Distant Lovers

Last month marked a milestone that I've now traveled on 6 of 7 continents. I've dated women on 5 continents, had sex on 4 continents, and received road head on just as many. One of my more memorable experiences was driving 5+ hours in Brasil on a getaway. As the sun set and it had officially been 3 hours since our last session prior to leaving, I started eyeing this woman in the glow of sunset colors so she decided out of safety that I not pull off the road. I tore into her and suddenly she was half over the stick shift, swallowing me. I was taken aback when, in between moans, she abruptly jumped back to her seat while I rubbed and fingered her, until she came. Talk about some serious multi-tasking! As that story goes, we finally made it back to the city and it being late with few hotel vacancies, she introduced me to the culture of love motels. Being 11 years older and a psychologist, she taught me many things about working towards a greater level of understanding and being able to accept myself, reconciling my inner conflicts to embrace my full potential. We barely spoke the same language, but shared a connection and understanding that transcended reason. This was aided by my immersion in her passionate culture, where my logical mind could no longer guard me from embracing my passionate nature, a side few people really see. After all, logical people don't travel the world, ride motorcycles, and go skydiving more than once. So as logical as I can be, I'm equally as passionate, a point which seems to be the biggest misunderstanding about me. Ultimately, my time with the Brasilian was profound regardless of distance and circumstance. I'm an advocate of long distance relationships. They don't require an all day every day time commitment, allowing me to focus a lot of time on myself yet maintain a relationship that can be intense and passionate in discrete moments. Besides, I know they're into me and their head and heart are in the right place because it's much easier to walk away than put in the effort needed to build an effective level of communication across the distance. I have also found it works best to encapsulate feelings because I cannot do anything about the emotional distance created by the physical distance. There’s no point going crazy to be with her night and day, counting the time until I see her next because it's just not possible so restraint is necessary. I believe long distance relationships can work, but you do need to be with each other in the beginning to achieve true understanding and be able to form a lasting bond that can endure. Furthermore, with today's technology it's easier than ever to get involved over distance. International phone sex can get pricey, so a few amazing Europeans invented skype. There's nothing like skype dates and having skype sex. Who said technological progress is bad? Call me crazy, but I believe the true measure of love is its ability to evolve over any distance, any situation, or any obstacle. Distance poses a number of challenges, but the passion shared when you finally are together can be pure bliss. The in-between sucks, but I always argue the value of long distance relationships is that the time spent together is worth more than time spent apart or with anyone else. I realized something else about my involvement in long distance relationships: I go for unavailable women. I think I partially do this because I'm not willing or able to give myself freely and fully. Often, I think this is because I am still emotionally hurt from failing in love with someone else and being unable to acknowledge it, admit it, or move on. While I can't love fully, I can love safely. I can't get attached because we eventually have to separate and leave, so I know precisely when things will end so I can prepare myself and it won't hurt as much. I think people confuse conditional relationships with being conditionally in love. Real love doesn't have conditions. The expression, the construct, the relationship does have conditions. In my long distance encounters, I didn't need to know if they were involved with others because I just wanted to experience them during our brief moments together. Rationale went out the window and things become pure, raw, unbridled passion - the heart wants what it wants when it wants it. Things got complicated when we tried turning our encounters into a relationship and conditions were placed on what was acceptable behavior. In relationships, love quite simply isn't always enough. You don't stop loving someone when they hurt you or it ends, you just decide to move on from the relationship and the love eventually fades with time. Personally, I still have love for many of the women I’ve been involved with and I hope they find the happiness they desire, but we learned we’re not the ones for each other. However, lately I seem to have evolved and not only attract but want to involve myself with the kind of unavailable women that have a pre-existing boyfriend condition. God only knows what kind of psychoses I may have developed now.