A couple of weeks ago, I had some very interesting conversations with a few friends. All separate conversations, with widely different personalities, but the topic was the same: relationships and sex. Now if there’s one thing on earth that ALL of us--regardless of the depth of our experience--have an opinion about, it’s love and sex. Which is fine. Until you confuse the two. Or worse, believe that the two have a cause and effect relationship. Mr D seems to think that most people, particularly women, cannot view the two as separate and wholly independent entities. My friend, Mr K, agrees with Mr D. Which is not to say that they think women assume love where there really isn’t any (which, in many cases, might not be entirely untrue). What they
mean is that sex shouldn’t define your relationship, love should. And sometimes, love doesn’t come in a neatly packed, signed and delivered package called monogamy. So does that mean it’s a lesser love? I don’t think so.
For most of us, sex comes naturally. We’ve all experimented, rebelled, been madly in love and had flings. And I’m assuming sex has played a fairly regular part in all these phases. Sometimes as a much-awaited houseguest, other times as a regularly visiting friend, but it’s never been a ghost that you only dream about when you’re alone at night… At least I hope it hasn’t. So as somebody who’s had a quickie under the bar just for the thrill of it, and enjoyed it thoroughly, I refuse to judge my relationship on the basis of who I did, or didn’t do. Would my romp under the bar have been any less enjoyable if I’d had a boyfriend waiting back at home? Probably not. Because that romp wasn’t inspired by the desire to share my thoughts, hopes and dreams with the hottie with a three-year subscription of Maxim. My relationships, on the other hand, are. Which is why they are infinitely more important and worth investing in.
An average relationship has several benchmarks. The first time you kiss, the first time he holds your hand in public, the first time you speak till 5am despite an early start the next day and the first time you have sex. But that’s only one part of it. The shiny packaging on the Pandora’s box that accompanies most relationships. Beneath the packaging are a whole host of other firsts. The first time you decide that finishing your story is more important than keeping your waxing appointment, the first time he doesn’t rush out of the room when he feels the need to fart, the first time you pick flannel pyjamas instead of lacy bits of nothing and the first time he smiles back at the bombshell flirting with him from across the bar. All the not-so-pleasant trappings that come with sharing your world with someone.
For most of us, the shivers running up our spines and hammering pulse rates settle after the twentieth time he kisses you or holds your hand. Or two hundredth, if you’re the overly romantic kind. But subside it will. And somewhere, at the back of our minds, the yearning for the thrill of the first kiss begins. We begin to long for the feeling that comes with being wooed and seduced, with being wined and dined. The heart might still belong to the girlfriend who’s the only person alive who understands your rocky relationship with your parents, and she’s probably still the only girl you actually want to hug and sleep with after sex, but it’s undeniable that the mind
wanders, weighs the possibilities and imagines things that we would never admit to. All because we’re in committed relationships and loyal partners don’t think about other men and women like that. But we do. Then why don’t we admit? And why do we judge people who do? Now if you’re the kind that can make peace with the flights of fancy and locker-room talk, more power to you. But some of us aren’t. Which doesn’t make anyone better than anyone else. It just makes one set of people different from the other.
Coming back to my relationships, or relationship, considering my grand total is one, it was nothing like I imagined. But everything that I could have possibly wanted. There were nerve-wracking moments, pounding hearts, murderous rages, crazy dates and mad fun. And sex, lots and lots of it. With each other, with others, with each other AND others and whatnot. We tried monogamy, for six whole months, but it didn’t work. We were miserable and the relationship would probably not have lasted as long as it did if we’d decided to stick to the gospel. At the end of the six months, we could have called it quits, gone our separate ways and probably been happy. But we didn’t. Because he was still the only one I wanted to be with. And I was the only one he could be his arrogant, asshole self with. So we decided to stick it out.
Only this time, there were no rules about who we could sleep with or couldn’t. We both had our reasons. I wasn’t prepared to give up my childhood for the relationship and he wasn’t okay with having sex once in three months, which was how often we usually met. And so we stayed together, doing our own thing and living by our own rules, most of them so weird that our friends still don’t know whether we were ever actually together. Those were four of the best years of my life. Sure, there were fights, an alarmingly large number of them. But only because we’re both
stubborn as mules. I hated his arrogance, he hated my vagueness. I hated that he expected me to magically read his mind, he hated that I never answered any question straight. Adjusting to each other’s eccentricities took time. And patience. Something that neither of us had an abundance of. Imagine complicating an already difficult relationship by adding sex to the list of things to fight about. Something that both of us enjoyed immensely. Then why change the status quo? Why fix something that wasn’t broken? Simply so that our relationship could fit into a convenient label?
My friend M says that we spend 80 per cent of our time worrying about things that are 20 per cent important in out lives. And leave only 20 per cent for the truly important 80 per cent things. I think he might be right. Which is not to say that sex was only 20 per cent important in our relationship. But there were other things that were equally important. Things that needed our time to fix and mould, time that we would have probably spent bickering if we’d decided to continue with monogamy. So we spent the precious little time we had together exploring each others minds. And by the time we finally split up, I knew him almost as well as I knew myself. I knew what his looks meant, what was going on in his head and the exact moment when he switched off from a conversation. I had his heart early into the relationship, but by the end of
it, I had his mind. And that’s the most powerful aphrodisiac there is. V once told me that orgasms with me started in the head and then moved on to his body. That night, we had the most spectacular sex of our lives. His thoughts were all mine, and that was power so addictive that I couldn’t think of relinquishing it. I could share his body, but not his brain.
What I learnt from the relationship was that I’m a very possessive girl. Only, possessing the body means little to me. V made me the queen bee, and now I find it difficult to abdicate. I realised this a few days ago, while talking to Mr D. It would be all too easy to become a part of his harem, there’s enough sexual energy between us to light a village, but somehow, that’s just not good enough. His mind still hasn’t found The One. And even though it’s an incredibly selfish thought, I hope he doesn’t find her till I’ve fallen out of love with him.
For the first time in my life, I feel like someone’s dirty little secret. And it’s a hateful feeling. Karma really is a bitch, and it’s come back to bite me in the ass. And how.
More on that later. For now, this is it.
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