Concessions Revisited

Thanks for all of the comments, both public and not, on Oh, The Concessions We Make. They made me think a little more about it and I’ll be excited to hear your thoughts on part two:

I remember a lot of complaining in college that there was no middle ground between being essentially married and simply hooking up. I see the same problem here in the (semi-) real world. There’s an idea that someone who wants to and is able to really see you has the potential to be a spouse (or at least a long term relationship) while everyone else is “just for fun.”

That creates a huge problem for me, since I’m wholly uninterested in any kind of close relationship with someone who doesn’t have a clue who I am. That goes for friends as well as boyfriends—if I talk to you regularly, you can be sure it’s *your* company I want and not just company. I don't have much, if any, experience in long-term relationships, only in short ones where I'm fairly uncomfortable being with someone when I have a nagging feeling that he could have the same experience with any other girl on the street. I tend to read people fairly well, and I’m generally not willing to give the benefit of the doubt to someone I think isn’t trying.

That leaves a small window of time for the “getting to know you” part (and likely explains why I rarely date people longer than a month), but there have been people with whom I felt a very quick, very real connection, almost like we were transparent to each other. Right from the beginning, we had a baseline, a backbone to our relationship. Three were female and two were guys who were taken (and still are, as far as I know). One of those flamed out rather quickly (she wasn’t the person I thought she was, which brings up another list of questions, I suppose) and I only keep in regular contact with two out of the five, but I’ll recognize that connection when it happens again.

(For the record, I have had that kind of connection emerge later in a relationship, but the difference is that we weren't trying to force so much one-on-one time--or anything physical--in the meantime. It grew before we became close friends, which seems more natural to me.)