Meaning in Mating

The boy admitted to me today that he felt like sex had lost some of it’s meaning.

It’ not a great thing to hear, but he immediately qualified it. He didn’t mean sex with me, he meant the concept of sex in general.

He said that before he started the road to self improvement and read No More Mr. Nice Guy, dropped a bunch of belt sizes, and started learning about women, he used sex as a way to try to make girls close and keep girls close. It was a controlling mechanism more than anything. He finally realized that was what he was doing and let that go. Now he is trying to figure out what is left.

Right now there’s pleasure, fun, and exploration. What’s missing?

I told him that for me sex is getting closer to someone, taking things to the next level of trust and closeness. I told him I thought it was sad he didn’t have that kind of meaning.

I couldn’t help myself. I also told him it was probably because he only had these short non-relationships. Yes, I did it, I implied that his sexual exploration could be responsible for cheapening his sex life. I doubt he actually agreed with me, but he’s not the kind of guy to get annoyed or angry. He left it with a “Hmm, I don’t know.”

He told me that he’d found other ways to get closer to someone, conversation, cuddling, experiences together other than sex, and it’s a good point. Sex isn’t what’s needed to get closer, other things do that in a deeper fashion.

I do think it’s sad though. If he was using sex for control before, I can see how it would feel like there’s something missing. It doesn’t sound like there was ever a deeper meaning for him. I think most people at least start out with a romantic notion of sex. For him, what he had was actually a desperate notion. Now, he’s looking for meaning after the fact.

Maybe it’s part of the exploration. I know I can’t help him find meaning, it’s a pretty personal concept. I actually pity him as I don’t feel like things are missing. There is more every time and every time it’s that much better and I feel a little closer.

I don’t really know what he’s exactly looking for and I don’t think he does either, but I do hope he finds it.

Update:

Apparently some of what’s missing is giving himself permission to not feel guilt or pre-programmed notions of what one does during sex.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but he’s one of the most creative guys I’ve dated and he’s extremely open-minded, so I’m kind of curious what will happen once he sheds off those demons.

It seems incongruous probably due to the whole “I’m learning to be part of a secret society of guys who are so cool no woman can resist us” thing.

Sometimes I wonder what we would have thought of each other if we’d met a each other at a different time. How many recent big changes in himself and his life has he made? It seems like a lot, and every now and then something comes up that seems like is part of a different person. I sometimes wonder who that person was and in what capacity he might still exist.

Work & Work

The system is that was go to school to go to school to get a job to get money to live. Where’s the time to enjoy the life or the money we make (if there is any left after living). Many of are expected to be at work even when we’re not working or be on call. We look forward to retirement which may not happen before we die and when it does we will be either too old or poor to enjoy it. We take part in this cycle because it’s what we’re born into. The most that most of us can do is try to get that job that you somehow identify yourself with. That way, when it becomes the all consuming meaning of your life, it won’t feel quite so empty. When you admit that you are so much of your job, hopefully it is something you can at least take a piece of pride in. Relate it to a piece of your true self are a large notch above most of the working world.

The double irony of all of this is there are those of us who enjoy working. My entertainment mostly consists of work, but it’s work that I chose to do. It relaxes me in its own way. I put my full self into it with gusto. This is the sort of thing most of us dream about getting paid to do on a regular basis. Many people can be happy with a job they don’t identify with. I am the type of person who will probably not feel completely whole unless I have a job that I own. I want to work somewhere were I have pride, pronouns like ‘my’, and see myself in products of my labors. That may sound a little selfish, but all I’m asking is to work in the world as me, and not just be a moving, warm body that goes from day to day. I want more, I’m willing to work hard for more, but none of us knows how to get that (even the people that have it). They would look at you or I and say “I dunno.” or “Work hard.” as if that’s all they did to get where they are. They say it as if it’s not what you are doing. A few honest people have told me to be in the right place at the right time or talk to the right people.

Life doesn’t give you much to go on. It’s so hard even just to be and remain you.

I look at the people my age who I know and they are struggling with this aspect of their lives. They have college degrees and resumes and mad skills and talents. Yet, still, they fall into few categories. I have friends who get jobs they love, but they’re temporary or don’t actually support them. Internships are supposed to get you the better job tomorrow, just like college was. How many jobs is a person supposed to have to support their life? I have friends who find themselves out of work due to weather, economy, and simply being the low man on the totem pole. It seems like we have to pick up the ‘any’ job or drown. And then there are those that have better than the ‘any’ job, secure, but still somehow utterly miserable. They work for X Corp. which is part of their field, but no matter what they were hired as, they find themselves as little more than a glorified receptionist / personal assistant. Low man on totem pole is always looking for work whether or not they have a job and is scraping by for money even when they have a job. If you have the money for fun after everything else, it’s a must to survive life. You can’t work so many hours at a job, even one you like, and then when the weekend comes say, “I would socially interact with you, but I need to pay the bills.”

We play the ‘whose bills’ game with each other. Who has the worst student loan debt? Who has the lowest bank account balance? We all have savings accounts, but they’re for good intentions and future hopes at this point. Who gets by without getting any money from the family since they moved out? Anyone? Anyone?

This is my generation and I’m trying hard to be the exception. But then, most of us are.

Spring Means

spring
Spring means change, but is also means a world of difference depending where in the world you are. When I lived in Maine, Spring had an uncertain start. You weren’t sure which window of warmth was ‘just another thaw’ and which one brought the final beginning. The top crust of the ice and snow would begin to melt. In false starts it refreezes that evening, making all the world a perilous sheet of ice- Winter’s way of giving us his swan song and saying he’d take us with him if he could. Each day is warm enough to chip at the almost perma-frost. The ice becomes a makeshift river, extra slick trickling down into still frozen grounds. Miniature lakes are made, and then finally, for which Mainers name their season, mud envelops the earth. The Spring rains add until the ground can hold no more.

Up north, I’m sure they’re enjoying Mudseason. Spring cleaning is ironic until the water finds some home in the air or beneath the ground.

Here in Southern Massachusetts, Spring is equally moody in her arrival. She brings us a cycle of days: rain, sun, cold, warm, rain, sun, cold… until finally, she decides to settle down for good. One day, when the snow has vanished and the yard is sprouting crocuses, you finally feel it is okay to open the windows.

I don’t like Spring very much, but this window, when I fist open my windows to breathe fresh air after being stuffed into indoors for so long, is my favorite. There is a window of time where the birds are barely beginning to wake up, and only a few may chirp in the morning. Besides the ladybugs who decided to hibernate in the cave of my apartment, the insects and arachnids are still safely skeptical and out of sight. Things are still very still and everything smells slightly of rain. The rivers and waterfalls make the bridges lively places to sit and stare and breathe it in, all coming down.

I feel the urge to walk about at night. Still and silent small towns that are finally enough to keep me warm as I explore my mind and the world. No one is out, not even a stray teen. It’s too early for mosquitoes. Nothing is open. Police are too busy patrolling the roads to take notice. To be the only thing moving…

All the worries of life will stay, but I will grace them with an asterisk* that if I were employed at this moment, I would likely be missing these moments. It doesn’t comfort everything, but it settles me a bit…

…into the season of spring.