In That Kiss

I have heard countless women say that they can tell if a man is good in bed by the way he kisses or the way he moves his hips on the dance floor. Although, I now have at least one friend that can personally attest to the fact that a man's prowess with his lips bears no relation to his abilities in bed, and that apparently, hips do lie. Most recently, a girlfriend told me that it all depended on how a man hugs. I am not even sure I follow the logic there, but it is likely just as good of a system as any of the former ones discussed. A good way, perhaps, of separating the wheat from the chaff when you are out on the prowl - looking for love in all the wrong places.

I have never much bought into any of these theories about how you can tell if someone is a good lover based upon the way a person kisses, dances, or hugs. It all seems too unrelated to me. However, I do have a method for selecting who I kiss, or at least a way of immediately disqualifying promising candidates. I wait to see if they end up with a cigarette dangling from their hands; the telltale puff of smoke haloing their head as they coolly extract the cylinder from between their lips, exhaling with that cool, calculated, devil may care expression. It kills it for me.

However, this was not always a standard of mine. I was young and naive, out with the girl I was dating at the time. As she continued to consume copious amounts of alcohol, she lit up a cigarette, an act I had never seen her perform in the past. I will never forget the lingering taste as our lips met. It was like what I imagine kissing an ashtray would be like. The bitter acidic flavor permeated my entire body and it became a mission to escape from her embrace as quickly as possible. Please, dear God, let me go. From that night on, I was a devout follower of a new doctrine: no matter how hot she is, if there's something round and long between her lips, it better not be a cigarette.

To this day, I continue to marvel, not just at the fact that people continue to smoke, but that these people actually find other people willing to kiss them, let alone procreate with them. I cannot imagine having to suffer through that experience every day for any period of time, and I have dated women with some of the most devastating and debilitating halitosis of all time.

Timing Issues

I got the timing belt in my car changed this weekend. For those of you not familiar with such things as automobiles, a timing belt (more or less) controls the opening and closing of the engine valves, making it a rather important little hunk of rubber (unless your timing belt is actually a chain) to be spinning around in your car. Every 80,000 to 100,000 miles, you are supposed to change it (and often the water pump because of the pump's location). Otherwise, the belt might break, and if the timing belt breaks, you're screwed. If you try to restart a car with a broken timing belt, you're way more screwed. Unfortunately, the timing belt in most vehicles is incredibly difficult to get at and so the labor can be rather expensive. It's a good thing that the car manufacturers are nice enough to provide clear and precise instruction as to when to change it. It is unfortunate that more things like this are not written down for people.

For example, waiting for over a month, until just before you're about to have sex for the first time, is probably not the best time to tell your boyfriend that you have herpes. Gosh, wasn't that such an exciting experience for him. Then nagging him for months later about him wearing a condom when you have sex because well, he "probably has it anyway", also probably not the best approach. "I don't understand why it's such a big deal. Sooner or later you're going to catch it anyway. After all, we're getting married." We are? When did that happen? I only looked at the engagement rings, I didn't buy you one, and while I am busy making my decision, as much as I love you, I would rather not contract a disease that I will have to live with for the rest of my life. Is that ok with you?

"I wish you wouldn't say that, it makes me feel bad for having it. It's not my fault that I have it." I never said it was your fault, I was merely explaining to you that it is an incredibly difficult item for me to deal with at the moment, a fact that you do not seem to understand. All you seem capable of thinking about is how you feel about everything. You wanted to move in and get engaged after we had been dating six months. You were on a path to marrying me, you saw our future so clear, and you were so ready. Now that it turns out that I wasn't following along that path with you, as much as you professed that you thought I was right in taking our time, you are not happy because it is not on your time table.

Some people spin at different speeds and, unfortunately, there's no timing belt in place to keep everything firing at the correct pace. Gears and valves can get mangled in the process, as we hope against hope that the engine won't explode, because that would be one hell of a repair job. I have a friend still getting flowers, emails and text messages from an ex who is fully convinced that they will reconcile and be together again, even after she told him she'd call the police if he didn't leave her alone. Everyone has their own perception as to the status and direction of a relationship. Hopefully, the people involved have a similar enough image as to where things are going so that everything keeps spinning together.

* To be clear this post does not relate to my current girlfriend. I would have labeled it past tense, but I really did just get my timing belt changed.

Maybe "Sucks" Is The Wrong Word

Evidently, I did not completely ruin my life and I am not the spawn of Satan that I truly thought I was. Apparently, one can make mistakes without being reduced to that icky gunk that you find in the tray under your refrigerator, and when it comes to relationships - it is often better to make such mistakes before becoming exclusive with the other person. So at least I still have moderately good timing.

I saw my surgeon last week, who informed me that I am at least a month or two ahead of schedule as far as recovery goes, which I thought was excellent news. I can now begin unrestricted physical therapy. Despite the name, there are still all sorts of restrictions. For example, I cannot go skydiving, jump out of a moving vehicles, or go to the gym and lift weights. I suppose the last one goes without saying after the first two, but this one impacts my life far more than the first two, ever since I gave up my career as the sexy stunt double to Oprah Winfrey. I know, I know, it sounds like a cushy job, but it is not easy having to bob and weave through all the disgruntled fans that happened to not get in the audience that received the free car that day, and those cattle ranchers could get downright mean. In any event, I decided it just was not a role I could fulfill anymore.

Taking full advantage of my new found physical freedom, I took my little brother bowling this weekend. We both were able to refrain from falling over and sliding down the lane head first, which was good news for everyone there because I guarantee I would have bowled a perfect game that way, and I don't like to make everyone else feel bad with my obvious athletic prowess like that. It's like I told the coach of the team that day, "If I play for you, I am just going to embarrass all your other players and their performance will suffer." I chose yesterday to impart this sensitive and caring wisdom to my little bother. I think he understood. Then we pointed and stared at all the people that were different from us.

Love Sucks

I know the few of you that still read my blog may be asking yourselves, "Where's J? What's he doing?" The simple answer to such questions would be, "fucking up my life with the speed normally reserved for bullet trains and shooting stars."

As some of you know, I met an amazing woman through this thing we call blog. She is beautiful, smart, funny, sweet, caring and everything I could want in a woman, plus she likes me too. I know you're all rejoicing and carrying on at this point, reveling in my new found bliss. Well, slow down a little here, folks. The drawback is that she lives about 2,000 miles away from me and I've only actually seen her twice. Granted, we have spoken on the phone for hours and hours on end. My voice has kept her company for six hour car rides, and comforted her in her sorrow, and I know her better than possibly anyone, but I have no idea what that makes us. Are we lovers? Are we friends? Are we dating? It all starts getting confusing and murky when I start throwing the hard questions out there.

Enter, stage left, Girl Number 2. She is cute, actually lives near me and, quite obviously, likes me. Maybe I should not be in a relationship with a woman that lives so far from me. Licensed professionals have repeatedly told me that long distance relationships are not real relationships. That they only truly become real when the two people are near each other and that closeness cannot be fostered by some phone calls. They would get tired of me avoiding real relationships by getting into long distance ones. I feared that maybe what I was doing was wrong. The promises from my long distance lover that she would move here and be near me in six months did nothing to assuage my guilt. Why would she be moving here now suddenly except for me? I could not handle that responsibility. What if things did not work out? What if she moved here and we broke up and she was alone in some state that she only moved to for me.

My friends were split on this other woman dillema, some saying: "Well, you've only met the girl twice. Granted, you've been talking for a little while, but that is not really enough. I think you should explore Girl Number 2. It is better that you know now than later." I did not know if I could do that. I would feel terrible. I would feel like I was violating a trust. I have never done anything like that. Then again, I normally date in my own zip code now and would normally not be in a full blown relationship so quickly - I would have explored this Girl Number 2 early on, figured it out and decided without all this doubt and angst. But wait, am I even in a relationship? God, this is so fucking confusing. What the hell am I doing? Other friends told me, "Well, you should probably not do anything with Girl Number 2 because you love the other one, but if you do fool around with Girl Number 2, just don't tell the other one." There's some advice, don't do it, but if you do do it, lie about it. I felt like a slimy politician was giving me the advice.

So being the stupid idiot that I am, I thought, "I will just talk to this other girl. I will tell her that I am already involved and that this just isn't going to work - that we can be friends, but nothing more. This will resolve things." (I have to see this girl every day, so resolution was important to me.) As we hugged goodbye, she kissed me and I kissed her back and I knew, right then and there, that I was in love with someone other than the woman I had just touched lips with. It was just about then that my entire universe collapsed in upon itself. I could not forgive myself for what I had done. I had had good motives. I had wanted to be sure. I had wanted to know for certain that I did not like this Girl Number 2. The last thing I would want is for more months to pass or for my lover to move down here, only for me to then realize that I don't love her or that I have feelings for someone else. This would have never happened if we had actually dated like I normally date now. Dammit. Why couldn't this just be easy? Why the hell did she have to live so far away? Why the heck did I have to meet this Girl Number 2 when things were still weird and new between my lover and I, instead of when things were established and settled.

All I ever wanted was a safe and stable relationship. Why the fuck did this have to be so hard? Why couldn't I have ...? It didn't matter anymore. It was done. Now I knew who I wanted. Now all doubt was cast aside, and now I couldn't even begin to forgive myself for what I had done. Even though, most of my friends agreed that I had not really done anything terribly wrong. Most of them still felt it was better that I did it now and know for certain than to constantly wonder about some random girl, and most of them still saw it as something that is normal in the beginning of a relationship. "You would normally be dating other people now still, making sure that this is the person you want to be with. Why the hell are you beating yourself up for this?" Of course, I also had a friend say, "I would breakup with you. I don't believe in dating multiple people ever." Then again, she doesn't believe in long distance relationships either so I don't suppose she would ever be in my position.

I confessed my wrongs to my lover. I couldn't bear to lie to her. I felt like a fraud or a charlatan, letting her believe that I was so wonderful when I had done this thing. She was stunned, but understood. She forgave me, with the understanding that it would never happen again. And yet, I cannot bring myself to forgive. I know that if the situation had been reversed, I would easily forgive her. I have even been in her situation, and quite easily forgave the woman I was with, knowing that long distance is weird and hard and wanting the woman I am with to be secure and confident in her decision that I am who she wants to be with. And then the questions start swirling in my head again, what the hell are we? Should I be in a relationship with her? Should we just be friends, let her carve out her life as she wants it, with or without me and then, if things work out and she decides she really wants to live in Florida, we look into dating then? Do I stay with her, accept her forgiveness, somehow find a way to forgive myself and move on, happier than ever because I now have resolution and closure on the only lingering doubt I had remaining?

I have no answer. The only answer I have is that I love this woman and I cannot imagine my days and nights without her, and I cannot imagine how I am going to forgive myself.

Update

Some of you may have noticed that I have been a little lax in updating - not that I was ever terribly good at posting more than a few times per week, but there have certainly been fewer posts coming out of me since my surgery. To all those people that noticed, I'd like to say two things: First, thank you; and, second, it's not my fault.

Surgery certainly did not help my ability to type blog posts on a regular basis, but neither did my laptop crashing, and having to wait for a new one to arrive. Yes, that's right kids - I'm running Vista and it really is just about as annoying as you've heard. (I have to approve practically everything my computer does now, and a lot of things seem to be incompatible with it - including the Internet security suite that shipped with the system. Brilliant. I spent a lot of time trying to remove Vista and replace it with XP but my computer doesn't play as nicely with XP and it seems to with Vista so it looks like I'll need to take some time and learn to love it.) Then I went on a trip to Chicago, and spent this past weekend with the lovely and talented Violet. (You can see photos from my excursion on Flickr.)

My weekend in Chicago was amazing. Not only was the company fantastic and special but the city itself is amazing. If it hadn't been so fucking cold, I would have simply stayed there and found a new job for me to utilize my legally trained mind. However, it was very cold. Most of my time was spent either indoors or walking outside, yearning for the next place that I would be able to feel the warmth of artificial heat, as the sun surely was not going offer me any relief. I got to see a great exhibit at The Art Institute of Chicago, sample delicious pizza at Giordano's and take in the downtown city sites - not to mention a fantastic brunch, and that was just the first day. The people there are really friendly and nice, the food is phenomenal, and the public transit system is quite impressive. Just a fantastic city to be in and I was sad to leave, but that likely more had to do with the company.

My laptop and I are still learning to get along. It finally got me to surrender last night and reinstall Vista. I do have to say that the system resumes from sleep much more efficiently in Vista than any other Windows OS I have used in the past, and I am going to try and run Open Office as my default Office program, as I see no reason to pay for a Microsoft office suite when I can get a perfectly good one for free, as can anyone else I want to share documents with. It has the inter-portability functionality of Adobe pdf, without the pdf. I may, however, lose my electronic journal, as the journal I was told would be compatible with Vista before I downloaded it, doesn't appear to be compatible with Vista now that I've downloaded it - go figure. I'll have to wait and hope that they release a patch, but until then, something else will have to be found.

My arm is still recovering. It's still really difficult to move in many ways, but it has certainly improved when compared to a month ago. Occasionally, I catch myself accidentally reaching for the car door with my left arm and it doesn't cause me nearly as much pain anymore. I have been doing stretching exercises for it - my arm, not the car door. These are, generally, some of the same physical therapy exercises I did before ever having surgery but now they really hurt when I do them, whereas before they only caused mild discomfort.

So far, my year seems to be off to an eventful and exciting start. I cannot wait to see what it looks like by the end of this year.

Free at Last

Every now and again, I'll catch a flicker of just the right hair color or just the right body type and I'll be instantly reminded of an ex. Sometimes it will be a fond recollection and other times it will be a bitter fleeting thought that I would just as soon forget. There are also the rare occasions where I will suddenly be filled with remorse and regret. The thought creeps in that perhaps I made the biggest mistake ever. Perhaps she was the one for me. No faith in my own decision making - it was an issue I had to address in therapy. "What do you mean that's a bad thing?"

I remember she used to ask me, and her other friends, for hours on end what we thought of Fred's behavior. It was a terrible exercise in futility, as we would all validate her feelings and tell her how right she was to be feeling the way she did, but then she would confront him and her entire self-esteem and boundaries would immediately crumble. We simply believed in her more than she believed in herself, a terribly unfortunate way to live. "He's not like you. He doesn't understand me the way you do. It's not his fault. I just need to be better. You don't understand him the way I do. You don't see how much potential he has." It's always frightening when you see others' dysfunctions in yourself. However, it's also relieving because it's that recognition and admission that can lead to recovery or behavior modification (as they like to call it).

However, there were other issues that I also had to address and, at times, it's difficult for me to look back and discern whether I got in the way of myself somewhere along the line. This self-doubt and concern can haunt me for days, as I reevaluate and reassess. But every now and again, something spectacular happens where the ex does something so annoying that I am immediately reminded of all the reasons she made me miserable and I am instantly glad to be away, with no regrets to ever haunt me again.

"She really did that?"

"Yeah. Pretty crazy, huh?"

"I can't believe you stayed with her for as long as you did."

"I was too busy being afraid that leaving would be a bigger mistake than staying to see just how unfulfilled I was. I kept thinking someone else would make the decision for me. I kept hoping that someone would say the magic words that finally gave me the courage and freedom to leave. What it took me time to learn was that I always had that freedom and only I could see it through."

Face Value

Often movies or stories try to teach us not to judge a book by its cover. When this mantra is applied to people it is often illustrated with the less attractive women being really just an amazing catch and a beautiful person on the inside, and people have just never taken the time to get to know her so they just don't see how wonderful she really is. I once had a discussion with my friends about this cliche that the movie Shallow Hal memorably illustrated.

What we all agreed on is that this is a great concept and is possibly applicable in a certain number of cases, as we all have known that guy or girl that is really just an amazing person but never has much luck with landing that very physically attractive person of the opposite sex. However, we have also all met a lot of really mean, jaded, angry, miserable unattractive people. Whether their personality is a byproduct of not being anyone's object of affection frequently enough or if it's because they just don't feel terribly good about themselves or their parents didn't hold them or something as a child, I don't know. But they are ugly as sin, inside and out.

In fact, we all agreed, it's actually more common that the physically unattractive women are just as unattractive on the inside as they are on the outside. So instead of that woman in the movie looking like Gwyneth Paltrow (or Heidi Klum - yes, I know she was never in a movie like that but this is my blog and we will talk about Heidi Klum as much as I want), she is more likely to look Rosanne Barr. Not that Rosanne Barr is ugly, but she's certainly no Gwyneth Heidi Klum.

As I've noted above, this is not to say that there aren't some tremendously cool people out there that just don't have the looks of George Clooney or Natalie Portman, but there are also a lot of mediocre people out there with this condition. And, I'm assuming, a good amount of very attractive people that are positively atrocious on the inside. Which brings us back to the original cliche of, Don't judge a book by its cover. However, one would be served well to keep in mind that just because the cover isn't very attractive does not mean that the story will be any better.

Orbital Patterns

"Let me get this straight. He told you that he has still been seeing his ex-girlfriend and they have a trip planned to Jamaica together for New Years, and you want to know what you should do?"

"He swears they aren't sleeping together."

"Have you asked any of your other friends about this?"

"Well one of them said that maybe I should give him a chance, and noted that he had been honest enough to tell me about all of it."

"He really only came clean after you finally got him to talk about your relationship, a concept that you were completely resistant to, as you didn't want to seem 'needy'. Out of curiosity, is this woman telling you to 'give him a chance' the same friend that is now married to the man that pushed her out of the moving vehicle while they were dating?"

"Yeah."

Women amaze me with their uncanny ability to stay with men that are completely terrible to them for extended periods of time. I have often found that the worse I am to a girl and the less I care, the more likely they are to stay around. Alternately, if I am actually nice to them and show how much I care for them, they usually tend to walk all over me and breakup with me. I'm told women often grow out of this condition at around fifty. Figuring that I couldn't really afford to wait that long, I decided to find a mix that I was comfortable with - nice to a point.

It strikes me as odd that women blame men for being terrible or for being pigs or for this or that. As though they were suddenly betrayed by men who never gave the slightest indication that they might not be everything the women dreamed of. However, I have always found the signs as being fairly evident from the beginning. Clearly, the man that thrusts you out of a moving vehicle may have some anger management problems that might creep into your relationship in the future. The man that clings to you and follows you about the room like a lost puppy, may have some insecurity issues of his own that are bound to compound and manifest themselves in such colorful ways in the future. All of these signs will be quite clear and evident and yet the women will often stay. They all have their reasons, I'm sure. Often, there seems to be some amazing power of hope coursing through their bodies. What, exactly, they are hoping for remains a complete mystery. Perhaps they hope that he will change, or that it was an isolated incident, or that something equally magical is at play. Perhaps they are fearful of change or of being alone or of admitting that someone got the better of them.

One of my best friends has taken to using a different approach with women. He uses honesty like sword. "I am not looking for a relationship. I really like spending time with you, and I love having sex with you but there is absolutely no way I can be with just you. I'm simply not ready for anything like that right now." He's been giving this speech for the last four years to countless women and yet they stay. Eventually, each woman he dates often gets angry and frustrated with him, as he simply continues to date and sleep with other women. "I almost had sex with seven different women last week, but I got too tired and went to bed for two days. Apparently, five is now my limit." And yet, even though the women get mad, even though they might get frustrated and angry and walk away, they always seem to come back for more, like he is the sun and they all sort of orbit about him.

To the women that blame the men for being this way, I'll tell you exactly what my best friend has confided to me numerous times, and which I have also found to be true. "I would love to be honest with a woman and just totally be there for them and do all of those nice things that women profess they want. Like one of those sweet, sappy romantic movies. I think it would be nice, and certainly a hell of a lot easier than the crap I have to deal with now. However, if I do that, the women leave and go after some other guy that will treat them exactly the way I'm treating them now. We don't make the rules; as guys, we'll do just about anything for sex. This seems to be the way I have to act to get it."

Be Yourself

Despite what you might think, there was actually a point to my previous post. Other than it being one of my favorite mental pictures, it illustrates a point that I was trying to express to someone the other night. We were discussing dating and getting to know other people in general. Her position was that we should all be who we really are from the outset, which I think is a great ideal but one that I feel is rarely ever achieved. You simply are not going to know that other person through two dates or ten dates. It's going to be a process and this results from so many factors.

Some people are exceptionally private, like the friend I was driving to the airport. She wasn't going to tell me what was wrong until it suddenly struck her that it was now ok and safe to tell me. Sometimes it's because the situation doesn't arise. I wouldn't have known she was afraid of flying unless I had driven her to the airport that day, or some other event triggered such a conversation. Other times, we just don't know the other person well enough yet. I'm not necessarily going to get into a huge religious or political discussion with someone on the first or second date because I don't even know if I like them yet and what's the point of wasting all of that effort and time. Besides, why discuss inherently controversial things. Often beginnings of relationships are calm because it's still easy not to rock the boat. We can let more things slide because we aren't even sure we'll talk to the other person again.

Again, this is all grey because it all depends on the two people in the situation. There's nothing that says the person sitting across from you on that first date won't be that soul that you just feel completely comfortable confiding every facet of your life to right then and there, but I would say the odds of that are fairly low - I can only be so many places, people. Secondly, even if you did all of that on the first night, where are you really? You're just two people that hung out one night that still might never talk again. The conditions that you met under may never replicate again. What if the next time you meet, you're stressed or tired or some other variation of your normal self. You can't be all of the subtle variations of yourself all at once.

Being yourself is not as easy as it often sounds because while we are who we are, we are not always who we are. "Though we share so many secrets, there are some we never tell."