On a good day, I’d jerk off two-three times a day (whether or not I get sex). Once as soon as I wake up and once before bed and sometimes the third time right after I get home from work and the gym and I plop onto my bed exhausted with nothing else to do. Of course this isn’t every day of the week but somewhere between 4-6 days per week. It helps me to stay energized, helps me sleep, helps keep me in good spirits–it feels good and it’s a part of my daily routine. But ever since deciding to me monogamous in a long-distance relationship (yea I know) I’ve noticed that I have been struggling to ‘get it up.’

I just came back from Puerto Rico this week earlier, it was beautiful, warm and full of salsa. What a relief from the weather (and searing heartbreak) here in Chicago). While bitter sweet (this was intended to be a surprise birthday trip for Mr. P) I gotta say I’m going back and I’ll tell write more about it in my next post, pictures to come as well.

Chicago is a city of neighborhoods. I know every place is a hood but here it’s very intentional. There are bars at every corner on residential streets between the laundromats and the markets, hidden between two brownstones hidden between balconies and flower beds. It’s easy for an alcoholic here I’ve never been to another city in the U.S. with so many little bars.

Chicago is also cold. That’s an understatement; well last winter was one of the worst this city has seen in the last ten years (at least that’s what the meteorologists say but for some reason the meteorologists here NEVER get the weather straight). It was painful really especially after having spent that last several years in Atlanta where people complain and school shuts down if it’s less than 40 degrees. Love is worth the cold though.

“Is compromise going against all your beliefs, fighting all of your natural instincts and changing your values for good sex and the hope of finding happiness and wholeness outside of yourself, away from  a higher power?” That’s what I wrote in my last post which was over seven months ago! Those were thoughts I was having and they often pop into my mind but I don’t believe them to be my fundamental truths.

This is hard to write. I don’t yet have the words and I thought that writing might help me get them out. I thought that perhaps if I only just could articulate it here in this blog, in cyberspace, on my keypad  with my spellcheck and some clever jokes then maybe I could admit it. I’m not ready yet I guess or maybe I just don’t have any words. Sometimes when bad things happen words escape us. And I don’t even really know if it’s words that escape us more than us just returning to a pre language state when all was just instant gratification and pure emotion. There are enough songs about broken hearts and broken relationships and ended love affairs and regret and pain and suffering to not have to write another word about it. But I guess like all other experiences for us human beings it is never real, authentic or close until it happens to us.

Sometimes breathing is very hard. Even in the midst of such great joy and gratefulness for being alive, for searching for faith that was once lost, surrounded by family and friends who truly love and protect, for having the good fortune to be living here with a job and everything I need and to be at times so filled with thanks to everyone and God and god? and even love, it can be so hard to breathe in deep and exhale fully. Hard to recover when living with an addict, hard to understand the whirlwind of bullshit that just came outta left field, hard to accept someone you knew but turned out to be a complete stranger, hard to exist with such darkness and pain, hard to let go and allow one to recover alone with no help to not take it personally to not be so, so deeply disappointed; especially hard when that path of love lead you to moved across a country. And if you hadn’t followed that path while its end may have been destructive, you wouldn’t be and have what you have now and be able to help  your family nor would your love have even realized the depths to which their pain has damaged them, nor would you have had the opportunity to be an offer a life that had never experienced a functional love, nor would they bottom out to rebuild, nor would they have seen how much the pain inflicted on them for so many years dug a hole so deep inside them and silenced years of pain so that it chipped away at their ability to recieve love. It’s hard to breathe and it’s hard to dance. And dancing is life.

Can you ever remember a time when you didn’t wish things were just a little bit different? A time when if you only had that one wish, it would make your life perfect? That’s the problem with the way things were. If you go back to it, nothing will really change all that much. You’ll have fun for awhile but there will be a small part of you secretly discontent because of the one thing that you don’t possess. Going back to the way things were is like returning to the womb. After having seen the light, felt the warmth of another person, smelled the scent of your mother, a lover, how could you go back to the beginning when all the lights and sounds were clouded and came from outside of your protected existence?

Going back never works with human beings relating to one another. Isn’t that really what a relationship is? So then what is forgiveness? And what does it mean to change? Is compromise going against all your beliefs, fighting all of your natural instincts and changing your values for good sex and the hope of finding happiness and wholeness outside of yourself, away from from a higher power? Hmm…just some thoughts floating through my head that day…

I’ve moved. I’ve stopped writing. And I’m domesticated once again.

But, I will be changing the spin of things here on my bloggie blog–getting back into the swing of things. (No, I don’t know exactly what that means.) I know that the 2+ people that read this blog as I’ve seen on my stats are just folks who’ve accidentally stumbled upon my posts because I’ve inserted the words “free pussy pics” randomly throughout this blog and not because they have any interest whatsoever in what I–lowly I–have to say.

That said, I’m going to begin documenting my time here in Chicago using film and reviews of live music as my medium. I’ve been blessed enough, unlike most of the country, to find a job that pays well and happens to be work I LOVE doing and unlike other work I’ve had, I’m very much appreciated here. My apartment is in a neighborhood called Humboldt Park. Humboldt Park is a predominantly Puerto Rican neighborhood with a long history of cultural resistance. Like other cities around the countries, it is being gentrified (like my beloved Harlem & Washington Heights) but it is a beautiful little spot and my apartment is cute. It sits right on the edge of another neighborhood called Ukranian Village (guess who predominantly lives there).

I arrive exactly 29 days ago, January 6th, right in the middle of this “cold front.” It’s nothing like New York City—way colder.

I’m still fucking around with this salsero here. Mr. P. He’s a very sweet man. Like that song Aretha Franklin sang. He’s also a sloppy eater and a great lay, a little too sensitive and sometimes strangely insecure, also confident and funny and once in a while kind of unreadable–like we all are I’m sure. We’ll see about this one. For now, he’s a keeper. 

The great thing about Chicago is the salsa scene here. I’ve been told it isn’t any where near what it used to be. But after spending so many years in Atlanta where the salsa scene is relatively small, predictable and live music scarce–Chicago is great for salsa! There are at least 5 nights a week somewhere playing live salsa and as the year rolls on, especially past March, it’ll be every night of the week. My next post will be soon…I promise pussy picture readers. I’ll come back with some photos, maybe a little review of the local salsa scene and lots more. On a more depressing note, if you’ve gotten this far in the post I guess you’re a little invested in my life. Normally I’m a horny person, in fact, really horny. It’s kind my thing–being horny. But a long distance, monogamous relationship can really fuck that up. Basically all year I’ve been a “one-man woman” (not during the brief time that we separated and all bets were off . Well by the end of the summer, after months of no sex with a few days of sex thrown in every 6 weeks, I noticed my sex began to steadily decline. By the end of the fall, I was almost revirginized and I was totally ambivalent about sex. Well…I’ll have to finish this story later cuz I’m tired and I have an early morning.

This is not my article, but the person who wrote it is cited. I was glad to see this and I think it helps to explain to everyday folks the realities of life for people of color and how every single move that people of color make, just as every decision a woman makes IS politicized. unfortunately, men are trained not to notice their privilege and therefore perpetuate it (even though they are not necessarily  ’sexist’ just as white people are trained not to notice their privilege–both privileges which are undeserved). Just as it should not be a woman’s responsibility to carry the burden of male domination, it should not be the burden of people of color for white privilege.

Here is the link to other writings from this person

White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

“I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group”

Peggy McIntosh

Through work to bring materials from women’s studies into the rest of the curriculum, I have often noticed men’s unwillingness to grant that they are overprivileged, even though they may grant that women are disadvantaged. They may say they will work to women’s statues, in the society, the university, or the curriculum, but they can’t or won’t support the idea of lessening men’s. Denials that amount to taboos surround the subject of advantages that men gain from women’s disadvantages. These denials protect male privilege from being fully acknowledged, lessened, or ended.

Thinking through unacknowledged male privilege as a phenomenon, I realized that, since hierarchies in our society are interlocking, there are most likely a phenomenon, I realized that, since hierarchies in our society are interlocking, there was most likely a phenomenon of while privilege that was similarly denied and protected. As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something that puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts me at an advantage.

I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege. So I have begun in an untutored way to ask what it is like to have white privilege. I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was “meant” to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools , and blank checks.

Describing white privilege makes one newly accountable. As we in women’s studies work to reveal male privilege and ask men to give up some of their power, so one who writes about having white privilege must ask, “having described it, what will I do to lessen or end it?”

After I realized the extent to which men work from a base of unacknowledged privilege, I understood that much of their oppressiveness was unconscious. Then I remembered the frequent charges from women of color that white women whom they encounter are oppressive. I began to understand why we are just seen as oppressive, even when we don’t see ourselves that way. I began to count the ways in which I enjoy unearned skin privilege and have been conditioned into oblivion about its existence.

My schooling gave me no training in seeing myself as an oppressor, as an unfairly advantaged person, or as a participant in a damaged culture. I was taught to see myself as an individual whose moral state depended on her individual moral will. My schooling followed the pattern my colleague Elizabeth Minnich has pointed out: whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average, and also ideal, so that when we work to benefit others, this is seen as work that will allow “them” to be more like “us.”

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Daily effects of white privilege

I decided to try to work on myself at least by identifying some of the daily effects of white privilege in my life. I have chosen those conditions that I think in my case attach somewhat more to skin-color privilege than to class, religion, ethnic status, or geographic location, though of course all these other factors are intricately intertwined. As far as I can tell, my African American coworkers, friends, and acquaintances with whom I come into daily or frequent contact in this particular time, place and time of work cannot count on most of these conditions.

1. I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.

2. I can avoid spending time with people whom I was trained to mistrust and who have learned to mistrust my kind or me.

3. If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I would want to live.

4. I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me.

5. I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.

6. I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.

7. When I am told about our national heritage or about “civilization,” I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.

8. I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.

9. If I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece on white privilege.

10. I can be pretty sure of having my voice heard in a group in which I am the only member of my race.

11. I can be casual about whether or not to listen to another person’s voice in a group in which s/he is the only member of his/her race.

12. I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race represented, into a supermarket and find the staple foods which fit with my cultural traditions, into a hairdresser’s shop and find someone who can cut my hair.

13. Whether I use checks, credit cards or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial reliability.

14. I can arrange to protect my children most of the time from people who might not like them.

15. I do not have to educate my children to be aware of systemic racism for their own daily physical protection.

16. I can be pretty sure that my children’s teachers and employers will tolerate them if they fit school and workplace norms; my chief worries about them do not concern others’ attitudes toward their race.

17. I can talk with my mouth full and not have people put this down to my color.

18. I can swear, or dress in second hand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty or the illiteracy of my race.

19. I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial.

20. I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.

21. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.

22. I can remain oblivious of the language and customs of persons of color who constitute the world’s majority without feeling in my culture any penalty for such oblivion.

23. I can criticize our government and talk about how much I fear its policies and behavior without being seen as a cultural outsider.

24. I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to the “person in charge”, I will be facing a person of my race.

25. If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven’t been singled out because of my race.

26. I can easily buy posters, post-cards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys and children’s magazines featuring people of my race.

27. I can go home from most meetings of organizations I belong to feeling somewhat tied in, rather than isolated, out-of-place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance or feared.

28. I can be pretty sure that an argument with a colleague of another race is more likely to jeopardize her/his chances for advancement than to jeopardize mine.

29. I can be pretty sure that if I argue for the promotion of a person of another race, or a program centering on race, this is not likely to cost me heavily within my present setting, even if my colleagues disagree with me.

30. If I declare there is a racial issue at hand, or there isn’t a racial issue at hand, my race will lend me more credibility for either position than a person of color will have.

31. I can choose to ignore developments in minority writing and minority activist programs, or disparage them, or learn from them, but in any case, I can find ways to be more or less protected from negative consequences of any of these choices.

32. My culture gives me little fear about ignoring the perspectives and powers of people of other races.

33. I am not made acutely aware that my shape, bearing or body odor will be taken as a reflection on my race.

34. I can worry about racism without being seen as self-interested or self-seeking.

35. I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having my co-workers on the job suspect that I got it because of my race.

36. If my day, week or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it had racial overtones.

37. I can be pretty sure of finding people who would be willing to talk with me and advise me about my next steps, professionally.

38. I can think over many options, social, political, imaginative or professional, without asking whether a person of my race would be accepted or allowed to do what I want to do.

39. I can be late to a meeting without having the lateness reflect on my race.

40. I can choose public accommodation without fearing that people of my race cannot get in or will be mistreated in the places I have chosen.

41. I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help, my race will not work against me.

42. I can arrange my activities so that I will never have to experience feelings of rejection owing to my race.

43. If I have low credibility as a leader I can be sure that my race is not the problem.

44. I can easily find academic courses and institutions which give attention only to people of my race.

45. I can expect figurative language and imagery in all of the arts to testify to experiences of my race.

46. I can chose blemish cover or bandages in “flesh” color and have them more or less match my skin.

47. I can travel alone or with my spouse without expecting embarrassment or hostility in those who deal with us.

48. I have no difficulty finding neighborhoods where people approve of our household.

49. My children are given texts and classes which implicitly support our kind of family unit and do not turn them against my choice of domestic partnership.

50. I will feel welcomed and “normal” in the usual walks of public life, institutional and social.

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Elusive and fugitive

I repeatedly forgot each of the realizations on this list until I wrote it down. For me white privilege has turned out to be an elusive and fugitive subject. The pressure to avoid it is great, for in facing it I must give up the myth of meritocracy. If these things are true, this is not such a free country; one’s life is not what one makes it; many doors open for certain people through no virtues of their own.

In unpacking this invisible knapsack of white privilege, I have listed conditions of daily experience that I once took for granted. Nor did I think of any of these perquisites as bad for the holder. I now think that we need a more finely differentiated taxonomy of privilege, for some of these varieties are only what one would want for everyone in a just society, and others give license to be ignorant, oblivious, arrogant, and destructive.

I see a pattern running through the matrix of white privilege, a patter of assumptions that were passed on to me as a white person. There was one main piece of cultural turf; it was my own turn, and I was among those who could control the turf. My skin color was an asset for any move I was educated to want to make. I could think of myself as belonging in major ways and of making social systems work for me. I could freely disparage, fear, neglect, or be oblivious to anything outside of the dominant cultural forms. Being of the main culture, I could also criticize it fairly freely.

In proportion as my racial group was being made confident, comfortable, and oblivious, other groups were likely being made unconfident, uncomfortable, and alienated. Whiteness protected me from many kinds of hostility, distress, and violence, which I was being subtly trained to visit, in turn, upon people of color.

For this reason, the word “privilege” now seems to me misleading. We usually think of privilege as being a favored state, whether earned or conferred by birth or luck. Yet some of the conditions I have described here work systematically to over empower certain groups. Such privilege simply confers dominance because of one’s race or sex.

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Earned strength, unearned power

I want, then, to distinguish between earned strength and unearned power conferred privilege can look like strength when it is in fact permission to escape or to dominate. But not all of the privileges on my list are inevitably damaging. Some, like the expectation that neighbors will be decent to you, or that your race will not count against you in court, should be the norm in a just society. Others, like the privilege to ignore less powerful people, distort the humanity of the holders as well as the ignored groups.

We might at least start by distinguishing between positive advantages, which we can work to spread, and negative types of advantage, which unless rejected will always reinforce our present hierarchies. For example, the feeling that one belongs within the human circle, as Native Americans say, should not be seen as privilege for a few. Ideally it is an unearned entitlement. At present, since only a few have it, it is an unearned advantage for them. This paper results from a process of coming to see that some of the power that I originally say as attendant on being a human being in the United States consisted in unearned advantage and conferred dominance.

I have met very few men who truly distressed about systemic, unearned male advantage and conferred dominance. And so one question for me and others like me is whether we will be like them, or whether we will get truly distressed, even outraged, about unearned race advantage and conferred dominance, and, if so, what we will do to lessen them. In any case, we need to do more work in identifying how they actually affect our daily lives. Many, perhaps most, of our white students in the United States think that racism doesn’t affect them because they are not people of color; they do not see “whiteness” as a racial identity. In addition, since race and sex are not the only advantaging systems at work, we need similarly to examine the daily experience of having age advantage, or ethnic advantage, or physical ability, or advantage related to nationality, religion, or sexual orientation.

Difficulties and angers surrounding the task of finding parallels are many. Since racism, sexism, and heterosexism are not the same, the advantages associated with them should not be seen as the same. In addition, it is hard to disentangle aspects of unearned advantage that rest more on social class, economic class, race, religion, sex, and ethnic identity that on other factors. Still, all of the oppressions are interlocking, as the members of the Combahee River Collective pointed out in their “Black Feminist Statement” of 1977.

One factor seems clear about all of the interlocking oppressions. They take both active forms, which we can see, and embedded forms, which as a member of the dominant groups one is taught not to see. In my class and place, I did not see myself as a racist because I was taught to recognize racism only in individual acts of meanness by members of my group, never in invisible systems conferring unsought racial dominance on my group from birth.

Disapproving of the system won’t be enough to change them. I was taught to think that racism could end if white individuals changed their attitude. But a “white” skin in the United States opens many doors for whites whether or not we approve of the way dominance has been conferred on us. Individual acts can palliate but cannot end, these problems.

To redesign social systems we need first to acknowledge their colossal unseen dimensions. The silences and denials surrounding privilege are the key political surrounding privilege are the key political tool here. They keep the thinking about equality or equity incomplete, protecting unearned advantage and conferred dominance by making these subject taboo. Most talk by whites about equal opportunity seems to me now to be about equal opportunity to try to get into a position of dominance while denying that systems of dominance exist.

It seems to me that obliviousness about white advantage, like obliviousness about male advantage, is kept strongly inculturated in the United States so as to maintain the myth of meritocracy, the myth that democratic choice is equally available to all. Keeping most people unaware that freedom of confident action is there for just a small number of people props up those in power and serves to keep power in the hands of the same groups that have most of it already.

Although systemic change takes many decades, there are pressing questions for me and, I imagine, for some others like me if we raise our daily consciousness on the perquisites of being light-skinned. What will we do with such knowledge? As we know from watching men, it is an open question whether we will choose to use unearned advantage, and whether we will use any of our arbitrarily awarded power to try to reconstruct power systems on a broader base.

Peggy McIntosh is associate director of the Wellesley Collage Center for Research on Women. This essay is excerpted from Working Paper 189. “White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming To See Correspondences through Work in Women’s Studies” (1988), by Peggy McIntosh; available for $4.00 from the Wellesley College Center for Research on Women, Wellesley MA 02181 The working paper contains a longer list of privileges.

This excerpted essay is reprinted from the Winter 1990 issue of Independent School.

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Every moment is a test. A test to see what my real intentions are. A test to see if I’m growing up. A test to see if I’ve lied to myself all this time. A test to see if I’m strong enough to live by my convictions even if the people I care about may leave. A test of myself. A test to see if I’ll tell the truth this time. A test of my family and friends. A test of will and desire. A test of detachment. Every moment now is a test and all I can think of is the answer key. You are my answer. You.

This past week my body has been very weak, not matter how much rest I get or how much food I eat. I’ve reached a place though that I’ve never reached before. I don’t care anymore. Not in a bad, depressed way. In a very healthily detached way. Although it’s frustrating because the people around me really don’t know (I don’t tell them), I guess I’ll figure it out. I have one semester of class left, only 1 course to take. I still plan on NYU for grad school. We’ll see how that works out. The weather is beautiful here in Atlanta. I know where I want to go now and I’ve let go of my fantasy (no details). It was a nice one though but I’m staying put at least until my lease is up September 2009. If any moves should happen, it won’t be me. I’m too new at this to do it all over again.

I’ve been super anti-social all week. In fact, I don’t even want to leave my apartment even though it’s gorgeous outside. I’m actually missing dancing in the park right now (to live music). But I feel good here just lying around. Yesterday I got so tired of being around people, I started annoying myself because I couldn’t get away from me. Isn’t that just ridiculous? I can’t wait to get back to New York City! That’s all for now. Saw that movie Iron Man. I have to write an entire separate blog about that movie. Politically, it was sooo fucked up. Special effects and ‘coolness’ factor was okay though. Aight, I’m out. Stay black.

Last week was insanity. There was a big conference with work in Chicago. Finally, after several months, me and Mr. P had our first fight. It was quite the little squabble, in fact, I thought it would be our last one. I was more disappointed with the way he acted than the fight itself, especially because I didn’t think it was a big deal at the beginning. There’s no need to get into details except to say that at the end of it all, fear was the only reason the fight happened in the first place. I had predicted back in December that that particular weekend would be our last weekend together, because it would mark the end of my work in Chicago for that project. So when he walked out, I figured I was right and maybe that was what he wanted. What struck me too was my own reaction. If this were a few years ago I probably would have been very abrasive, hurtful even. But I learned a few things from someone a lot more patient than me. “Better that happened now than later,” my girlfriend told me. I said to her that his reaction was unexpected and that the things he said were impossible to forgive more than once. I didn’t mention it at the time but I had to question myself about what forgiveness really meant.

The make-up sex wasn’t really make-up sex. At least it didn’t feel like that to me. He made love to me afterwards. It was very early in the morning, early enough for the sun to start rising. I didn’t want to fall asleep. I wanted to lay there and squeeze the life out of him with my thighs. I love Mr. P. I don’t need Mr. P. I want Mr. P to trust me. I want to be consistent enough so that Mr. P can learn how to trust me. I’ve noticed that he’s sensitive, much more sensitive than I am. On the other hand there are 700 miles between us. Still, there have been larger distances, barriers and obstacles that other lovers and couples have had to deal with.

Candid

I don’t think that most people put much time into choosing to fall in love or allowing it to happen. I haven’t had that experience, I just go with my heart and my guts and they don’t waste any time. Perhaps it’s because we’re human beings and human beings tend to form these bonds with other human beings–no matter who they are. It is a natural thing for us to do, it’s the first thing we learn to do emotionally (if we grow up in a healthy enough environment). With Mr. P it was different. I didn’t feel this strongly initially. In fact, I was pretty detached about it and assumed he would just be someone I was fucking. Mostly because during our first encounters he didn’t reveal much about his personality to me. Then one day he said something sharp, quick, witty, and I replied “O, he’s a sharp one.” That was when my interest peaked.

I have a few worries though, serious worries about him and some of his behavior and choices now that I’m getting to know him better. I know he has them of me too, with good reason. But he tells me, “I’m fine, don’t worry about it.” I don’t know. In this case time will tell. And I wonder if he can tell me how he feels about us at some point, while sober. In the meantime, however, I find it hilarious that if I don’t watch myself, I’ll spend hours thinking about nonsense and how ridiculous it was that my very first attraction was that he danced on2 and understood that the tiny little gesture of me brushing my finger gently across his meant, “stay for a few minutes, I’m not done with you.” Whatever, we both enjoy youporn and mambo.

This is me and my ’special friend’ dancing. My kind of excitement is different. I don’t go out to parties and clubs or art openings or theater much. I don’t shop for pleasure I don’t host people at my house I don’t even call back people I consider to be friends regularly or even periodically enough for them to continue liking me. Still, my life is pretty damn exciting. I’ve been learning about myself with my current “special friend” we’ll call him. As I haven’t yet, I’ll divulge a little about him now that I feel like sharing. Not the typical things like his height, weight or eye color, or even his favorite food or the type of car he drives or doesn’t drive. Nope. I’ll steer clear of that for now. What I’d like to write about him is what he does. You see he is, like my EX a very maternal person, a giver and very sweet. Unlike my EX, he can be very charming. To be clear, what I am doing here is not “comparing and contrasting” the two. Instead, I’m noting my own pattern. Sure I’ve met and/or ‘known’ many different people but there have only been three that I’ve ever been serious with (using the term serious loosely). And only two because high school doesn’t count. What they had in common was their kindness and their gentleness. And I, the brute, have what exactly I don’t know.

The past few days I hosted my “special friend.” During that time I noticed some very interesting things about myself. Relationships are so weird to me because even though you get to know the other person, you also learn more about yourself as well. I decided that this time around I was going to be more realistic. Not about the other person but about myself. I decided, first of all, that I would not lie about my fidelity. Just in case my EX is reading this (which I doubt but to my surprise found out he did read at times during our relationship–which was shocking because he never surprised me) what I have to date done is not exactly lie, but kind of go off on my little adventures as if single with whomever I pleased and then return back to my ‘home partner’ and eventually tell them what I did ; -| I don’t recommend that. That was all before I realized I was not a bad person, no, I am a polyamorous person. The thing to remember about polyamory is that it isn’t polyamory if all those involved aren’t fully in the know. And while my ‘lovers’ were in the know about my partner, my partner would find out later–which is just called cheating–but in another post I will explain why in my case it was never cheating. But now I’m ranting, so to get back. I also decided that this time around I would watch my reactions and critically examine my intentions as much as I could–while still moving naturally with this person and experiencing the present all the times I could. No it’s not an oxymoron.

Well, after the past few days I have come to realize a few things. 1) I am not always a reciprocal person when it comes to affection (that doesn’t mean that I don’t give head if I get head) 2) My selfishness can sometimes cause me to behave childishly 3) What I want and what I can really put up with for are two different things (this can cause conflict) and 4) I need to let go more. The last one I thought I was getting a good grip on, but in practice you keep learning that there is always work to be done no matter how much it is. This brings me back to my title EX, X or Ex? EX is short for x-partner. X means delete. Ex is the drug ecstacy.

What does all this mean? Did I have a good time? Am I in love? What does it mean to be in love, what are my responsibilities?

I think it means that I have to X it. To really challenge my own beliefs. What is hard for me to understand is–by X-ing am I only being selfish again because I could hurt someone else’s feelings just to understand my own. Or am I not living in the moment because I am denying myself good intentions that for some reason this person wants to share with me; or am I, in fact, challenging my own selfishness and possessiveness in a positive way. Or am I just scared?

I had a good time and also a revealing time.

I hope to be in a state of love with this person, I don’t know what the future has in store. I think it’s empty and will have what I’ve stored from my past and kept; in this case I’d like to imagine it is a sort of love or at least the preclude to love.

My responsibility is only to say what I feel in the moment I feel it. I just don’t want to die without the people I care for never hearing it from me.