forward moving
smoking weed and drinking genmaicha tea and wondering if i can write anything that i don't hate.
one of my neighbors is a forty five year old indian woman, M; she frequents my local pub, and is absolutely smitten with me. i accidentally charmed her one night when she was in the immediate wake of her most recent breakup; her american lover woke up one day and, after much pushing for marriage and a future and intimacy, not-so-gently told her that he just didn't love her anymore. as she told me of her anger and betrayal, my eyes welled up in sympathy, and at that moment she decided that we should be friends.
despite coming from vastly different backgrounds (culturally and generationally), she is probably more like me than anyone i've ever met. we have strangely parallel relationships with our mothers and have received the same feedback from everyone we have ever met about watering ourselves down to be less.
"never apologize for your intensity! NEVER back down!" she has yelled at me over whiskey (her: jameson with two ice cubes; me: bulleit rye on the rocks) many times now. she is so much; brooding and intelligent and unflinchingly fierce. she has a lot of faith in me and i find it strange but reassuring. she is so beautiful, although that is not the point.
we've shared a few mutual cries and she introduces me to everyone she knows as her new best friend.
los angeles is weird, but i like it.
this is a good lesson, though. forever my struggle has been how to temper myself to be more palatable, to mask the depths with light conversation, and to filter any passion through a lens of inscrutability. after many years of needing (yearning) to be socially competent, being able to talk endlessly without saying much of anything at all has been a skill well-learned and well-earned. maybe the scales have too far tipped to the shallow, though.
i've been thinking about this a lot as it pertains to Dio; the thing about poly that sort of baffles me is the trajectory of intimacy. when there is a structure, there's sort of an expected building if there's mutual interest (or there's an active decision to not go there), whereas with this, there are no structural norms to rely on for guidance. goddamn it, i guess i have to actually use my words, and stop relying on the social subtext that i've so long used as the bumpers in my bowling lane.
one of my neighbors is a forty five year old indian woman, M; she frequents my local pub, and is absolutely smitten with me. i accidentally charmed her one night when she was in the immediate wake of her most recent breakup; her american lover woke up one day and, after much pushing for marriage and a future and intimacy, not-so-gently told her that he just didn't love her anymore. as she told me of her anger and betrayal, my eyes welled up in sympathy, and at that moment she decided that we should be friends.
despite coming from vastly different backgrounds (culturally and generationally), she is probably more like me than anyone i've ever met. we have strangely parallel relationships with our mothers and have received the same feedback from everyone we have ever met about watering ourselves down to be less.
"never apologize for your intensity! NEVER back down!" she has yelled at me over whiskey (her: jameson with two ice cubes; me: bulleit rye on the rocks) many times now. she is so much; brooding and intelligent and unflinchingly fierce. she has a lot of faith in me and i find it strange but reassuring. she is so beautiful, although that is not the point.
we've shared a few mutual cries and she introduces me to everyone she knows as her new best friend.
los angeles is weird, but i like it.
this is a good lesson, though. forever my struggle has been how to temper myself to be more palatable, to mask the depths with light conversation, and to filter any passion through a lens of inscrutability. after many years of needing (yearning) to be socially competent, being able to talk endlessly without saying much of anything at all has been a skill well-learned and well-earned. maybe the scales have too far tipped to the shallow, though.
i've been thinking about this a lot as it pertains to Dio; the thing about poly that sort of baffles me is the trajectory of intimacy. when there is a structure, there's sort of an expected building if there's mutual interest (or there's an active decision to not go there), whereas with this, there are no structural norms to rely on for guidance. goddamn it, i guess i have to actually use my words, and stop relying on the social subtext that i've so long used as the bumpers in my bowling lane.