Originally created as column twenty-four, April 2001
The Current State of Non-Affairs
note: the following was written 7 years ago when the rate of suicide bombs in central Israel was very high. This writer was also younger
The hi-tech industry is at a stand still and so is my love life. Employees are being laid off, or there is simply a hiring freeze, including my free-lance position. The months roll by and the frequency of bombs going off increases. The bombs are exploding closer and closer to my home. I’m trying to go off the sex with ex-boyfriend habit, as I am ready for something deeper, or am I? I met an amazing guy at work, Evan, but he is a bachelor, which goes against all my “rules”. We have an amazing friendship, but he doesn’t seem to want a physical relationship with me, and although we have been almost inseparable for the past two months, he doesn’t appear to want a relationship with me because:
I work with him.
I am divorced.
He is not attracted to me.
I don’t know! And I can’t discuss this with him, as I don’t want to ruin our friendship. We have even spoken about writing together. He gets along amazingly with my son and we both share a love for writing, folk music and theater.
And I’m attracted to him. But I see his faults, and I know that in his forties, if he is not married, there is a reason. Perfectionism? Criticism? Having been hurt in the past?
I can’t get him to open up in this area. I suspect that he takes a long time making decisions. I think I have made it very obvious that I like him and find him attractive...
I even took him one night to the theater so that I didn’t have to be alone and face my ex boyfriend with his new girlfriend. They are perfect for each other. Both overweight. Both without children. Both live within a few blocks of each other. They don’t have children, but they both cook so well that they have to decide about who has custody of the kitchen on the weekends. Food and sex must be a very big part of their lives – but I would choose the sex over the food, given a choice on a Friday night, whereas I am sure they would choose the food first. Oh, I would definitely get to the food, but not if I were seduced first, kissed slowly on my ears, behind my ears, on my neck....
All of a sudden potential blind-dates are calling me as well as men from the past, and my mind is thinking about my work, or lack of permanent work, and I sit exhausted typing about the current state of non-affairs. My perfect lover, who is not a friend and my perfect friend, who is not a lover...and all the ex-lovers and friends in between, suddenly back in my life or trying to enter my life. It’s not really in my hands. I am letting things happen, but I am not hiding my feelings. I am giving unconditionally, something I have not done in a very long time. I have finally gotten “over” my ex-boyfriend now that he has a new girlfriend and I can see that his basic personality and habits will never change.
I look into the eyes of my platonic friend and smile. I try not to imagine my lips touching his, my arms around him, after a friendly hug, being met by an extended hug - I’ve seen him half naked in a swimsuit and he, likewise has seen me in everything from an elegant suit to casual jeans to a bathing suit, with or without makeup...all his friends assure me that he isn’t gay, and he himself has denied being gay and has released names of past girlfriends...
Yet we are both going to bed with books and sleeping in our own beds alone. His pet adores him and reflects his good temper. My expensive house pet adores me and is pretty good natured himself.
No sex in the city tonight for this writer, whereas that may not be the case for two gourmet cooks whiling away the hours at saucepans and the bedsheets at one of two flats in Tel Aviv...
Showing posts with label sleeping with a platonic friend. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sleeping with a platonic friend. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Post 21: Getting it Over With
originally created as Column Twenty-One, January, 2001
Post 21: Getting it Over With – Having Sex with a Platonic Friend
Can it be done? Does it ruin the friendship? I had a friend, Gadi who I was crazy about for years. A male friend of course. But when he was interested in me, I wasn’t available and vice versa. When I got divorced, Gadi was in the country and available and I thought – at last, my chance.
So I wore the sexiest dress I could find and even got a little drunk, something I rarely do, but he was worried that I would fall in love with him, and that it was too soon after my divorce and so he let me kiss him but would not go to bed with me.
Another few years past and one fateful night when we had come back from a night out with a group of friends, Gadi’s car was parked near my place and he had to go back to my house to pick up his car, and once again I was wearing a sexy dress (not the same one as during the first attempt - I don’t keep Monica Lewinsky style stained dresses hanging in the closet for months). I thought I might seduce one of the guys in our group of friends. (You may have noticed that I’m not great at seduction although men start up with my female friends. I go to the hairdresser and cosmetician to try to look put together and the men run straight to my girlfriends! Must be my expert manicure – my nail polish shining the way directly to the woman sitting beside me). So my seduction attempts did not succeed (I didn’t really attempt, even though I may have fantasized about it) and Gadi and I both found ourselves driving home together. It was understood that we do NOT sleep together, that we had been friends for over 12 years already, and that we would not ruin our friendship with doing something silly like sleeping together. Only that night he was particularly lonely and curious and this time he decided he would take the chance. I did not resist. What he didn’t bargain for is that it would be so emotionally intense, and so in the morning, after eating breakfast together, he said that it was nice but we should leave it as a nice memory and continue being friends.
It happened once again, after a party we once went to for one of the national holidays, only this time he had been drinking, and it didn’t match the emotional intensity of the first time.
So I realized it is sometimes better to get things over with and that you can go back to being good friends if the basis for friendship is there in the first place.
I thought that I could do it again with a man that I met five years ago. Don and I were friends for almost eight months and we were both sleeping with other people (in the days that I used to have sex). I thought that once again I could “get it over with” once or twice and that’s it. I was sure that it would be a disaster. The problem is that we didn’t get it over with. It ended up to be a relationship that lasted three years. Gadi and I had managed to “get it over with” so I thought the same thing would occur with Don. Don and I eventually split up (twice!) over many issues but he’s never let me say “let’s get it over with” without a sarcastic chuckle.
Since this writer doesn’t really want a boyfriend at the moment, she has nothing to get OVER but can get ON with her life. Anyone want to join her for an exciting weekend of filing personal paperwork and ironing half a wardrobe? Maybe those sexy dresses are lying somewhere buried beneath the pathetic pile.
Post 21: Getting it Over With – Having Sex with a Platonic Friend
Can it be done? Does it ruin the friendship? I had a friend, Gadi who I was crazy about for years. A male friend of course. But when he was interested in me, I wasn’t available and vice versa. When I got divorced, Gadi was in the country and available and I thought – at last, my chance.
So I wore the sexiest dress I could find and even got a little drunk, something I rarely do, but he was worried that I would fall in love with him, and that it was too soon after my divorce and so he let me kiss him but would not go to bed with me.
Another few years past and one fateful night when we had come back from a night out with a group of friends, Gadi’s car was parked near my place and he had to go back to my house to pick up his car, and once again I was wearing a sexy dress (not the same one as during the first attempt - I don’t keep Monica Lewinsky style stained dresses hanging in the closet for months). I thought I might seduce one of the guys in our group of friends. (You may have noticed that I’m not great at seduction although men start up with my female friends. I go to the hairdresser and cosmetician to try to look put together and the men run straight to my girlfriends! Must be my expert manicure – my nail polish shining the way directly to the woman sitting beside me). So my seduction attempts did not succeed (I didn’t really attempt, even though I may have fantasized about it) and Gadi and I both found ourselves driving home together. It was understood that we do NOT sleep together, that we had been friends for over 12 years already, and that we would not ruin our friendship with doing something silly like sleeping together. Only that night he was particularly lonely and curious and this time he decided he would take the chance. I did not resist. What he didn’t bargain for is that it would be so emotionally intense, and so in the morning, after eating breakfast together, he said that it was nice but we should leave it as a nice memory and continue being friends.
It happened once again, after a party we once went to for one of the national holidays, only this time he had been drinking, and it didn’t match the emotional intensity of the first time.
So I realized it is sometimes better to get things over with and that you can go back to being good friends if the basis for friendship is there in the first place.
I thought that I could do it again with a man that I met five years ago. Don and I were friends for almost eight months and we were both sleeping with other people (in the days that I used to have sex). I thought that once again I could “get it over with” once or twice and that’s it. I was sure that it would be a disaster. The problem is that we didn’t get it over with. It ended up to be a relationship that lasted three years. Gadi and I had managed to “get it over with” so I thought the same thing would occur with Don. Don and I eventually split up (twice!) over many issues but he’s never let me say “let’s get it over with” without a sarcastic chuckle.
Since this writer doesn’t really want a boyfriend at the moment, she has nothing to get OVER but can get ON with her life. Anyone want to join her for an exciting weekend of filing personal paperwork and ironing half a wardrobe? Maybe those sexy dresses are lying somewhere buried beneath the pathetic pile.
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