A dilemma. And one that must be short-lived.
The interwoven, interleaved, and sometimes internecine workings of my group of friends and acquaintances - created the basis of the dilemma.
My beloved friend, the one who threw open the doors to his home with such unthinking generosity, he in some ways is so similar to me. However, he is in more ways fundamentally different. I am glib. His words are awkward. He is a canny business person, less afraid than I am of risk-taking. Big risks. I am loathe to admit it, but in business his intuitive ability to strategize, I believe, is better than mine.
But in matters of the heart, he and I are often the same. We fall in love, we want to give, we want to be loved in return. And in spite of all these things, we do not fall for just anybody. We are hopeful romantics. We wait for that undefinable zing, tingle, palpitation, sweaty palm, a slight drop in the stomach. The brain chemical that causes a real biological reaction. Almost like a drug, the feeling, the impulse that makes us pursue the love object, the desire and need to be with that one person.
Sometimes, in the meantime, we engage with others, with our whole bodies, even though we know we don't have that unique lure, that magnetic draw.
I have done it, I admit it. But I don't do it so much, if at all, anymore.
Sometimes, my friend does it. In truth, I know it helps his sense of self worth. He has told me so. Like me, in the deep recess of his head, he retains the vestige of an authoritarian voice, the voice that scolds, that criticizes, that insists he is undeserving.
He is in the middle of one such dalliance. He has expressed his concern to me. The woman he is seeing is sweet, is kind, is attractive, is intelligent, and has her own demanding career. A throw of the dice - something he would understand in a flash - and he might have allowed different feelings to encompass his rational thought. But those most powerful of feelings, they did not emerge.
He told me that he feels a bit bad about the whole thing.
I asked him if the woman had raised the issue about the nature of their acquaintance. They know one another perhaps two months, perhaps a bit more. They are intimate with one another. That happened from the start, the first night they met. And it has continued.
He told me the sex was great. But that he is not in love, that the relationship is casual, easy. And yet...
Through idle cocktail chit-chat with other of our shared friends last week, I learned that the woman does want more from him, that her feelings for him are not casual, that she desires more.
But she has not been plain with him. And so, I imagine they make plans to see one another, to continue in the same sexualized interplay into which they fell from the first.
I have not dissuaded my friend from maintaining his interaction. His heart, like mine, was torn apart over a year ago, and I think that he deserves a little bit of happiness, of physical closeness with another body.
I have not had the courage to let someone come near me the way he has. I think he's further along the line than I am. And I remain hopeful - most of the time.
And then. And then I got to thinking. One of the voices, not the nasty authoritarian voice. The hyper-analytic voice. The one that chats with me about science, that shows me reason - or so I want to believe.
I remember reading somewhere, an article about the nature of female sexual response, how the female orgasm spurs the release of endorphins into our bloodstreams, so powerful that we become addicted to the source - rare or not - but most often the person who participated in, if not inspired that fierce physical reaction. And I have written about it, suggesting that women, even very smart women, even women who otherwise appear to be in absolute control of themselves, lose it, the ability to be clear, to have clear thought - once they have had mind-blowing sex.
I suspect that this has happened to the woman who is involved with my friend. He has a generous nature, so I imagine he has been so very good to her. In all ways.
And she may have lost it a little. She may have fallen.
It happens.
And so now, perhaps I will explain this to him, tell him the story inside us women, how our biology sometimes overpowers our ability to reason. How she may have fallen in love with him.
And then, I may suggest that since his acquaintance is short in its duration, that perhaps he can break it off now, with some equanimity - before it proceeds further, before the scales tip, before disaster.
I suspect he knows this already.
We women know when it's not working. But the sex twists the logic, and we sometimes think, "Well, maybe if I wait. Maybe if I bide my time. It will change." But we know it won't. It never does.
I haven't had the chance to discuss any of this with my friend - yet. And I feel I must.
Perhaps the right action is now more mine than his. The onus is mine.
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