He walked me to the escalator and kissed me deeply. He said to me ‘you've been waiting for this for a long time--was it worth it?’ I smiled, I flirted back to him ‘that I wasn't sure and would he kiss me again?’ And then he did once more.... He walked me to the door, walked away, changed his mind and kissed me again…at least a half dozen times… walking back from the door he was walking through to where I was standing to kiss me and he began to leave and then back to kiss me again.
It was about this time of year, two years ago…and I still can’t forget. I went absolutely oxytocin love-drunk afterwards. I was practically bumping into walls--I couldn’t remember where I had parked.... He kissed me, and for a moment I thought ‘all is right with the world’. He kissed me… I put my coat on, he took the collar in his hands and pulled it closed as said to me ‘cover up...he looked so strong and handsome--and for just a moment, with him, I was so very happy.
But that was the end, not the beginning.
I wasn’t initially attracted to him. He picked me out in a room full of people he looked at me and asked if I was married. I didn’t even know that he was talking to me; I didn’t pick my head up, I didn’t respond. He wasn’t a guy that I would have been typically attracted to; he was far too thin and far too light in his coloring. He reminded me too much of my little brother. And then he smiled at me a crooked smile and my heart skipped a beat. There was something about his smile—in particular the left side of his smile. It took me a long time of asking what it was about him that had me drawn until I realized what it was; that the same as the smile of someone that I adored in college. It was the spillover of the familiarity that I had once loved before. In that moment, the seduction of my soul was complete. What was left was my body and I questioned, would he be worthy?
On the surface, he plays an aggressive game…but it’s aggressively wrong…or better put wrong amount of right. I like seduction; I like sensuality. I even like a bit of what Neil Strauss calls 'The Game'...but what he played at was not at a level of mature games-man-ship. Not one of a master. Not even the skill set of a seasoned pick up artist. As a woman, I enjoy the persuasion, I can admire worldly cunning and deception. A panther lurking, eyeing his prey. An animal doesn't eat a kill at laid at his feet; there is the chase, the capture, the glory in the story of hunt. I needed more. I can give you a perfect example. M. hurt me this week, and so, I took a step back. I’m not consciously playing with him, I just needed to step out of the dance for a moment. M. didn’t like that I was responding to his emails in one word ‘OK’s’ and two worded ‘have fun. So in response to one of my emails he responded in kind with ‘OK’. I smiled. It wasn’t a pissing match, but it was a duel…tit for tat…he knows how to be a worthy competitor.
As it unfolded, I had written to a girlfriend:
He and I had progressed to some fun sexy flirting, but today, I felt like he crossed a line and removed the picture he had favorably commented on. I'll see him in a few days, he had asked me a few messages ago 'if I was going to be wearing something sexy to show off my newly defined body'. I told him 'that it was a professional event so there was a fine line but I tend to dress sexier than not'. He then said to me 'that anything that I wore would be fine'. I wrote back and said that 'I'd try not to disappoint him'. He wrote and said that 'he would suggest no bra, no panties but fishnets… because he was a horny piggy guy'. Ewwww…a remark that left me so turned off. I wasn’t looking for a horny, piggy guy but a man who actually knew how to behave appropriately.
My next email to him said that 'he had already seen me in fishnets in a Halloween picture where I was dressed as a house maid and that I wasn't wearing a bra the last time that I saw him' (I was in a ruffled halter top). His response to me was ‘to wear a tighter top so that he could admire my nipples’.
Ewwww. That crossed a line to a place where it was just creepy. Even if I chose not to wear a bra on a hot July day, some level of modesty would have prevented me; and for the matter most women from specifically 'showing' their nipples no matter how much they were attracted to a man.
I was excited to see him and now I'm not sure. I'm not even sure of how to respond to his last message to me. I mean unless he has the IQ of tapioca he has to know that I like him and maybe that was his excuse in taking liberties that a gentleman shouldn't. I told her that I had thought about this for the last few days and I did have some thoughts.
1. Yes, it is nice that his body is attracted to mine...it just wasn't enough. Yes, it's a nice place to start--but I was well aware that that was all that he offered.
2. It had been a long time since I’ve met a man who has proved himself worthy of having me where the sexual chemistry is reciprocal. And I'm tripping over hard-on's all day long. I swear that I'm offered sex several times per week and I can't imagine any woman ever needing to go to a sperm bank--the opportunity to have sex for me is everywhere. Yesterday, I was on an online dating site responding to a man who might be appropriate when some 26 year old surfer guy wrote to me saying that ‘after careful consideration of my profile he would suggest a younger man to me because--well, men didn't grown up anyway’. Nice try.
3. L. crossed a line--my line--and since I was playing along and flirting, he was pushing it. I had to tell him that the line was crossed…because if I didn’t than it wasn't fair to him to have me withdraw without giving him the rules of engagement. Just because he's 43 doesn't mean that he has the skills to be less than boorish than a 13 year old when it comes to pursuing a woman. Perhaps he doesn't have the skills to be more refined and artful in his approach than ‘please me visually; please me physically’. I thought that he did, perhaps I was wrong; or perhaps what is more likely that he chose to behave this way.
With that said, what was giddy excitement at the prospect of seeing him has cooled to practically nothing but disappointment.
I did send L. a message early this morning and the gist of what I wrote was that although I am attracted to him and have been from the first moment that he smiled at me, it is my fault that our flirting had gotten to a place where I'm trespassing on my own boundaries and I'm not comfortable being there; So I asked him to help protect us both from our baser instincts.
He complained--that I led him to that place of his making that comment. I’m not sure that I completely agree; (just because I made a comment about being braless in a halter top the last time that I saw him didn’t mean that he needed to ask me to wear something tight so that he could admire my nipples) When I realized that I was walking down a path to a place that appeared to be nothing more than a ‘sexual encounter’, I dialed it back.
L. didn't know that I had a boundary; heck I didn't until I felt it. So while I can't blame him for crossing it. I just wish that it wasn't his choice to walk away from me completely while telling me that I hurt him. I told him that it wasn't my intention to hurt him, but to stop myself from being hurt BY him because I didn't want a purely physical relationship between us; it wasn't, nor will it ever be enough.
I do see part of L.’s point--my message to him was out of blue--I changed the rules of our playful banter mid-game--I didn't expect that he would pick up all of his toys, go home and tell me that he didn't ever want to speak to me again. I tried writing and telling him that I was just asking him to slow it down the way the he would hope that a man might treat his daughter when she came of dating age; ...he didn't respond.
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