Of Jumping, Parachutes and Trust

At the risk of TMI ... there is a man lying sound asleep in bed next to me. He's fairly passed out from a hard day's - fuck that, a hard week's, a hard life's - day of work.

He is not at all my image of the "man of my dreams." Hell, for all I ever knew, it could have always been a "woman of my dreams."

Nonetheless, he is here, beside me, paint caked fairly permanently onto his fingers, beer belly, grey hair, and absolutely, unbelievably attractive to me.

I adore him. To the point where I wrote a short story at which GoodBuddy called me out. "Wow kiddo. Borrowing pretty heavily from real world fantasies are we?" In fact, GoodBuddy and I were really honest about it. On a random night last year, when we'd actually gone out to party, we ran into (what shall we name him?) I owned up. "Um, let's dance, but let's keep it fairly clean. And make sure I come off hot. I want to impress that guy over there." No idea if GoodBuddy was offended or not, but there you have it.

Fast forward a bit. I'd put out all the signals. Let's meet for a drink, let's hang out. Nothing. Finally, I invited him out for Fiesta. And finally, a nibble. Or, more truly, a full on, hard core, smooch.

I finally got what I wanted.

And now, the wicked, stupid, eff'ing insecure demon in me is wondering if I coerced him, forced him, somehow manipulated him into my bed. And if he would be here if it where someone - nay anyone - instead.

All the indicators point to no. And, if I am to be honest, he's wicked smart and wise enough to stand on his own and own up if this were a fly by night thing.

So why, oh why, do I continue to doubt myself?

Years and years of therapy and it still all comes down to this. Am I lovable?

But writing this out, I realize yes. I am. And yes, if he doesn't already, we're moving in that direction. Not because I made him. But because we are. We do. We will.