In High Gear

I went poking about my old journals looking for a refernce to Eric The Red to show you. The reason is that he came up in conversation recently, and it helps to have a little backstory. Alas, I never wrote about him. Thought I had, but didn’t.

I referred to Eric as “the last casual encounter I had”. I failed to specify that by “last” I didn’t mean “prior to the next”. I meant “final”.

Casual sex doesn’t really work that well for me. It isn’t nourishing. Physical intimacy seems to belong with emotional intimacy, and one without the other is kind of painful for me, especially later when the heat has worn off. There’s something empty there. It hurts. And emotional intimacy is part of love, one way or another. Friend love, lover love, family love – whichever way you dice it.

I didn’t love Eric and Eric didn’t love me, and while we had some wild and wicked times together, parting was sorrowful for the lack of anything we really had together. He gave me a gift, a pastel sort of rendering of a cityscape, but the only gift that lingered was a deep appreciation of Fight Club. And that’s pretty much it.

I don’t regret it and am not ashamed of it. It was what it was. But I haven’t wanted any more of that since, and still don’t.

It’s never casual.

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