When she talked about her new lover, she always talked about sex. In fact, she always looked as if she’d just HAD sex. Flushed, beaming. So of course I figured she was incredibly happy.
Are you incredibly happy? I asked, almost as a joke.
“In bed, I am.”
Not so happy out of bed, though. In fact, so unhappy she cried.
Now why, she wondered, should she be so unhappy? She’d made a nonverbal pact with him: Sex only. It would serve her well–she’s a busy lady. She liked the fact that she didn’t have to make dinner, or talk much, or live with the guy. She knew she might be avoiding commitment, or even existential ennui, but as the CEO of a small firm, the deal was perfect. No strings. Modern.
But becoming what my friend Michael calls “a Fuck Buddy” (you should pardon the expression….it’s not mine, remember) soon became tiring. She’d ask, “Want a pizza?” after making love, and then get the evil eye. “This wasn’t part of the deal,” his look said, and he’d dress quietly and leave. “As if to remind me that I was to ask for nothing.” So soon, knowing she couldn’t even count on having a cozy post-coital meal together, she started eating beforehand. So she wouldn’t get hungry. And wouldn’t feel lonely. And then she began to wonder where their “intimacy” could go from there.
Where? Nowhere. They didn’t have intimacy; they had a deal of the flesh. They didn’t even really have a deal (like, say, the deal in “Pretty Woman.” At least Julia Roberts was paid for her trouble.) This man wanted nothing to do with her, really; and was unable to sustain anything warm, post-coitum–in fact he really preferred to leave. Like within the hour. Really.
So of COURSE Sam was unhappy. She was welcoming into her bed a deft but clueless automaton. She was avoiding aloneness but welcoming loneliness. Big time.
At first Samantha denied her hurt, thinking that she had, after all, agreed to the deal. She thought she’d try to see if he was just shy (out of bed). And then she realized that no, really, he wanted nothing to do with her.
Listen, I have not been around for thousands of years to knock sex. It is WAY up there on the list of great things. But if you choose to make the bargain that men have for so long made-wanting sex without a commitment–you have to be very tough on yourself, and very attuned to your own true feelings. How important is that orgasm? What are you paying to have it-in self-esteem? I know, I know, you’re a grownup, and don’t need to be wooed and offered endless flattery from your lover. You’re just as busy as he is in the world.
But guess what? I think you’re wrong. I think you DO need to be wooed, and won, and cherished. I think you can have great sex more than for, say, a month, only if you can think back on that experience, and on the god who just left your bed, and say, “Well this goddess feels so wonderful that I don’t care where we go from here.”
As long as you feel that way, go to it. With my blessing.
But beware, dearest earth girl. The body is not a thing apart from the soul. And this goddess has some tough advice. The minute you don’t feel wonderful, the MINUTE you feel even vaguely abandoned, even momentarily used, even for a second dismissed– get out. This chilly deal you’ve made is very cool and very sophisticated but if you feel bad about yourself for one second, tell that detached creature you’ve invited into your bed to go find sex elsewhere. As Sam said, “We never moved closer. We’d gone as far as we could go-literally. It was so….over.”
