A
male
age
51-59,
Sphronas
writes:In a recent article on this site, MonicaC advises young people to "hold out for the real thing". She tells us that she was focused very much on sex when she was younger and that she had both good and bad experiences. Now that she is older, her needs have changed. She is looking for a serious relationship that is based on love, mutual trust and support and shared interests. She regrets that she has "lived too fast too young" and wishes she had "saved a few things until [she] got a little older".I agree with her, of course, that a serious relationship must be based on more than sex. Love, a shared outlook on life, mututal respect and a commitment to be there for each other through good times and bad are the only foundation on which we can build meaningful and lasting relationships.However, like Monica, I have come to this insight not by "holding out for the real thing" but by living my life as it seemed right at any given moment. Like Monica, I have had wonderful sexual and emotional experiences, and like Monica, I have done things that I sometimes wish I hadn't.But would I be the same person if I had, as Monica advises, "saved a few things"? No. I am who I am because I have lived the exactly the life I have lived. All my emotional and sexual experiences, good and bad, have shaped my approach to relationships. To some extent, I can have a happy and fulfilled relationship now precisely because I know how empty a meaningless sexual encounter feels or how unhappy a one-sided emotional investment can leave me.Don't get me wrong: I am not advocating that we should actively seek meaningless sex or unhappy relationships just to gain life experience. We should ever do things that feel wrong to us even as we are doing them. What I am saying is that it is inevitable that some things -- many things -- that feel right at the time will turn out to be wrong in hindsight. And yet these things are part of our process of becoming who we are. They should never be cause for regret except in that they should help us to act more true to our real needs (and the needs of others) in the future.If we focus too much on holding out for the real thing, there is a real danger that we will not recognize it when it comes. Reply to this Article
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male
reader, softtouchmale2003 +, writes (29 August 2009):
 When I was young, sex was more important that mature love. It wasn't about quality, it was about quantity.As I grew older, I learned that sex is sex. Making love together is much better, much different, and vastly more pleasurable. It is longer-lasting, and surprisingly intimate.But to get to that point of making love together, means a deep emotional connection and commitment; a mutual respect; and a desire to share all pleasures together and explore all things together.I long for that today, though what I once had was the best relationship I ever had, she has left my life.And so rather than seek out sex to fill the void, I wait alone. I would rather enjoy intimate, loving pleasures than simply get laid. The difference is vast. Once you've had the best, you forget the rest.
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