Thursday, March 09, 2006
Negotiations
I met J about six months after I started prowling around on Craigslist. Prowl being the operative word here. Because she was my first real female in a long long time, I probably exaggerate her impact on me. But she had an impact. I find I miss her, and think about her often. It stunned me that I would meet such a quality woman so early in my life as part-time dyke.
J had nearly everything one could want in a woman: a fine brain plugged into the world and curious about everything; a ballsy kind of personality that was rough but engaging, somewhat butchy but always fully remaining a woman; she got sarcasm, especially my sarcasm. This especially is important to me.
I'm like Woody Allen in "Annie Hall" that way. When I joke about cooking lobsters, I want my new girlfriend to laugh. If she doesn't get my humor, well.....Well. Then I am afraid our relationship may be called into question.
The first picture she sent me showed her standing below deck on a yacht, in a sundress with her arms upraised, as if to say, "So?" I took one look at that picture, and I said, "Mischief." The woman had mischief written all over her features. I liked her look immediately. The feeling was mutual.
J had even gone to Berkeley as an undergraduate, as I had, although she came along over ten years after I did.
J also provided the physicality I had always been looking for from another woman. But I wasn't really sure what exactly I wanted sexually because I had never seen it. Even if I felt sexually attracted to women, I was still unsure in my mind if the experience would be as compelling to me as sex with a man.
J overcame that hurdle for me. There was a strong physical chemistry here. I was attracted to her, in large part because we mirrored each other physically. She was nearly exactly my size, about 5'6", a few pounds more than my 120. She was fit and she had muscles. This sort of blew me away, at first. A girl who could actually wrestle with me. A girl with muscles too, and a love of the outdoors.
J was in her early 40s, over fifteen years existed between us. But that barely mattered. We seemed to click. We met in Berkeley on a Friday night for dinner in the spring of 2004. I broke a tooth that night on an olive pit. It was probably a foreshadowing of things to come, I don't know.
But before we could climb all over each other, we had some dealmaking to conclude first. I believe they call it the "negotiation process."
We parked in her car outside her health club on that first night, and we negotiated. What did we want from this relationship? It went more like that than it did, "Who's going to be the top/bottom whatever." It wasn't about the sex, although we did both agree that safety was paramount.
J wanted to make sure we both understood and were clear. No U-hauls. No unpleasantness. No commitments. We would enjoy each other without feeling a need to build castles about it.
I found it all fascinating, since I have never sat down so formally and negotiated stuff like this before. You get to live like that when you're a Child of the 60s. We grew up just doing things. Like sex. Who ever thunk it that you would have to negotiate over sex?
No more falling into bed willy-nilly. What you lost in spontaneity you (supposedly) gained in the certainty that unwanted damsels would not be parking the U-haul out front of your door the morning after.
Is this really progress?
- - - - - - -
J had nearly everything one could want in a woman: a fine brain plugged into the world and curious about everything; a ballsy kind of personality that was rough but engaging, somewhat butchy but always fully remaining a woman; she got sarcasm, especially my sarcasm. This especially is important to me.
I'm like Woody Allen in "Annie Hall" that way. When I joke about cooking lobsters, I want my new girlfriend to laugh. If she doesn't get my humor, well.....Well. Then I am afraid our relationship may be called into question.
The first picture she sent me showed her standing below deck on a yacht, in a sundress with her arms upraised, as if to say, "So?" I took one look at that picture, and I said, "Mischief." The woman had mischief written all over her features. I liked her look immediately. The feeling was mutual.
J had even gone to Berkeley as an undergraduate, as I had, although she came along over ten years after I did.
J also provided the physicality I had always been looking for from another woman. But I wasn't really sure what exactly I wanted sexually because I had never seen it. Even if I felt sexually attracted to women, I was still unsure in my mind if the experience would be as compelling to me as sex with a man.
J overcame that hurdle for me. There was a strong physical chemistry here. I was attracted to her, in large part because we mirrored each other physically. She was nearly exactly my size, about 5'6", a few pounds more than my 120. She was fit and she had muscles. This sort of blew me away, at first. A girl who could actually wrestle with me. A girl with muscles too, and a love of the outdoors.
J was in her early 40s, over fifteen years existed between us. But that barely mattered. We seemed to click. We met in Berkeley on a Friday night for dinner in the spring of 2004. I broke a tooth that night on an olive pit. It was probably a foreshadowing of things to come, I don't know.
But before we could climb all over each other, we had some dealmaking to conclude first. I believe they call it the "negotiation process."
We parked in her car outside her health club on that first night, and we negotiated. What did we want from this relationship? It went more like that than it did, "Who's going to be the top/bottom whatever." It wasn't about the sex, although we did both agree that safety was paramount.
J wanted to make sure we both understood and were clear. No U-hauls. No unpleasantness. No commitments. We would enjoy each other without feeling a need to build castles about it.
I found it all fascinating, since I have never sat down so formally and negotiated stuff like this before. You get to live like that when you're a Child of the 60s. We grew up just doing things. Like sex. Who ever thunk it that you would have to negotiate over sex?
No more falling into bed willy-nilly. What you lost in spontaneity you (supposedly) gained in the certainty that unwanted damsels would not be parking the U-haul out front of your door the morning after.
Is this really progress?
- - - - - - -
