New Year's

• Jan 2, 2009

I still do not put any real stake in sexual compatibility.
What I want is a partnership. 
What matters most to me is being able to fully respect my partner, admire her.
I want us to enjoy each other, have fun together, teach each other, challenge each other, support each other.
I want intellectual and emotional compatibility.
I want shared values and priorities.
What matters to me is who she is as a person, not just what I get from contact with her.

It is very early, we have a lot to learn about each other; I can't say anything with any confidence.  We haven't had a chance to talk about these things.  I don't even know what she is looking for in terms of a relationship.  I have always had a tendency to idealize people, to emphasize the good and overlook the bad, and especially now I am not in a proper emotional state to judge - that being said, I have not felt so positively about a new person so quickly since... well, actually, I don't think I ever have.  


I am learning more and more exactly what it is that I want, raising my standards by having contact with various people who were each wonderful in their own way, and seeing those things which I might have thought I wanted, but turned out not to work for me.
As I become more selective, it has become harder and harder to find someone who held my interest.  I tried not to even think about concepts like "settle"; a slippery slope atop depression.
When I was young the focus of my infatuations were completely random and baseless.  It had more to do with accessibility, proximity, than it did on personality.  I remember in junior high intelligence became a prerequisite.  Then independent thinking.
Kathy, in the first year of high school was the first where looking back, I know exactly what I saw in her.  Aside from my crush, she was also my best friend. 
But then, she was my friend first.  It was based on who she was, not just what she looked like or that she happened to be in my class.  But my interest developed slowly, bit by bit.
And so it was with my ex-wife, Aileen.  We became friends first, and for years after our first conversation I had not the slightest romantic interest in her.  We had sex before we kissed.  We still both considered our relationship to be friendship after we were sleeping together regularly.  I felt that I loved her before I felt in-love.  That was definitely a first.  The feeling of love, not romantic, not passion, but caring deeply for a person, caring as much about another human being as you do about yourself, that does not come easily for me.  I have felt it only very rarely, and usually transiently.  She earned my love by being the wonderful person she is.  We became partners, and romantic feeling developed with time.  That made it no less real, no less strong.  I felt as deeply in love with my wife as I did in any obsession before her.  Combining the feeling of "love" with "in-love" produced an attachment so strong it is a wonder to me that I was actually able to function in the real world day-to-day.  (It is actually a good thing that she didn't feel as strongly as I did, because we may very well have never left each others sides, and would in fact have not been able to function in the real world).

All this to say I don't especially value what most people today consider a prerequisite for a new relationship, a chemistry or passion or attraction.  I know these things can build with time, and just as well that feeling them can be totally meaningless when they happen right away.

My interest this time was very quick, and gathered in strength even quicker.  I started to feel hints of "in-love" from the first day.  I can't remember that ever having happened before.  Ever.  Each contact since then has made it stronger.  There are always a few little things here and there which are less than ideal, but which I may decide are worth it, are minor.  This time there haven't been any.  I am slightly apprehensive about our age difference (though its only 1 year more than it was with my ex, and Valerie is more experienced.  I don't think this is a valid concern; it hasn't shown up in her personality as a problem).  Her being my height makes me slightly insecure, but it doesn't seem to bother her in the least, so I think I need to stop being stupid.  Again, in no way a reflection on her.  More a reflection of myself, my assumptions and prejudices in both cases.
Granted, being in-love makes it difficult to see the bad in someone.  And granted we've only spent a total of about 29 hours together (over 3 days.  And about 2 of those hours were spent sleeping, so they don't really count).

I have never had the chance to develop a relationship with someone I had a crush on.  The combination is intense.  Like it hasn't been since high school - when I first realized what I had been feeling was obsession, not love, and that it was neither normal nor healthy; and taught myself to at least direct it and control it if I couldn't stop it from happening at all.

Believe it or not, all of this has been just to explain that I felt positively about her already, and that it was not the least bit necessary for anything else to be added in.
I feel guilty sometimes for my good fortune; the way I feel that people born into the upper class should feel guilty.  I mean, ok, people win cars.  That merely balanced out the bad fortune that had been happening at the time.
This though...
Too much.
Unreal.

I don't feel that sexual compatibility is important.  You can teach each other what you like.  It is unreasonable to expect you shouldn't have to ask for what you want.  A relationship is about communication.  When you prioritize what is ultimately superficial stuff like that, you end up overlooking the really important compatibility issues, the ones that differentiate a potential life partner from an exciting love affair.


I didn't really expect her to ask me to stay, and I thought it would be rather obtrusive of me to suggest it myself.  But it seemed likely, and I wanted to, so I wasn't in a rush to leave.  I waited patiently on the pretense of waiting for her to settle her other guests on the couch with blankets so I could say goodbye properly.  She didn't say a word to me. As she passed by she took my hand, led me upstairs, left me in her room as she went to say goodnight to them, left me nervous with anticipation.

A part of me is worried about letting things go too quickly.  There is a lot of overlap between the physical and the emotional for me, just like there is between the intellectual and the emotional.  The night had been fun.  Not ideal, for sure, but not bad.  I got to see another side of her, her interacting with others, we more playful with each other, feeling familiar as if we had known each other much more than just the 12 hours we actually had so far.
Willpower is only barely able to hold back the part of me which wants to run and dive head-first off the cliff above "love" and fall in damn the consequences.
The consequences.  Its not getting hurt that I'm afraid of.  Its the trust I'll lose in myself.  Its the ability to fall again if this starts and fails, or worse yet, doesn't start at all.  Its realizing how deeply attached I could get this time, how much better it could get than anything I have experienced before and how, if it ends, how much that will raise my standards.  I don't need higher standards.  Its hard enough to find someone interesting to me as it is.

I made the decision a day or two before to give in.  I have her picture as my computer background. Literally every time I minimize a window it makes me smile involuntarily. I listen to her music on Pandora, mixed in with my own.  I began reciprocating affection (I told her previously that I had been holding back, and why).  I look at her eyes, and she locks my gaze, and its like some cheesy movie, its unbelievable, its something I have never in my life experienced before, but I feel like as much communication is held in that shared gaze, unspoken, as in our conversations.  The first few times I would look away.  It was too much for me.  It scared me.  What if it isn't mutual?  I stopped looking away.

She came back into the room, came up to me, kissed me.  "Do you want me to stay?"
"Will you?"
I told her I would stay if she would agree not to seduce me.  We hadn't talked about what we want yet, our expectations, our feeling toward each other.  We had been out only 3 times, we were only casually dating.  I longed to cuddle her fucking brains out, but I didn't feel lust.
Besides, it was 2am, I had had a couple drinks, she has roommates, and I haven't had much opportunity to practice lately.  Not the best conditions for optimal performance.
I know that I am very short on will power when it comes to lying in bed next to women who make clear that they want me, but I figured as long as she didn't try to entice me and we stayed dressed, it was realistic.
When I came out of the bathroom she was in bed already.  She had a sweatshirt on over her shirt, as her room gets very cold, and so it seemed things would go smoothly, and I could get some good sleep finally, with the comfort of someone special to me in my arms.
As I climbed in beside her she began to kiss me almost immediately.  A kiss I expected.  And I know some people (especially girls, it seems) are content to make out without progressing to anything sexual.  It was nice, but didn't make it any easier to resist the desire to be inside of her. She is really into it, but keeps her agreement not to escalate things.  Next I discover that, while her top half is well bundled, she is wearing these loose "boy-shorts" underwear which offer no more resistance to feeling her thoroughly than wearing nothing at all.  Still, I keep my hands off the juicy center, and I still think we can be passionate and sexy for a little without taking that final step. When she takes off her shirt, inside myself I say "nuts to taking things slow". 
She has a way off moving seamlessly between the passionate and the affectionate, playful and sexual, which makes it all one sensual continuum, which feels at once equal parts an expression of emotion and pure hedonism.  When I do something that feels good to her she has this subtle giggle which was disconcerting at first, but quickly became endearing once I understood what it meant.  All the while, as we enjoyed each others bodies, enjoyed that it was with each other that we were doing this, she honored her agreement not to seduce me, but quickly adapted to the new limits whenever I pushed things a little farther.
I would have liked it slightly better if she were more proactive, but that is of course my own fool fault for asking her to agree to something which I ended up violating myself.
I told her that I wasn't still expecting her to stick to that.
We were lying on our sides, me behind her, against each other, and she presses herself back against me and over, so that she is partially twisted, her legs tangled with mine and just above them, as if shes trying to lay atop me, but not trying very hard.  It is cute.  It has both a seductive quality, and a gentle innocence, a playfulness, which makes me forget that anyone anywhere has ever thought sex could be "dirty" or "wrong". 
I stopped to ask about STDs and birth control.  She's been tested since her last partner (as have I).  She thinks she has condoms, she isn't using hormonals. 

She does, all on her own, exactly those things that I like best.
When she is on top she puts her hands on me, feels my chest and stomach.  She sits upright above me, looking down at me and smiling, like a sex goddess.  She presses herself up against me and rocks and slides to get clitoral stimulation without using our hands.  She lays down on me, and we hug sweetly, no less so for the fact that I am still inside her.  She puts my hand on her breast and squeezes my hand to tell me to squeeze her.  Which is of course exactly what I want to do.  She responds to the things I do just for my own pleasure.  What I want to do is also what she wants me to do.
When she got up to find a condom, as she was still looking I came to her, held her from behind, she told me not to touch her as it was too distracting, I entered her again, encouraged her to keep looking, which she couldn't.  She touched herself, and she came in that position, on the floor kneeling, me holding her back against my chest.
I lay her down on her back on the floor.  I put my hand near her mouth to remind her about her roommates, that she was getting a little loud, and she bit me, her voice still audible.
On the floor still, her on top, me behind, oral for her, missionary, sideways.  I lost it for a while a little bit after I came the first time, and I wasn't in her when she came her second time.  The difficulties were short lived.  I asked her for oral, to help me going again. She wasn't reluctant, but seemed slightly awkward, like she didn't have much experience with it; but it felt better than average just the same.  As soon as she got me ready again, I stood her up, put her on the edge of the bed where I could reach her from the floor.  Her comments about the intensity seemed almost like a complaint, but she didn't object.  I usually don't have much left when I come twice in a row; I had plenty enough to spread around onto her belly and breasts, felt like more than the first time.  This time I kept going without a break.  She wraps her legs around mine, tangling us.  She holds me, and looks into my eyes with that same deep focus that I turned away from the first times it happened.  She gives in to me when I am assertive, and she doesn't hesitate to ask for what she wants or to direct me.  This give and take occurs without any explicit communication, and at no point did I feel she was just doing something for my sake, and yet at no point did it feel she was even remotely selfish.  Instead of two people using each other to get off, for the first time ever it felt like a totally joint venture, a two person team activity. 
Her third was on top of me facing up, the position which tends to be most intense for me.
Her fourth she was lying on her front, I was on top behind her.  It was the first one where I was the one stimulating her with my hands.  That was my favorite.
She seemed to think that was the end, it was a confusing bit of limbs shuffling about before I ended up in her again, her on her side, one leg straight, between mine, the other bent, me sitting upright.  In that position was my 3rd.
Then we lay for a while, talked a bit. We held each other, calmed down. Only for a little bit.  She mentioned feeling satisfied, but still aroused.  My last time I finished off by hand.  I need that pressure at the base in order to feel satiated.  She seemed to get almost physical pleasure from my reaction. 
By now it was quite bright outside. She has a stamina to match her personality.  Somehow I felt no more tired than I had when we had started.  Somehow, even with so much enthusiasm and intensity, aerobic capacity was never a limiting factor.  (I need to do this more often.  I would get into excellent condition.)
We each showered in turn, and after just a bit of talking, (Every part of my insides screamed at me to tell her that I love her, but I used the will power I hadn't used on sex to keep from giving into that premature ejaculation of words) and a bit of snuggling, we got a little bit of actual sleep.
She helped me to tear myself away in the morning; she wanted to sleep more and I had work. 
We haven't yet had a chance to talk.

Hopefully having written this down will be enough to at least get it out of the front of my conscious, and allow me stay present until we do.
Hopefully...