I’m currently hanging out in Patrick’s home office while he snores in the bedroom. My flight for GR doesn’t leave for another four hours, coinciding my arrival when my brother gets out of work tonight. I still need to throw my things into my duffle bag, get dressed at some point.
The weekend went well. Not “We are back to being boyfriend/girlfriend” well and not “Ohmygod I’m having a horrible time” either. Somewhere in between. Friday was interesting, a bit strained. He showed up at the airport nearly an hour after my flight arrived, as I sat in passenger pickup playing my GBA. I called kethryvis in a panic because he wasn’t where he was supposed to be. His excuse? Traffic. Which is all fine and dandy, but knowing Patrick, his tardiness was his way of saying, “You’re not that important to me bitch.” He has this TERRIBLE tendency to dismiss being ontime for things, like picking people up at the airport, if he feels it’s not worthwhile. He does it to his boss all the time. When he arrived, I handed him the bag of chocolate chip cookies I had made and hugged him tight. After a few foo-foo drinks during dinner, tensions disolved and things got a lot better.
I approached him about paying for my half of everything this trip out. He and I had gotten into disagreements about this in the past, and his argument of why he should pay centered on that I was a college student, poor and couldn’t afford to pay for my half. Which is true, but since we are no longer a couple, it seemed ridiculous to expect him to pay for things. But he wouldn’t hear of it and kept telling me to put my wallet away when it came time to pay. We went to Ruth’s Chris last night for dinner and I broached the topic of paying for half again, which he agreed. Then he proceeded to order a $350 bottle of Cristal. I laughed and said I as not forking over $175 bucks for champagne. He said it was to honor all the hard work I was doing for school and didn’t expect me to pay for it.
So I killed more than half the bottle.
When I got my credit card out to pay for my dinner, he dismissed it. I was not arguing with him on this considering dinner (with the champagne and tip) was more than what I paid for rent.
I was tipsy when we left and that is what I learned about champagne. Quick buzz, even quicker come down. We had stopped at Blockbuster to grab a movie and I was highly amused by the pledge behind the counter stating the employees were EMPOWERED to serve the customer. I kept talking about how there was going to be a revolution occurring in Blockbuster because they were EMPOWERED. In the car, he continued being the killjoy by stating he could not see the correlation between empowerment and revolution. I sulked and called him a traitor to the cause. That’ll teach him.
But I learned something this weekend.
I learned I could be in love with Patrick (I am) and not wish to see him again. Our lives are never, ever going to parallel or join anytime in the near future. He’s repeatedly stated he can’t handle more than simply “dating” and I flipped between feeling like a high priced whore and his girlfriend.
Sex was okay, nothing spetacular, certainly nothing to write home about. Lack of passion, severly. Despite all of his good qualities (of which he has many), I could not live with a passionless relationship. I had swapped roles this time out, I was much more passive, inviting him to be the aggressor and that failed terribly. He was like a teenager given access to breasts for the first time and I was impatient with him because of this and felt terrible for being so bitchy about sex. He thought everything was great, sexually, and some times I felt mechanical going through the motions. When I had told him that I was simply opening the door for him to be the aggresor, he shrank from that responsiblity. He’d lay on his back, just waiting to be ridden until the sun came up. I broached him about this and he said that we had tried having “circus sex” and it failed miserably, thusly what was the point of attempting it again?
He’d lie there. Doing nothing. I encouraged him to touch me, bringing his hands up to my hips and my breasts, and he would do a few half-hearted motions and his hands would gravitate towards the bed again, while it was expected of me to do all the work.
So I got bored and quickly. Having conversations in my head about working with him on his “prowess” — because according to him, he was just that good in bed. I remember my first time with him so vividly when he was a g0d in bed and now he’s like a child. I could not fathom why or where the switch occurred.
I had been arguing with myself these last few months that I was too demanding in bed. Perhaps I expected too much? I was far too aggressive? I swapped the blame from them to me beacuse, historically, it seemed to be true. Trite words from exlovers haunted me these last few months about how much importance I placed on sex and thusly emasculating them in the process.
Arrogant as it may sound, I no longer feel that to be true. The trick is the balance between the two and I certainly don’t think asking ones lover to simply be INVOLVED is being aggressive or assertive.
I’m making up a list of things I want work on this summer, and finding that balance is going to be one of them. I’m not taking applications for new lovers, but, finding that balance within myself.