Day 52: Not So Simply Sex

Mixing colors may just be one of my favorite things to do in life. That may seem pretty sad, but it's true. For instance, right now I'm wearing my faded pink jeans with a coral tank top. I love red with pink and green with blue, though some may say they clash. To me, there really aren't any off-limits color combos. Anything can look good if you do it right. It helps that this dress has a million colors in it anyway. Here, I'm pretty much using them all with a different accessory. I'm not actually sure if there is purple in the dress, but it doesn't matter. We'll title this one, "Purple Heels Go to Tea."

Sex. It's so complicated. Today, the women question how much of a role sex needs to play in a relationship. After a few dates with jazz guy, who seems to have ADD issues, Carrie is no closer to learning anything about him, though they have "mind-blowing" sex. At first, that's enough for both of them, but eventually Carrie realizes that she wants to know more and jazz guy gets bored. Miranda gives up sex altogether. To cope, she turns to chocolate. When she finds herself eating cake out of the garbage, she decides to stop torturing herself. Charlotte and Trey make love in their old bed for the first time...and second time and fifteenth time. Charlotte wants to broach the subject of moving back in, but Trey doesn't seem interested. After a huge fight, Trey re-asks her to marry him and come home. Samantha waits to sleep with her girlfriend, Maria, saying it's not all about the sex. When the two finally have sex, Maria teaches her how intimate and emotional the act can be. Samantha announces that she's a lesbian to her friends, leaving them stymied.

It's time I came clean with something. There is one relationship that I have not written about at all, and it's about time I did. Up until now, I have been scared to, because it might come as a surprise to some people. However, in the end you have to write for yourself, meaning you have to write about what's important to you whether you have readers or not. If I hide things in a blog, I'm not being honest with anyone--including myself. I also firmly believe that the fewer secrets a person has, the less neurotic she will be. And I need all the help I can get. All of this aside, when an episode like this comes along, it's pretty hard not to mention anything about this past union. So, here it is.

I, too, once dated a woman. Her name was Emma, and we were together for three months. We met through my first lesbian friend at college, who knew Emma from work. Even before I met her, I told myself I was going to give a same sex relationship a shot, much like Samantha does in the episode. I really wanted to experiment with my sexuality--to at least try everything once that came my way-- and being with a woman was part of that. I thought, "Well, the gorgeous women in German cinema and Angelina Jolie do it. Why can't I?"

But I didn't really know what I was doing, nor what it meant. I also didn't know where it would lead. I was just curious. I was excited to try something new and to go a bit against societal norms, like having a threesome (which I haven't done) or dating an alcoholic (it's a joke, people). I know I'm not alone in being curious about sex with the same sex. I don't think songs like "I Kissed a Girl" would exist if it wasn't something at least a few women could relate to (even though I wish with all of my music-snob being that the song didn't exist). But I also felt scared, like Columbus sailing off to the end of the world. I knew my sexual experiment would have mixed responses, and I didn't want to hurt anyone, including Emma, my family, and myself.

Sure enough, it created quite a stir when I told my family. Growing up in a tiny town in Montana, gay people either didn't exist or they kept their sexuality to themselves. If we hadn't had friends in Seattle and relatives in San Francisco, I probably wouldn't have known what "gay" meant until college. When I broke the news that I was dating a woman, my family thought I must be a lesbian. My mom started crying about the grandchildren she would never have, and my dad didn't really say a word.

I was confused. Did it have to mean that? True, I was dating a woman. But I still liked men. I did like Emma a lot, and the three months together were pretty nice. We were both into art and music and poetry. It certainly wasn't all about sex. But I wouldn't hold her hand in public, and I felt guilty for not feeling the same way she did. She had only ever seriously dated women and said she was falling in love with me. I told her I still wanted to marry a man someday and couldn't wrap my mind around believing I was a lesbian. When her ex came to town and things got intense, I was glad to be moving away to Washington for summer school. We talked some on the phone and remained friends, but we decided to break it off. A few months later, I met Arnold.

For a while after ending things with Emma, I was really confused about what I was supposed to do next--date women or date men? I was attracted to men, but I didn't know if this relationship had to define me for the rest of my life. I kept wondering why there had to be labels at all. To gain wisdom, I talked with a good older friend, who had dated a woman for 11 years before marrying her current husband. She didn't think people had to choose one sexuality or another, or even consider themselves bi-sexual. It all depended on the person and the situation.

And that is what I have lived by. Well, that's the first confession. The second is that I, too, have eaten cake out of the garbage, and I don't recommend it. Call a friend or buy a vibrator, but don't let yourself stoop that low. It means something is being seriously deprived, and I'm not one for deprivation. It only leads to bad things. Ask Catholic priests around the world.

That's all, folks. I hope you'll be back. I will.

Day 51: The Ex: Friend or Just Ex?

I love these shoes. They're amazingly versatile for being plum-colored. Often times, people think the most basic shoes are neutral colors, and that's generally true. However, solid colors can also serve the same purpose, and they're a heck of a lot more interesting. These heels, for example, would look equally great with a bright-colored dress or a busy patterned blouse and jeans. And, of course, they look amazing with basic-colored ensembles as well. Just to prove their versatility, I'm going to use them with three different outfits...just wait. I'm calling this one, "When I'm Going Out, I Shall Wear Purple."

So, employee shopping day was successful, I would say, even without a credit card. I bought one pair of designer jeans for myself (dark Mek Denim with contrast stitching), two pairs for my sisters (oh, how very good I am to them), an occasion dress I've been dying to try on since the day it came in, and two basic cowl-neck, long sleeve tees for $15 each. All in all, the price tag hovered around $230--not bad considering I bought one pair of jeans last year for the same price (never again).

In a stroke of amazing fortune, we got $100 of free career wear, and you bet I used every penny on two work dresses and a cami. I didn't go near the shoes--partly because what I need these days (shoes I can stand and walk in all day) isn't what they sell, and I would find way too many fun pairs. I also stayed away from the Michael Kors totebag I've been eyeing for weeks. I figured it could wait--at least until this Wednesday (yep, another employee shopping day).

Today's episode is freakin funny stuff. Carrie is "hanging out" with Big a lot, but they aren't getting physical nor are they defining their relationship. On one of their nights out together, Carrie gets asked out by a musician and accepts. The cab ride the three share is reason enough to add this season to your Netflix queue right this minute. Big tries to get Carrie back by dating a supermodel. Samantha tells him to back off from Carrie, and he does. At the same time, Carrie realizes that her interest in the musician means it may finally be time to move on from Big. Miranda (shortly) dates a man who thinks going to the bathroom in front of her is normal. Charlotte and Trey are having sex everywhere. Trey can't seem to get enough of exciting, public sex but shies away from the bedroom. Charlotte wants to figure out where they're headed as a couple, and the two decide to try a happy medium--sex in their old bed AND sex in a cab. Samantha meets a passionate, lesbian, Latina artist who becomes interested in her. Though not the type for relationships, Samantha finds herself interested too and decides to give it a go.

So many things here. But I'll talk about the obvious one....the defining (or lack there of) of relationships that seem like they should be over romantically but aren't. The fragile time as post-girlfriend/boyfriend but not yet friends is one of the trickiest points in any relationship. Do you hang out together, even though the feelings are still clearly there? Or, do you cut each other out of your lives, just to make the transition period easier? The biggest question of all is this: can exes be friends? The second biggest: should they?

When Billy, the first Peruvian guy I dated, told me he wanted to break up, I lost it. Here, I had moved to a third-world country for him, and now I had no one and nothing to be there for. Where was I going to live? What was I going to do? When I expressed this to him, he said that I could still live in his apartment, and we could even sleep together. However, if he wanted to see other women, he could. That was the last straw, and that day I moved out.

He really didn't understand what was wrong with his suggestion. He figured I would be okay being acquaintances who occasionally had sex and talked but who had no romantic loyalty to each other. Even though I felt lonely and felt like I needed him there, I knew that accepting his offer would mean a loss of my self respect. I just couldn't do it.

But in the weeks that followed, I still saw him every couple of days. We would meet for coffee or to talk about what had happened. Then, we decided that we wouldn't talk about us but just try to be friends. I went on a date with a guy from Australia who was visiting Peru, who told me he was falling for me (after one date) and wanted me to move to Australia to live with him (yeah right, buddy, don't even go there). Billy called nearly every day to see how work and life was going. He helped me pick out a plant for my new house. I gave him suggestions about his paintings. Once, we slept together. It felt strange to go from living with him to never seeing him, but it also felt horrible to be with him, like something was unfinished and very unhealthy.

Then, I started dating Jorge, who I eventually got engaged to. Billy went crazy, calling me names and refusing to see me. Then, he became obsessed and wanted to see me every day, pleading for an explanation of why I wasn't returning his calls and why I no longer wanted to be together. He put up the pictures of us he had taken down, saying he stared at them for hours a day. Two days later, he smashed them all and left them on my doorstep, along with cds I had made him and magazines I had left there. The next day, he asked me to move with him to a different house, where we could start over. By this time, not only did I not want to be with him, I also never wanted to see him again, and that's what I told him.

I'm not sure what the point of all that was in relation to exes being friends. I have had some relationships that have ended on very good terms--Jorge and Travis especially--but I still don't talk with them. With Travis, his new girlfriend (who is now his wife), became extremely jealous of our friendship, worried that Travis wanted to marry me and we would have stayed together if I hadn't cheated on him. Maybe she's right. Maybe we would have broken up eventually anyway. Either way, I decided to just stop responding to his emails. We never said goodbye; it just seemed natural to phase our friendship out.

With Jorge, I figured that even if we didn't work as a couple, I the least we could be was friends. To me, that seemed to be what we always were most of all. After we broke up, I insisted he still spend Christmas with my family. His mom had died around Christmas twenty years earlier, and since his dad had passed away too, and his family was scattered, he would otherwise be spending it alone. It was a depressing holiday for him as it was, never mind just having broken up with someone while in their country, even if the breakup was mutual.

Christmas wasn't awkward really, and I could imagine us remaining friends, me traveling to South America sometimes, he visiting me in the States. It seemed like a natural conclusion to our story. We always wished the best for each other and talked about wanting the other person to find his or her perfect mate. We were thankful for our time together and what we had learned, and we thought being friends was the best thing we could be.

It was only when I met Hank, though, that I was able to see that Jorge was a friend, true, but he was also an ex. It made Hank really uncomfortable when I wrote long "catch-up" letters with Jorge, despite my assurances that there was nothing romantic going on. So I stopped. I know Jorge is okay, because my sister is still friends with him and keeps up with his life. But I have chosen to keep my life ex-free. It's just simpler. There are enough issues in a relationship without exes entering the picture.

My way isn't the only way. A good friend had every single one of her four exes and her current boyfriend at her graduation. They all had met before and at least pretended to get along. If her boyfriend wasn't okay with it, he sure didn't let on. I think that's great. In a way, I wish that's how it could be for everyone, including me. I like the thought of continuing relationships and staying friends, because I hate saying permanent goodbyes to anyone. It's like a death.

But sometimes something has to die to make something else live. Maybe that's what Carrie is getting at when she realizes that her current relationship is defining her past ones. She is more interested in making the current one a good one than she is with keeping up something--friendship or whatever--with her ex. The fact is that contact with exes makes my relationship with Hank harder, and I don't want it to be hard. I want to put my current relationship first, and if it hurts Hank, it's going to hurt me and us. Bottom line? Maybe exes can be friends, but I'm not sure they can be friends without complications. And isn't life complicated enough?

I hope you'll be back. I will.