25 October 2010

What colour is your Polaroid?

Adventure Girl finds spiritual enlightenment... well, sees a picture of her aura, anyway

So apparently I'm clairvoyant.

I know this because Chris from Enlightenment Photography knows this.

'See how the purple extends almost all the way to the edges? That indicates intuition and psychic ability.'

I'm sitting in a small study in Boganburbia staring at what appears to be an over-exposed Polaroid of myself.
Everything smells like oils and incense, and I'm sure someone has taken to the entire house with a crystal Bedazzler.

The photo is mostly violet with a smudge of blue to my left (the picture's right).

'Blue is a communication colour, so you are a good listener, an intuitive listener, able to transform others through loving listening.' This represents my future.

In the centre I'm told 'Mystical unifying would best describe you... Enchantment, charm, sensitivity and deep spiritual understanding are the qualities most important to you.'

On the right side is the energy I am 'putting out to the world... People see you as magical... What you want comes to you as if by magic.'

The Polaroid was taken over several seconds of me sitting on a bench, spreading my palms on a metallic hand-shaped template with some kind of electrode sensors on each fingertip. 'Don't move,' Chris says, and I feel like I'm in an episode of House undergoing a CT scan.

Afterwards, we don't just talk about the photo.

'Dreams?' Chris asks. His flavour-savour beard jiggles when he talks. It's reddish-brown and it reminds me of a faun. Actually he's kind of faunish in general. It might be the purple t-shirt (or the purple everything), but there is definitely something mythological about him.

'What about them?' I ask.

'Do you have them?' Not the everyday vanilla ones about stuff that happens during the day, he explains, but the really real ones.

'Oh, you mean those horrendous ones where you can't wake up?' (which I always thought were a case of sleep paralysis), 'Or the ones that later come true?'

Chris is staring at me. It's an intense stare. The kind of eye contact that makes you want to scream, blink already!

That's when he asks me if I believe in ghosts. Except he doesn't word it like that. There seems to be an entire vocabulary that spiritualists use that I haven't quite gotten my head around. Thank God/my Spirit Guide/the Earth Mother for Google.

'I don't know if they're ghosts or spirits or whatever, but I see what I call the Night Eyes. In the dark, with my eyes open or closed, they stare back at me. All different ones.'

'They're people who have passed on,' he says. He wants to know if I'm in touch with them. If they make contact with me.
 
'Hell no.'

'Why not?'

Is he serious? What about the girl with long blonde hair who came to me at my lover's house, terrified, or the one standing in my bedroom doorway, mouthing silently as she strangled, or those guys who were hovering in my living room, looking like they wanted to steal my TV? 'These are different to the night eyes.' I shudder.

'Are they malevolent?'

I nod. 'The others, the eyes, the faces, they're neutral, they just watch me like I watch them.' I always assumed they hadn't 'passed over'.

'Maybe you need to get in touch with your Spirit Guide.' Apparently my Guide will protect me if I ask it to, keep the ghosts away from me, away from my room, and the hell out of my house.

'Do you sometimes wake up with a song stuck in your head? When you've had these dreams?' This, too, is a spirit, sending me a message, he explains.

For some reason this freaks me out. Not the idea of someone sending me a message, but the mention of hearing a song when I wake up. It's probably something he says to everyone, but it resonates because I was talking about exactly that to a friend the night before. In this case (because there are others), it is a song by UNKLE called 'Nursery Rhyme,' and it has haunted me for years. 'There's something in the way it makes me feel that is also in my book, something I am trying to write out, that is also in the way that my lover sometimes holds and whispers to me. They are connected,' I say, 'but I don't understand how.'

I know this makes no sense to him. It barely makes sense to me.

He asks about my writing. I tell him yes, sometimes when I write it's not like I'm writing at all, but as though I'm reading. I have no idea what is going to happen until it is on the page in front of me. 'When that happens it's exhilarating.'

He tells me that it is most likely a spirit guiding me in those times.

Then he takes a bag and asks me to pull out a crystal. I rummage around for the one that calls to me, that feels right in my hand. I don't quite get the sensation I'm looking for, but we're running out of time, so I take the next best thing. It is small and blue-ish black with lighter blue veins. He thinks it is sodalite rather than lapis, and this is consistent with his opinion that I am very in tune with my third eye. It is the stone of 'insight and intuition'.

Next he draws out two cards.

I take a sharp breath. One of the cards shows a child standing at a gate. She is locked out. It is called 'The Outsider.' It is a scene from my book, a premonition that comes as a dream to the main character of her daughter standing at the gates of Nedran. It is also the name of one of these posts, and represents how I feel about my family.

His explanation of the card bears no resemblance to mine.

The second card is called 'Comfort,' and is mostly words but we run out of time to look at it in any detail.

I want to be able to stop looking into his unblinking eyes, stop seeing the flecks of dark against light. I can feel things crawling behind me. Hovering. It is a sensation of eager malice. They don't want to get to him, they want to get at me.

'Do you have any questions?' he asks.

Where do I start? 'No, I think that's it.'

I pay him in cash, take my photo, my crystal, and leave.

It has taken a while to shake the creepiness, to stop remembering those dreams, the picture on the card, and the feeling of that song. I know I've had dreams that have come true, names of people I never knew and later met, always in some significant way. I know that if I ignore the nagging in my gut for too long it will slam itself in my face, usually at 3am.

I have no idea how much I believe of what Chris said, whether the photo is a reflection of the colours I happened to be wearing, a random result of over-exposure on film, or some other con. I didn't get any insights into my future, or any signs to help me work out what I should do next, but I did learn a bit more about me, about the things that haunt me, real or imagined, (and I did wake with a song stuck in my head the following morning, this time, the Eurythmics' 'Thorn in my Side') and maybe that's adventure enough.

-AG

18 October 2010

‘Use it or lose it’

Rhonda Perky’s guide to DIY
‘If women just fucking got over themselves… to [women like that] it is about men having needs that are lesser because they are physical rather than emotional and that sex is somehow an animal thing… a degrading thing, and that if you engage in sex you have somehow let the man “win” and all that other stuff that is so great about having good sex with your partner is lost.’ – The Desert Foxx
I am going to put it out there. I think women should take responsibility for maintaining their own libidos.

Not as some ‘feminists’ would argue, to kowtow to the whims and desires of men, but for themselves. To feel alive. To be more than a role-extension to the lives of those around them.

The death of a women’s libido is a well-documented phenomenon. Bettina Arndt’s The Sex Diaries details case after case of women whose libidos have withered and died, while their male counterparts shrivel in hopeful longing. Arndt goes on to argue that this is evolutionary and natural, that women are geared to lose their libidos. Unfair, but biologically unavoidable.

In ‘When difference of desire is sold as a deficiency’ (The Age, June 6, 2010), Leslie Cannold also writes, ‘While men tend to find their partners more desirable over time, women often need a new partner to rekindle desire.’

You may recall from my post, ('Married Sex: a Fairytale in Three Parts'), I suffered a massive loss of libido while I was in a long-term relationship. I was a text-book case, and would probably accept the theory that libido loss is unavoidable, except I have since managed to do just that. I have regained -- and successfully maintained -- my libido through two subsequent relationships.

I would instead argue that I contributed to the death of my own libido.

When I first met my then future husband, my hormones when crazy. I took it for granted that they would stay that way. They didn’t.

I can point to a long list of things which may have slowly poisoned it. Being in a long-term relationship was just one of them. I got sucked into living my life day by day. I did what I thought I was supposed to. I became a wife and a mother to my cats, and a faithful employee, and a daughter, and a sister, and there was never enough time or energy, or desire. I had secured a partner (*tick*). I could worry about him (and me), later.

First, I had to look after everything else.

During that time I didn’t even think about sex. It wasn’t as though I didn’t want sex with my partner. I didn’t want sex at all. I didn’t even want to masturbate. It became way too easy to surround myself with the bland unsexiness of routine and responsibility. It was what was accepted and even expected of me.

Besides, there was always tomorrow. Or the day after. Or the week after that. There was no urgency anymore.

There was also no stimulation.

This is where society – including women – has got it wrong. Men are stimulated constantly. It’s no wonder they can seem like walking Viagra-fuelled hard-ons. They are sold sex and more sex, while women are sold motherhood and washing detergent.

Looking back, I wonder if I would have felt differently if I had ready access to sexual stimulants in the same way as men (0). Because now that I have my desire back, I realise how precious it is. Something to be nurtured and maintained. I never want to feel that downstairs deadness again.

The Sex Diaries advocates women not waiting for the stimulation to come to them. Leslie Cannold agrees: ‘Sometimes, women won't want sex until they've started having it.’ I would advocate taking it one step further, and making use of third-party stimulation to get themselves there BEFORE their husbands / long-term partners make their clumsy advances (1).

For me this is where DIY comes into play. It’s all too easy for life to get in the way and for the sex part of your brain to be clogged with everything but, however it is possible to make it happen solo if you make the effort and take the time. And once you start you will start to want it, and then want it more and more, and yes, you may even want your partner again and not inwardly (or outwardly) groan when he pokes you in the back, saying, 'Hon...?'

And here I risk being slaughtered by my feminist peers again when I say, if you're having trouble finding the time or the mental energy, why not try using porn? It's quick and easy and direct (2).

First you have to get over the stigma. After all, you don't use porn for the articles, which means admitting to using porn = admitting to DIY. There is a public perception that many women do not use porn to masturbate (3).  There is only a growing perception (acceptance) that women masturbate at all. I don’t want try to guesstimate the accuracy of those perceptions, because I think masturbation, whether assisted by pornography or not, is still a taboo topic for many women, and therefore skews this perception. Hooray to Cosmo for all those G-spot and Clitoris specials that made women seeking self-pleasure more socially acceptable, but I think there is still a reluctance among women to admit, even to themselves, what sorts of things truly turn them on.

In ‘Even Better Than…?’ I alluded to some of the more ‘acceptable’ sources of stimulation available to women, and how this differs significantly from that which is available to men. I’m not convinced this difference is our natural inclination. Were we to climb The Magic Faraway Tree and step out into ‘Topsy-Turvy land’, we might see men fantasising about romantic leading ladies sweeping them off their feet, while women dream of anally penetrating hardcore male sex slaves. I suspect the difference in the materials available to us has more to do with the diet of acceptability on which we are raised than any innate difference in our sensibilities.

For instance, The Desert Foxx and I spent an afternoon perusing Good Loving, Great Sex, by Dr Rosie King (‘Australia’s leading sex expert’), which discusses libido enhancers and suppressors. Following an extensive survey, Dr King came up with a shortlist of what turns men on versus what does it for women, and conversely, what turns each of them off (4). To our surprise, Foxx and I found we related more to the guys’ list than the girls’. Rather than conclude we were more ‘male’ than ‘female’ in our thinking, we wondered at the voracity of the survey results, which seemed VERY clichéd, and VERY 1953. It was almost as though when presented with a list of checkboxes, women gravitated to the socially acceptable and familiar, rather than the stuff that would actually get them ‘percolating in the nether regions’ (-- Mr ‘Longrod’ McHugen Dong).

It occurred to me there was no ‘control group’ in this experiment. No group of participants divorced from societal pressures to tick particular boxes.

Similarly, The Sex Diaries examines the libido of women throughout the lifecycle of a relationship. It does not consider a woman’s libido on its own; in one sense, in its natural habitat. It wasn’t when I entered a new relationship that I rediscovered my libido; it was in the privacy of my bed-made-for-one.

But this lack is reflective of our society. What is the norm and what is considered ‘acceptable’ is pervasive, and creates a loop in which we are trapped and in which we trap ourselves. Foxx and I are quite unabashed with each other when discussing sex, and this was reflected in our survey results, but not everyone is like us.

I would go on to argue that these societal expectations are reflected in the masturbatory marketplace.
Perhaps if there was a wider acceptance and acknowledgement of women needing secondary stimulation, the porn market might shift to more women-friendly material (5), which may in turn make it more appealing to women entering the market, and we may find a rekindling of our libidos by the increased presence of external stimulation (6). We might end up as horny as (if not more so) than men.

Yes, life gets in the way of desire, and this is rubbish, but when I hear women describe sex as a chore, something their partners demand of them, and that they (grudgingly) mete out, I am horrified. I want to scream, ‘Don’t you want to enjoy sex for yourselves? Don’t you want to feel alive?’

Because you can. You simply have to want to enough.


--RP


(0) Whether or not I maintained my desire for my partner is another thing entirely. We had all kinds of issues. But while we weren’t having sex, we weren’t communicating either. Domestic-bliss 101 we could share. True intimacy eluded us.

(1) A word to the wise, men: nagging at a woman for sex / complaining about not getting sex / not making an effort to entice your woman to want sex are sure-fire ways of ensuring you do not get sex. Try wooing your woman as you once did to get into her knickers in the first place. You succeeded then, you will probably succeed again now. Just because you’ve worked through the bases once, doesn’t mean you get to ‘skip to the end’ every time. Try working the bases again. You might be surprised.
 

(2) Remember, it’s geared towards men.
 

(3) I once bought an FHM over the counter, only to have the man who served me say, ‘Um, there are some Woman’s Days out the back… I can go and grab one for you…’
 

(4) A list which pretty much described my marriage.
 

(5) What a good friend describes as ‘Couples’ porn, rather than ‘Single Guy’ porn.
 

(6) The shift in the type of porn that is produced may also go some way to helping reduce men’s difficulty in relating to women from over-exposure to hardcore material where ‘consumers are catapulted into a world of cruel and brutal sex acts designed to dehumanise women,’ ('Porn has hijacked sexuality and is destroying men,' Gail Dines, The Age, October 14, 2010).

15 October 2010

‘Even better than …?’

Rhonda Perky ponders the place of porn in the ‘real world’
‘Of course I don’t fantasise about my current partner when I masturbate – I get to have real sex with them.’ -- Mr ‘Long Rod’ McHugen Dong
Modern men have access to more hardcore porn than ever before, but according to Gail Dines in ‘Porn has hijacked sexuality and is destroying men’ (The Age, October 14, 2010), this isn’t necessarily what they want. Constant exposure is causing men to complain of being porn-reliant, or even forming an addiction to hardcore pornography, and that this is having a flow-on effect to the way they relate to women in the ‘real world’.

I'm not arguing a case for or against porn, hardcore or otherwise, but I do want to look at some of the issues Dines raises.

Dines makes the point that due to an increased exposure to hardcore porn, men report needing to fantasise in order to achieve orgasm during sex.
‘What troubles many of these men most is that they need to pull up the porn images in their head in order to have an orgasm with their partner. They replay porn scenes in their minds, or think about having sex with their favourite porn star when they are with their partners.’
I hate to disappoint all the men out there who believe their women are being taken over the edge by their awesomely sexy presence and superior technique, but chances are those moans are as much about what is going on inside the woman’s mind as what you are doing to their body. (Don’t get me wrong, what you do is important -- VERY important -- it’s just that a combination of mind and body is usually required to get us there).

Certainly there is a case for the argument that hardcore porn desensitises men. If they’re accustomed to watching extremely graphic images, a tame session of pink-lace lingerie, muffled moans and missionary probably isn’t going to compare. But to be fair, it’s also a stretch for women to imagine that beer belly and B.O. is really a tanned and deodorised six-pack.

Men are also complaining that real sex doesn’t live up to the fantasy of porn sex.  
‘These men have become so accustomed to porn sex that some are disappointed by their own sexual performance. When they compare themselves with the male porn actors, who can sustain Viagra-fortified erections for long periods, the guys I talk to often admit to feeling like sexual losers, and worry something is wrong with them.’
The issue for me here is less to do with the use of porn and the images it makes use of, and more to do with men confusing fantasy and reality. For years women have been accused of having unrealistic expectations of men, resulting from a steady diet of Walt Disney, Bridget Jones's Diary and Sex and the City, because no relationship will ever possibly live up to the ones of our imagination. Prince Charming doesn’t exist, and nor does Mr Darcy. Certainly the revolving door of available, successful and good-looking Sex and the City men aren’t there for the taking. Perhaps it’s time men were given the same bitter pill we've had to swallow for years, that what they are watching isn’t real.

And as for men feeling inadequate compared with their male porn-star counterparts, do they not realise women have the same issue, having to live up to the standards set by Angelina, Jenna Jameson and Felicia Fox? We can’t all be man-eating stunners who represent charities by day and act as bisexual BDSM fetishists by night. I’m not saying that makes it okay, it’s just something we all have to deal with in a consumer society.

At its heart this article seems to imply that men are having difficulty doing what women have always had to do: use their imaginations.
‘Many of the men I talk to believe that porn sex is what women want, and they become upset and angry when their sex partner, perhaps their wife, girlfriend, or a one night hook-up, refuses to look or behave like their favourite porn star. The women often refuse to perform the sex acts the men have routinely enjoyed watching, and next to the screaming orgasms and sexual gymnastics of porn sex, real sex with real women starts to feel boring and bland.’
I won’t talk here about the questions the article raises on the content of hardcore porn – I’ll save that for another story (watch this space), but I will argue that the difference here for men and women is that women have had to make do with very little hardcore stimulation for a very long time. Mills and Boon, the pages of our favourite novels that fall open at the mention of a lifted skirt and heaving bosom, or a movie scene where the heroine is pressed up against the wall in a passionate embrace by her robust anti hero (this may be part of the reason for women’s reportedly low libidos -- again, I’ll leave that for another story), but this has in some ways kept our ‘boudoir’ imaginations relatively active. We have to continually fill in the blanks.

Male-oriented pornography on the other hand leaves very little to the imagination (though I would argue it takes a ‘special’ kind of imagination to believe she really wants you to shove that enormous dildo up her ass and then lick it). Men become desensitised, but they also become lazy. When the images are presented to you, when you are slapped in the face with them, you don’t have to do the work.

This is possibly the real tragedy.  Like tobacco or caffeine or any other stimulant, it is to the advantage of the supplier to build user-dependence. A dysfunctional sex-life is a by-product but also a market-force, turning users into repeat users, and ensuring a constant market for more and more extreme stimulation.

Men and women are the losers here.

--RP

11 October 2010

'Six months in a leaky boat'

Adventure Girl learns how to swim

So you’re in this relationship, and it’s had a bit of a rocky start, travelled some rough seas, but finally you’ve reached calmer waters, and you can see land up ahead.

In real terms, this is the point where you know you love them, and they love you back. They say it and they show it and you feel it. You’re floating, and it’s thrilling, and it’s peaceful. Then BAM.

The storm.

Out of nowhere you’re throwing a 15-year-old tantrum, all the while aching for them to hold you, to reassure you, to carry you to shore.

Of course they don’t. You’re behaving like a child.

It gets worse. You panic. You’re grasping. You don’t just want to be rescued; you’re drowning and feel like you can’t get to the shore without them.

But they pull away. If you’re lucky they offer you a life-raft, but most times they’re reaching for one for themselves.

‘See?’ you tell yourself. They don’t love you, not really.

The storm might come in the form of that nagging thing they once told you that still doesn’t quite add up, or yet another text message from the Ghost of Shaggers’ Past. You ask AGAIN for an explanation, you want to know AGAIN why she is texting him. Not, as he supposes, to find the worst in him, to prove that he’s lying, cheating, but to be reassured that he’s not.

It’s a test not of him, but of his love for you. You’re looking for cracks and testing if the boat is watertight.

Because can he really love you? I mean, REALLY? Love YOU? Doesn’t he know who you are underneath it all? Won’t he run screaming when he finally discovers the truth, when he finally sees who YOU are?

So you push and you squeeze and you test, but it’s not about not trusting him, it’s about not believing in you.

If you think of the relationship as like being on a leaky boat, you see yourself running around trying to plug and test every last hole. But when you test the holes, you put more pressure on them, and most times make them bigger. Do it too often and chances are there will be so many holes the ship will sink.

The other part of you, the secret part, doesn’t just test the holes that are already there. This part wants to be sure that the boat can withstand an attack. This part steers the ship into the storm instead of away from it, to see if you can weather it, and punches new holes to see if together you can plug them up and keep afloat. Eventually, if you punch enough holes, or steer into enough storms, you’ll both be grasping for life rafts.

Deep down, you know where the fear comes from, a history of sunken boats as long as the Shipwreck Coast. Too many people have been in love with you, but not loved you. Because they didn’t know you, didn’t see you. They saw an idea of you. You felt like a fraud and it never worked out. Because the more they tried to love you, the more you were convinced that they didn’t. Or rather, couldn’t. Because they never saw who you really were. Never saw the rocks beneath the surface until you rammed your boat into them.

But now you’ve found someone different. Someone who sees, who knows. Who has seen your flaws, and still loves, just as you have seen his. He can even tease you about them and make you laugh at yourself. This time you want it to be different. You want to BE different.

You’ve learned your lesson.

Instead of trying to plug and test every possible gap, instead of punching new holes, you will try to accept that nothing is watertight, that the ship can have a few cracks in it, and still stay afloat.

Because even if you do manage to seal the boat completely, there’s no guarantee it won’t one day break down. The motor could simply run out of steam.

And if it does? You might be battered by the sea and swallow water until you choke, but you will make it onto shore. You’ve done it before and you can do it again. And again. And again. You have a life raft, and a vest, and you know how to swim.

-AG

07 October 2010

Soul-Sucking Demons

Mad Julie exorcises her right to a demon-free workplace

So what do you do if you are stuck working with soul-sucking demons?

Well let me tell you my little tale of what I have tried, tested, and scratched out… before finally happening upon a very sophisticated means of revenge…

1. Drink Lots!!!!

Problem – numbness only lasts for 3-6 months and there are sober periods… hmmm….

2. Eat lots of Chocolate and Comfort Food for Emotional Recovery!!!

Problem – ummm 5 plus kilos later… hmmm….

3. Shopping Therapy?

Problem – the pay cheque doesn’t last as long as it used to… and then can't afford as much booze… hmmm...

4. Exercise out the demon toxins

Problem – hard to outrun them when stuck in a meeting… hmmm…

5. Hide!!!

Problem – they HUNT you down and CALL you… Hmmm…

6. Look for a new team to join?

Problem – you find MORE soul-sucking demons and the old ones STILL HUNT you down!!! HORROR!!!!

7. Take Sickies?

Problem – they ARE STILL THERE when you return!!!

8. Take a positive approach and try to get to know them better?

Problem – you discover these demons come from the LOWER LEVELS of HELL… hmmm… what now?

And nope, am already spacing out the drinking, chocolate, shopping, sickies, hiding and occasional bits of other toxins… and I refuse to join the demon ranks!!!!

9. Have a life? Hmmm… but what type?

You interact more with the nicer demons and discover they had angelic mothers;

...you smile and laugh lots and the soul-sucking demons become uglier with their jealousy to all (you are now not alone);

...you now look like a catwalk queen with all the exercise and shopping, while they favour bag-lady-esque fashion (YEAH);

...and you are fairly popular going to all the latest shows, movies and bars around town…  the laughter is your ammunition… (UH HUH!!!)

...meanwhile… the soul-sucking demons are withering in their bitterness and becoming fat and dumpy with new wrinkles and white hairs appearing by the hour… AND they are LOSING their hold… slowly their suckers are dying… and so is their poison…

10. SOLUTION – REPEAT POINT 9 TIL THEIR ASHES HAVE BEEN CAST…

01 October 2010

Trampolining Love

Adventure Girl bounces back

We all know about the rebound effect. Heart torn, ego shattered, we desperately want to feel the upward rush of replacement love, or at least a new almost-crush. Anything to fill that gaping hole of hurt (or according to Dr Helen Fisher, of Rutgers University in New Jersey, to get our next dopamine fix).

Chances are, the first person to fill that void is not the most likely long-term partner, but rather, someone easy, someone gentle, someone safe (or in the case of the Attachment-Avoider or Commitment-Phobe, someone completely unobtainable). Either way, Mr (or Ms) New is ultimately, not for you.

I tend to oscillate between a Mr Bad and a Mr Safe (though one of these days Mr Bad will surely rip me into so many shreds I’ll turn to Mr Unobtainable. I was almost there, once, having an obsessive crush on someone young enough to break the Half-Plus-Seven Rule. At the first sign that something might actually happen between us, I ran away, screaming).

Because I bounce from one extreme to the other, being acted upon, rather than acting on, it ends up feeling like a constant state of inertia. I don't act, I react. Heart torn, I retreat to a Mr Safe. Mr Safe waits for me to recover. He is kind, he is besotted, and though I might grow to love him, I am not in love with him.

From safety I grow restless and long for the excitement and risk of a Mr Bad. I crave the in-love feeling of dopamine. I may even create drama within the stillness, like an artificial stimulant. If I can’t feel in-love, let me feel the imitation cocaine-effect of a make-up... and eventually (always) a break-up.

If I'm lucky, I will find a Mr New who also resembles a Mr Bad, so I can fall in love all over again.

One day I hope the lessons learned from this constant back and forth will even out my cravings, that I will find someone who excites me who is also relatively safe. Like when you decide to stop bouncing on a trampoline. The push-offs get smaller and smaller, until you come to a complete stop, only you are right where you want to be, whether that's on your own, or with Mr Just-Right.

But it isn't only the dopamine-cravings that keep me jumping. According to descriptors of my personality type (Myers Briggs-style,  if you believe that stuff), I have a tendency to 'striv[e] for the Ultimate Relationship', and will 'fall into the habit of moving from relationship to relationship, always in search of a more perfect partner'. To make matters worse, I also have 'difficulty leaving a bad relationship'.

It's this combination of perfectionist and idealist (mixed with some attachment-anxiety, according to a psychologist friend) that will keep me reading that 'Use-by' date as a 'Best Before'.

One lesson I have learned that I can share, is that like wine, no matter how good a relationship is when you first get it, once it's past its peak, it will start to taste a whole lot like vinegar. Let's hope I find a Mr Just-Right before I have to taste that again.

-AG

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