Hello, reader. How are you doing? I prefer being lovers. Being friends, I have to leave so much of myself at the door. I have to keep my clothes on. Sexuality is not supposed to arrive–sex is mostly not welcome.
I want to be all of me. I need places and people who let me show up as my whole self.
True I need friendship–definitely I need caring people around. I like when the stakes aren’t high. Every day I need various kinds of friendships: some closer, some more activity based.
But I love being lovers for a hundred reasons. One of the reasons is I’m allowed to relax.
Sometimes I wish I could be lovers with everyone who I’m closest to. Then we could be more real about touch, words, and what’s going on. My complete responses would be welcome and wanted, at least potentially, rather than inappropriate.
different
I struggle with being appropriate– I have differences. It’s lovely how everyone has some differences, but mine have felt dangerous at times. Basics like consent, if I read social cues differently. Because my processing is delayed, that affects how I can be around people. That affects my social success and my social capital.
My differences have resulted in poverty, definitely– unemployability. My differences have resulted in connection with harmful people. A few times I’m close to someone and look up to notice they’ve been canceled for horrific accusations. Wow, did they really do that thing?
Suddenly Ming and I are the last loyal ones. The pattern is chilling. My loyalty has led to confusion.
How I’m perceived by others– how intelligent they see me as, or how disabled they see me as– affects where I’m welcome, and how deeply I’m let in. Several places, I’ve been forced out or held at arm’s length because of what people think I’m going to need, based on being disabled, or what people are afraid of. Rather than check it and find out in a fair way, folks default to refusal. I don’t get what I need.
It’s easier to choose someone easier, especially if their dance card is full, like they already have family or friends who are taking up that receptor of “crazy person who needs a lot of care.” I’m actually extraordinarily skilled and happy, but other people don’t bother checking in, or they’re going on a previous version of me.
being lovers
But this post is about being lovers and the freedom I find there.
As lover, I’m completely honest about my emotions. I’m allowed to be more honest about my desires. Usually the bonding hormones that arrive with sex are on my side– the person does care more, somehow. Maybe not overall; maybe not skillfully. But there’s at least the concept that I could be extraordinarily dear to them, worth sacrifice, worth making an effort to show up for.
Friendships vary and lover relationships vary too, but I have a better chance of being important to someone if they’re fucking me. I wish it wasn’t like that– I wish that chosen family was commonplace, and people were showing up for each other all over.
But unfortunately that’s not the world we made.
truth
I’m working to make a world of love, but it takes a minute. I need to be honest, and being lovers means I can tell the truth in ways I can’t as friends. Bodily ways–full extent of my being ways. I need truth as a delicious form of God.
I hope that as I continue to grow up and become more of an adult, I’ll bring more truth into all of my relationships regardless of type. Let’s make a culture that’s more flexible about the expression of sexuality, gender, queerness, transnesss, and feelings. I long for profound welcome, received and offered.
questions for discussion
What relationship type are you most comfortable in?
Are your differences dangerous?
Is friendship easy or difficult?
Are your social connection needs met?
Are you more let in, or pushed out?
What would you do, if you were abundantly supported?
