Thursday, August 21, 2014

Eros Bumps

I've been off blood pressure medication for about eight months now. One of the side effects of the medication was a complete lack of interest in sex.
Now.
On the one hand, I'm not in a relationship so who cares?
On the other hand (the hand) (get it?) I have never been in a relationship and I've always thought about sex. I've always had a crush.
In fact, beginning in my forties I was really quite randy. Until the meds.  
So what do you do when you aren't in a relationship? (The hand.) (Get it?)  You day dream. You imagine. And often times that dreaming is aimed at the idea of a person. It could be a famous person. An actor. Or more likely a specific role that an actor plays. Like Brad Pitt in Legends of the Fall. Swoon. Brad Pitt other wise? Eh. It was probably the long hair. Some times I have a night dream about an actor and become completely enamored. That happened with Jim Belusi years ago. I'm not sure I'd even seen him in anything at the time. Images of famous people are like a virus. They're everywhere. Even if you never pick up a fame magazine you see them in the doctor's office and the grocery store. Then the oddest people show up in late night inner wanderings.
But I've had crushes on people I've never seen. People I've only read. Because really it's the things I want to hear that turn me on the most. And I'm the one who knows those things. My imagined dialogues are probably nothing that would be thought of as erotic by anyone else.
It happens with people in my daily life that I don't really know. I remember once I was quite enamored with a security guard at the Caltrain station. It made for some interesting rides to work. Not quite awake and not quite asleep. Just dreaming. It happens with waiters and the guys that do handy work on the buildings across the street. I don't really want to know these guys. I enjoy the relationship I have with them.
I call these relationships Eros bumps. A bump because you're going along, minding your own business, not even thinking about anything and suddenly there's the dream. Or a moment when you see someone in a certain cast of light. I remember it happened to me once with a guy in New York. I think it happened when he said something protective about me. It just rattled some need that I didn't even know I had.
It is a way of objectifying a person and that is not a good thing.
I know.
And it is quite obsessive.
Overwhelming obsessive.
Not good.
I know.
I try not to make a big deal about it. I try to think of it as a small thing. A human thing. It's just a little bump.
But since I am writing the narrative of these moments and since they are based on ideas and not realizations they arrive, build up in my head, refine in terms of the ideas and then one day they are over. Seriously over. Just as suddenly as they began. I hit some kind of wall and wake up. Sometimes I want to tell these guys. Hey. We just broke up. Did you notice?
If you put all these guys in a room it would be hard to discern a physical type. It is not really about bodies.
And of course it's very different from the times when I've met someone and developed feelings. Although it doesn't always feel that different. I have made myself wild with desire. It's all me. I'm making it up.I'm making myself happy with it and I'm making myself miserable when I can feel it losing energy. It goes global. It calls up every memory of every rejection. It pushes me into the corner with my dubious romantic history. I fail.
I have failed.
It was almost nice having a rest from all that. It's been years. It was nice to have it back for awhile. Nice to feel alive. But it's not as easy as it used to be to fall into a swoon. I've worked too hard to gain the little bit of lucidity I have. I try to ignore the awareness  of who I really am and who anyone else really is. Just for a minute. Just long enough to dream. Just a little bump.
I am really happy to be off meds.
Really.
I am.
(Get it?)