A Conversation with Elizabeth
2017
Re: Remembering

From:           Elizabeth 
To:             Larry
Sent:           Monday, January 9, 2017 10:54 AM
Subject:        Re: Remembering
 
Larry,
 
This may be shorter than my usual run on, because I've been watching Game of Thrones on DVDs from the library, and I have two disks due back today before 6 p.m.  The library won't renew them which means that today I have two episodes to watch before returning the disks.  This is one luxury of retirement, watching DVDs during the day.
 
I can't remember the context of me becoming aware of your dating site profile and reading it.  I vaguely recall that you told me about it, or maybe where to find it, so possibly you  wanted me to read it! 
 
I think AIDS has radically changed the dating scene, at least as far as sexual involvements.  For example, in the scenario you portrayed about the married woman, my immediate concern would be "she recently had sex with someone she hadn't seen in years and now she wants sex with me, so what did she know about that person's sexual involvements before she had sex with him."  In other words, the concern these days has to be not just whether or not to have sex with a person, but to also know who else they might be having sex with, and who you plan to have sex with in the future afterwards! 
 
I think if I ever did enter into a relationship with someone in the future, that was intimate and meant to be enduring, that I'd want it to be monogamous.
 
I read an interesting comment this morning in a book called To Have or To Be. In the section on love and relationships the author discussed that when we find someone we like and enjoy or find pleasant to converse with, then our inclination becomes to "have" them, to own them or to possess them, usually through marriage, and thus lock them into our lives as ours.
 
What I find about the above though, is that most men don't like, or find it difficult to sustain, a non-sexual, ongoing loving friendship with women, without a sexual component.  This is one reason why often my very best and closest male friends have often been those who are gay. 
 
Part of me suspects that the reason my elementary school friend got mad at me, allegedly over not supporting Clinton, but instead Bernie, was actually a sexual issue.  I had planned to go to Vicksburg and spend the night to see a play.  He had in the  past asked me to go to Vicksburg with him so he could show me the Civil War sites, so when I told him I was going, I told him to "come on over if you'd like to, but get your own room, and the day after the play we can tour the sites."  At dinner, it came up that I asked him if his VERY steady partner knew what he was doing that weekend.  He said no that he didn't tell her.  I asked him why and he said, "She doesn't need to know everything I do; we're not married.  I told her I had some business I needed to attend to." 
 
Personally I thought that was a bit scumbaggish, because he actually lied to her, both by withholding the truth and then by masking the truth.  We did have separate rooms at the motel, but once back there he dropped some strong hints about us, nevertheless, spending the night together.  I wasn't sexually attracted to him anyway, but his attitude towards his partner of several years really dis-inclined me on top of that. About a week or so later, is when he attacked me for supporting Bernie, but I thought even at the time that he was really attacking me for not falling for him sexually. 
 
Elizabeth

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