(NSFW) Is there anything wrong with only wanting casual 'intimacy'?

I wouldn’t consider you a “man whore.” A man whore is pretty much someone who goes from girl one day, and the next day he is with another girl. Just cause you don’t want a relationship but sex, doesn’t make you a man whore. It just makes you a typical guy who is having trouble with relationships.

There’s certainly nothing wrong with it in itself, as long as the other person/people involved are made aware of this before entering any kind of relationship with you. While you may see something as purely physical and casual, your partner may not unless you are clear with him/her from the start.

As for whether or not this is a good choice for you, as opposed to looking for a serious relationship, only you can tell. To each his own.

No, there’s nothing wrong with that. Just make sure the other person knows you aren’t looking for anything more, and be sure to use protection. And for what it’s worth, there’re tons of levels of seriousness within a relationship – you can totally have a monogamous relationship that has no intention of getting more serious or lasting “forever”, or whatever it is you want. It’s not just “casual sex” and “on the path to marriage”; there’s so much gray area it’s crazy.

No, there is nothing wrong with only wanting casual intimacy. The scope of a relationship is defined by those who are party to it and no one else. As long as you are not tricking anyone into thinking that the relationship is more than you think it is, you’re fine.

That depends on who you ask. I suppose I shouldn’t judge you. I mean, I prefer casual intimacy myself at the moment. Exclusive committed relationships can cause me to feel quite trapped, so I like avoiding them as much as possible. It’s messed up, though, because I want love as well. Anyway, I think you have more freedom. Make sure you’re honest about your intentions, though. It is possible to be honest about what you’re looking for and find people who feel the same way.

Absolutely nothing wrong with that, so long as you’re honest with your partner/s. Make sure that people you’re intimate with know that you’re not looking for anything serious right now.

You all make it sound so simple,haha.I feel though if tell the person exactly that sometimes I find they would never want to date or do anything in the first place.

@CuriousLoner Figure out exactly what it is you want, and tell them that. There are people who don’t want a really serious relationship. Now, you might tell someone that you like that, and they would decide that they don’t want to be part of that relationship, just like they might tell you they want to get married and have kids fairly soon and you decide that isn’t for you, but isn’t that better than just lying to them?

@Aethelflaed Of course I was just saying people are strange in that way….Does that make sense?
What I am trying to say is that there are some women I have interest in and would like to see where things go. However if I am that blunt with them I feel they wouldn’t want to date perhaps even view me in a different light.

Ain’t gonna give you no absolution. You’re probably over thinking things. Be honest with anyone you pick up. Play it by ear, don’t plan this shit. Live. My $0.02

@CuriousLoner It’s totally ok to say “I’m not really looking for anything really serious right now, but I also don’t have a problem with seeing where things go with us”.

I understand the concern about being blunt, and tact is definitely good, but don’t underestimate how many women really, really like a man who’s good at honest and upfront communication, even if what he’s communicating are things that are less than ideal.

@CuriousLoner You might be surprised. Honesty can be very appreciated. I have a guy friend who straight up told me that he would get in bed with me, but didn’t see us as a couple. This was after quite a while of being friends, though. I appreciated his honesty from the start. Even my friends who know seem to be okay with him because he’s not a liar who is trying to play with my heart. In fact, it seems the only people who know who seem to have a huge problem with our situation are the guys who wish they were him. They’re hypocrites. Maybe even jealous.

Aside from the immorality of extramarital relations (which I suspect you don’t care about), I seem to recall reading once that ‘casual intimacy’ will impact your ability to form lasting relationships of a similar nature in the future.

And why’s that, @Nullo?

I don’t see anything wrong with it, whatever floats your boat. For me, as long as there is mutual understanding and respect. I don’t have one night stands, and I don’t sleep around either. But I see nothing wrong with it. Lately I’ve been talking to a boy I really like. We’re friends and he has really good qualities about himself. I don’t think having casual intimacy will impact anyone’s ability to form lasting relationships—that of course, lies within the person. Everyone is different.

I agree with what Soupy had to say. And AnonymousGirl

I was raised to believe it was not casual, rather it should be meaningful. But that is neither here nor there.

What you must take into consideration is that there is always the chance of pregnancy regardless of the type of contraceptive used. So before you enter into a sexual relationship be it casual or serious, make sure you and your partner are on the same page regarding abortion, adoption, keeping the child, financial responsibility for the child, etc.

If you cannot agree on these arrangements, then find a partner with whom you can agree.

There is nothing wrong with casual sex but casual intimacy is a contradiction in terms. Intimacy is meaningful and deep and cannot be casual.

It is fine as long as you are up front with your partner.

Well said, @rooeytoo.

@flutherother, it is possible for intimacy… and meaningfulness, too, in a sexual relationship like that. I used to think the same way as you, that intimacy is meaningful and deep and cannot be casual, but experience has proven me wrong.

In college, I put players in two groups—one group of guys included the predatory guys (and girls) who went after vulnerable girls, would use strategies to get the girls head over heels in love with them. Then, often, they’d pop those girls cherries and never looked at them or talked to them again. I remember a long string of girls heartbroken, sick and ashamed. I know one who just left college because of one of those predators. Those guys were downright nasty liars who should’ve been hung by their toenails and castrated.

In the other group, there were the guys who “loved women,” made their intentions to seduce and play very clear from the beginning, who made their attraction to the girl known but were clear about it being sexual and temporary, then always made sure the girl made the first move. I never saw any girls broken down over these guys but would be positive about their trysts.

The same thing happened to couples who were FWBs- the ones who were honest and open didn’t have any grudges or psychotic endings. The FWBs where one party was dishonest and lied about their expectations almost always had an ugly ending.

If you want to have casual encounters, be like the people in the 2nd group. You’ll have your fun and not have a Basic Attraction situation on your hands.

^ Very, very well said. My best guy friend (friend with benefits) fits your honest and open description. That is exactly why I have no hard feelings for him. I don’t have to wonder what his intentions are because he is honest about them in the first place and it really cuts down on me feeling a lot of needless heartbreak. I would even go as far as to say I am happier spending time with him than with ex-boyfriends who lied to me and hid things from me several times that I feel they really should not have. I would mark that as a top answer if I could.

@flutherother I was told by fluther mods to edit the question in such a manner. Having the word sex in the question was too much I guess. Haha ,but I do see your point.

There’s nothing wrong with knowing your limitations and choosing not to try and force yourself into someone different or worse, getting involved with a person who believes you capable.

One thing that could come up down the line if you do happen to meet someone you feel serious about is that person might see your history of casual sex and think you’re not a good gamble for a relationship. Most people look at your history not to judge your results so much as to see if you’ve tried to have relationships or if you’ve just been playing around.

@CuriousLoner I’m surprised the mods edited your question. I don’t see a problem in using the word sex in this context and removing it changes the meaning.

It’s not clear to me whether there is any intimacy with “casual” intimacy. Maybe you are only referring to physical intimacy. Of course you can get naked with someone and you can rub body parts and have yourself merry little orgasm. On the face of it, there’s nothing wrong with that.

The problem occurs if your experience with physical intimacy at such a shallow level would get in the way of your ability to have a deeper kind of human intimacy. People who are afraid of human intimacy often use sex as a way to avoid this deeper intimacy or even having to face the risks of a much deeper intimacy.

Sex is fine on its own. However, if you allow sex to open the door to deep intimacy, it can go so much further. You can let down your barriers that get in the way of trust and of being knowing. You can share more and you can let someone else know everthing about you. In a situation like that, sex enhances the feelings of openness and trust and connection to something really quite mind blowing. In fact, for me, it’s something that is really the only thing I ever wanted out of life. I want to feel totally connected and in touch and known by someone who I feel loved by in every pore and cell of my body.

But if you try to separate sex from emotional intimacy, you can train yourself that the two are different things. And if you believe that, than it may become impossible for you to ever achieve the full range of emotional intimacy that is possible. You may leave yourself essentially isolated and alone and never really understanding why that is.

If you train yourself to separate sex and physical joy from the entire spectrum of emotions, you may come to believe that the emotions aren’t real. They aren’t possible. Other people are making them up. You may harden yourself and cut yourself off from other people in a way that dampens your emotions and makes it difficult for you to feel empathy for others.

I’m not saying this will happen. I’m saying it could happen. If you have meaningless sex a few times, it’s probably not a big deal. But the more you do it, you more you are unknowingly training yourself that sex and love are separate things. The more you set up this possibility of a split in you that you may never be able to heal.

It is my speculation that people who practice this kind of separation have been hurt somewhere along the way, and trained, usually by parents, to hold their true selves apart, and never let themselves connect at a truly intimate level. They learn, when they get to sex, that sex can simulate the feelings of intimacy without actually having to get very intimate. It’s a bad habit, I think. Something a lot of people fall into for a wide variety of reasons, but mostly because they don’t know any better. They don’t know or don’t believe that true intimacy is possible, and so they learn to go for physical intimacy without any of the other emotions.

I have never been able to separate the two, and there have been numerous times in my life where I instinctually turned down purely sexual experiences because the other person did not see them as the same kind of intimate experiences I saw them as, and they didn’t share my feelings. I truly can not love someone (physically) without also loving them emotionally. I’ve tried. Mostly, I couldn’t perform. But even when I did perform, it felt empty and pointless to me, and I didn’t want to do it any more.

I don’t think the physical and the emotional can be separated without an awful lot of practice. It’s not something I would want to learn how to do. I think it is safe to do it a bit. You aren’t going to train yourself to lose your emotions all at once, unless it has already happened due to years of upbringing. However, the more you do it, like wearing Sauron’s ring, the more it will pull your soul into its gravity. Unlike Sauron, it’s not a heavy duty evil thing, but it is a sad thing, in my opinion, if you come to a world view that says true love and intimacy is not possible or is separate, somehow, from sex.

@wundayatta But sex and love are separate things. They can be tied together, sure, but that’s not always the case. Sex means sex and love means love. Having both is awesome, but there are times when sex is really just sex and nothing more. That doesn’t mean emotions aren’t real. Casual sex doesn’t necessarily cancel out emotions, either. Lust can create pretty powerful emotions. Desire can be quite strong and cause one to feel passionate.

Interesting.
The only downside I feel worth mentioning:
What if you run into someone who you find you want more,.. and they definetly don’t want to go there?

@AnonymousGirl But sex and love are separate things. Not in my experience. But they do become separate if you insist on continuing to treat them as separate things. And once they are separate, it is nearly impossible to get them back together.

Sex that is just sex, in my opinion, is dehumanizing. It damages the soul. It disconnects people. It makes me very sad.

I’m not saying it’s wrong. But it does make me sad because I think people who do that are missing out on so much emotional connection that they could easily have if they would let themselves open up and be more available. I believe that the reason people think that sex and love are separate is that it is a defense mechanism against being hurt emotionally. It means they have already been hurt badly. And that, to me, is one of the saddest things there is in this world. We are alone enough as it is. To cut off the possibility of that kind of intense, emotional connection that happens most easily with sex makes it much much harder to break through that loneliness. Not impossible, but harder.

@wundayatta Your wife is very, very lucky. I have deep respect for your view of women.

But, not everyone thinks like you. Unfortunately, there are too many boys out there like that horrible Tucker Max character, boys who whoo-hoo! at Tucker Max types of guys, there are boys who act like they don’t care who’s under them, just that they get what they want, there are predators who act like they’re in love then bolt, or boys who expect their girls to act like porn stars for their entertainment—too many different types of boys like that to count—
As long as those types of guys exist… there will be girls who feel their value comes from satisfying those types of boys’ interests. The freakin’ media doesn’t help—look at Jersey Shore shudder!!

Men who think like you are few and far between, in my opinion. Maybe I’m jaded and cynical in that, but I don’t trust that men will view a woman like you do. It is really sad, yes, and if there were more men like you, if it was more widespread, more recognized, then things would be better, overall, for women.

I might be contradicting myself here, but the way I see it… there is a difference between one-night-stands and a FWB. A one-night-stand, I would put in the no-emotion, objectified sex, one-notch-above-blow-up-doll category, while FWBs tend to have some emotions and trust, albeit not the intense foundational emotions you refer to. It’s not the same as 100% emotionless sex like with the types of boys I mentioned above—most FWBs couples that I know of have some emotional and trust bond there.

Whether that level of emotional detachment becomes a habit that hardwires into your thinking patters would be an interesting thing to look into—I can’t say if I agree or disagree but it’s an interesting perspective that has got me thinking.

@wundayatta Interesting. I’ve believed I could not separate sex from love, but I tried really hard to do that so that I could do what I do with my best guy friend. It was hard for me, but thankfully he is accepting that I love him and I don’t have to separate my love for him, even if he doesn’t love me. I know he does not love me and probably never will, but I’ve accepted that. He seems to be able to separate the two just fine. He also assures me that I can handle it if he gets a girlfriend and that I am stronger than I realize whenever I confide in him my worries about that. He is of the belief that he would rather be honest and direct with a woman he is sexual with than be like one of those guys who get in relationships with women under the guise of loving them, but really wanting to get in their pants.

If he is someone who is emotionally not invested in our sexual relationship, why then do we talk a whole lot about things that have nothing to do with sex? We can talk about pretty much anything with each other. Books, movies, space exploration, new scientific discoveries, articles we’ve read, pictures we’ve seen, our own families, etc. He’ll even make sports jokes to me, even though I’m not as big of a sports fan as he is. It makes me feel good to know that he is still willing to talk to me about his interests. I like hearing about them. After all, I’m sure there are things I talk to him about that he doesn’t feel any connection to whatsoever, yet he still listens and responds accordingly. The least I can do is return the favour and appreciate that he is comfortable enough to talk to me about his.

He’s helped me through some pretty terrible experiences – being cheated on, being sexually assaulted, being lied to by ex-boyfriends, etc. I realize this may just be me proving your point, but still. My point is that he does care about me and that he has helped me through a whole lot when he did not have to. He’s stuck by when other people I thought were friends got sick of me and left. He’s been a great friend to me.

I used to think friends with benefits relationships were all about sex and nothing more…. I used to believe all that, I did. Then this guy came along and proved me wrong, at least about him.

I suppose you could say that if I stopped being interested in him sexually, the friendship would disappear. That does not appear to be the case. We can go through long periods without sex. I’ve worried that if he would get a new girlfriend, she’d not want him to spend time with me. His response to that? He told me that a woman he ended up with would be special and implied that that would not happen. No woman he is ever with is going to make him stop being friends with anyone, not even me. I mean more to him than that, apparently. That’s the impression I was under, anyway.

I’ve confided in him about my worries that other guys would not take me seriously because of my past with him. His response to that was that a decent guy would not judge me for such a thing and that if the guy did, was he really someone I wanted anyway? How could I argue with that? This is a man who does not hold a double standard here.

Perhaps my bias is because this is the most fulfilling friendship I have ever had. We are great friends who also happen to be physically attracted to each other and can be open and honest with each other.

@AnonymousGirl To me, what you describe is a relationship that does not separate the emotional and the physical. I suspect you get much more out of this than if you did try to separate them.

As to the future? Who knows. There is a difference between the relationship as lived and the relationship as conceptualized. You can say you aren’t lovers. I say if it walks like a duck….

Guys often seem to have a problem with naming things, particularly relationships. It is as if when you name a relationship, you are making a promise—like taking a vow—and this makes many guys pretty uncomfortable. I don’t think guys are opposed to making promises, per se. I think the problem is that when a guy makes a promise, he wants to never break that promise. And there are many promises he might like to make, except he can’t know for sure if he will be able to keep it. If he doesn’t know for sure (and who can?), then how can you make the promise.

As long as you agree that we are not exclusive, then he can be exclusive with you, knowing he has a bolt hole. He may never use the bold hole, but it’s there. If he makes the promise (and none of us know if we can truly keep them because we don’t know what the future holds) and breaks it, then there is a lot of shame involved.

Maybe if we could make promises but have less shame if we break the promise, men would be less wonky about making thing. Instead, we have to not make promises so we can maintain our promises that we don’t know if we can keep.

Just a theory. Based on how I experienced it.

I think you should not judge your relationship because you have no guarantees. People grow into relationships. Stay with it. He seems like an honorable guy.

@linguaphile Do you ever wonder how men got to be the way you describe them? How could someone get to the point where all they think about is what their sex partner looks like and how she moves? Yes, men and women are different, and, on average, men seem to be more motivated by looks than women are.

But what does that mean? Are we really all that different? Or do we just interpret the data in a different way? Men want acceptance and adoration. Don’t women, as well? But women feel adored when they hear words saying so. Men feel adored when a woman seems to totally lose it when she sees his cock. I could explain this in greater detail, if necessary, but trust me when I say that we find meaning in the world in fairly different ways, and yet the meaning we find, I believe, is very similar. It’s the way we go about it that creates the appearance of such dissimilarity.

I also think that men are far more sensitive than women are. We do not have the emotional reserves that women seem to have. We are made fun of for our fragile egos. We are so macho and yet our egos are so fragile? What the fuck? Ok, so is it any wonder we are reluctant to share our feelings? It hurts us more than we know how to handle when we are not liked or love and as a result, I believe, men tend to withdraw. We don’t hang ourselves out there emotionally because the pain of loss is much more devastating than you know.

We hide that pain by building tougher and higher walls, psychologically. We keep people out. We don’t trust. It’s easier than risking the pain of letting someone else and then getting slammed again. It’s easier to treat someone as a sex doll than as a person because while you don’t get real love, you get something that feels good for a moment, and you can avoid that pain of being vulnerable and then being crushed.

Women, I don’t know why, seem to be stronger when it comes to dealing with the pain of break-ups and other emotional losses. It’s as if somehow inside they know they have what it takes to get through this. I don’t know if it is a cultural thing, and we expect women to be more enduring, or if there’s something genetic involved here.

It’s very complex, though. And there are these underlying themes, but they all get complicated by individual factors with each relationship. I can tell a lot about people by their stories and I can make my guesses and offer my advice, and a person will take it if it makes sense to them, but not all people who will benefit from it will take the advice and some people who shouldn’t take the advice will take it anyway. So it goes.

@wundayatta Thanks for all that. I appreciate it. :)

I have wanted more and he knows this. He asked me why we need a label. At one point, he told me I pretty much was his girlfriend because I was the only woman he was seeing like that. He does not want to be tied down, though. And he wants a serious girlfriend of his to be someone that he feels love for. He does not feel love for me, so I can’t be that woman.

While he does not love me, he does care. I remember one time when I felt really bad and was struggling with something and like giving up, he sensed that and told me he cares too much about me to give up on me. I still remember the look in his eyes, the tone, everything. It seemed to really pain him that I was struggling with that issue and he wanted to help me. He’s always cared about my happiness in this sexual relationship and that appears to be the #1 thing he wants from me. My happiness.

@wundayatta You description of men’s emotions are very nuanced and clear. I appreciate the time you took to explain that. It helps sensitize me to where some men might be with their emotions and understand the layers better. Again, it’s appreciated.

However… for me, it still doesn’t excuse misogynistic behaviors, especially in sexual relationships. I can think of a good number of men I know who justify their misogynistic leanings because of terrible things women have done to them in the past and I know the same thing goes to women who generalize and hate men for what happened to them in the past. I wish we all were able to look at each new friendship or relationship without the past coloring everything we say and interpret. That would be nice, but it’s not reality.

One thing, also… With your explanation—even if I fully understand that the sensitive side exists, that these men have walls up to protect themselves, and that these walls might lead to emotional disconnect, it really is not my burden to figure it out for them, especially if we’re in a relationship. I have no interest in trying to dance around their emotional issues for them. I can be friends, deeply love them for who they are, might see more potential than they believe they have, might be understanding beyond a reasonable level, might even be willing to go through hell with them (not for them), but I am ultimately not the one who carries them across the bridge to make that emotional connection to me. Then if it leads to me getting the negative fallout from their emotional distrust, I have to weigh whether the man inside those walls needs my faith and patience and how much I should give, or whether I need to look out for myself and move on.

All of us have emotional baggage, that’s a given, but when we expect others to fix it for us or constantly tolerate the fallout, it becomes unhealthy.

Back to you, @AnonymousGirl—it seems to be more of a terminology thing than an actual lack of emotion thing. You sound like you have a good friend in this guy—it seems like you’re willing to give him the room he needs to figure out his terminology. Why not, for a while, stop worrying about defining the relationship and just enjoying the ride? (easier said than done for sure! :D )

^ Good advice. I may just take it.

By the way, I also like what you said to @wundayatta. I can definitely relate. It is not fair for people to punish people they are in their relationships with because of people from the past who have nothing to do with them.

There are men who say women shouldn’t withhold sex. Well, men shouldn’t withhold their emotions. Men withholding their words of affection is the same thing as women withholding sex if the intent is to control the situation to get what they want if either person really wants those things, but is holding back due to past experiences out of fear of being hurt.

Of course it’s entirely different if the man doesn’t feel love for the woman or the women really doesn’t want sex, but I am talking about when the man does love her and the woman does want sex. I am talking about the times when these people take their pain out on their partners who do not deserve to have that pain taken out on them because they weren’t the ones who did the hurting.

I agree that as long as there is mutual honesty and everyone is being straight up about their intentions, casual “intimacy” as a mutually consensual recreation is fine, however…I’d drop the word ” intimacy”, which has nothing to do with sex.

You may be sexually intimate with someone, but, in the truest sense of the word, there is no real intimacy in casually based sexual encounters.

It is simply an agreement to mutually use each other, not an exercise in human communion on a deeper level.

Personally I prefer solo sex to casual encounters, too much work for the quick return I can get from the turbo jets in my hot tub and I don’t have to engage in superficial BS just to get laid. Nope, just not that important to me these days and I’m fine with that. lol

But, @Coloma, what about the people who get into relationships and lie? Aren’t those people being superficial….?

It would be so much easier if everyone was just honest and respectful. Maybe we’d all win then.

@AnonymousGirl

Yes, of course, honesty goes without saying, well…for some. ;-)

:}

First, I’d like to point out that the word “intimacy” in the title is in quotes. As far as I can tell, we’re talking about casual sex. We’re not talking about more nuanced forms of intimacy that might be, by definition, non-casual. Of course, we’re also talking about casual sex rather than one-night stands. As such, an intimate relationship of sorts might still evolve, even if not the thoroughly close relationship that a less casual affair would likely bring about.

Second, I’d like to point out that everything @Nullo wrote is false. Not only are extramarital relations not immoral, it is in fact immoral not to have extramarital relations. If you never have sex before getting married, you are disrespecting your partner. You are saying “I’m confident I can get what I need from you even if we don’t click well in bed, and I don’t care if you can get what you need from me.” Moreover, he is clearly remembering whatever he read incorrectly (or citing a falsified source, or just making it up) because research shows quite the opposite of the stated claim: waiting to have sex does not actually benefit future relationships.

Third, while I always appreciate the honesty with which @wundayatta answers these questions, I would like to note that he does not speak for all men (despite often writing his answers in terms of “how men feel”). I find that my own psychology is often at odds with what he presents. His answers are always quite informative, and they are certainly worth reading and taking into consideration. But I would be wary of expecting all men to respond as he would.

@SavoirFaire Yes, I agree. My opinions are mine, and are certainly not always reflective of what goes on inside other men. They are my analyses of what I see in others. I am probably overly dismissive of the ability of most men to understand their own emotions. I admit that I am not a big fan of men. You should certainly not generalize based on any description I make of my own experience.

I try to make it clear when I am making generalizations based on my experience, or when I think my comments should be limited to a certain, undefined group of individuals, but I don’t always do that because sometimes I just can’t be bothered. If I generalize and I hurt someone I didn’t mean to include in a group, I’ll take my lumps and apologize. But I hope that you will give me the benefit of the doubt most times—that I am being more subtle in my head than my words actually express. And if you don’t give me the benefit of the doubt, that’s ok too. We’ll sort it out eventually.

@linguaphile I do not seek to be an apologist for men. Men are responsible for their own emotional growth—I totally concur. So are women. I am usually, in these conversations, seeking to explain. My explanations may or may not be right. They may or may not help you have better relationships with men. They may or may not help other men come to understand themselves better or to become more able to cope with their own emotions.

All I ask is that you please do not think I am asking you to give out extra because of men’s mishegosse. I want no favors for myself or any other man. I don’t think women should give out favors, because I don’t think favors are really any favor in the long run. But surely knowing more about each other, or at least, knowing someone’s theory even if it is not supported by any data, yet, could be helpful in improving understanding, where sexual differences do create these kinds of misunderstandings.

And know that I am always open to having my theories changed if someone can offer me a compelling reason to do so. I just want human relationships to work better. If my ideas hurt, then I want to stop selling them as soon as I can be shown how they hurt.

@wundayatta I definitely give you the benefit of the doubt. I was not merely being polite when I said that your answers and your honesty are greatly appreciated.

@wundayatta No, they don’t hurt at all. Actually, just a couple hours ago my son and I had a long discussion about the ideas you presented on this thread and he agreed with you. I appreciated your perspectives! Please don’t apologize for sharing.

Let me explain… It was really cathartic for me to be able to say I wasn’t responsible for a someone else’s emotional baggage. I was raised to be a caretaker, someone who excuses and tolerates others’ behavior, someone who fixes things, someone who helps, explains and rationalizes. I have been the one who sees positive in everyone and sees the good under all the layers- it’s been a great trait to have, except I never really learned to live by my own conditions. I always have put my conditions and wishes aside to accommodate others—I understood their conditions and demands, and because I was capable of adjusting to fit others, I’d put up with it. I didn’t feel it was a bad thing, really, and for a long time, took pride in this trait. This same trait makes me a favorite at work for conflict resolution and dealing with difficult parents.

One day recently, my son said, “Mom, you put up with way too much. Always have. It’s great, but when will you have had enough?” He was right. So, when will I have had enough? When will my conditions matter? When will I decide that someone else’s baggage is not something I can fix? I guess now is as good a time as any? I’m not bitter or angry, just want to develop something resolute.

I have a friend right now that I really want to help, who is going through an emotional mess, but I decided I’ll be there, but I won’t be carrying anyone right now. I don’t want to be patient and understanding about the fallout anymore.

As for casual intimacy… that’s not going to happen with me anytime soon. I have zilch interest in any intimacy, but I still think that casual intimacy is possible, for others, if there’s completely open communication going on and there’s no negative fallout that one person has to tolerate.

Your comments were welcomed since they give me different perspectives of how others think. Again, I don’t need an apology.