I had an interesting convo with Dustin last night that I’m still mulling over.
He was talking about how he doesn’t think that men and women can ever actually just be platonic friends—that there is always unspoken desire on one side or the other, whether or not anyone ever acts on it. He said that he has chick "friends" that he’s not personally attracted to, but who would surely jump into bed with him if he hit on them. And he said he has chick "friends" who would clearly not welcome his advances, but if they jumped in his lap, he would kiss them.
And I asked him how that works with his whole "desiring monogamy" thing, and he said that he doesn’t really like labels. For him, it’s "being with one person," not "monogamy," and he defines that as where you choose to direct your time, attention, and energy. It doesn’t necessarily mean pure sexual monogamy—if an opportunity for a makeout or some NSA sex fell into his lap and the chick was "hot enough," he’d want to go for it, as long as it was strictly NSA and didn’t take anything away from the mental/emotional resources he has that he allocates to me.
He said that the way he thinks about it, if it’s pure opportunity, and purely NSA, there’s not even a reason anyone would have to KNOW about it, much less have it affect the relationship—so, though he eschews labels, it sounds to me basically like some kind of opportunistic DADT. And I told him I’m not about that. Now that we’re "in a relationship," I think it’s important to know and not have secrets like that. I would want to know if he likes someone or makes out with someone or has sex with someone. I asked him if he would be willing to tell me, and he said yes, he can do that.
He said that, to him, the moment it goes from a NSA hookup to exchanging info with the other person and trying to go on dates with them, then, in his mind, that’s when it turns into "cheating," because you’re diverting your resources to that other person and losing focus on the person you’re with—you're cheating them of something. He said that 100% focus on the person you’re with is ideal, and if you’re feeling a strong pull "see where things go" with someone else, then you should probably just end it.
He said that his friends have been telling him he should try to get another girlfriend to balance things out so he doesn’t feel so shitty when I’m with Rider, but he doesn’t really want to because he doesn’t want to partition his time and focus off like that. He told me that when he was younger, he was "a dumbass" because he had "a main girlfriend" here in L.A. and tried to have another "girlfriend" in every city.
I asked him if he loved them, and he said he thought at the time that he loved his main girlfriend, but if he really had, then he wouldn’t have done that to her. He didn’t love any of the others—they were just convenient and reliable ways to get sex while traveling without having to pay for it, and he had to make girlfriends out of them and put some kind of effort toward them because they wouldn’t be down for sex otherwise.
He said that really the opportunistic NSA thing comes up only maybe once or twice PER DECADE—everything else requires some kind of effort that he’s no longer willing to put in for meaningless sex. He said it
used to be worth it for him, but it hasn't been for a while. He's pretty much gotten his fill of that. So the arithmetic I see this adding up to is that, for him, currently, when it comes to outside connections:
Effort + Meaning = Cheating
Effort + No Meaning = Not worth it
No Effort + No Meaning = Worth it if the chick is hot enough
Which, my situation aside, just as a thought exercise, left me wondering what he would see as the female counterpart position in that situation—obviously, for chicks (i.e., me or whoever else) effortless + meaningless sex is thrown at us all the time. In his "ideal situation" where he was in one serious relationship and not conducting other relationships but had sort of a "free pass for NSA," what would that look like on the chick’s side?
He’s said that his opportunity in a no-effort sense comes once or twice per decade. For a chick, it’s likely once or twice per DAY, lol. Would playing by those "rules" not bother him? I haven’t asked yet, but I’m curious.
I mean, for me, personally, the question is largely irrelevant because we’re not in that situation AND because I’m not good at casual sex, but I feel like the answer to that question will tell me things about him I’d like to know. I mean, I guess it’d kind of apply because I’ve told him I’ll leave off from seeing "extra" people other than Rider, and it would kind of leave the door open for random experiences if I wanted them.
And I guess they DO occasionally happen—the once-in-a-blue-moon hooking up with a friend while drunk, or meeting someone hot while out of town . . . But it’s so rare because I don’t usually want sex without emotion. Shit, I guess that is also a once or twice per decade thing. So maybe it's even after all.
He was also saying that the thing that bothers him about the current situation is basically thinking that when I am at home, I am "like this" (where "this" was how I was being with him at the moment) with someone else. And I had to explain to him that it’s never exactly the same with anyone. There is no "like this" with Rider. There is only "like that." He merely shrugged.
He told me that during our nights apart, he'd read all the portions of
More Than Two that I'd bookmarked for him, and it didn't really do much for him. He felt like it was "telling him how to feel" and he already knows how he feels. I told him it's less about that, and more about learning how to deal with what you already feel. I guess it was not helpful at all to him, and I apologized for that, explaining that it had been helpful to me, so I'd been hopeful.
He said that we'll figure it out, that there are days when we're apart when he seriously thinks about breaking up over how much it hurts, but then we see each other, and it's like nothing else he's ever experienced—the magic, the sex, the conversation, the cuddling, how much we laugh, how we like so many of the same things.
He said that if I weren't there with him, showing him how meaningful and perfect everything could be when it is sweet and simple, he'd probably be wasting time in a bar just to be around people—having stupid conversations and drinking too much, because that's what he knows. But he has more fun with me, just walking through the park, or cuddled up in bed eating ice cream, or making dinner at home and having a glass of wine, or tangled up having serious conversations, then he does doing the nightlife stuff anymore. That stuff seems hollow—something to fill time with when he needs companionship but doesn't have access to the real thing. That the life we have when we're together feels good and real and healthy, and he's over doing the same old shit and is ready to try something new.
He said he feels like being committed to me, in a way he never has with anyone before, and so that means he's committed to making it work somehow . . . however we can.
So, anyway, that’s what has been on my mind so far today—mostly different shit than a couple days ago. The convo with him was thought-provoking and also enlightening as to his mindset.
About the stuff I was talking about the other day though . . . a weird coincidence happened this morning. So, I’d signed up for a blog mailing list for a guy’s "writing about life" posts that I’d liked one of his posts about relationships a while back. And in my email box today, I got
this.
And if you skip to the part on "stage 2," I think basically what I’m struggling with lately is how to move from stage 2 to stage 3. It’s like . . . that guy wrote a thing back in 2015 that perfectly describes the shit I’m going through this week, AND THEN COINCIDENTALLY EMAILED IT TO ME TODAY.
The other really weird coincidence is that it eerily echoes some of the shit Dustin was saying last night, about focus. Like, basically he was saying to me (in different words) that he’s recently discovered the diminishing returns of certain things (casual sex, and beginning to also feel that way about partying) and is ready to stabilize and commit to things that are important to him—the exact same concepts present in that article.
So, like, I got high Monday and was freaking out on Tuesday about shit (that I did not tell Dustin about) and then Dustin tells me on Wednesday some shit that seems tangentially related to the things I did not talk to him about, and then an article shows up in my inbox on Thursday that ties it all together. What is my life even doing to me right now? And what am I to do with all that information? Wheels, turning, turning turning . . .
