The sound of inevitability, Mr. Andersen

I suppose it was inevitable. It doesn't make me feel any better about it, but it had to happen.

How many cliches apply?

You can’t have your cake and eat it too
If you want to make an omelet, you have to break some eggs
Honesty is the best policy
Nothing ventured, nothing gained

Whatever. I still feel bad.

At this point, I want to be open to dating a lot of people. Partially because I think it's a good idea for me to get a feel for what's out there. But also because I know I'll freak out if I find myself with a "serious" relationship. I have a pattern of throwing all my eggs in the first available basket, and this is bad. This doesn't mean I'm closed to deep intimacy. Having finally figured out what that is, I value it and seek it out. I suppose the critical gap between my current perspective and that of the mainstream dating public is that feeling very close to one person doesn't preclude me from feeling very close to other people. If we're open to the idea of having enough love for our many children, our many siblings, our many friends, why can't we have enough for our many lovers?

Yes, jealousy is the killer here. The short retort to my question is "because you're not having sex with your children, siblings and friends". Fair enough. But it seems the only real psychological hurdle.

And let's face it: If we, as a species, were designed to really mate for life with one mate, don't you think we'd have some kind of powerful imprinting instinct that made us literally only have eyes for our mate? But we don't. We still notice attractive members of the opposite sex (or same, depending on your wiring, I guess), no matter our state of relationship bliss. And if you don't believe me, I have two, two-word answers:

1. beer commercials
2. Brad Pitt.

I'm very emotionally open right now. I'm not closed off from developing strong feelings, deep attachments, or profound intimacy. And this is where I'm getting into trouble. Women feel this, like it, get attached (all fine) and then want me to themselves (which scares the crap out of me).

Despite my female friends' exhortations that modern women can handle non-marriage trajectory relationships, the data in my life seems to indicate they can't deal with non-exclusivity well. It comes up as an issue. Only one person has been genuinely fine with it. Others have accepted reluctantly, instituting a "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Others have decided that we're better off as friends.

I'm blue today because, after last weekend, it became clear to me that I needed to be clear with M, friend and roommate of L, that I wasn't ready to make anything I was involved with exclusive. She had said she "didn't like to share". And I won't bend, distort or hide the truth to make things work for me. We needed to have that talk. So last night, I told her where I was at. And she knows, from past experience, that she can't deal. So we're going to do the only fair thing: both deprive ourselves of the other.

It's a shame. On Saturday I got together with her fully intending to tell her I didn't want to risk screwing up my relationship with her roommate and friend. But I came to realize that M and I do have a lot in common, and I do like her, and the risk to the relationship with L is minimal. So I chose to pursue it. Maybe I should have laid it all out at that point in time? Not only had the "let’s not put L in the middle of this" talk but also the "and I'm just finishing this divorce and I haven't dated much and I'm just trying to sense what's out there and if I felt I was jumping into something serious right away I'd freak out, so I'm just keeping my relationships open" talk. But we didn't. We did have a lovely weekend, though.

And maybe this is the whole issue, and maybe I just don't want to confront it: I can have these "open" relationships with people, as long as there's no sex involved. But once sex enters the picture, people are going to want things to be exclusive. And while there are prudent CDC reasons for this, I think there are emotional reasons for it too.

My attitude towards sex right now is a bit, perhaps, contradictory, but I don't see it that way. I don't think of it as meaningless. I do think of it as a way of profoundly connecting with and knowing another person. And I feel I can connect with more than one person that way. Maybe I'm abnormal. Maybe I'm kidding myself. But having learned how amazing sex can be when it's an expression of emotions, and being able to have feelings of tenderness, connectedness and desire for more than one person at a time, this doesn't seem inconsistent.

I felt the same kind of "break-up loss" when I heard M's response last night as I did when my marriage broke up. Not as abject, but I'm blue. I guess I thought she'd say "This is ok for now, but I reserve the right to ask for all of you down the road".

I didn't really think it through. Maybe that's a good thing. I'm being emotionally honest with the world, and seeing what happens. Sometimes, I guess I'm going to have sad days. But I'll take it. I feel real.