Crisp Words

I told him that I’d made a break through regarding my intimacy issues

He asked me “what’s the plan now”

I wonder if he was meaning “will you have sex with me now”

If he had asked me that, this is what I would have said

No, I have no interest in engaging in casual sex, or sex within the context of a committed relationship that will run its course and end.

I know that casual sex would not be good for me, and if i was sexually active in a committed relationship and it ended i would engage in casual sex.

I know casual sex would not be good for me because I have an addictive personality and a tendency to self harm. I know that I would use sex to hurt myself. I would get myself into situations were I didn’t want to have sex; not at that time, or not with that person or not in that way. And I would go through with it. It wouldn’t be rape, I would be consenting, but consenting to my own harm. Deliberately choosing to hurt myself.

So you see my choice of celibacy is about protecting me from myself. Yes, it is tied to my christianity, in the sense that I feel my god is interested in protecting me from myself.

It’s not that I’m lacking in libido or not attracted to you, it’s that I am making a reasoned decision in order to protect myself from great harm. 

That’s understandable, isn’t it

“How’d it go?”

“We haven’t actually asked him yet”

“What, did you get cold feet?” a tone of teasing with an edge of derision in his voice. 

“Well, sort of, but not really. I suppose in a way. Listen to what happened.

You saw how excited I was, how enthusiastic I was to scheme up that experiment. Well that happens to me a lot, I just sort of fall into these things that capture my imagination. In a way it’s really joyful; I get filled up with the joy of the thing. And joy, well it’s a rather big emotion. When your filled with joy people can’t help but notice you. And that’s where it tends to fall apart for me, because when your big you get caught up in things you can’t control. Other people say and do things, and you get tarred with it simply because everyone can see you. What happened this time, it’s not a big thing, everyone will be over it by the end of the week, but it sucked and feels like a kick in the guts. So I'm stepping back. I'm still interested in the experiment, but I can’t be so emotionally involved. I can’t be so invested...”

When it does it will then be out of reception for at least 30 minutes, although some times it has dropped out for a few hours.So I leave it in one spot that I know has reliable reception. 

But, of course, I don’t stay in one spot, I'm coming and going. This means I have to check my phone every time I come back into the room. Checking it every 10 minutes or so makes me feel like an insecure 14 year old, desperate to hear from the person she’s crushing on. My self esteem can’t handle that, I have, at the same time, too little and too much respect for myself. So I don’t check it every time I come back into the room, I relax about it, forget about it (just a little) and get on with my day. And as a result I don’t get your message until an hour after you send it. I text back, I text back again, I call. But you have, like me, decided to get on with your day, not to hang about waiting, so I miss you. We miss each other.