in my late teenage years
I was in a love triangle
two boys and a girl
and there were secondary and further auxiliary loves related to us
but we were the core
my parental model of failed love scared me away from the ideal of satisfaction in a couple
and lead me to desperately trying to understand Love and how it could possibly be nourishing and sustainable
(that and a heavy dose of breakup pop songs)
after a significant acid trip in my 18th summer
the idea gestated and took root of three specific nutrients of love

for many years I was always testing my relationships against these ideals
and then let that all go

just a few weeks ago I remembered them
and had forgot what they were…

yesterday
after working on a client for three hours
they all came back to me
making perfect sense again
as if there were no wonder in them (maybe that was why I abandoned them?)

the three aspects are simple:
sexual
intellectual
and
existential

sexual:
of course you can love someone primarily through sex
the perfect fit
firing high on passion
bodies dissolving into each other
remaking, renewing, discovering aspects of yourself previously hidden
happily exhausting the heart
as in a cardiovascular workout
but infusing every cell with joy…

perhaps each aspect could be described the same?

intellectual:
the person who understands everything you say
can follow every thought
complete them where you’re stumped
inspire you to new directions in your idea’s pathways
play the perfect devil’s advocate with out being annoying
or be the ideal audiance to work out your own mind with
being equally entertaining as an orator…

Existential….
that was always more difficult to articulate, such is life
but it’s the person you talk with on the phone
tell your daily travails and adventures to
the person you eat with
the person you walk in a park with
or disengage with
perfect
just watch tv and feel entirely comfortable

of course
I often found the relationship imbalanced:
a person I loved talking with
but they always wanted to fuck
and I didn’t want to go there

a person to just hang out with
be
and then I’d get aggrivated he was so intellectually dull

or, likewise
awesome sexual partners who weren’t good cuddlers or present at all to my mind

of course I imagined a gigantic family of lovers as my ideal model
a great sex mate, who spent more time cooking and knitting with another lover
and then the ideal conversationalist and artistic partner who had two twinks he was always having three ways with
then that big soft dopey mother who I could lay on like a couch and play with his beard, walk through the park with…
they would have their ideal counterparts in the same house
and we’d all live happily ever after

I came to a point of seeing relationships as too difficult entirely
because I wanted to figure out all my kinks
all my self deception, dysfunctional truths, all my wounds
I wanted to live perfect, happy, productive and free
but was overwhelmed and terrified, of course
being drawn to men who would try and comfort me into forgetting
which was only a temporary fix
because my brain would kick back in and I’d start checking to see if they’d honestly solved my problems, which they hadn’t, nor even intended to
and more so
came with a whole slew of they’re own which they had in turn shelved or expected me to take on

despite our best intentions
that codependent model has never really flown

lazy

but how impossibly difficult with one other person! not to mention the mess I took myself to be

no, no hope for my family ideal, no
so I threw out the tertiary construct
and figured I’d have better luck shoe-horning second-bests into one candidate

that didn’t work either
and, tiring of seeing people I loved terrorized by my monster of a heart
I gave up entirely (again) on the idea of coupling
and now aim to just work on myself crumb by crumb
and enjoy the live I can share
when and with who
is in the right spot at the right time

of course
there is a gnawing dissatisfaction with this as well
knowing partners are possible
but possible as I can idealize them?
uhhh
or “can I settle for love?”

.iP