You know what? I think you're mostly right. Here's why I think Corri and I aren't quite on the same page with the swan concept. (Hopefully the cat will appreciate this ) Let me share a moment when I felt like my version of the swan:
NG and I just had some seriously intensely hot sex. As the afterglow fades, I rise from the bed with a certain grace, naked and confident. As I stand and prepare to walk away, he reaches out and grasps my waist with his hands and kisses me tenderly way down low on the back. I turn my head and smile at him over my shoulder.
That is me at my mature feminine non-maternal best. That's who I want to be in relation to a man. I think the swan has to do with devotion and I am devoted to finding the man with whom I can feel like that woman on a til death do us part basis (in between the laundry and the quarrels.)
Yes, the cat likes it, very much. *lazy cat grin* Gives me a Goya's "Nude Maja" vibe. Now watch me be banned for linking to "pornography".
It's funny, the problem I have with the image of the swan is not that it has to do with devotion but that it's ethereal, removed, and I don't really see you like that. For all your love of analyzing and abstract concepts you have a talent for the here and now, and your "high functioning adult female that is not the mother" is, as you've illustrated in that little scene, very much a creature able to live the moment.
Swans are also metamorphosis (mythologically, Leda and the Swan, etc), and that part might apply more, because you're certainly able to live a side of yourself that you had to keep shut in. Dunno. I may just have to get used to the image.
Well you can do this, nothing wrong with it, but don’t expect anyone you meet while having casual sex to be a serious partner. Men might have sex easily with lots of women, but when they find the “one,” they might hold off of sex because they the man don’t want to come across as too easy (well, this happens some of the time). He wants the woman to respect him and he wants to respect her.
What I am saying is go have fun. But don’t delude yourself into thinking this new freedom somehow defines how you should act with a serious partner. Casual sex and a LTR are two separate things. Don’t let the casual sex define who you are and spoil your chances for a LTR. Once you’ve had your fun, then you will need to impose some self discipline, as Corri recommended, if you ever hope to find the “one.”
Meh to that. Not that I disagree that a sizable majority of men function just as you describe, but this whole "play hard to get so he won't think you're loose" thing makes both me and my cat want to scratch. All it really says is "I'm willing to play games to conform to a certain standard you have in your head that means nothing with regards to the way I'll act after we're married". Just because a woman has sex with you on the first or second date doesn't mean she'll frak the mailman after you've married her. Nor does it mean she won't, just because you had to wait a year before she "succumbed".
Mojo likes sex, and didn't get much during her marriage, yet she didn't seek it elsewhere even once before she and her stbx mutually called it quits. That's a pretty solid track record. There will be men who will be mature enough to deal with both the fact that she likes sex and that, in a committed relationship, she won't seek it elsewhere.
It won't be someone with a lot of insecurities, but then we already knew that.
Lil says that "somewhere, there's a chili I can not eat", and everyone thinks thats so #%#ing profound.
Hey you! Why the gratuitous slam at my sig line? What have I done to you recently? I'm not part of this discussion.
And I don't recall anyone except me thinking the statement is particularly profound. I happen to think it is because it gives one permission to give up, to quit, to recognize when you have met your match. It gives one permission to leave the game.
I think damage can be done by the "do not quit" mentality in both the personal and global realms.
Just curious to know what your fear is of claiming 'Who You Are,' and then BEING that. I don't see how I have demonstrated any such "fear".
I get that from you having said, numerous times, that your sex life and the quality of your sex life, is the responsibility of Mrs. Cac. I've never seen you own up to your half of it. That doesn't mean you haven't... I just haven't seen it. If you have... my apologies to you.
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[quote]And maybe you ARE in fact... this very confused man who says to the world, "I AM Who I SAY I am NOT, in any given moment."
...or done this, either.
There was a 'maybe' in my sentence. But... you have said... I am NOT a programmer.
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I don't see how you are at his mercy. You and he are solving your tooth problem.
well, thats just entirely contradictory. If, not being a programmer myself, I run into a problem involving programming, I'm at the programmer's mercy...
Not if you ARE a problem solver. And if you say to the programmer... fix this, by this date... and he doesn't... return the product or find another programmer. A good one. A really good. I'm sure you know a few.
And if that doesn't work, find another way. Do something else. But don't sit there and tell me you are at someone else's mercy. Bullpucky.
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yet, also NOT being a dental professional, if I should run into an oral health problem, and consult an actual dentist, that's "us" working on solving a problem? tell you what: the dentist is going to be handling the lion's share of that one, too. wtf?
He can't handle a dam thing unless YOU initiate it. I don't see too many vigilante dentists in today's world.
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what if you were a Network Engineer AND a problem solver
same thing. and I will solve it. just not by my own figurin', in this case. I've done as much as I can do with it, by identifying and isolating the problem. The vendor will have to do the rest. to do otherwise would be a waste of my time and my boss's $$.
Jesus H. Christ. THIS was NOT in the gist of any discussion you and I had. All I heard was a lot of bitchin' and moaning about the fact that you are NOT a programmer.
If I am misreading you, I apologize. You do not come off as a man who is happy. You seem really pissed off, actually.... about lots and lots and lots of things.
And the general reason you give for that, to me, seems to be you always feel like you are at the mercy of someone or something else.
If I am wrong, please correct me... seriously. I'd like to know.
And I don't recall anyone except me thinking the statement is particularly profound. I happen to think it is because it gives one permission to give up, to quit, to recognize when you have met your match. It gives one permission to leave the game.
Lil, I've enjoyed your quote from Pinkwater!! However I have a different take on it. For me it's a reminder to keep yourself grounded because there is always something out there that you can't do. Kind of a reminder to stay a bit humble. I was interested in our different perspectives and looked up a larger part of the quote if you are interested:
"It doesn't matter who you are, or what you've done, or think you can do. There's a confrontation with destiny awaiting you. Somewhere, there is a chili you cannot eat." Daniel Pinkwater
AND
Mojo, where are you?? I want to see what your response to Cobra will be!!
But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads? ~Albert Camus
I agree with what you say, but what does any of that have to do with how the man sees Mojo?
You agree? But you just told me that you would have seen a girl who had sex with you quickly as loose "back in the dating days". Now you agree it means nothing. Does that mean you've matured?
And if so, couldn't there be men out there who've also matured, who'd appreciate someone who enjoyed sex without immediately assuming they'd frak the mailman if given half a chance?
I don't disagree that a lot of young men wouldn't know the difference. Or men who have no experience with women. Or men that are generally narrow-minded. None of which would make good long-term partners for Mojo.
Imagining a woman who's a chaste virgin but miraculously melts (after an appropriate time) only at your touch is a set-up for disaster. Men'd be much better off with someone that ownes their sexuality but have "I won't cheat, and if I don't like it here I'll leave" written into their personal ethics.
The more I think about it the more I understand NOPkins recommendation to Mojo about finding a "reformed player" ready to settle down. I actually think NG might have fit the bill, and if not he, someone else will.
) Let me share a moment when I felt like my version of the swan:
