the people involved, and the enjoyment i get from interacting with those people on our own terms, not on terms dictated by the internally pre-committed requirements of implicit "ego-driven needs". i can engage and have fun and never let things become other than the friendships they are.
yes Virginia, i *can* make friends without sleeping with them first.
who knew??
i don't remember the dream, but i kinda remember desperately needing to tell matthew something about people in red and black - so desperately in fact, that it burbled from subconscious to barely-conscious and back without either of us the wiser. i remember him telling me i could tell him what it was all about in the morning, and i *remember* (but i can't tell you from what side of the dream-state this memory comes) him saying that "as long as i wasn't trying to tell him that red and black were Mr bdcooper's colours, we'd be all right."
i don't know if *matthew* remembers that part :) (if not, then maybe i dreamt that piece of the exchange.)
suffice to say, this morning i remember the weirdness of the talking-in-my-sleep incident, but not the dream itself. at least i wasn't dreaming about The Drink again :) and ben, if knowing that a woman is talking about you in her sleep to her fiance is the kind of thing that makes your manly ego sing, then by all means, fill yer boots :)
yesterday also brought another interesting piece of self-revelation.
many months ago, i remarked to matthew that i had discovered in myself something about my "retail therapy tendencies". (i may have written about this already, but it was pre-tags and not a memory). it had to do with discovering that when i went wandering in the malls, it wasn't actually for the purpose of buying anything - generally - but rather for simple visual stimulation. looking at pretty things makes me happy. i had thought i hated shopping, but the fact is, i hated the tension that came from looking at pretty things and thinking that, because i found them pretty, i had to buy them, and being frustrated by absence of supporting budget. i thought it was the "i want and can't have" gig that was putting me off. but having discovered that i simply like going and looking for looking's sake, that pressure has almost completely gone away. i go and look and imagine, and *don't buy*... and go home happy.
this, however, wasn't the revelation from yesterday - i'm simply laying the groundwork, because this background ties in with the epiphany.
being bored at work yesterday, i spent part of my afternoon baiting The Drink, which is always fun in and of itself, but sometimes goes awry in the "i meant this to be mildly diverting flirtation and here we're having a Serious ConversationTM" kind of way. one of the things we'd talked about was the scale of possible activity between two attracted parties, where one end of the scale is "i don't know you exist" and the other is "sexual consummation of the attraction". we're both of the opinion that people can get to about 75 or 80 per cent of the scale towards consummation - acknowledged attraction with no overt further movement towards consummate the attraction. we enjoy the game, the getting to know someone, the building of a certain degree of tension - but for various individual reasons, it will go no further.
it's much fun. in previous incarnations of myself, i didn't recognize that obvious potential stopping point: my ego and self-esteem needed the notch in the lipstick case, as it were, to prove to myself that the target of my attraction *liked me*. much later, once i realized that "liking me enough to have sex" and "liking me as a person" were two very different things, i stopped that behaviour. it wasn't what i wanted.
last night on the drive home, i was mulling all of this over in my head, and it occured to me: i build relationships in this model with people to whom i'm attracted, for the same reason i go "window shopping" without the intent to buy anything: i'm looking for the stimulation without the commitment to a specific end result. in the case of shopping, i'm not pre-commited to the idea of having to buy something every time i'm in a store. in the case of new relationships like my friendship with The Drink, i'm not pre-committed to the idea of proving whether or not he likes me. we've already explictly stated the fact of the mutual liking between us.
and i am content with that. it's a *hugely* liberating thing to say, actually. don't get me wrong, i still imagine all kinds of Extremely Inappropriate Things about the people to whom i'm attracted (you'll know you've hit the Big Leagues when you've become part of The Arnora's Masturbation Fodder :)... but i don't suffer the compulsion to achieve that Victorious Bedpost Notch, as it were. i don't need *that* kind of validation any more.
i like it well enough, sure...
but i don't *require* it.
i am happy to engage in this model for the sake of the enjoyment of the relationship *as it is*, not as i think it could be if pushed past stated limitations. i've done that too often in the past (with myself, with others), and with negative results more often than positive. i get far more sustainable satisfaction out of the ongoing banter and discussion i have with people like The Drink: honest, open, potentially vulnerable learning conversations about someone i'm interested in, someone i can see becoming invested in a friendship with, someone i'm reasonably sure i'd work to keep in touch with. the tinge of "attracted tension" is a nice little icing on the cake - but it's not the cake. i like being able to make that differentiation (now).
it still leaves me sometimes distracted and carbonated throught the long stretches of a tedious afternoon at the office, but it's a small price to pay for the overall value of the friendship-in-progress. (and if matthew gets jumped when he gets home and has someone else to thank for doing all the work of helping my mindset along in that direction, well, really... what are friends for??)
and yes - the best thing in all of this is going home and telling matthew how my day went, how i'm feeling, what i'm perceiving - and having him be the cautious watchdog of my congruency. happy for me in new friendships, yet challenging me to look closely at my motivations, clarifying my word choice when the occasional weasel slips past the sentinels. if i *couldn't* share all of this with him, it wouldn't be worth the doing, IMO.
so... the takeaway from yesterday (other than pennsic projects) is the understanding that i can experience New Relationship Energy in many different types of relationships, including the ones i indulge in simply for the sake of the people involved, and the enjoyment i get from interacting with those people on our own terms, not on terms dictated by the internally pre-committed requirements of implicit "ego-driven needs". i can engage and have fun and never let things become other than the friendships they are.
yes Virginia, i *can* make friends without sleeping with them first.
who knew??