What Kind of Love Are You Looking For?

What Kind of Love Are You Looking For? (Casual Encounters w4m)

If you really read through all the trippy stuff people are asking for here – FWBs, LTRs, anonymous one-nighters, life partners, blow and go, BDSM, NSA, friends first, I’m in charge, you’re in charge, brains before beauty, beauty before brains, something just for now, something on the side, something forever, dancing partners, beach buddies, fuck buddies, pussy lickers, dick suckers, ass fuckers, titty worshippers, mother for my kids, father for my kids – and really listen, aren’t we all looking for the same thing?

Aren’t we are all looking to be loved, in whatever way we think we need that today? There’s really just the one category.

What kind of love are you looking for today? Maybe I have it, and maybe you have what I’m looking for, too.

This was another one of those wide-open posts I hoped would pull in some intelligent written replies.  Tall, strong, well-hung partners are great, but if there’s no brain attached to the package, I’m not usually all that interested.  Intelligence turns me on, especially when demonstrated by skillful and editorially correct writing.  You never know when a smart guy may be physically hot, too.  Intelligence is hot.

I play a masturbation word game with myself I can’t really explain, but suffice it to say that I am indeed very turned on by words.  Good writing – the kind with full sentences, accurate punctuation and the appropriate use of capitalization (which doesn’t include screaming ALL CAPS) is much more likely to generate a response from me.  I figure if a guy knows how to press all the buttons on his keyboard correctly, he’ll be more likely to push my buttons well, too.

Originally posted in Women Seeking Men and rapidly flagged down, I re-posted this in Casual Encounters.  The predictable crazies answered this one:

“Hi! I’m looking for an ongoing arrangement. We meet at a theater, I pay for your ticket, we sit in the last row to cuddle, fondle and massage each other. After we’re done, I generously tip you on our way out.  Does this sound good?”  No.

And this, from the charmingly named Jack Meoff, didn’t warrant a response either:

“You def have my attention.  So, what ARE you looking for?  Do you want to tell me online or maybe meet somewhere for drinks?”

This sweet reply was one for the scrapbook:  “Hi…I’ve only now read the C/L item you posted yesterday morning…it’s early Friday now…and I wanted to comment on it.  I think it’s beautiful, clever, true, smart and Cole Porter-ish.  Kind of “Love For Sale”, updated for cybersex.  I think you must be wonderful, and I hope you find the love you’re
looking for. I wish I could have been it.”  I wonder who he’s married to, and what he was looking for on Casual Encounters that day. 

Roy answered this way:

“Thank you for that posting.  It made me laugh, which is part of what I seek.  Interactions with a non-judgmental woman who is a freak in a way that kinks the way I do. You can push me if you don’t think I’m being specific enough.  I like being asked questions.  I love polyamory, although I don’t know if I’ve ever seriously tried it.  Companionship that is appreciative and non-clingy goes a long way for me.  Are we on a similar wavelength?”

This response wasn’t wildly appealing, but the photo he sent was fascinating.  Dressed in a dove gray morning coat and wearing a corsage, he stood, head bent, before an elderly woman, also formally dressed.  He had shoulder-length light hair, a chiseled jaw and appeared quite tall, at least next to this woman. 

Our email exchanges were lengthy and thoughtful, and in one I told him I was looking for my “intellectual, libidinous and spiritual equal.”  We decided to talk on the phone, and in this also lengthy conversation, he revealed that he was a church-going Christian.  I thought this an interesting combination – kink and religion – and was intrigued.

I am not a religious person.  The higher power I sporadically connect with is vaguely female, and aligned with music in some significant way.  Music is one of my most powerful mood regulating tools, and Roy also said he was a musician.  After speaking on the phone one evening for over an hour, he wrote back the next day to accuse me of ‘intolerance’ of his religious ideas, questioning whether I really was looking for a ‘sensitive man’.  I wasn’t quite sure that I had asked for that, or what I’d said that had offended him, but made a date to meet him at my place and go out for dinner and a drink, and see where we were.

My ex-husband is not just an atheist, he’s an anti-theist.  During my years of marital oppression, I was required to subscribe to a rational belief system that pooh-poohed the existence of anything other than physics and facts.  Before our first child was born, we discussed what we might ‘put on the menu’ of spiritual options for our children.  His response:  “Nothing.”  I knew better than to argue with him. 

Roy had trouble finding my apartment, easily accessible by BART, and right on an intersection of two busy streets.  This was not a promising sign.  I had to go down to the street to flag him down, as he was unable to turn and head in the right direction, even within the last half block to my place.

Roy was proving his sensitivity with a pink oxford cloth shirt tucked in to khaki pants and a ‘man bag’, commonly called a purse where I come from.  As I watched him approach, I was dismayed.  This was a man who had said that my picture indicated that I was “definitely in his league.”  He must be attractive to someone – because I firmly believe that everyone is – but he sure didn’t appeal to me.  Paunchy belly hanging over his canvas belt, narrow shoulders, concave chest, and gray hair that had appeared blond in his photo.  He looked about 50, where the photo appeared to be a man of about 35; we had somehow passed over the age question in our interchanges so far. 

I pressed on, as I hadn’t yet made it to the library for more reading material and had no TV to speak of, and I was out of beer.  Heading down the street into the busy part of the Mission, I suggested a couple of my favorite haunts as a place to start with a drink.  I doubted we’d get as far as dinner.  He told me then that he was hard of hearing, and wanted to choose a quiet place to talk.  I don’t much go to quiet places, but turned into one that never seemed to have any customers, and that smelled more than vaguely of bleach.  A couple of intense Latin dudes were deep in conversation with the bartender, and seemed annoyed at us for interrupting.  We ordered margaritas (which were terrible), and attempted conversation.  He was going to have to be pretty darn interesting and intelligent to pique my interest.

We discussed his religion, and I explained my spirituality to him as best I could.  When I said in email that I was looking for my spiritual equal, I had been referring more to my energy level, but I could see how he misinterpreted.  But he assured me that I was ‘still looking for God,” and that when I found him I’d be a happier person.  Whatever.  This kind of talk makes me uncomfortable, perhaps because I’m uninterested, perhaps because I’m frightened.  Certainly there are many lenses one can view me and anyone through:  a medical one, a spiritual one, a socio-behavioral one.  I’ve tried 12-step work, and did get some benefit from it, but struggled with the higher power concept, despite my tentative willingness to surrender my power to someone or something stronger than myself.  I’m pretty turned off by people who own spiritual purpose and confidence. 

It wasn’t long before I was sure I was not going to have sex with this man.  I really knew it as I saw him heading down the street, before even saying hello, but I was trying to stay open.  Once we established that he wasn’t physically appealing to me, our conversation relaxed.  I shared some about my family history, which includes abandonment by my father as a toddler.  While I did locate and meet my father when I was 18, our connection was brief and unsatisfying, plagued with inappropriate sexual overtones, and I consider myself basically fatherless.  I know I own some pretty intense issues around this abandonment, but was uncomfortably offended by this man’s judgment of me. 

Changing tacks, I asked if he wanted to know about my adventures on Craig’s List, and he did.  This is a discussion I generally only engage in with people I’m not going to have sex with.  We rapidly found ourselves in a discussion of my love of cock-sucking, and I couldn’t help but notice suspicious stirrings in his khaki-clad lap.  Too bad, I still wasn’t going there with this guy, no matter what he had in there.  He listened intently, and then informed me that I wasn’t just looking for God, I was looking for ‘God the Father’.  That my needs for submission to strong men and my cock worshipping, combined with my spiritual skepticism, were sure signs that I had both spiritual and father issues. 

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” was my cheeky response. 

Leaving my too-sweet margarita on the bar as we parted not long after, I gave him detailed instructions on how to find the BART station again, three blocks away, which he carefully wrote down in a leather-bound book he produced from his man-bag.  I returned home and posted again, and found myself a good tumble with someone I don’t remember that evening.  But his comment stuck with me the next day, and does to this day.  I’m sure I have issues around my father.  But if these issues are what lead me into the sexual pleasure and release I find in men’s dicks, then I embrace them for now.