TYGER CLAWS

ALDECALDOS

SYSADMIN ACTION FIGURE

Friends With Benefits

I would make a rather poor, "friend with benefits" as I require so much more. And while the reader may be thinking sex without the relationship (as the phrasing goes), I'm speaking of exactly its inverse - a relationship without the sex. Why? Because with every conversation, every revelation of a vulnerability, every utterance of a transparency I reveal more and more of myself while simultaneously seeking greater interactions (when reciprocity is practiced) for a singular purpose - to find someone with whom to share a lifetime of such. While the rest of the world is having sex without intimacy, I find myself sharing intimacy without sex. Having experienced both, I can state the latter, while preferred, is also the most difficult to reconcile.

The thing about intimacy is there is no stopping point; no, "far enough" as the exploration of ourselves and our lover is bottomless - it goes on forever if we let it. I can no longer live half a life in either scenario. I must have it all; give it all - everything I have to give - in these pursuits. I would be doing both of us a disservice agreeing to anything less. Yes we would love to have the level of friendship we have now even if we don't go any further, but that's not how intimacy works. For we have been going further, with each and every conversation building upon the one previous; each and every bit of knowledge about one another building in parallel. Growing. It will never be static. We can nurture it so it continues to grow, or it absolutely must be pruned, because it can never be, and will never be, a constant, no matter how hard we try to maintain it. We may glimpse it in bits and pieces as if it were simply the status quo - as its always been and how it will always be - but in point of fact it's been a torrent heading toward a point of no return since its inception.

If I were given to theme-park related metaphors (I'm not), I'd say a snapshot at any given time may look as it were taken on the lazy river where one circles ceaselessly, calmly, over and over again. But put sequential snapshots together, and suddenly a very different realization hits - the log flume ride barreling toward an ecstatic destination. And that "destination" as it were, is simply the gateway into a much larger world to be explored. That world, to me, is indispensable and absolutely nothing less will sate my unquenchable desires across the prismatic spectrum of this life.