A Four Letter Word?
"A woman can become a man's friend only in the following stages - first an acquaintance, next a mistress, and only then a friend."
- Anton Chekhov
Never before have I considered the possibility that I may not have the opportunity to sleep with my former lovers again. One or two disappeared at a time, but I never felt distance between myself and all of them at once. With my relationship still going well, that possibility is very real to me now.
Perhaps as a sidebar, I should note that I believe in monogamous "love" for my relationships. It's not that I don't enjoy sex with multiple partners--quite obviously I do (did?). It's polyamory that I've never been able to handle. For me, sex is one thing and love is another. Sometimes the two go together, and very often they do not. From my experience, I have not liked it much when love and sex were part of the same relationship. I liked it even less when love and sex were not exclusively mine in that relationship. Maybe I'm traditionalist at heart? Another topic for another time.
Being in a functional, committed and monogamous relationship means adjusting my interactions with former lovers. When The S visited in May, he attempted to kiss me goodbye and I had to politely decline, even though it broke my heart to do so. The first part of that doesn't seem strange to me. Old habits die hard. The fact that it pained me to refuse him does seem strange to me. I could shrug it off if this experience were just with The S--after all, I did spend the better part of 3 years pining away for him. The Friend of a Friend most understandably should have difficultly adjusting to my newly expanded personal space bubble. He was my most recent, and one of my most frequent lovers, and we did share in some profoundly life-altering moments. Again I find myself regretting having to push him away.
Inexperienced as I am at functional relationships, this causes me to feel guilty and worry that these are signs of the impending doom of my relationship. Still, it seems to me (and to my amazingly unfazed better half) that the feelings you had for someone don't necessarily go away just because you're no longer with them. If The S, The Friend of a Friend, Boy Blue or any of my other lovers had been traditional relationships, there would have been a definitive end and socially defined roles for us post break-up. Since that was never the case, it's hard to know when those relationships really ended, or if they did. It's harder still to know how to interact with men who have become rather integral parts of my life. I shouldn't feel guilty for continuing to care about these men, nor should I worry about the stability of my relationship. I am not interested in other men, nor do I wish that I were still sleeping with any of them. My concern really is how to appropriately act with them. How can I be friends with my exs?
If I take Chekhov's advice, I'm closer now to being friends with these men than I was had I not slept with them. Always one for pop culture inspiration, I also think of that Cake song: "Friend is a four letter word. End is the only part of the word that I heard."
I feel these men, whom at varying points I cared so deeply for, slipping out of my life. Suddenly it takes weeks to respond to an email, phone calls go unanswered, and friendly visits become less and less frequent. Many of my lovers were purely interested in me for sex. And that's just fine because I was purely interested in them for sex. There were a handful, however, who meant a great deal to me. I'd really like to be able to hold onto those few without sex, but I'm completely confused as to how to do it. If the answer is that you can't--let the past be the past, let go, other trite "move on" sayings, etc., then I believe I will be terribly sad. Is friendship the next stop after mistress, or is friend really a four letter word?
- Anton Chekhov
Never before have I considered the possibility that I may not have the opportunity to sleep with my former lovers again. One or two disappeared at a time, but I never felt distance between myself and all of them at once. With my relationship still going well, that possibility is very real to me now.
Perhaps as a sidebar, I should note that I believe in monogamous "love" for my relationships. It's not that I don't enjoy sex with multiple partners--quite obviously I do (did?). It's polyamory that I've never been able to handle. For me, sex is one thing and love is another. Sometimes the two go together, and very often they do not. From my experience, I have not liked it much when love and sex were part of the same relationship. I liked it even less when love and sex were not exclusively mine in that relationship. Maybe I'm traditionalist at heart? Another topic for another time.
Being in a functional, committed and monogamous relationship means adjusting my interactions with former lovers. When The S visited in May, he attempted to kiss me goodbye and I had to politely decline, even though it broke my heart to do so. The first part of that doesn't seem strange to me. Old habits die hard. The fact that it pained me to refuse him does seem strange to me. I could shrug it off if this experience were just with The S--after all, I did spend the better part of 3 years pining away for him. The Friend of a Friend most understandably should have difficultly adjusting to my newly expanded personal space bubble. He was my most recent, and one of my most frequent lovers, and we did share in some profoundly life-altering moments. Again I find myself regretting having to push him away.
Inexperienced as I am at functional relationships, this causes me to feel guilty and worry that these are signs of the impending doom of my relationship. Still, it seems to me (and to my amazingly unfazed better half) that the feelings you had for someone don't necessarily go away just because you're no longer with them. If The S, The Friend of a Friend, Boy Blue or any of my other lovers had been traditional relationships, there would have been a definitive end and socially defined roles for us post break-up. Since that was never the case, it's hard to know when those relationships really ended, or if they did. It's harder still to know how to interact with men who have become rather integral parts of my life. I shouldn't feel guilty for continuing to care about these men, nor should I worry about the stability of my relationship. I am not interested in other men, nor do I wish that I were still sleeping with any of them. My concern really is how to appropriately act with them. How can I be friends with my exs?
If I take Chekhov's advice, I'm closer now to being friends with these men than I was had I not slept with them. Always one for pop culture inspiration, I also think of that Cake song: "Friend is a four letter word. End is the only part of the word that I heard."
I feel these men, whom at varying points I cared so deeply for, slipping out of my life. Suddenly it takes weeks to respond to an email, phone calls go unanswered, and friendly visits become less and less frequent. Many of my lovers were purely interested in me for sex. And that's just fine because I was purely interested in them for sex. There were a handful, however, who meant a great deal to me. I'd really like to be able to hold onto those few without sex, but I'm completely confused as to how to do it. If the answer is that you can't--let the past be the past, let go, other trite "move on" sayings, etc., then I believe I will be terribly sad. Is friendship the next stop after mistress, or is friend really a four letter word?
posted by The Husskateer at 8:44 PM
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