Miki (otherwise known as the Observant Israeli) came over today and we just hung out for seven hours. We used to…em… but today were just talking and drinking tea. 

Tomorrow’s his birthday. 

He came over agitated, but like most boys who hang out in my room for hours on end, he left happy. And there was no hanky panky. I just put them at ease and send them on their way. 

But as Elton said, “I think it’s gonna be a long, long time…” because I’m just not interested in the whole sex thing right now.

Who am I? I guess someone who really doesn’t want sex without connection. And it’s not the funnest part of my life. But it’s sincere and authentic. 

Connection isn’t easy to find. But after you eat a great steak, you don’t really get cravings for eating the Golden Corral. Not that he was bad. I mean, he even spoke in Hebrew…a lot…which is a total weakness. But I passed the test. Because it wasn’t the thing, you know?

I know when it’s going to happen. I can read men better now that I’m 41 and not 17. I just read this from something I wrote back in 2018:

There’s this look I sometimes get. It’s the rarest and most honest thing that could ever happen to me. It’s when I am talking to a lover and I just get lost in conversation. Suddenly the other person gets quiet and just stares at me. The autistic in me is delayed in realizing what is going on. With the Israeli, I’d ask, “What’s wrong?” And he’d say, “If you could only read my mind!”

With this guy last night, he just stopped and stared and then kissed me abruptly. 

I think what is happening is that I have this adorableness that comes out when I am at ease. The asshole part of me disappears and I am open and earnest. My voice changes, my face is relaxed. And it does something to them. They have this strong sexual urge but it’s also an emotional moment. Like thinking, “Who is this creature?” If there’s a name for this feeling I don’t know it. But I like the abandon it inspires in them and the joy of being caught off guard I feel. 

That was from November 2018. I was looking for a certain journal entry about the 🦄, and I read that instead. You just know when it’s going to happen and when it isn’t. But, I scrolled down one journal entry further down and found the one I was looking for. Back when hot sex was a visceral memory instead of a nostalgic feeling. It starts out like this and gets graphic (I’ll spare you).

I love playing dumb. I run so fast, it’s becoming second nature. It’s delayed satisfaction for him.

But instant pleasure watching him trying to sex it up while I pretend I have no clue what he wants. 

I like saying no in the back of a cab, when he takes his free hand and tried to slide it under my dress. It’s easy enough to do. He has to wait, while I’m silently cumming next to him. The only trick is getting the breathing right. I adjust my position and can feel the slick between my legs. 

And when we are home, I tell him he just *has* to see a video on YouTube. I make it impossible for him to lay on his side of the bed. Because we’re going to switch it up. He lays behind me, and I ask him what he’s doing. Because I want words. I want them to echo in my head as I cum alone, in my bed, months down the road. And I get them. I feel him hard up against my ass. But let’s see if we can push it off just a bit longer. 

This guy who’s so efficient. Who’s rational. Who’s saavy. It all changes in his bedroom. Then he is commanding. But not tonight. Tonight I’m in charge. Tonight he’s going to go down on me because it’s what I want. And I’m resolved to have things go my way. 

I mean, that was kinda graphic. But I spared you the more specific stuff. Sex with him was great because I didn’t have to ask. He just took charge. I made a bargain with the devil. I thought I could have sex without emotion. I could. I can. I still might. But I want the guy who knows how to make out. The one who kisses your eyelids and your neck in the most tender way while pressing you against the bed and holding your wrists. V did that. V and I won’t be doing that again. We’re just not those people to each other. But I really hope he gets the girl who brings out all the things in him.

V said this:

I don’t feel like I can let go and give you my full self during sex. It’s a strange thing…I just feel that we have such a cerebral relationship, we know each other well, I can’t seem to uninhibit myself in that sense. And you mentioned the same problem, but I see mine even going forward. It’s not intimidation in the slightest, or bashfulness. It’s that I feel too self aware of how we see each other and feel about each other; there’s a fight in me that doesn’t want you to know that guy. Does that make sense?

That doesn’t have anything to do with attraction, it’s just the plain fact that I don’t want to talk with you for hours as an expressive, thoughtful, and genuine person and then turn around and fuck like we’re the last two people on earth—naked and raw and loud. In the past I’ve only been able to make that switch with somebody if I’m simultaneously in love with them, which is not the case here. In all other cases, I’ve either just been me to someone—that is, a good friend or a devoted lover in body and mind—or put on a charm to have great, full, but meaningless sex with somebody I’d just met.

There is just something within me that would be…mildly embarrassed if you knew both of those men. Does that make sense? Does that sound stupid? And there is a part of me too that doesn’t think that means we can’t have sex, because I do like the catharsis of it, the materialization of our closeness and our bonding and understanding, but if it’s not going to be convicted, what’s the point? It may not be in the nature of our relationship to have sex.

It’s just not in the nature of what we are. It’s off balance. We can either be great friends and companions and confidants in one another, or be extremely sexually compatible if we chose to be. But I do not think we could do both. If we wanted to have more rewarding sex we would have to admire each other a lot less or be madly in love. Do you agree?

I totally agree. I want V to be what V is in our relationship. But it isn’t a lover. And that’s ok. We made out once after that, because I asked him to, because I sort of needed it. Not from him, just needed to feel connected from the top of my head to my body. And I was a little stoned and he was being cute. He indulged me after we discussed boundaries (five minutes, then we finish what we’re watching and no making out afterwards). I kept laughing the whole time because it was funny and cute and he kept stopping to ask me why I was laughing.

And then we just went back to being us. No big deal.

Love with great making out and great sex? I don’t know how many of those I’ll get in life. D, yes, of course, in terms of what great sex you can have with someone when you don’t even really know what else exists out there but you’re both so in earnest. The Israeli…I’d like to think so, but I don’t think I’ll ever get an answer to that one. J? Maybe sorta?

I’m midlife. And I’m female and straight. I don’t know how many more shots I’ll get at that. Will I even know it in the moment? I sure hope so. I’m so much better with reflection. Because I never had anything to compare it to, but now I do.

I think it’s like what Justice Potter Stewart said in Jacobellis v. Ohio. In trying to define obscenity as an exclusion to free speech, he said:

“I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description [“hard-core pornography”], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.”

I’ll know it when I see it. And that has to be enough for now.