No, this post isn't about you

Ever wonder what it would be like to have sex with people with whom you wouldn't necessarily actually have sex? What aspects of your current relationship (whatever it may be) would manifest themselves, and how?

I think about a certain past Boy. Our friendship was complicated to say the least. We could have a wonderful time together, driving around and going to diners and just hanging out and talking about life and the creative process and frustration and happiness and being silly and goofy and dumb as shit. But I had hopes and expectations and things I wanted him to be that he wasn't, and he could turn into a molten asshole on the head of a hairpin. When we hooked up, we always knew we shouldn't. There was something tumultuous and rebellious and sinister about it and we knew it, but the idea that we couldn't fight our passions and our bodies just made everything more desperate and burning and forceful. It was like all the hurt and anger of our relationship came crashing out and rippled and exploded until we were sated. But then he, having expressed what he needed to express, was satisfied, while I wanted more. I loved the tempest and had more to "say." I wasn't done.

Like the sad self-hating creature I was, I kept right on going in this cycle for years. Years. I don't know exactly what changed in me or the friendship to make the "tempest" stop, but hooking up is now just a familiar and pleasurable way attending to a physical need. It's also significantly less frequent, since said Boy has lived in another state for several years.

But it's not always the same part of a relationship that comes through. My sample size is way too small and my imagination is way too busy. I take one friend and wonder if it's the playfulness that would show up, or if we'd get weird and cerebral like we sometimes do, or if it would be just completely comfortable and whatever and ok, because that's also a part of things. Or another friend who might seem totally awkward and wrong, but also might be completely harmonious because we know eachother so well and in such strange intimate ways...

Yes, I need to get laid.