Time to move on...

So SNS has dumped me.

It'll take me a day or two to work through it all, but I usually bounce back from this moment and go back to "single and seeking" mode (which is, after all, where I spend most of my time). For now, though, I'm listening to Marc Orchin and Bonnie Burden's version of "The Rose" ("When the night has been too lonely/ and the road has been too long/ and you think that love is only/ for the lucky, and for the strong..." etc - I've often felt that way!) and wishing I had chocolate ice cream in the flat.

For all I disbelieve in horoscopes and astrology, I typify my star sign of Cancer in my sense of hearth and home and just wanting to settle down with someone. (I recall reading that I also typify my Chinese horoscope sign, the Horse, since Horses tend to go head-over-heels in love at the first sign of interest - I wouldn't say I'm that bad but I certainly fall for a person quickly when I do.) Point being - I want commitment and I hold back from it only to make sure (hopefully) that the other person feels the same way. It mystifies me when gender-essentialists insist that it's only women who need commitment from every relationship, who confuse sex with love, who need the luvvyduvvy stuff; I wouldn't say I confuse sex with love, but I'm certainly looking for a committed relationship and (regardless of the deep sadism in my soul!) yearn for the coupling of a nice cuddle and tenderness as well. But men are supposed to be the ones who don't like to commit, who are just after a shag, who don't get "romance" for its own sake and all that. That's not me - but then, by some people's measurements I am apparently not a man, despite the physical evidence to the contrary and my own internal identification as such.

SNS told me that she isn't ready to be a girlfriend at the moment (meaning a steady relationship) and to be honest, I was kind of prepared for that. Her kink experience went, when we started seeing each other, from 0 to 60 in almost no time at all and part of me felt that maybe she would feel some need or desire to see what else is out there before saying finally, "this is the man that I plan to entangle". After all, as kink goes what I gave her may have been pretty mediocre for her actual desires but when you go from 'nilla to kink and kink is what you're built for (i.e. you're "orientationally" kinky) then everything must feel absolutely amazing and better than anything ever (slight exaggeration, I suppose, but that's kind of how I felt when I first got to do kink in r/l). Rather like blundering around with candles for ages and then finding the lightswitch to turn the electric light on. But once you get used to the new brightness, discriminating between the pretty and the not-as-good-looking becomes that much easier as well (NB - "pretty" is a metaphor here only: I'm not in any way suggesting SNS called me ugly!). So, as I say, I had kind of prepared myself for the possibility that she might feel that she wasn't ready to pick me over all others, and that's cool.

Of course, it's left me hurt. When you start to love someone, you leave yourself vulnerable to that and that's the deal. I'm okay with that hurt, because it's the price I have to pay each and every time. The alternative is to be calloused and never to give myself again, which is unbearable to me - definitely a "better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all" kind of guy, me.

Michele Welborn sings, "You can use me/ I don't bruise easily" - for me the first part is true (I wouldn't say I feel used by SNS exactly, but the sentiment holds). But I wouldn't say that I "don't bruise easily" - I hurt deeply and hard. I recover quickly, though. I console myself with the line "Pick myself up, dust myself down, move on to the next bear trap." The meaning is NOT that women are traps for the unwary, but rather that I go into a relationship prepared for the possibility it might not last and that the next one will hurt just as badly. And, as explained, I gladly accept that risk, that price.

With this philosophical outlook, of course, I find it very hard to feel any lingering resentment or animosity towards someone who breaks up with me. SNS and I have agreed to keep in contact (she even wants to come here for casual play once in a while, and I have some DVDs I promised to lend her, too) and I am sure that we will remain good friends. Even those with whom I have lost contact remain in my heart, I figure I don't stop loving someone just because we're not a couple and we've both moved on; it's just a different kind of love.

So my best wishes go with SNS and hope that she finds her fulfilment of her kink with as many or as few men and/or women as she desires. And I go back to seeking mine...