You kind of know the truth all along.  It's there, in the back of your mind, quietly shaking its finger at the shenanigans of your baser instincts.  The child who well knows that the stove is hot, but is driven by the insatiable curiosty to laminate the knowledge with actual experience, is still aware of the truth that they're going to get burned.  They touch the stove anyway, just to unify the idea with the reality.

So here I am, successfully single for the first time in my adult life.  I say that in the context of the societal norm of what it means to have success as a single young male:  I've been getting  laid a lot.  I could be in bed right now as I type this with a gorgeous curvy woman, but respect drove me to hold back.

See, she's the PoF girl who occupied the gap between her first and last appearances in the two subsequent posts of March and October of last year.  Both she and I have matured in our attitudes and approaches toward romance, and the "fatal incompatibilities" mentioned in October's post seem to, if not have vanished, then have at least faded from the marquee headline of the dynamic between us to easily ignored fine print.  She'd moved away last year, but now is living again in the area.  Once notoriously distant with her emotions and heart, she now has confessed to have let me in... even so far as to say that I've ruined her for other men, and that on dates and in bed with others, all she thinks about is me.

Her timing is atrocious.

I am smack in the middle of a sexual awakening, and have been casually *ahem*... dating a lovely young woman.  She's everything I've fantasized about, all rolled into one person.  She's very pretty, she's black, and she's a 110% illegal-in-48-states freakazoid mamma-jamma, and without going into details, has shown me a shocking number of things I've spent my entire adult life only being able to fantasize about.  She's fun, She's insatiable, she's crazy intelligent.  And I have yet to generate a single ounce of emotional connection to her.  It's just not there.  When she does kiss me, it's mechanical, almost sterile.  And any sort of cuddles have been distant and brief.

So as long as we're "fuck buddies", I guess that's ok.  I'm living the bachelor's dream... right?  Well, there's a truth I've known all along.  It's a pillar, a cornerstone of my personality that I formulated back when I was a teenager facing adulthood for the first time and with fresh ideals.  And what I decided was that I was a romantic.  Even in high school, I didn't have as many wild horny adolescent fantasies about my crushes as I did have daydreams about kissing, holding hands with her head on my shoulder, and the ultimate pinnacle: falling asleep with her in my arms.  The sexy stuff was there too, but it was usually led up to gradually, a buoy in the ocean of romantic reveries.

PoF girl is aware that I'm dating another. She thinks that because I am still seeing the other, I must have feelings for her, when the truth is our relationship is almost purely sexual.  PoF girl told me she doesn't want to be the other woman.  So tonight, having gone to her place to hang out and try out a new recipe, there was the familiar sexual tension.  But after we watched a movie, I went ahead and left with an adorably awkward goodbye, instead of trying to "put moves" on her.  I respected her wish, even though I'm pretty sure we both were wanting each other.  But if I'm going to do that with her, I want it to mean something, not just use her for a "booty call".  Lovemaking with her is far too wonderful to cheapen like that.  So while I could be, as Elton John so perfectly put it "rolling like thunder under the covers", I've decided to take the high road.

While my lover is satisfying to the body, and to my erotic core imaginings, my heart is left empty-handed.  There just aren't any of the warm fuzzies I get with PoF girl. I've known all along that living this fantasy sexual life would leave me feeling empty and unfulfilled, but I just had to find out for myself.  I just had to reach up and touch the hot stove, even though I knew I'd get burned.  The curiosity had me falling apart, and the chance to indulge was too tempting.

The first time PoF girl and I made love after she came back, and it was lovemaking... sweet and delicious, she did the most wonderful thing:  afterward, she turned toward and curled up against me, snuggling up against the ribs below the arm that I put over her.  And we cuddled, and dozed off and on, brought on by that deep level of comfort and ease that can no single person in bed alone can have, but which is only achieved with another warm body alongside yours with whom you share a deep affection. 

That meant more to me than anything, and when I think back over the last few months of my sudden stint as the big man on campus, my mind returns more often than not to that moment.