…Continued
“I wonder who else is going to be at K and C’s dinner party next weekend. I hope no one we don’t want to see,” I said somewhat rhetorically to my girlfriend Saturday morning. We had begun our new routine of spending an hour on weekend mornings walking together through Prospect Park. When she stays over at my place, that is. If we’re at her place on a weekend morning, I’m not sure if we’re gonna walk anywhere. But if we do it will be in Maria Hernandez Park.
So, this pricked up my girlfriend’s ears and she replied, “Well, I hope it’s not anyone you’ve had sex with.” She said it in jest, but there was a somewhat serious edge to her statement.
I know she is not an overly jealous possessive freak. She has a very healthy attitude towards everything that comes up in our relationship and pretty normal feelings about my sex and dating history. And, I have to admit, my shit-eating grin accompanying some discussions of my past sexual adventures doesn’t help her to feel secure. My sister nailed me on that particular relationship felony on the phone all the way from Madison, WI. She said it doesn’t help my gal feel better about the whole thing when I’m winking and grinning. And she’s right.
I admit I would myself feel somewhat uncomfortable seeing a long lost one-night stand or someone I serially dated at am intimate dinner party and I can imagine my girlfriend would be, too. “What if you were in my position,” she asks me, “how would you feel if, on a fairly regular basis, you ran into my past liaisons?”
Well, I’m not really sure and, with one or two exceptions, I don’t really have to worry about it because all her hook ups took place in other states and her exes have moved away.
We both agree that everyone should have sex, casual or otherwise, hook ups or ongoing relationships, monogamous, poly, whatever floats your boat. It’s important to have a sexual life and the sex life you want, but no one is ever going to feel comfortable about the past and that’s okay.
Maybe because “sowing my wild oats” happened later in my life is part of the reason we, as a couple, are running into a lot of my past sexual partners currently. But, now I’m in a monogamous relationship, feel really good about it and it’s fabulous to finally have a communicative mate who is not afraid about talking though all of this.
She says she thinks it’s really all just very primordial: It’s perhaps a place people go to emotionally, an illogical feeling, the sense that there is still an attraction and, like the proverbial caveman, territory is being marked. Plus, because we’ve both been cheated on in other relationships it seems like maybe I’m lying, too.
But really she’s extremely evolved and healthy and knows none of that is true…but feels a twinge of jealousy anyhow. And that’s okay.
Blogger Bio: Stephanie Schroeder is a dreamer, wanderer and writer based in Brooklyn, NY. She likes to exchange apartments with artists and other interesting folks from around the globe and travel in search of new friends and singular experiences. She makes purple a way of life and also fancies green, purple’s complementary color on the color wheel. (stephanieschroeder.com)