For the Hypersexualized

A long time ago, I read a message written on a scrap piece of paper I found in a library book that said, “You don’t know how much you love someone until you’re faced with losing them”. Recently, I lost that someone. For the first time since our turbulent relationship started, I found myself at peace with a decision I’d come up with all by myself, a decision that would end everything I’d built with my partner.

Falling out of love, the easiest scapegoat to a breakup, wasn’t the issue between us. I still loved him even if I ended our relationship. How did I know it was over? I had a gut feeling about it. My partner and I were set to move in together, and when we didn’t get the apartment we wanted, my reaction surprised me. Relief. The feeling of having a second chance to evaluate the relationship and my willingness to become more committed. In the span of 48 hours, I went from being sure about moving in with him to being sure I would be ending the relationship. The idea that I would end the relationship came quietly, as though by a rational process of evaluation. I’d broken up with my partner before (and gotten back together), but it’d never felt like this: emotionally quiet, simple, and final. When I accepted that this would be my decision, I knew that I’d been ignoring this option for a long time. I’d chosen not to trust my gut feeling to end it in the last few months, but at that point and time, I couldn’t ignore it anymore.

Reasons. There are too many little reasons that built this solution. Basically, I was living in a state of uncertainty relative to whether or not I should keep moving forward with my partner. I would constantly deviate between a state of complete faith in the relationship and wanting to leave him. Between oscillating between these two states of mind and out reoccurring problems, I reached an emotional bottom in the relationship. After ending it, I realized that I had been searching for peace within the relationship, which was a place where I would never find it. Ironically, I never could have known this without taking a chance and ending it.

Obviously, taking this decision was a desperate last resort. I was experiencing a lot of anxiety and pain. As an addict and an alcoholic that aims to maintain the status quo and feign a normal life, it takes a lot of anxiety and pain for me to shake up my world. I understood and constantly considered how ending a relationship with someone I still loved would be extremely risky. I was afraid of being upset after the break up, afraid of disruption, afraid of nostalgia. I was also afraid of going on a sexual rampage to help quell my grief. Up to now, the only thing that has affected me, if only for relatively short moments, is nostalgia.

“It’s normal to feel this way” was my mantra for the first two weeks after the breakup. What I meant was that it’s normal to feel sad sometimes, for no apparent reason. It’s normal to miss him, sometimes. In reality, I’ve consistently felt at peace with my decision to leave him, and when it strikes, I am able to calmly and quietly wait for the nostalgia to pass.

Being newly single again is quite different from how I imagined it to be. When I was still with my partner, I’d have intense crushes, bordering on obsessions, with other men. In a true addict style, I’d produced a cross-country road map of partners I wanted to revisit or experience for the first time. I thought I’d want to gorge myself on the list of men I’d created, a ‘hit list’ of sorts, once I was single again. Up to now, no flights have been booked, no train tickets have been bought. It’s become all too clear how my level of desire for these other men was totally skewed by my unhappiness with my boyfriend. In retrospect, these men don’t really live up to the image I’d created of them: the attentive, loving, sensual saviors that would rescue me from my unsatisfying relationship. In reality, I’ve lost interest in pursuing them. All but one of them.

Yes, one. Although I managed to, as my therapist aptly put it, ‘maintain the integrity of my relationship’ at the time I was in one, I started hanging out with a man that I’d seen in the program rooms. At first he fascinated me since he sort of reminded me of an ex-lover I’d had two years ago. I pawed at this replica like a cat with a catnip toy, playing with the idea of having a chance to relive history. Since going out to dinner with him a few times and enjoying his company as a friend, I’ve completely disassociated him from the ex-lover that originally drew my attention to him, and I’ve appreciated him as a new romantic possibility. And well, let’s just say he’s more than just a possibility at this point. After respecting a time period I’d allotted to mourning my previous relationship, I started a new adventure, which has been light, fun, and very satisfying up to now.

No, I’d rather not waste time wondering if this new relationship is right or not. I want to feel my way through this one, learn to trust my gut feeling, and let it develop without over-analyzing it. I’m done with over-thinking for now.