Tom's Love Quest

Dear [Jack],

How are you, my dear companion? We go back a long way, don’t we? We’ve known each other almost 37 years and in those decades we sometimes lived close enough to dine together on the weekends. Remember those Saturday and Sunday evening dinners at Tiffany’s on the boulevard eight years ago? How about all those wacky meals at the Broadway and the Ritz diners back in the late 90s. I remember some of those incidents and still chuckle today. Your humor has made a life-long and memorable impression on me to be sure.

At other times, like now, we live farther apart so that we can’t meet but a few times a year. Yet no matter how close or distant we find ourselves, I treasure our visits. Talking and sharing with you never gets old and I sense quite clearly, that you really do care. You’re a great friend and I’m privileged to have you.

This most recent visit of ours was no exception; I enjoyed myself immensely. In fact, I’m still catching my breath as I swim nose deep, in this terrific pond of joy that I fell into last Saturday night at the foot party. My mind still reels from the experience, and I’m yet a bit disoriented, like someone just snapped a really bright camera at close range. I’m savoring the new memories while anticipating the future and hoping to create more. So yes, I know that I said that I would not come back until August. But I lied; I must come sooner.  I must make next month’s VIP party if that’s all right with you. So if you see [Linda], tell her that I’ll be attending and that I hope she can be there too. I’d like her and I to spend the whole evening together in one, big three-hour session, and so I wouldn’t want to miss her.

Finding [Linda] made the whole night last weekend very special. Indeed, I’ve written to her already (see here for that letter), telling her that she’s a remarkably beautiful woman, and that I’m looking forward to another long session as soon as we can arrange it. I can’t wait to see her again because I still miss her. Surprising, isn’t it? I thought that this longing would have subsided by now. It has a little, because I’m staying busy blogging, to keep from feeling sad that I can’t call her and chat. But man! I guess I miss her so because she stole my heart; just took it right out of my chest.

As best I could tell, she’s my dream girl in the flesh. She seems, at this early time, to have everything I’ve been seeking in a lady, in just the right proportions. I was a shopper looking to buy precisely 5 grapes, 14 oranges, 10 apples, and 4 pounds of beef, 2.5 cans of pop, 3 rings, and 7 gallons of gas. She was the merchant and just happened to have exactly 5 grapes, 14 oranges, 10 apples, 4 pounds of beef, 2.5 cans of pop, 3 rings, and 7 gallons of gas to give me. She offered it all, exactly as I wanted. So I can’t help but to really like her [Jack], and I’m eager to see how this story unfolds. So I’ll be back at that next foot party, where we can write the next few pages.

But my erotic attraction to her won’t last, people say. Heck, I’ve even said it. She’s great right now. But we can’t have such joyful feelings forever now, can we? Why not? I wonder because I’ve known many enduring pleasures myself that feel as good the hundredth time I indulged as they did the first time; munching Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, eating Lucky Charms with you, writing software, solving electrical problems, wrapping up in a fuzzy, warm blanket in a chilly bedroom, walking along the river out back when it’s warm, and listening to a golden oldie on the radio for the five hundredth time. My point is that not all pleasures die. Indeed many like these, do return again and again. So why can’t eroticism remain?

You know my history, [Jack], almost as well as I know it myself. And as you know, I’ve dated many women who started out as princesses, but all too quickly became toads. It happened so often that since 2005, I’ve felt that a lady just won’t stay beautiful for very long once we get down into dating. After a few weeks, so it’s been, her allure ceases to pull me toward her anymore. All the things that made her so special in the beginning stop impressing eventually. This seems to happen to many couples. Indeed, [Linda] herself said that she’s known this disappointment in some of her relationships. But must it be always so? Must every relationship that starts out with an abundance of erotic bliss, end up with none of it?

I hope not. I trust that I can find a relationship, where the good sex does not completely disappear after the first roll in the hay. Is that so much to ask? I understand that as people get to know each other, the newness of it all fades, and the hardships of merged lives often quell the libido. Lack of sleep and too much stress can do it too, along with a host of other gotchas.

But I’ve read many accounts from people who in spite of all that, insist that they fell in love the instant they met, and some forty years later, feel exactly the same.  I believe therefore, that that in-love feeling can indeed survive given the right conditions, because it has for many. I hope this is true, because I must be in love to stay motivated to press on in a relationship. I ultimately want a long-term relationship with a dream girl.  But if I fall out of love for very long, the relationship must eventually end, as it finally did between [Emmy] and I yesterday.

So given that, with so many of my past relationships fizzling like this, where the pleasant feelings of togetherness went as quickly as a candle going dark when doused, my love quest has become frustrating and disheartening. I mean, I’ve spent so much money and time chasing that enigmatic passion through rejection after countless rejection, and I’ve pondered long the question of why the attraction fades so quickly, so often.

I just can’t accept the notion that the only time I can ever have great sex is during the first encounter or two, and then it’s all downhill from there. No way.  Like I said, many couples describe a very different coexistence. While they admit that they’re not always lusting for each other, they do say that they never go very long without the love feelings coming back. They describe their love patterns as ebbing and flowing, which would be fine with me, since I’m not expecting to have eroticism constantly; I just want it more than merely at the very beginning. I’m so tired of all ebb and no flow! I only want what they have; I’ll take the downs so long as I get some ups in there too.

Most of my relationships so far have had too few ups; it’s as though the woman becomes a man after a little while in that I feel the same attraction for her as I do for a man, which is none whatsoever. I know now a big reason why this has happened to me so much, thanks to the foot party experience. Let me explain.

I am a very, VERY visual person initially. Ironic, isn’t it that someone who is vision impaired like me, would be so sight-oriented. Nonetheless, that’s how I am. I’m a perfectionist, with very detailed and numerous ideals that a woman must meet to qualify as a dream girl of mine. These standards span the entire gambit from how she looks to the shape, size, and feel of her feet, to how clean she is, to the things she says and how she says them, to her most deeply cherished values and goals. For me, all of these traits must be apparent in the right degrees so that a truly marvelous love connection can form, and endure.  I’m not just about the physical; but the physical is where it all starts.   If that’s not there, or it ebbs for too long a period, then nothing else matters, and I’ve got to end the relationship and move on.  But when the erotic attraction is there, everything else DOES matter, and I’ll stick around to learn more.

Now, here’s the first part of my problem: I’ve done the online and telephone dating now for fifteen years. Throughout that time, I’ve found people to be deceptive and misleading about what they look like and who they are. Some advertise themselves with doctored photos or pictures not their own, while others claim to be taller, younger, and lighter than they actually are. They over-utilize makeup and pose in unnatural ways, all in an effort to put that best foot forward, while dragging their bad foot behind them in the shadows so that men don’t see it. They skillfully create illusions of themselves that do not (in fact, cannot) survive our first encounter.

I don’t mind telling you [Jack] that I’ve been played for a fool many times in this very way. I thought early on that some of these ladies were my dream girls, because they presented themselves such that they seemed to have all the qualities I’m seeking. But in the end, they didn’t, and my libido knew better; my loss of sexual interest had the final say. Once I learn that someone has fibbed like this, my desire for them shuts down; usually never to return. This is as it should be.  So there’s nothing wrong with me. I simply wish not to date liars, and if someone repeatedly lies to manipulate my feelings, then it’s proper to grow less attracted to them over time; over a very short time in most cases; the shorter, the better. I think this phenomenon explains why I lost the itch in some of my dud relationships. But there are other reasons as well. So bear with me.

Even if the woman does not conceal her true shape intentionally, traditional ways of checking out new dates often result in latent disappointment due to built-in cover ups in our culture. You can’t tell exactly what you’re getting right away even when everyone is being above board. Why not? Well, it’s commonplace for women to dress up and hide their bodies underneath clothes, makeup, wigs, bras, toilet paper, fancy shoes, and such. True, there may be no manipulative purpose for this; people typically get dressed when they go out so that they stay warm, look nice, fit into specific social groups, and such. But the practice makes it impossible for a fellow to know if she’d please him once the clothes finally come off, because he simply can’t see enough of her to be sure.

In my own love quest, I’ve met women who appeared attractive when fully clothed but were actually much less so when they, after months sometimes, at last took it all off. Oftentimes, I’ve waited these months for them to finally show themselves in their entirety, only to find that they had been hiding a dirty secret, which was that they weren’t what I wanted. Plus, now that so much time has been invested in the relationship, chances are that some emotional bonds have formed, and this complicates getting away. Sadly, a lot of females bank on this bondage to keep the guy from leaving once he knows the whole truth. I mean, it really pulls at the heart strings to say to someone, “Yes, we’ve had a wonderful relationship these past n months. But I’m leaving now because I learned the other night when we hit the bed for the first time, that you’re just not what I want physically.” Try that a couple times. Believe me; you’ll end up crying over it more than once.

Since I’m so initially visual, the ideal scenario for me, where I could avoid the pitfalls described above, would be to meet new ladies in the nude; where nothing is hidden or exaggerated. I’d see the whole them, as they are, and they’d see all of me as I am, and we’d know right away if physically at least, we could be a match. There would be none of this screwing around for months before finding out. However, beyond a nudist colony, finding such a venue where people could meet in the buff would be difficult.

But here is where the foot parties really shine. While the ladies aren’t quite naked, they show enough that I can glean all the initial data I need to tell immediately if we’d be physically compatible. Plus, I can get close to and touch them almost immediately, just for the asking.  Can’t do that in a bar.  Further, they enjoy receiving foot attention as much as you and I like giving it, ‘eh [Jack]? These parties eliminate much of the guesswork and humiliation of searching for ladies who won’t reject us. Further, we have a much better idea whether or not they will excite us, just because, again, we see more of them because they’re dressed less, and we get to touch them as well. I’m hopeful therefore, that meeting women in this way will end the way-too-long streak I’ve been in, of short-lived erotic desire. If I can make better-informed decisions about who to date early on, I might avoid the traps of getting involved with “the wrong women,” and then winding up with no libido to boot.

True, I’ve talked a lot about the physical attraction here. But I’m also interested in the higher levels of compatibility as well; I want a caring and honest lady to love and who has a great capacity of compassion. I’d expect her to be kind, generous and loving, just as I would be to her. I hope she would come running if I got sick. But for me, those higher level concerns don’t mean much without frequent and lasting eroticism. The physical comes first in my happiest relationships and at the foot parties, I can get physical first without all of the unnecessary traditional preamble.

Since I’ve only been to one foot party so far, I don’t know yet if things will pan out as I expect. So stay tuned, and I’ll tell you. You will know, [Jack], because you and I will walk this road together; you’ll be my buddy and after each party, we can stay up till four in the morning exchanging war stories, like we did this past Sunday. I’m grateful to you for connecting me up with such an interesting group of people and I’m eager to return and do it all again.

So take care, my friend. Stay healthy and save your money, because I’ll be back in June.

Tom Hesley