Archive for the ‘WPSBC’ Category

Dreams Of BT

Thursday, October 8th, 2009

Dear   [BT],

I dreamt of you this morning; the first time in a while.  Yet over the years, you’ve appeared here and there in my slumber, and left me smiling upon waking every time; for days afterward sometimes.  It’s the same feeling I get when I see you for real, and it’s the same feeling I miss when you’re not where I’d hoped you’d be. 

I dreamt this morning of guiding you to a free seat in the   main dining room at WPSBC,   fetching food for you, and helping you find someone you were looking for after the meal was done.  Seeing you is one reason I so look forward to our alumni activities.  But I’ve missed seeing you at the last two events and was thus disappointed to learn that I would not be able to serve you at them.  I enjoy doing things for you; I always have.  The thrill when I make you laugh, seems almost boundless because when you smile, I melt.

Though I’m sure you know of my special feelings since we first met over thirty-five years ago, until now I never felt confident enough to directly mention, much less discuss them with you.  I never defined them to you, nor have I ever asked you for what I really want.  True, I’ve occasionally beat around the bush; once through an awkward letter, that I, not knowing how to write Braille myself, got another person to Braille, so you could read it; a letter which, as I recall, you didn’t like; a letter that compelled you to warn me never to use someone else’s hands to address you again; a letter that you said did not persuade you to go out with me.  You didn’t want to rock the cradle, you said.  I was fifteen then.  You were seventeen.  So your heart appeared, for the most part to be hardened toward me.  I, as a squeaky-voiced, obnoxious boy, was too immature for you, and it was perhaps that very immaturity, that kept me from seeing that. 

So, as your high school graduation approached, I kept after you; agitating you on your father’s bus each Friday; I’d tug your long, dark brown hair that was so soft and exquisite.  I’d offend you with corny jokes; jokes whose punchlines made them not worth the time required to listen to.  No wonder you didn’t like them.  I get it today.  I don’t like them either.  But back then, any attention from you, even negative attention, was positive, and I cherrished it.  So I kept the bad jokes coming until the end of my nineth grade year; the year you left the school for the last time as a student.  It may have seemed like I relished getting under your skin.  But not really.  I just wanted you to pay me some mind, and making you mad seemed easier to do than winning your love.  But the truth is,   [BT],   that   I teased you so because I loved you so.

I’d heard once that you went to your after-lunch classes a little early.  So I made it my business to know your schedule, so that I could be there to meet you.  Then we’d have ten minutes or so to talk before fifth period began.  We did talk too, at least twice each week on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  Remember?  You in twelfth grade, me three years behind.  You had a health class or some such on the first floor of the instruction building, and I so savored those conversations. Thanks for never shooing me away though on many occasions, your teachers had to ask me to leave.  Though perhaps you found me elementary, I found you utterly enthralling, and treasured all the minutes you spared for me, and I thank you for them.

Maybe my wishful, idealistic, teenage thinking colored my intuition.  But I thought you liked my crush at least a little, even though you permitted nothing more between us than frequent, yet painfully short conversations.  I say that because I asled you for your picture, a week or two before you graduated.  Your response confused me; especially after your comment about rocking the cradle.  For a moment, you appeared surprised, flattered, and humbled that I would want one.  You smiled a little, yet said nothing, turning away as though you’d not heard my request.  But then, a few days later when I saw you waiting for the bus home and came over to greet you, you took a black and white photo from your coat pocket, found my hand with your other hand, turned it palm up, and placed the wallet-sized senior picture you’d brought, over top of my eager fingers.  Again you said nothing before turning away, and it was clear that you wished not to discuss the picture, or anything else with me then.  I didn’t care, for I was overjoyed at your portrait gift.  In fact, I think I still have it in an album someplace.

That experience really jolted me, for in those couple seconds that your hand grasped mine, I felt a resonance, a connection, and a delicious albeit temporary convergence of yours and my destinies.  You seemed to be saying that though in the real world we’d never be together, that you might nonetheless consider a romance with me somewhere else; say, in an ideal world.  So I wonder to this day   [BT],  if underneath all those schoolgirl aspirations to meet a Prince Charming, if you, in some small way found me charming.  Or, did you find me undesirable and so, unworthy of your attention?  If you thought me a pain, were you just being polite during all those pre-class talks?  Or did you actually feel a nice connection too, but had to fight the feeling because I wasn’t the type of fellow that you’d normally date?  I heard you say that guys you’d date had to drive a car and make lots of money.  But these descriptions, neither back then nor today in fact, describe me accurately.  I’m still poor, and I still do not drive, although our three year age difference wouldn’t matter nearly as much today as it did in 1976. 

Yet there still was that private picture moment and a few others like it that made me wonder just what your true feelings were.  It seemed that publicly at least, you treated me no more kindly than any other guy in our school.  But when no one else was around, you said some (perhaps) innocent, yet emotionally provocative and kind things.  Once you commented that you liked how I answered extension 52 just outside your 2nd floor Spanish class in the instruction building.  You made my day with that quip, and you should know that I used to sneak out of my class in the weeks that followed, just to answer that phone, when I thought you’d be nearby to hear. 

Then, you’d get all giggly at my complimenting your dimples and cute pony tail as you served students supper in the   main dining room.  Once, when I teased you and then tried to run away, you got hold of me near the steam table and wrestled me to the floor.  Then you held me down while you laughed, for a longer-than-normal yet way too short a time.  Of course, I did not fight you, and I remember looking up into the floodlights as I lay there on my back with you to my right, both your hands pressing against my chest like you were giving me CPR.  Your straight long hair shown in the light, and it was long enough to reach down to my face and tickle my nose.  As it did, I smelled a delightful combination of your perfume and shampoo.  Your many bracelets jingled as you moved a hand from my chest to my shoulder as you released me.  We both got up then and ended the fun with a quick hug, and feeling you hug me back made my week.  But you know, I’d have layed there all day like that if you would have stayed there too.  :-)  

Now   [BT],  I’ve probably read too much into these memories.  But on the off-chance that I haven’t, let me say that you’ve always been a princess; in reality as well as in my dreams.  In fact, when last I saw you at the 2007 alumni social day, you were at 48, as captivating as you were at 17.  Your beauty it would seem then, is timeless, because you haven’t aged a bit in my aging eyes.  You’ve always been, and I suspect will always be, supremely gorgeous, no matter how the coming years ravage either of us. No matter how old we get, you’ll still look seventeen to me, and I’ve got thirty-five years of good feelings to prove it!  :-)

This morning’s dream brought you, our memories, and my feelings front and foremost once more, as dreams like it have done several times since the seventies.  This time though, it inspired me to write.  Why?  I don’t know your current situation or even if you’re in a position to respond; perhaps by now, you’re married again or engaged or something.  So I hope not to intrude.  Indeed, if you’re in a happy relationship, then I so wish you well.  But I’m not getting any younger.  So I didn’t want to let any more time pass without coming clean with you, about the complete extent of my feelings.  Though we’ve only seen each other a handful of times since high school, I’d still love to spend some romantic hours with you, just as I fantasized back then. 

These dreams show that my feelings still run deep for you, and I want you to know that if ever you become available to explore them with me, then by all means tell me.  Then, I’ll make sure that I’m available too, and you and I will do the exploring together.  I don’t care if you get to be 60, 70, or 80 and beyond, because I’ll always be excited to hear from you; even when my own ears begin to fail.  If you reject me now, then at least I’ll have the peace of mind knowing that you did so based on complete information, and not just bits and pieces.  I have, for the first time since knowing you, said it all here, without shyness to muzzle me.  So, if you still say no, then there’s nothing more I can say to change your mind, and thus I’ll not try again.  But should you ever seriously consider coming to me, just keep in mind that as long as I’m single, I’ll always jump at the chance to know your loving side better.  Okay?

Take care, with love.

Tom Hesley

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Can We Change Our Desires?

Monday, August 22nd, 2005

Dear [Mentat],

Now, on to your comments about how Ellis would advise the handicapped, lovelorn man: Well, here’s where I see the limits of REBT [Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy]. You say that he’d suggest that making one’s happiness contingent on whether or not he finds a mate is foolish. Yes, he probably would. But the question is: Do we have the power to change what truly makes us happy? Can we alter our base level needs and desires? He presupposes that we can via cognitive therapy. But I think he’s overly optimistic on this point. True, we can heighten happiness levels by choosing the right activities. We might decide to pursue gardening, and then reap happiness when others admire our healthy tomatoes. Or, if we can’t grow tomatoes, we can build bird houses, write books, or stand on our heads for five days straight. We keep trying until we find something that works, something that yields the recognition and prestige we desire. Indeed, because of our freedom of choice here, we have some control over what to pursue to gain fulfillment.

Now to put this in terms of Maslow’s Triangle, within the various levels of need, there is much flexibility about specifically how to fill the need (tomatoes Vs. bird houses, piano playing Vs. video games). This is particularly true in levels four and five. For level four, the Ego level, there are many ways to get approval, achieve status, and build self-esteem. In this vein, it’d be self-destructive to insist that the only way to fill Ego requirements would be to work in corporate America. Indeed, you could gratify yourself at level four by starting your own business or working for one other person. Yes, folly results if within the various levels, you get too picky about how you’re going to meet the demands of that level.

As we go higher in the triangle, the more ways there are to fulfill that level’s requirements. The levels at the top such as Ego and Self Actualization (and Transcendence in the newer versions of the triangle), Maslow and others call the   growth   type needs, as opposed to the   deficiency   needs found at levels one, two, and three. Ellis’s claim is most valid for those needs above level three, the growth needs. So long as we’re meeting the needs of all the levels in   some   way, we can indeed be happy through largely our own designs.

However, at levels one, two, and three, needs are more precise and have less latitude. For instance, at level one, we must have food, exercise, air, water, and bodily comfort to enable us to seek to fulfill level two needs in earnest, without dying. These are non negotiable. You can’t substitute anything else for food. In order to survive and fulfill level one, there are no other ways but to have food, air, water, … You get the idea. At this level, we don’t choose the needs and thus, cannot change them. REBT has little use at this level.

Level two, the security level, has identically limited and precise means of gratification. We must avoid harm by living in safe neighborhoods – evading dangerous people, animals, and circumstances. We   must   feel safe in order to pursue level three and higher requirements with undistracted zeal. REBT cannot absolve us from meeting level one and level two necessities if we want to achieve consistent and lasting fulfillment at the higher levels.

Now, level three is the interesting one because here lies our love and belonging needs. Admittedly, this level starts to look a bit like a growth level as opposed to a deficiency one. Yet Maslow still classified this as a deficiency need, with good reason. While one does not need love and belonging to minimally sustain   bodily functions, just as a person in a coma on a feeding tube does not, nonetheless metabolic processes beat stronger and last longer when one has these things. As noted in previous letters, the loved man is by far happier and better equipped to achieve greatness in level four and five than the lovelorn. Again, this is non negotiable. That is if we hope to realize that state of perpetual love of life and selflessness found at the Self Actualization level, we can’t leave this level [level 3] [unfulfilled]. Indeed, selflessness is a product of genuine and complete fulfillment at all the lower levels, and it’s impossible to achieve while one still needs. Just try building a career without anyone but yourself to benefit from your success. And you’ll probably feel that cold draft just as I did; that sad, whisking air blowing through that unfilled hole in level three.

Without the bricks of true love at level three to completely fill in the arrangement, the supporting structure in Maslow’s pyramid beneath Ego and Self Actualization becomes rickety. It totters and shakes, and is easily devastated by competitors and other hardships – demanding bosses, mastery of difficult concepts, too few hours in the day, depression, lacking sense of urgency at the growth levels, and so on. It’s hard to be confident in level four and five pursuits, without the love at level three.

You understand that how well we perform a task is proportionate to how effectively we concentrate on it. However, maintaining high concentration, while not impossible, is tenuous when lonely, just like it is when hungry, thirsty, tired, or in fear for one’s life. Yes, we can enjoy   some   success up here, while still having work to do below. Indeed, I had many glowing performance reports at [work], even though my level three needs were almost never met in my entire fifteen years there. I kept a house going for five years, got involved with church groups, ham radio organizations, and countless other hobbies. Each was fun to some degree and carried moments of extreme joy. But in the end, none of it really mattered, because every night, that cold draft still found me. Interestingly though, I got my biggest raises ever (totaling 20%) in 2000. I passed two Microsoft certifications as well. Ironic because also in 2000, I had the most female companionship ([Lynn] from Maine for eight months, and [Kar] from Philly on and off during the other four). Increased Ego successes do seem to follow the Social ones.

Let me ask you a strictly non rhetorical question. Do you believe you’ve achieved your maximal potential at levels four and five? I don’t know whether you have or not, and have no opinion either way. If you have, that’s great. But if not, then why not? You’ve certainly been at it long enough, and experienced more than your share of stops, starts, and restarts in your career. You’ve suffered from extreme depression, and weathered numerous consequences of that. You might consider that perhaps missing love in your life is to blame, that perhaps the same cold wind is holding you back that, to a lesser degree, oppressed me in my suburban home.

Call to mind our “good buddy” (and more often, nemesis) Rich Parker. Do you think that without [his wife] to support and fulfill him that he’d have achieved the success he has? I don’t. Not by any stretch. True, they used to fight a lot, and from the outside, his life today may seem boring and lacking in level five pursuits. It’s not a life I’d want.

Yet he has by many traditional measures, accomplished more than either of us and most others at WPSBC. He’s held a job longer, made more money, got better grades in college, went further in college, and has been a consistently good provider for his family. His children seem well-adjusted, and his house, though modest, really feels like a loving home. And he did all that, in spite of his blindness! He surprised his doctors by enduring much longer in his battle with cancer than they expected. And though he lacks the people skills to channel this without judging (and thus irritating) others, he nevertheless commands an unwavering resolve and uncompromising conviction about how he thinks life should be lived.

Yes, he often judges others too harshly who don’t run their lives as he thinks they should, and this makes him insensitive and sorely lacking in the skill of empathy. It also makes it impossible for people like me to befriend him. But he follows his standards too. Indeed, he seems to practice to the letter, what he preaches. Though his judgmental tendencies can be exceedingly frustrating, I admire his devotion to values as well. My impression is that he doesn’t grapple with questions the way we do. He’s decisive and therefore doesn’t take long to make up his mind. And once he does, he does not change it. Ronald Reagan was much like this, though Reagan was better at working with people. Interestingly, both Reagan and Parker had loving women to help them find and maintain this resolve. They don’t show their uncertainties to the world much, because, among other reasons, they have loving partners to explore and eliminate them with.

You will agree, I trust, that it’s easier to be sure of yourself in any level pursuit when someone significant concurs with and supports you. Indeed, the success of psychotherapy largely depends on this sort of “love” relationship between patient and therapist. I put it to you that having a genuinely loving partner has most of the same advantages as retaining a therapist, as well as others a therapist could never provide. The loving partner listens, supports, questions, offers insight, encourages, and so on, just like a therapist. But unlike an analyst, the lover is available for many more than just the single hour per week, and on a per-hour basis, is a whole lot cheaper! We can have sex with our lovers and enter into other joint projects besides self-edification. An abundance of love at level three makes it worthwhile to reach vigorously for levels four and five.

Also, consider that most ex patients experience some sort of relapse after finishing therapy. I believe you’ve known relapse yourself. Does this not illustrate the chronic need for acceptance (level three)? I suspect that Parker never needed therapy, largely because he had [his wife]. True, a lover might not be able to view us as objectively and in the detached ways of therapists, nor love us as unconditionally. But this is also what makes a lover shine, for they   do   have an emotional stake in our happiness, unlike the therapist, who stands to benefit financially by having us stay sad. In the long run, lovers get to know us better than any therapist, and can provide the same potent support every day, without end.

Now you could argue that one could satisfy his level three needs in other ways besides seeking lovers. He could simply find a good therapist. In fact, nowadays, you can even hire sexual surrogates (by this, I don’t mean prostitutes, but rather, a form of sex therapist) to satisfy the libido as well as the more mental sides of the love lust. But I personally would rather have the [real] lover. :-)

Now It’s tempting to think, in the absence of love, that we can use the pursuits of self actualization and ego to replace love. But that does not work. Experience shows that we can’t effectively quench love lust by indulging a level five passion, like creative writing or participating in peer groups that have nothing to do with love. This is like putting water in a car’s gas tank. The gage might say   full   afterwards. But that   full   reading doesn’t mean we can drive hundreds of miles. In fact, it means quite the opposite. We can’t use secure living quarters to meet the need for food, lest we die. We can’t use love at level three to mitigate the need for level two security, lest we be killed. Likewise, we can’t use ego pursuits to eliminate love needs, lest we be chronically lonely and die young, and so on up the pyramid. No pursuit, at any level, effectively satisfies the needs at any other level.

I agree that remaining mate-less need not necessarily lead to unhappiness. I only mean to say that it does imply   less   happiness at levels four and five, and that people will prioritize low, levels four and five until level three is met. By definition, the lower the level of the need, in question the higher its priority. In the Maslowian model, one could say that the higher level needs are meaningless (or at least, not as meaningful as they could be) until the lower ones are filled. People are highly depressed these days, wondering why they can’t find happiness at jobs and community activities. A look under the covers reveals that most of them aren’t happy in their love relationships. So with all the above said, it follows that this is probably because they’re neglecting the lower level needs. They’re working too hard at Self Actualization and Ego, and not enough at Social.

While it may not be “rational” to make one’s happiness contingent on finding a mate, I believe this observation to be academic. Why? Because we don’t decide whether or not to have this need, just as we cannot alter our need for food or security. Indeed, the human [brain] has entire regions in it (the hypothalamus and thymus) that seem to be devoted to the desires and actions of mating. The love need is part of our nature and without radical restructuring of our evolutionary design both physical and mental, we can’t realistically hope to change it. We simply can’t just “leave it behind,” anymore than we could eliminate our beating heart. I believe it best therefore, to embrace this need and seek to fulfill it, [rather] than to deny it and play substitution games with different-level pursuits. To seek to eliminate this passion is a goal loftier than us trying to do better than handicapped women.

Yes, my happiness is on the line, but as I see it, there’s no way to avoid that. As discussed extensively before, I tried seeking pleasures in levels four and five in the hopes that this would overcome the thirsts at level three. But I failed miserably.

Tom Hesley

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Love Quest Obsession

Friday, August 19th, 2005

Dear [Mentat],

We’ve been talking about the obsessive quest for love; you sighting its disadvantages and wanting to stay clear of it, and me its proponent, embracing it and attempting to show why it’s necessary to the excellent man.

Continuing the discussion, I offer another advantage of serious questing (whether for love or anything else): The hunt itself enriches the soul, even if in the end, we never manage to bag the prey. It supplies meaningful reasons for living and the stamina for executing life’s many pursuits, motivating us to learn about many things while seeking our big answers. Quests, fruitful or not, advance us closer to supreme understanding and self actualization.

You know, I was musing the other day that until last year, I had no regrets. I never felt I made many bad decisions. Even with bad outcomes, I usually knew that I had made the best choice possible given what was known at the time. But lately, my history of academic laziness at WPSBC troubles me. Though I tried there, to read classic literature, history, and philosophy, I simply couldn’t stay awake through it. True, the sugary, caffeinated beverages and the late nights we kept, contributed to the chronic drowsiness. But the reading was also boring, just like algebra, geometry, and Spanish, because I saw no relevance of these materials to electronics or mating – my two biggest dreams then. What would this stuff ever be used for? Its benefits just weren’t clear when my voice was high, and the fact that adults   forced   us to study further closed my eyes to any goodness of knowing about X, Y, and Z, not to mention the differences between inductive and deductive reasoning. If a teacher then could have connected the dots and showed how literature, history, and philosophy could help solve problems that would plague us later in life, I might have been a straight-A student.   :-)     Naaaaaah!

Fortunately, though tardy, my Love Quest has done this. It’s made literature’s relevance clear, albeit twenty-five years after graduation. The problems posed by chasing the Big Dream (what you and I have been scratching our heads on now for some years) might well have already been solved in a great novel that I just never got around to reading yet. If I had read more books growing up, during that time of high mental pliancy, I might not today be struggling to find the answers which have eluded me for so long. If only a teacher had said back then that the more we read, the better equipped we are to tackle life’s injustices, I might have discovered my current-day zeal for reading that was nowhere to be found a quarter century ago.  [My] quest instilled the reading passions lately, and this is good. The Quest is good. In this way, it has improved me.

Speaking of Dr. Phil, you’ll be pleased to know that he agrees with you on this subject, advising people not to focus on finding relationships. Like you, he says that a person should indulge his other passions first. Don’t go to bars, clubs, grocery stores, or any other mate market with an agenda. Go without hidden motives, simply because you like going and not because you want to meet a mate. In terms of The Triangle, he’s telling his audience to reach for Ego and Self Actualization needs, before they fulfill their Social ones. This sounds rather ill-advised to me.

Then, he gets too spiritual, and says to believe that if it’s meant to be, a relationship will happen, without looking for it. I agree with this partially. It really does go just this way for some people; specifically, the prettiest. Certainly, the    most attractive   among us need put forth the   least   effort to snag a high-quality mate. The prettiest girls don’t have to go to dating services or get their friends to match them up with blind dates. All they need do is walk down a street where guys are, and by the time they reach the next block, they’ll have been hit on several times. Relationships find them, and they’re sitting pretty because they never have to risk rejection.

It’s no wonder that attractive people (like Dr. Phil) advocate this wait-for-it-to-happen attitude. Why not? For them, happen it usually does, without them ever lifting a finger. Indeed, a basic tenant of evolutionary psychology is that the prettiest are most destined to mate. (Studies show that they’re the ones who most often actually do mate.) Rewording this slightly, you could say that nature means for the prettiest to be loved the most. And when nature means for you to love, it’s easy to say, “If it’s meant to be, it will be.” Dr. Phil offered nothing truly profound here.

But things don’t work this way for the average or the ugly. Indeed, the less desirable the man, the fewer the women who will want him. Clearly, this necessitates a higher degree of dedication from him than from his more attractive peers, so as to find one who does. The average Joe just can’t afford to be passive here, because relationships   don’t just happen   for him. Not like they did for Dr. Phil. Nature thwarts rather than favors the lovelorn, which is probably why they’re lovelorn in the first place. For Average Joe, nature’s good intentions aren’t so abundantly plain. Such people learn early that nature does not intend goodness for them, and so they learn not to count on it for that. While it may still be “meant to be” for him, love is by no means as easy to achieve. So he must try and try hard, because virtually all of us, pretty or not, are subject to Maslow’s Triangle. We have a strong need to be loved by a quality mate, and unless that’s satisfied, we won’t achieve maximal fulfillment in the triangle’s higher need levels of Ego and Self Actualization. Its queer how Dr. Phil’s philosophy doesn’t seem to account for The Triangle, and how he doesn’t often acknowledge the existence of alternative rules of social engagement which the less attractive among us must follow.

It should be plain that the rules of how to get love differ vastly among people, depending on how attractive they are. Thus, there is no one patent way to approach relationships. Neither the devoted nor worldly ways are always right. Perhaps the most attractive can afford to be Worldlys and still have fulfilling unions. But this approach is often only right for other attractive people, and has little value for the less desirable, who are negotiating an entirely different social landscape. This is why I get so frustrated with Doc Phil because he often targets his advice to the most attractive, and the applause and groans of his audience tend to discount the points of view of the Average Joes. But hey, it’s his show. He’s free to run it as he wishes, of course. I only mean to point out the limits of his advice and to underscore that his “words of wisdom” work well for far fewer viewers than who actually watch the show.

Not only do effective mating strategies differ between the more and less desirable mates, but as you know, they also differ vastly between men and women, attractiveness notwithstanding. Traditionally, ladies have not aggressively sought mates. In the high school dances in the 50s, women lined up off to the sides of the dance floor, awaiting the men to invite them out. This still happens in the bars and night clubs today. As found among most species, human females tend to defer to males to make the first move – to come to them, and to take all the initial risks. Many telephone dating services employ this philosophy to get women to join by only charging the men, while the women use it for free. The more assertive, risky, and costly role has been, and will be for centuries to come, the male one. So we’d expect females to support a more passive approach to mating than men. Indeed, when Dr. Phil related his wait-for-it-to-happen view above, it was the women who were heard applauding the loudest.

So, female passivity is still true even though we’ve reached the post feminism age. Though equal rights abound today, women still largely favor   The Gentleman, who opens doors for them, pays for their meals, and takes the bulk of emotional risks in order to advance the relationship. They like the man to drive and be the initiator. Yet they often say they don’t approve of his assertive antics, claiming that they couldn’t ever imagine behaving that way themselves. But the fact that they wouldn’t behave that way doesn’t explain their dislike, though they frequently offer it as such. Why should they behave like him? After all, they’re female, not male.

What actually determines how she’ll react is not so much his behavior as it is how attracted she is to him. Prettier men get away with more. They can disrespect, neglect, and abuse their women without worry of her leaving. Even if she does go, they’ll have no trouble finding another. But let me get back on track here and say that women on the TV talk shows frequently fault the male approach to relationships, sighting his obsessive compulsions as saboteurs in the relationship. And males, like Dr. Phil, buy into that, because Dr. Phil knows that he’s going home that night and sleeping with none other than a woman. For him to support anything other than his just-let-it-happen-by-itself approach, would not bode well with his wife. There are clear differences between male and female approaches and the problem with TV talk shows is that they tend to lump everyone into one pot, where one approach is right for all. Not so, as I hope I’ve made clear. :-)

Okay, okay. I got carried away. I promise, I won’t write anymore in response to   this   part of your letter. Also, I guess we’ve drifted away from the central theme of this thread – about whether or not we handicapped men can do better than handicapped women. Let me say that I think we can, but with difficulty. Parker found himself a fully functional woman. And if he can do it, … well, you know the rest.

We may not have to do better though, if we find a   right   handicapped woman. As noted in previous posts, there are a few of them out there, though they’re quite few and far between. But whether or not we do better is irrelevant so long as we find someone we consider supreme. History proves that it’s possible for us both to find preeminence in eyes that don’t see well. You’ve loved   [First Love],    [your sweetheart from the late 70s], and probably others. I’ve loved [First Love],   [Alandra], [...] and others. They were quite good. So even if nature restricts us to dating only the handicapped, well, given the love we’ve experienced from these women, perhaps that’s not so bad. But no matter who we seek to date, the climb is up a steep hill for us, and we won’t reach the top of this hill via half-hearted or no effort. We’ve got to focus, because with focus comes clarity. And with clarity comes clear direction. And with clear direction and a willingness to follow the path, success will likely come.

More later,

Tom Hesley

Lady Lust, Thirsty Craving

Sunday, August 14th, 2005

[Mentat],

Actually, I didn’t realize immediately that this was tongue-and-cheek. But that’s okay. Your invitation gave me an opportunity to reflect on my own history with women, and work, and my interests both internal and external to relationships. As a result, I discovered the following: Craving may indeed be a chief source of misery as you put it. But it’s also instrumental to furnishing the world’s most intense pleasures, especially where woman lust is concerned. I have difficulty therefore, with aligning against craving because of the goodness it makes possible for us.

Forgive my dogmatism. But I have much history of indulging my craving for women. Many women. I’ve chased ‘em with just sex on my mind, where getting what I wanted from the relationship without regard for the ladies was paramount ([Peggy Sue], [Shanee]). Others I’ve loved when I couldn’t care less about sex and instead, was intensely attentive to my careers at [work place 1 and work place 2] ([Hane]). Still others, I’ve selflessly loved (like [Lenee]), when I wanted nothing from them except their happiness. I’ve noticed that as a youngling, I was more lustful, and less anxious about the practical sides of an involvement. The woman’s happiness meant less then. But with age came a heightened appreciation of the pragmatic issues. Today, I recognize that though my ultimate goal is still   my   happiness, I must first ensure that the woman is happy if I ever expect to achieve my own bliss. But more on that some other time.

In short, I’ve chased women while harboring varying degrees of obsession. I’ve loved ‘em when my only strong interest was them and the relationship ([First Love], [Cher], Paula, [Emeebee]), and I’ve loved ‘em when the relationship actually took a back seat to hobbies like ham radio, home maintenance, and personal growth concerns ([Hane], [Hanna] [Chrissy]). I’ve attempted many times during the 90s to dull the ache of low love by seeking unrelated accomplishments (ham radio licenses, promotions at work, Microsoft certifications, new music to listen to, et al). But through all that, I’ve found that for me, it’s best to obsessively focus on satiating the craving for intimacy,   until   it’s satiated.

Genuine longing for true love cannot be diminished by enthralling one’s self in a hobby, a career, a religion, a drug, alcohol, lots of friends, a humanitarian cause, or anything else. The only way to truly quench the thirst of the lovelorn, is to find   true love.  Nothing else will do. It makes no sense that one can increase his chances of finding true love by not pursuing it devotedly, and then devoting himself primarily to its maintenance.

Now what you say above, along with our many lengthy conversations on the subject, suggests that you feel that it’s better for a person going into a relationship, to have many interests outside the relationship – quests that are totally independent of it, and efforts that he keeps up even after the relationship intensifies. I admit that   some   external interests seem necessary to prevent growing tired of girlfriends. I don’t want to see them all the time or be consumed with why the relationship is working or not. In fact, as I age, I find that I need more time alone each week for reflection, reading, writing, and such, and any woman I date in the future must accommodate this. However, I’m not convinced that as a rule, love works better when the lovers have pursued (are pursuing) unrelated accomplishments.

Every degree of obsession (or devotion) to relationships to the exclusion of external pursuits, offers advantage as well as folly. Since I’ve opted to satisfy my cravings for women by focusing mainly on how to discover and attract beauties, as opposed to suppressing these cravings by acquiring many non related pursuits, it does seem that you and I have different philosophies on how to achieve happiness and minimize suffering.

Let me say for the record that I respect your view, and believe that given your unique experiences, your position is best. However, don’t be offended because I’ve devoted the rest of this writing to poking holes in your position. I only wish to communicate that your view does not work for me given   my   unique experiences, and to show you how I came to my view, and why.

It may be that one who nurtures many outside interests is more attractive. At least to some anyhow. Indeed, some women are drawn more to the well-rounded man than he with few other interests than to love somebody, and to be loved back. Our well-rounded fellow here, who we’ll call Worldly, might attract more women because he’s less available. After all, with lots of other interests, Worldly has less time for love. At least, he doesn’t want to make the time.

The notion that absence makes the heart grow fonder, indeed rings true in many human interactions. Some Worldlys know this well, and use this to manipulate women into longing for them. They deny their ladies the attention they want. They know that women desire Worldlys because they can’t have them as much or as completely as they would like. Here, Worldly’s claim to fame is his ability, intentional or not, to leave women wanting for more because he chooses not to completely fulfill them. He’s never fully theirs, and they know it. Though they hate this, their yearning for him intensifies because of it too. Whether or not he deliberately makes himself scarce, his lack of presence charms women. The uncertainty about what he’s doing when he’s not with them fans the fires of their passions to roaring, white-hot crescendos. This is one explanation of why worldly men might seem more attractive to women.

But this type of attraction, born from shortage and doubt, and possible button-pushing, is not what I consider valid. It is subject to manipulation and abuse by Worldly, and causes stress in the hearts of Worldly’s women. One could argue that it’s partly this self-absorption which seems to be more common today than in the past, that heightens the risks of disappointment in relationships. Relationships however, aren’t supposed to be stressful. Many are not. In fact the healthy affiliation should lower stress, rather than raise it. I suspect that the women in those many surveys, who say they like best the man who has numerous exterior interests, are themselves neglected to a degree by him. They don’t mention the lonely nights, with him away somewhere off chasing another dream, or the troubled finances because he overspends on his non-romantic pursuits. If I read your words correctly, you say that having other interests may make us more able to be attentive to a lady’s needs. But the opposite is also true, and often appears as a destructive theme in otherwise healthy unions. These studies that advocate moderate to low levels of exclusive focus on the relationship, often don’t consider this side of the story, and can mislead readers as to a woman’s true desires in mates.

Worldly’s breadth of knowledge, acquired through years of pursuing many diverse goals, can augment his desirability. Women say they like a man who can teach them new things, and in fact, much time is spent, particularly early in a new union, of lovers doing just that — teaching the other what they want to learn.

A man of breadth will probably make more money and be better able to recover from setbacks like job loss and illness. And he may be better equipped to rear children.

Worldly will likely be better at empathizing and relating to her plights, if those plights fall within the realms of his experience. In this way, you are right. Worldly could indeed be a more effective listener and supporter. Clearly, moderate focus on other pursuits does enhance the health of any romance by improving one’s ability to understand his mate’s difficulties.

But the question is: How much diverse pursuing is the right amount? And when is it too much? There is a balance between internal and external pursuing. I position that fulcrum as follows: This of course varies from person to person, and there’s no right position for everyone. But for me, top priority is to discover and hold on to a fulfilling love relationship. That’s first. First, above computers, books, self-improvement, writing, the Lions Club, the WPSBC Alumni Association, all of it. While I enjoy reading, writing, Djing, music, and so on, I would gladly trade most of these time-passers for equivalent time with my dream girl. I would swap several hours of reflection per week for time in her arms. I’d pawn all my ham radios to buy her a jewel. I’d sell most of my books to make space for her belongings in our home. Now I wouldn’t give up everything for her. Just most of it. Some of it I’d save as a diversion, for those times when we need to get away from each other. But I have no burning desire to be a Worldly. What I burn for, is to have my dream girl on my arm.

Indeed, the big reason I’ve acquired my many pursuits is because so far, I’ve been a dismal failure at the one goal I most want to achieve. You talked in another post about the value in recognizing that while we may not be good enough at meeting certain goals, that meeting other goals can still make for a happy, fulfilled life even though we can’t accomplish the original goals. I agree that, as Burns might say, it’s possible to be reasonably happy and comfortable without getting everything out of life we want.

But neither Burns nor Ellis, nor anyone else I’ve read has said that it’s possible to be   maximally   happy and   supremely fulfilled   when you’re forced to turn your back on your dream because you’re not good enough to make it come true. That goal of finding my dream girl is the most important yet difficult unfortunately. Its victories have been few and short-lived, and as we’ve discussed, numerous formidable social forces oppose me in it. On the other hand, my non relationship goals tend to offer greater success potential. There seems to be fewer opposing forces in these. Thus, it’s easier for example, to pass the next exam in ham radio, or the next level of Microsoft certification, than it is to mate with a perfect 10. My BS degree, and the four promotions at [work], though they took some time and much effort, were easier than finding true love. Easier, but not as fulfilling.

It was wonderful to get the diploma and the raises. Yet it was empty too. While I’ve achieved success in numerous self-oriented pursuits, and used their victories to manage my depressions, they never completely erased the loneliness. Oh, they took my mind off of it for periods and contributed greatly to my overall “reasonable comfort” with life. So they had overall good effects.

For a number of years, I became the classic workaholic. The job, and doing it well I made my center of existence in the early nineties. While I figured that attaining notoriety would make me more attractive and later, enable me to achieve a healthy balance between career, relationships, and personal interests, I loved the work itself too, with its many thrills of getting programs to run correctly. However, with each promotion, after the celebration was finished, and everyone went back to work, I found myself still in the same, unrelenting rat race. While I had moved a few steps further down the road toward success, and got to taste significant thrills along the way, I was still on the same road, still thirsting. Except for the bigger paycheck, I wasn’t any better off. Girls didn’t want to date me any more as a senior software engineer than as an associate when I first joined [that company]. Besides, the jobs got harder the higher I went. Greater demands, increased coworker conflicts, more blame for things over which I had no control, more harsh judgments from bosses, and with that, less job security and more stress. No fun. More money and higher status didn’t make me any happier with life.

Yet I persisted, hoping I’d find happiness in a nice home. So I bought the classic big house in the suburbs – a hallmark of a successful career. Yet a cold draft whistled down the stairs each night when climbing them to bed. No, there were no open or leaking windows up there. There wasn’t any   real   draft at all. No, this draft was a manifestation of a recurring thought: a reminder that though I “had it all,” something was still missing. And that something, as you’ve probably guessed, was my dream girl. The draft reminded me that though I’d worked so hard to build a good career, I was not getting the rewards promised by parents, teachers, and friends. Indeed, I was just as lonely in that big house in the suburbs as I was during the McKee Place years. What had the intervening years of hard work really gotten me? I had money, but that wasn’t enough. I had colleagues, but outside work, they weren’t around. I had lots of hobbies and spent thousands on them. The house itself kept me pretty busy for the first two years. But I still felt alone and unfulfilled. I did everything I could to make the American Dream come true. But still, there was no one upstairs waiting for me in the bedroom. No one to comfort me and make my work woes disappear for the night. No one to warm that cold air that repeatedly whisked by my face, bringing tears to my eyes frequently. So while it could be said that my career and house made me more like Worldly because they gave me numerous pursuits to focus on besides relationships, in my experience, they didn’t make me more attractive to women. At least, not more attractive enough to date the ones I desired. Nor did they eliminate that thirst for love.

No promotion ever felt as good as when   [First Love]   finally said yes after seven years, or when [Judy] let me give her a foot massage in the [camp] swimming pool and asked me to help her learn more English. Given my experiences, loving interaction with a dream girl is the only completely fulfilling activity there is. And I’ve tried many activities besides this, to know this. Yes. We need periodic victories, even small ones, to keep the blues away. And as mentioned, these little successes seem easier to come by when pursuing non-relationship goals. But no wins, either singularly or together, have ever filled the void of that missing romantic victory for me – lasting love. A win’s meaning is lessened when it doesn’t bring one closer to fulfilling his life purpose. At this point, my own Worldly pursuits, though by many accounts successful, have yet to bring me the relationship I so want, or to give me the degree of fulfillment that loving the right person has and would.

I would, without hesitation, trade ten promotions for ten years with my dream girl. I would swap the entire 15 years of aloneness at [work as a software engineer] for 15 years as a janitor in a dead-end job, so long as I had my dream girl by my side. These days, career and money concerns seem so trivial next to the love quest. While the Ohio years will always be an integral part of any success I achieve in the future, occasionally I look back on them as colossal wastes of time. Stopping that waste was, among other concerns, what drove my decision to finally leave, which marked the beginning of my mid life crisis. For the first 25 years of adulthood, I did what you’re supposed to do, and maintained plenty of personal pursuits – ones that had nothing to do with relationships. I went to school, got a degree, forged social connections, got a job, bought a house, did some traveling around the country, achieved excellence at that job, and went to church. I danced at night clubs, wrote articles for the local singles group, and maintained numerous platonic friendships.

But with mid life came the realization that none of this was getting me where I most wanted to be. Nor did any of it ever alter or obscure my true purpose, to love and be loved. With mid life, it became clear that time’s a wastin’ and that I’d best make radical changes in my approach if I hoped to ever love my dream girl. The change I opted for was to concentrate my focus and effort on what really matters, and give up those pursuits that don’t. In short, I tried, as you suggest, to make “other accomplishments.” It didn’t work for me.

Now, let’s explore another dimension of this. Worldly would argue that having many outside interests makes us more well-rounded, and as such, provides more interesting experiences to share with mates. The contention is that Worldly types bring more of value to the relationship than men of less breadth.  But as mentioned above, selecting breadth over depth has costs. Women enjoy a man’s wealth of diverse knowledge, but won’t like him spending so much time away from them to keep it up. While they’ll appreciate his zeal toward pursuing numerous and diverse goals before they met him, they’ll probably not want him to spend as much time with that once they make him their boyfriend.

Also, while lots of initial common interests are a plus, they are by no means necessary for long-term happiness. Frequently, couples bond with very little in common. Yet they live long, happy, united lives. What they don’t share at the start, they come to share once the relationship is underway. They join clubs, bowl, and ski, read books aloud to each other, dine, and listen to the radio and watch movies together, creating some common experiences that were lacking at the start. As the union progresses, the list of shared memories grows, and that initial void of wanting commonality shrinks and eventually becomes insignificant. The longer they stay together, the more in common they have, and thus, the more they have to build upon. As I see it, the only truly necessary commonalities at the start, are dreams of dedicating their lives to a love partner, and a mutual and profound attraction to each other. If both lovers share these goals and passions, differences become less detrimental. Love indeed conquers all. M. Scott Peck touches on this point in “The Road Less Traveled.”

Now to another point: Relationships are pursuits, no more or less inherently worthy than any other. They offer boundless opportunities for personal growth, spiritual enlightenment, and the thrills of accomplishment. True, they have potential gotchas – hurt feelings, heartbreak, uncertainty, agony, danger, and bitter failure. No different than any other pursuit really. Play actors cry when they don’t get the long-sought part, just as lovers sob when their beloveds hurt them. The agony of waiting for the adored to call, is duplicated in the life of the CFO, awaiting last quarter’s financial reports. Athletes hate when their bodies don’t do as they want, sort of like beloveds hate it when lovers refuse to perform a certain way. The absence of harmful disappointments cannot be found in any pursuit, romantic or not.

Few pursuits offer immediate success to anyone, and all of them necessitate that we make ourselves highly vulnerable to failure. Liability is a cost of renown, and the better you want to be at something, the more of yourself you must dedicate to it, and thus, the greater will be the psychological bruises should you hit a setback. But people supporting a tempered approach to love believe that they’re safe from heartache, if they put just a small portion of their eggs in the relationship basket. They spread their remaining eggs among many baskets. They think that failure in one area won’t be as devastating because fewer of their eggs will suffer damage since fewer of them are invested in this one pursuit. However, in so doing, they trade the excellence of depth for the safety of breadth. They either don’t realize or don’t care that for truly exceptional performers, heartache is plentiful whether you’re courting a beautiful woman, or wooing your boss for that promotion, or attempting to climb Mount Everest. The more you desire anything and the more of yourself you invest in it, the more pain you’ll experience when things don’t go your way. This phenomenon is no truer of the search for love, than say, the search for the cure for particular cancers. All pursuits, carried to the extremes that world class superiority demands, require almost complete focus and tolerate little distraction.

Like any other quest, to do a relationship well demands lots of dedication and constant work, along with a high degree of dogmatic obsession. Most happily married couples agree. If you’re going to play the piano well, you can’t also expect yourself to be a professional golfer (unless you’re extremely gifted!). Likewise, if you’re going to be a career man, then you must trade away some ability at being a good husband and father, and vice versa. You just can’t do it all, nor can you do anything well without performing poorly at something else. Olympic athletes also exemplify the fruits of complete dedication to single disciplines. Few would make Olympic teams if they didn’t practice sixteen hours a day. They must do that in order to achieve true excellence as well as a competitive edge. But how do you avoid putting your psychical wellbeing on the line if you’re going to maintain this routine for long? Indeed, much motivation to achieve derives from an implicit knowledge that our worthiness will suffer if we don’t accomplish the goal. We fear this eventuality, and those who fear it the most often tend to be the highest achievers. They’re the wealthy executives, the world-class athletes, and among the best lovers.

The idea is that most any discipline (loving another included) demands much investment of self to achieve and preserve greatness at it. Any more than just a trifle of diversion to non related pursuits impedes one’s progress in the primary objective. So why must a man dedicated to satiating of his love lust (as I am), be any less psychologically healthy than one who spends decades training to set foot on the moon or to write the great American novel, or to become a Buddhist monk? Pop psychology often illustrates the down side of obsession and how bad it is to be overly dedicated to a single goal, relationship or other. But without obsession, great works of art such as the ceilings of the Sistine Chapel, the statue David, and the symphonies of Beethoven would never have come to be. Why do we seem to regard the role of obsession in relationships with more skepticism than in other pursuits? When channeled such that no other’s rights are trodden on, obsession and compulsion are crucial ingredients in those long-lasting relationships. They are good things in this context, and so necessary to becoming an excellent mate, just as they are in virtually all other pursuits. Lessen your focus by pursuing more than just a small number of pursuits, and you sacrifice your chances of being good at any of them.

In short, I believe that neither breadth nor depth is the patently better mode of living. Sometimes, breadth is good. At others, depth works best. Now relationships don’t always require constant full dedication (depth). In fact, the best unions achieve a high degree of trust between the participants. The more mutual trust, the less necessary it is for lovers to focus on the relationship. Once this trust is achieved, then yes, it would seem healthy for the lovers to spend less time focusing on their bond, and more pursuing outside interests. But again, the appropriateness of such efforts varies as the relationship progresses.

Also, Worldly himself probably got to be Worldly as the result of a series of intensely focused pursuits. Though he has a rich history of diverse experiences, they did not come to him at the same time. They accumulated over his entire life. At any point in time, the number of concurrent pursuits is likely to be very small (say one to three). Worldly himself is more a sum of his single-minded obsessions than a master of managing large numbers of simultaneous pursuits. :-)    At this point in my life, I’d say that I’m a Worldly engaged in fulfilling his biggest dream so far. That may be good. It may be bad. I don’t know. But what I do know is that I can’t give up on my dream. I’ll either make this dream come true, or die trying. While The Quest has dragged my heart through many a painful trench, turning my back on It, has (and would) just replace one kind of pain for another. I’d be trading the disappointment of rejection for the laments of those resigned to the impossibilities of their dreams. You know the old saying: It’s better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. More on this in other posts.

Tom Hesley

Dear Lonnie

Wednesday, March 9th, 2005

Hi again, [Lonnie].

So nice to hear that your Mom is loving her retirement.

In the 80s, she used to talk about you sometimes. It’s wonderful to finally meet you – in email at least.

Well, she knows that I was working as a software engineer. In fact, she and I came into contact again right after I got that position in 1988. I worked through the ranks to a lead engineering position, where I programmed web site infrastructure until March of 2003. Since you’re in law, you’ve probably heard of the company I worked for – [...].

I was alone for most of that time, and so I left that position of 15 years to pursue my life’s dream of finding my dream girl. Then, once located, I hope to write about and publish the journey to her, to help comfort the people who have yet to find their soul mates, and have had to wait a long time for true love. I have about 20 complete pieces – articles, short stories, poems, and such. Adding more every month. The software job was so demanding that I didn’t have time to devote to the search. But now, time is plentiful, even though money is not! :)

I’m also operating a fully computerized DJ business temporarily, until either the writing takes off, or some other opportunity comes up. You could say that I’m in a career-interim right now, a sabbatical, mid-life break, whatever. I suppose I’ll get on with part 2 of my working life when I meet Her.

I’m the treasurer of our school’s alumni association, and have recently inherited its web site. Plans are to extend the site and update its technology, so the web search engines (like Google, Ask, Lycos, and Alta Vista) will find our articles. We want to list (by year) every graduate of WPSBC, and feature articles of technological interest for the blind. It’s going to be great.

That’s good that you’re involved with the school, to sort of carry on your Mom’s tradition.

Well, that’s about it. Nice talking to you.

Take care,
Tom Hesley

Dear Lonnie

Wednesday, March 9th, 2005

[Lonnie],

I came across your name while doing research for the Western PA School for Blind Children’s Alumni Association web site, and wondered if you were related to [Elstan]. I’m a former student of WPSBC, which I believe you serve as a trustee for. If you are her daughter, I know your Mom very well. We first met in 1975. She was my favorite teacher at WPSBC. And I credit her for teaching me everything I know about cooking. :-)

I hope [Elstan] is enjoying her retirement. I’ve had no communication with her since 2002. Tell her I said Hi.

Take care, and write back if you desire.

Sincerely,
Tom Hesley

Ann’s Pics Received

Thursday, July 1st, 2004

[Ann],

Yes, I received the pics. Of course, pics don’t tell the whole story. So I’m looking forward to seeing you in person, live, at the   WPSBC Alumni Association  convention [next month].

Tom Hesley

Polling Elstan

Tuesday, September 24th, 2002

Dear   [Elstan],

How are you? Just talked with [Tad] and he told me that you’re still working at the school. I was thinking you were going to retire at the end of the 2001-2002 school year. But you just couldn’t stay away from the place, ‘eh?

Anyway, it turns out that I have an opportunity to come to Pittsburgh this weekend for a   WPSBC Alumni Association   board meeting on Saturday afternoon. But the rest of the time, I’m free. And so, I thought I could fill some of that time hanging out with you. Perhaps we could do a nice dinner and movie Saturday evening and an early Sunday morning breakfast before I have to catch the train back to Altoona. Maybe we could go shopping on Friday evening and cook a meal together, sort of like we used to do in home ec. I’d also like to tell you about the book I’m writing and get your thoughts. So I wondered, if you have room for me to sleep (a couch would do), if I might spend this Friday and Saturday night at your house. We can spend as much or as little of that time together as you like. If you’re busy during the day, I can make myself scarce. :) Let me know what you think, and we can make plans.

Talk to you later,
Tom Hesley

My First Pillow Kiss

Monday, March 5th, 1979

Looking back from 2009-11-06.

My Virginity Troubled Me

By the time my twelfth grade year rolled around at WPSBC, I felt that life had short-changed me because at eighteen years old, I was still a virgin!  Surely, all my pals and enemies alike had, by this point in their lives, enjoyed sex many times.  At least, to hear them talk about it, that’s the impression I got.  So what the heck was the matter with me?  Indeed, I was eager to shed this then-dubious distinction because during that age of sexual liberation, I believed that there were lots more non virgins out there than virgins like me, and I hated being in the minority. 

That Older Schoolgirl

Her name was [Dawn] and she graduated some years earlier.  But she remained in Pittsburgh, living just a few blocks away and working downtown for a local high tech company. 

We never talked much while she was a student, though she was always cordial when I’d say hello. Yet, saying hi back seemed to be all the more conversation she ever cared to have, although admittedly, I never really pushed for deeper discussions. You see, I was rather shy then (as now too) around pretty, older girls.  For one thing, she was nearly five years older (that’s a lot for an eighth grader to handle), and for another, boys never left her alone.  One fellow in particular, she hung with throughout most of (her) senior high.  Anytime you saw her, you’d usually see him too, and during his occasional absences, another guy would immediately move in, within hours in some cases, hoping to take his place, at least for a while, until her and the original boyfriend made up again. 

It’s no wonder that so many guys liked her.  She had long, straight, dark brown hair, exquisitely fair skin, and she was slender, even before thinness became a wide-spread ideal.  She wore thick glasses, that gave her this intensely studious appearance.  She came across as quite the prim and proper girl, and she rarely made a peep.  I’ve never heard her yell or talk incessantly.  So, she was mysterious, and this aroused my curiosity in her senior year though I was some years younger. 

Not that her mystery itself intrigued me. But with all the more I knew about her, which was very little indeed, anything good that might happen remained possible. Since I knew so little of anything about [Dawn], I therefore detected no show-stoppers or skeletons in her closet.  The sky was indeed the limit with [Dawn]. 

I’ve usually found that as we come to know someone — as we replace the mystery with awareness and knowledge — we typically learn things along the way that lessen their allure; transforming the beautiful stranger into the unattractive buddy at best.  Indeed, until I found something severe that I didn’t like, I was content giving [Dawn] the benefit of the doubt.  I just knew that we would have lots of fun together, if she’d ever give me the chance, and I never assumed that any badness existed in her until I actually saw it for myself.  Nor did I look for it.  The way of my heart was to form a first impression, then, if that was a good one, to run ahead, at full speed, until given a good reason to slow down.  Caution, I thought, was for the old.  

Thus, it was these possibilities that [Dawn’s] mystery implied, her initial beauty, and the lack of any objectionable knowledge about her that interested me.  Since I knew of nothing bad, emotionally I figured that everything would be good, and my libido concurred.  In those days as I said, I did not look for problems.  In fact, feeling attracted to a girl was all the reason I needed to pursue her.  I didn’t care about how long my infatuation might or might not last, or her history, or associations, or any bad habits that she might have, or what awful things she could possibly do to me if she had despicable morals and gained access to intimate details of my life.  So I sometimes picked the wrong women, but realized it not until I had already fallen in love.  Then, I’d suffer the pain of falling back out of love again, once I knew them to be less than what I’d hoped for.

Though not quite Miss America, she appeared frequently in my mind’s eye when I’d fantasize about getting intimate with a few of the older schoolgirls, as I so often did.  Indeed she topped the short list of the girls I’d have taken to bed if allowed, because she was petite, soft-spoken, and gorgeous in a girl-next-door sort of way.  Though definitely not a goddess, I imagined that I’d still enjoy a romantic interlude with [Dawn].  But such opportunities never arose while we both attended school as students.  In actual fact, she was simply never available.  Plus, though she never scoffed at me and was always friendly, she seemed forever indifferent to me.  I saw how she acted toward those she really liked; all bubbly, animated, and giddy at times, yet observed none of this when she talked to me.

The Reunion

But in February of 1979, fate looked fondly upon me, and I got the chance that I’d almost forgotten that I wanted four years earlier.  The weather had begun warm up, and I worked the school’s telephone switchboard for an hour each day; a half-hour at breakfast, and another half-hour at lunch.  Occasionally, I’d substitute for the fellow who did the evening shift, [Morry], and he and I enjoyed a friendly rapport in those days.  He and his girlfriend both knew [Dawn], and [Dawn] would often come to the school after work and sit with them during the evenings, at the reception desk, talking, playing cards, and such.  This is where I met her again.

I’d see her sitting on the desk behind the switchboard, dangling her cute legs over the sides, giggling at [Morry’s] jokes, and then I became curious about her all over again.  She never brought any guys with her during these late winter visits.  So I guessed, hopefully, that she currently was unattached.  Thus, my curiosity grew into desire and passion in just one or two of these her-alone sightings.  Yep, I came to want her badly each subsequent time I saw her.  Could it be that she’s finally available to come out and play? 

Indeed, [Morry] picked up on my desire, and apparently, [Dawn] had expressed to him some interest in me as well.  Surprising, as she never seemed intrigued by me in her school days.  But four years had changed the two of us such that now, it was a whole new ballgame.  [Morry] helped the two of us break the ice and get talking – I was so bashful back then, probably because I wanted her so badly.  Thus I very much appreciated his help. 

Her visits shortly became routine, occurring almost every night.  I checked the reception desk (another name for the switchboard) each evening, seeking her, and was usually quite pleased to find her.  Any time I did, I went in to chat, and she and [Morry] welcomed me profusely, each and every time. 

With her so inviting, my shyness quickly ebbed, and in a week or two, I was sitting beside her on the desk.  Either that, or I’d sit in a chair immediately in front of her but still close enough to feel the waves of heat radiating from her 98.6 degrees.  We’d hold hands and I’d whisper lewd comments.  But unlike the women I’d known so far, who tended to be somewhat reserved in such matters, she responded with risqué’ statements in kind.  She was not put off by “dirty talk.”  To the contrary, she seemed to enjoy it just like us teenage boys did.  In fact, she dared me to put my money where my mouth was and to do the things to her that I joked so much about doing.  While I would not describe these encounters as romantic, they were nonetheless quite arousing.  I got hard each time she and I would engage in these playful and enticing exchanges, and before too long, she and I planned our first date.

She began telephoning me as I worked the switchboard, and call me a naughty boy for being so excited by her.  But she promised that we’d be together soon, and as it turned out, she kept true to her word. 

Our First Date

After a few weeks, she invited me to her apartment.  This two bedroom place she rented along with a male roommate; though she assured me (and I believed her) that they were in fact, just friends.  She even walked to the school to pick me up, as I had no idea where she lived.  The evening grew chilly and windy as we walked with the sun setting at our backs.  But her dwelling was quite warm; providing a romantic contrast to the coolness outside.

She cooked us dinner too; the food already baking and boiling when we arrived.  It smelled wonderful, though I do not remember what exactly she prepared.  I was quite nervous actually, because everyone knew what this date was to be about.  She knew it, and so did I.  Her roommate joined us for supper, and he must have known it too because shortly afterwards, he made himself scarce.  Apparently, the two of them had discussed my coming and [Dawn] had asked him to leave after the meal.  He did so without a grudge. 

My heart thumped and I worried that she might hear it, or feel it even, should we embrace.  I heard it in my ears and could feel it in my temples.  I could even see the pulsations in my vision as the light went momentarily dim with each heartbeat, and then it would brighten up again as the heart muscle relaxed in preparation for the next stroke.  My palms sweated as well and my knees knocked a little too.  My teeth chattered a bit and I shivered despite her balminess of her dining room. 

My nervousness puzzled me because I knew she would not reject me.  It could not have been clearer to me that we came here so we could get physical.  She wanted it, and often said it.  So what was there to be afraid of?  We left nothing to chance for this evening; we’d discussed going to bed together at the switchboard.  Each of us knew what the other hoped would happen.  Indeed, we’d both been quite open about our expectations for our “first date.”  So my apprehension seemed baseless, except for the newness of the experiences that I was about to encounter.  I’d never before been so close to a woman who openly said that she desired me, and perhaps I feared that I wouldn’t know how to handle myself.  But my anxieties turned out to be for naught however, as nature showed me what to do and when to do it.  Yes, nature took its course.

Her First Touch

She finished putting the dishes away while I waited for her on her light-colored, sheet-covered couch in the living room.  Soon she came in and approached me with a sly grin.  “Okay,” she said.  “Here I am.”  At that, I rose from the couch, swept her off of her feet into my arms, with a strength that surprised me.  She was very light and now, she was giggling as I held her.  “Now, what are you going to do with me?” she asked playfully.  I carried her back to the couch, with a lamp at either end.  Only one of the lamps glowed (the one to the left as we faced the couch) and so the lighting was at best, subdued.  This was the only light source in the entire room.

I sat down, still carrying her, but soon found that she was too heavy to support indefinitely; her bony butt jabbed uncomfortably into my thighs as she sat on my lap, grinding.  So I slowly moved her to the cushion beside me, and she, picking up on my cue, assisted and eased herself toward that spot without a word.  She then began rubbing my shoulders, arms, and thighs; her hands gently exploring my every nook and cranny except for where what makes me a man was located.  She was careful not to touch there.  But after five minutes or so, I said coyly, “So when are you going to massage the rest of me?” 

She said, “Ah, if I touched you there, you’d shit.  Wouldn’t you?”

“No, go ahead,” I said quite eagerly but also sorry at that moment, that I had encouraged her. What had I let myself in for?  Now that I’d given her the green light, she’d certainly be coming with all due haste.  Oh no!  But actually, she didn’t move too quickly, taking a couple more minutes getting there as she made big circles on my stomach and thighs with the palm of her right hand.  Then, she switched to tracing the circles with her index finger, and these circular motions got smaller and smaller in diameter, zeroing in on home plate, the bull’s eye.  Obviously, this woman was no stranger to the bedroom and brimmed with self confidence.  Few if any inhibitions I saw, unlike myself then, and she gladly took the driver’s seat this evening; assertively settling into her role as the senior love partner. 

Now just a couple inches away, she asked, “Are you okay?  Shall I keep going?” 

“Yes,” I whispered, my heart boiling over with a sweet combination of anticipation and trepidation. 

Her hand found me then and oh my goodness.  I held my breath, savoring yet dreading her touch.  It was delicious!  I wanted to moan but was afraid of turning her off.  So I made no noises; self-conscious of even my breathing.  I didn’t want to act as though I liked it too much.  But I really did. 

Jesus quickly rose then as thoughts of this older woman putting her hands in my pants ran through my mind.  This wonderful yet nasty lady, who just four years earlier, I would never have had a chance with, seemed eager to get my clothes off today.  I watched her hand rubbing me and working my fly, and her finger as she outlined the embarrassing bulge in my blue jeans. 

Then I looked into her eyes, and she gently smiled as if to ask, “There now, that’s not so bad, is it?”  But then she snapped me back to reality by sarcastically scolding, “Shame on you, you naughty, naughty little boy!”  She enunciated each syllable and created still more emphasis by tapping my other head with her right index finger as if to punish it for emerging. 

At this exaggerated authoritarianism, I thought Jesus would tear though my jeans; the irony of the setting drove him crazy with blissful sensation.  He got so hard that he hurt as her slender and long, pale, manicured fingers stroked his head and neck, and tapped all around him through the denim.  “Oh, you are so bad,” she muttered, now breathing heavily herself.  “Do you like it?” she asked.

“Yes,” I gasped.

“Now, do you think he’d like to come out and see me?” 

“I don’t know,” I replied softly.  Now I really was feeling self-conscious, for no woman, except for my mother dressing me as a toddler had ever seen that part of me before, much less touched him.  Plus, I’d often worried about not being big enough to please the girls.  Now to be honest, I had no idea of just how big I had to be to get female approval.  Yet to hear the fellows talk at the north side school playground over the past five years where I hung out, the rule of thumb was: the bigger the better.   In fact, they’d often boasted about their sizes and how the gorgeous girls told them how wonderfully large their manhood was and how much they liked it.  But while I never actually compared my size to theirs, I was virtually certain that I’d never be big enough to please anyone.  In those days, I so frequently troubled over such trivial things, that my self-confidence never got a chance to flourish until well into adulthood.  Back then, I was quite shy and possessed many more hang-ups than today; I was innocent. 

She must have read some doubt in my face.  “Oh come on,” she coaxed.  “It will be fun.”  She caressed him some more; teasing, tickling, and drumming with her right hand while stroking my hair with her left.  Again, I’d never seen before any woman that liked me this much, much less someone that I’d admired from afar as an eighth grader in 1975; someone that back then, I was nearly certain I’d never get to love.  After having been forced for so long to fantasize rather than to experience, the dreams about to come true this night frightened me.  I felt the tension building in my stomach and chest, and suddenly, her non existent inhibition and aggression took on a dirty air, and I got the sickly feeling that I was about to get naked and then jump head-first into a cesspool. I became queasy.  Thinking about her unzipping my jeans brought the supper I’d just eaten back up into my throat, and I struggled not to vomit.

Now at the switchboard over the past couple weeks, her consistent interest reassured me and bolstered my self-esteem.  It enticed me to explore her further as I was about to do then. Up ‘til then, I’d been grateful for having this lady get so aroused over me.  But her perhaps-too-open-and-abrupt expressions of horniness — her heavy breathing and moaning — made her appear trashy or sluttish, and I felt mildly disgusted at myself for allowing our encounter to occur, and I blamed her for so enthusiastically encouraging it.  Of course nowadays, now that I’ve acquired a measure of experience in the bedroom myself, subsequent encounters have been much more enjoyable than this initial one with [Dawn].  Back then, I was sick with disappointment in myself, and perhaps a little disillusioned as well, as I learned that sex for real might not be as fun as it seemed in my imagination while masturbating in the suitcase room, as I’d heretofore done hundreds of times.  

My Doubts

There was comfort in the fantasy but horror in the reality that was about to play out.  I don’t know for sure why I was afraid besides the notion that this was the first time I’d ever actually been with a girl like this.  Maybe the fact that she was so horny intimidated me.  Indeed, she did not act like the prim and proper woman that she seemed to be back in eighth grade; a behavior I’d come to expect from all ladies at that point.  I thought she should be the shy one; not me.  But the roles were reversed because she had the greater amount of experience in bed with lovers; me the newbie, her the older, yet very warm and soft hand.  I’d often heard of how males are supposed to take charge in the bedroom.  But on this night, it was she who made the advances and set the tone, and I felt self-conscious, again, as a result.  Why wasn’t I living up to my manly responsibilities, and shame on me for not.  To me, my innocence was no excuse, and I felt ashamed of it. 

What would my parents think if they knew?  What would [First Love] think?  [Dawn] and I were about to do something I’d dreamt of since my first orgasm by my own hand, some seven years earlier.  Yet the whole thing seemed unclean somehow.  Though [First Love] had avoided this kind of relationship with me all through school except for a few small moments, I thought it wrong that my first time making love would not happen with [First Love].  I wished that I’d just spent the last hour on her couch instead of [Dawn’s]. 

Besides, I wasn’t sure how much [Dawn] really liked me, and I was not in love with her.  I was too young then, to appreciate the virtues of the kinds of casually intimate, no-strings encounters like the one we were having.  So I expected that any lady, who found me attractive sexually, ought to also profess her undying love and devotion to me. 

But I don’t think [Dawn] desired a long-term relationship; her heart was elsewhere. Indeed, she frequently asked how [Tad] was doing and what he was up to.  As I’d answer her, I’d notice the increased gleam in her eyes.  She’d turn toward me and move closer as she listened intently to my [Tad] words.  Even today, some thirty years later, she still calls him every few months to chat, while I have heard nothing from her; not once in 28 years.  Yes, even in 1979, I sensed that she really liked [Tad], or at least, seemed more acutely interested in him than me, and I worried over creating a competitive situation among between he and I; one that I’d likely lose.  

I picked up less of that sort of interest from [Dawn] toward me, and this also gave me pause.  Did I truly want to go to bed with a lady who didn’t really care about me that much?  Perhaps not, because I feared that doing so might make me more vulnerable to her than she was to me, and thus, give her greater emotional power.  I suspected that [Dawn’s] feelings for me ran only so deep and so, I dreaded laying my heart on the table for her if she would end up treating my feelings as casually as she seemed to regard the sexual energy between us.  Not that she was cold by any means.  But something warm was definitely missing from our date.  The whole interaction just didn’t feel as special as I imagined it should. 

Further, the thought of dating her aroused me sexually; but not romantically.  Over the past month, she starred in a number of my most potent fantasies.  But pursuing those desires seemed wrong if I did not love her, which I did not.  The idea of taking her to bed intrigued me all right, but at the same time, the image of her coming home to meet my family repulsed me.  She was great in private but I had no wish to go public. 

I felt no emotional vulnerability toward [Dawn], yet feared that I might become her emotional slave if we were to continue down our current path toward casual sex.  In retrospect though, I doubt that I would have fallen in love as a result of this one encounter.  But at eighteen years old, and this being my first such expedition, I had no idea how I’d react, and lacked the confidence to effectively deal with whatever might happen.  I’d spent the past seven years in nearly continuous pain over the relationship with [First Love]; a situation where I constantly felt exceedingly powerless, and therefore, hopeless and sad as well.  Why did I regard my relationship with [First Love] so negatively?  Because at this point, [First Love] desired me much less than I did her.  As a result, throughout school, I campaigned to entice [First Love] to go out with me on a real date, like the one [Dawn] and I were “enjoying” this night.  But this night happening so soon after finally feeling like I could get over [First Love], I was in no hurry risk placing myself in the weaker emotional position again; not when [Dawn] appeared to be more seriously interested in [Tad] than me.  In short: I was scared.  So I didn’t want things to go further than they had.  In point of fact, they’d already gone too far. 

But I Was Curious

Yet in spite of all these concerns, I kept silent.  I wished not to disappoint [Dawn], and intellectually at least, if not sexually, I truly wanted to see her in the nude.  That is: I still wanted to at least have the experience of seeing her that way, even if that experience would prove to be far less sexually enjoyable than I’d hoped.  Again, this was a night of first-experiences, and seeing this lady in the buff would indeed be a first that I thought I might enjoy, or at worst, regret not doing later if we ended the date before she put on her birthday suit. 

As an eighth grader, I often admired her legs when she wasn’t looking, and now as a senior, she was offering me an early graduation present: the chance to see them close up, and bare as bare could be.  Though she lay across my lap, her legs within a forearm’s reach, I wished to explore no more.  Crazy.  I mean, here I was, actually living the dream that I’d played over and over while pleasuring myself in that dark suitcase room on the third floor with the creaky floor on the boys side.  But, much to my shock, I could find none of the arousal that, while fantasizing, I was certain that I would find if I ever could live out the fantasy.  Indeed, I got what I had wished for this night.  I was doing much of what I dreamt of.  But I found, upon living that dream, that I didn’t really want it.  It turned out to be nothing like I thought it would be, and far less pleasing to boot. 

However, I figured that if I didn’t check her out, that I’d never get the chance again.  So I kept going with the flow, even though I was quickly losing interest in seeing where this flow would lead.

“Oh, what happened to him?  He’s all soft again,” she said with exaggerated but nonetheless apparent disappointment. 

“I don’t know,” I muttered.   “Perhaps I’m nervous.”  She rubbed and stroked me a little more.  But the hardness would not return.

“What can I do to help?” she asked with genuine concern that seemed motivated by more than just a sexual interest.  She did care to a degree, and I think that had I fallen in love with her, she would have tried to make us work well together even if she didn’t feel for me what she felt for people like [Tad]. 

Off To the Bedroom

“I don’t think you can do anything,” I replied, suddenly wishing to put some distance between us.  I moved to get up and she threw her legs off my lap and stood up with me.  Audaciously, yet against my better judgment I said, “Let’s go to your bed.”  Like she, I also wondered how I could become aroused again, like before, when she touched me down there for the first time.

“Ooh!” she replied.  “Okay.”

I smiled and then put an arm under her butt, lifted her to my waist-level, and carried her to her single bed in the adjacent room.  She was thin and light; just like I liked, and also one of those “older” girls that intrigued me so just because they were older.  Ironically, curiosity, more than desire, motivated my interest in going to her bedroom.  I knew nothing about how I’d feel once there, and so, I wasn’t sure if I desired this level of encounter or not.  But I did wish to figure it out, and reasoned that backing out now would deprive me, quite likely forever, similar opportunities with [Dawn].  So, I encouraged the evening to progress toward intercourse though admittedly, my heart just wasn’t into it. 

I wanted to desire her in the worst way, and in fact, felt pressure to do so; though I’m sure, that did not come from [Dawn]. It was all me.  I hoped I’d again find the desire for her that I’d lost on the couch earlier, somewhere now under the bed covers, and perhaps even underneath her clothes.  Indeed, I had to find it to make the evening worthwhile, for I did not want to return to WPSBC with this evening described in the history books as a total bust.  But so far, any passion that I’d previously felt in the reception room at school, had vanished. 

The last of my hardness disappeared too as I carried [Dawn], and then I became as limp as a soggy Vienna sausage by the time I gently lowered her down to her mattress, face up.  Strange too, because one would think that heading for the bedroom while carrying a very pretty and willing girl, would have had the opposite effect.  Indeed, I insisted to myself that I should be as hard as a rock, and was disappointed that I was not.  I believed that restoring my interest (and thus, salvaging the date) was still possible, if only I could find the missing piece; an ingredient which I was certain was there with us.  I just had to find it; though I had no idea what it even was much less where to look.

I sat on the bed beside her as she removed her thick glasses while watching me with an inviting gaze.  This was the first time I’d ever seen her without her spectacles, and so, I was not used to it.  Now, I regretted even more, going this far because (I’m frightfully ashamed to say) I found her appearance to be quite the turn-off.  With the barriers between strangers and casuals now gone, and any illusions of her beauty gone with them, I discovered that to me, she possessed no real (i.e. lasting) beauty.  I never did learn to find her bare face attractive, though I struggled to for the rest of the date. 

She said softly then, “Why don’t you take off your clothes?”  Again, there appeared that trepidation in my heart, coupled with my lacking interest, as well as emerging feelings of guilt and shame.  I deemed myself shallow and hated myself too, for so easily and so quickly becoming displeased with her.  She didn’t deserve this level of rejection, because as far as I could tell, she’d done nothing to warrant it.  She has always been nice to me.  So how could I, aspiring to be this “sensitive new-age guy,” just cut her off like this?  In fact, I couldn’t; at least, not yet.   I couldn’t bear to hurt her feelings.  So, I continued onward.

Though I was not horny, I encouraged her; stripping down to my underwear as she looked on, smiling with excitement, like a little girl whose parents are in the process of handing her a Christmas present, while she watches them bringing the box closer.  Another first: This was the first time any woman had ever seen me undress, and [Dawn] appeared to be enjoying the view immensely, and wanted to see more.  Her excitement grew as I peeled off each piece, whereas mine declined as she removed hers. 

Surprisingly, I felt no embarrassment at her seeing me nearly naked.   In fact, ironically, I wanted her to see me; the thought of her beholding my starkness got me a little hard again for an instant.  So, I did as she asked and in less than two minutes, all that was left to remove was my underpants. 

She beckoned, “Come here,” and then motioned with her right hand where she wanted me to go.  So, I slid over top of her, now cheek-to-cheek, just as if we were slow dancing.  Another first: I’d never lain on top of a lady before.  Yet here I was, doing it.  I was certainly glad to be doing it if, for no other reason, than that I could now truthfully boast to my friends that I had in fact done it.   However, I found no sexual arousal in it. 

My First Pillow Kiss

I hated having so many things on my list that I had yet to experience, and sometimes, friends and enemies alike would rib me for my innocence.  So I was proud to now have this experience in my repertoire, even though it gave me nowhere near the thrill I’d imagined it would during all my hours of masturbating since 1972.  Exchanging kisses in bed with [Dawn] made me less innocent, and that was just fine by me because this decreased naivety would give the bullies at the playground less reason to laugh.  It might even make them envious; a thought I savored as I kissed [Dawn] on the lips for the first time.

But [Dawn] didn’t like lip-locking much.  Now she didn’t mind the occasional pecks every minute or two, so long as they lasted no more than two or three seconds.  However, the thirty-second wet kiss was out, and she absolutely detested French kissing.  Sometimes I regret that my first pillow kisses happened with a girl who didn’t like kissing.  Still though, she was a great sport about it, and humored me way more than her duties in this matter called for.  But the hardness did not return. 

I looked at her then and smiled.  She smiled back and our lips met in what would become my first pillow kiss.  “How can I make it better for you?” she asked.

“Oh I don’t know,” I replied.  “Maybe if you took off your clothes…”

She did not object.  In fact, she rushed to unfasten her pants and pull her shirt over her head, as though she’d been eagerly waiting for the right time to do this all night.  Now, that right time had just arrived, and she was going to be sure and get her clothes off before the moment passed.  I liked what I saw.  Her body was probably about as pretty I’d imagined before, but that beauty didn’t dazzle me as it had in the suitcase room theater, where I beheld it only in my mind’s eye.

She lay back down after undressing, and as I took in her entire appearance, now undistorted by clothes, makeup, glasses, or anything else, I considered moving down her body past her legs, to her feet.  Sexually speaking, a woman’s feet and legs excite me the most of any of her parts.  Yet I hesitated for reasons I do not fully understand.  She would have been okay with me down there.  I’m sure.  But the thought of worshipping her feet just didn’t seem interesting enough to pursue on this occasion, despite the many minutes of sexual stimulation this vision inspired in the suitcase room.  I wasn’t afraid of asking her either.  I just didn’t want to.  At least, I wasn’t sexually motivated to do that. 

To this day, I regret foregoing that opportunity.  I never did see her feet up close, and now, I’ll likely never get the chance again being that she’s in her fourth decade of marriage and lives too far away besides.

We Assumed the Position

“Why don’t you try getting on top of me?” she suggested.

“Ummm, okay,” I said reluctantly.  I felt as nervous as I had my first day of kindergarten, and about as limp as well.  No hardness at all was left.  In fact, Jesus had grown cold and clammy.  Like a curious turtle, he stuck his head out, found out that he liked nothing he saw, and then went back in.  He would not come back out this night.

Still though, I had to press on, if for nothing else than the sheer account of it; to make this experience one of my own.  So, I did as she asked.  She was warm.  Her legs were smooth.  She had no bad odors.  In fact, she may have smelled of Clairol’s Herbal Essence shampoo.

We never did turn down her bed.  So I never got to embrace her under the covers.  But I didn’t care, because by now, the sad notion that I was not going to find “the handle” to turn myself back on, had become a convincing reality.  This night just wasn’t going to get any better than a C average.

I lay above her, looking hard into her eyes, and casting my eyes up and down her pale-skinned and soft body, desperately searching for some feature of hers to get physically excited about.  But after perhaps ten minutes, I had found nothing. 

We talked some.  She said not to worry about her roommate, as he would be gone the rest of the night.  I looked at my LCD watch that Rich Parker had given me for Christmas, backlit by tritium, and saw that it was just after nine PM.  She talked of going to work the next day, all the while fondling my sweet spot to no avail.  It was over.  We both knew it, and I felt ashamed.  True.  I wanted the night to go this far, before it has actually done so.  But now, I regretted taking those steps.  My stomach again grew unsettled.

We Got Dressed

“Well, I’d better get going,” I said with (I hope not too much) relief.  Any residual horniness from earlier had long since left us both, and we were conversing as nonchalantly as two friends would, and not even very close friends at that.  Whatever barriers had lowered, were quickly rising again as we each put our clothes back on.  Before too long, our semi-stranger status was back.  But unlike before, I never again felt physically attracted to this beautiful stranger.

We said nothing to each other as we dressed.  Clearly neither of us came away with anything like what we’d hoped.  Despite my persistence, in spite of my lacking sexual desires to persist, I never found anything that aroused me again about [Dawn].  Unfortunately, this evening would indeed be written into my history books as “a bust.” 

I felt sorry for [Dawn], for I wanted so much to give her a good time but just could not make my body obey.  I truly wished not to hurt her feelings.  But hurt her feelings I did, though fortunately she never voiced any blame at me.  Nonetheless, this bust would trouble me for some years, until I realized that so much of what makes good sex good, goes far beyond the choices we make and the actions we take.  Those do affect it to be sure. But without the presence of some other key ingredients (like genetics, knowledge about the lover, complimentary desires and gifts, and so on), good sex just won’t happen, no matter how much you try to force it. Though I now had in fact gone through most of the motions of the sexual experience that the playground bullies boasted of, and could therefore, truthfully boast right along with them, my heart was still empty and my thirst for women unquenched. 

The Date Was Done

After we finished dressing, [Dawn] walked me half-way back to the school.  She said, “I’m sorry, Tom,” and that was all.  We hugged our good-byes.  Then I turned and scurried away as fast as I could.  The wind made me shiver and my teeth chatter even though the temperatures topped the mid fifties that day.  Again, I wanted to throw up, and wished not for her to see.  At least now that it was completely dark, I could easily find a bush to dump into if needed. 

What had I done?  Had I tainted my suitcase room fantasies forever with this little excursion, with a much less exciting reality? It sure looked that way.  I worried that I might never be able to enjoy masturbation again in light of the apparent un-attainability of the fantasy.  Up to this point, I assumed that my masturbatory visions could happen for real if I just found the right women.  Indeed, I think this is one reason these visions produced such pleasure.  But now, I was not so sure.  After all, [Dawn] appeared in my mind’s eye just as appealing and pleasing as any of the most attractive girls I’d ever erotically dreamt of.  But in truth, she physically pleased me not in the slightest.  Would it be like this always?  Could I ever again count on my fantasies to point out the women most likely to pleasure me in the for-real?

Another first: This mediocre experience got me to question for the first time, whether my fantasies could ever become real.  However, that uncertainty didn’t last long.  Maybe I just couldn’t face the possibility that  truth and fantasy often don’t agree, and that what seems fantastic, is, in reality, nothing of the kind.  Maybe I just put this out of my mind because if this were the case, it’d be much harder to enjoy sex by my own hand; particularly if I thought that what I desire inside my mind could never happen for real.  Perhaps the detailed memories of [Dawn] faded after a while; restoring my sexual vigor.  Whatever it was that brought it back, after a few days, I returned to the suitcase room with the same high sexual energy as before the [Dawn] experience.  The reality of [Dawn] only dealt my world of fantasy a small blow.

Though I hadn’t the wisdom to express this fully back then, I believe today that there are women, for real, that are every bit as desirable as those in my dreams. I found some at the foot parties earlier this year in fact.  There, I met them for real.  I felt them for real, and they really turned me on.  The dreams can come true.  However, as it turned out, [Dawn's] real image pleased me far less than did her angelic, dreamy, and imaginary portrait. 

Though the outcome of this particular encounter was less than I had hoped, unfortunately I couldn’t have figured this out without doing exactly as I did, and pressing on a little with the date.  When it comes to love and sexual joy, it’s difficult to know what’s behind the door until you actually open that door and walk in.  Witn [Dawn], I did just that, but did not find what I sought.  So I came back out again.  So would I do the date over again, just as it was done, in order to find out if she could retain her beauty in my eyes after the first time?  You bet. 

Click   here   to read the next installment of this story.

Tom Hesley

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Molly’s Last Visit

Friday, November 1st, 1974

Looking backward from 2009-10-18.

Once the letter I’d sent to [Molly] in August came back to me unopened, I heard nothing more from her, at least, not until well into 8th grade.  The weather had gotten chilly as the days remaining in October of 1974 were few, when she called to check in.  Apparently, she’d had the tonsillectomy she mentioned when we last talked in May, because she now spoke in a notably higher register.  Indeed, she’d gone from a tenor to a high alto, or perhaps even a soprano and she sounded a whole lot sexier, if that was even possible.

Her call came into extension 50 in the boy’s side recreation area, one afternoon just before supper.  Just like the last time we went for weeks without communicating, my feelings for her started weakening; though I truly enjoyed the way she’d occasionally pop up, out of the blue.  If she’d lived closer – maybe if she’d been a student at Schenley high school just up the hill, we might have become grade school sweethearts.  But as it was, though we really liked each other, keeping the romance alive proved impossible.  I mean, hearing her caring and tender way still warmed my heart and made me very happy, and I seemed to do this for her too.  But in those days, cell phones and   free long distance   were but lofty dreams.  She and I were never physically close enough to take advantage of local calling, which only cost a dime per conversation.  The Internet and email were still in their infancy as well, and so, were not available to the general public.  In fact, I wouldn’t have known how to use a computer even if I had one, as I had no training on it then. 

Yes, pay phones were available at WPSBC and at the various places she’d been staying, but quite expensive for both of us.  I earned only a few dollars a week as a pot washer, and she probably made little more.  A single person-to-person or collect call would have eaten up all my wages for the week. So keeping in touch was highly sacrificial, to say the least.

Infrequent talks weren’t our only problem either.  With   [First Love]   so close by and [Molly] so far, not only was it difficult to stay interested in [Molly], but it was hard to stay disinterested in   [First Love].  Though   [First Love]   had rejected my advances for over a year now, a relationship with her still seemed more plausible and thus desirable, than with [Molly]. So what I felt for [Molly] at this point had become (just an) abiding friendship; my fantasies in eighth grade focused way more on   [First Love]   as well as my homeroom teacher.  In short, since [Molly] was largely out of sight, she was also for the most part, out of mind.

But here she was on this old, black wall phone beside a rattling water fountain, in this noisy hall with two-story high ceilings, without a stitch of carpeting anywhere to dampen the echoes; a place where  kids played pool and scurried about, yelling, thumping, and watching TV.  Not the most romantic setting to be sure, but I clearly heard her above the racket, as the school’s phones tended to be louder than usual anyhow.  She talked of how she’d enjoyed the Heritage Hills summer camp in Oakdale, and said that she missed me.  She was sad that I hadn’t answered her last letter.  Actually I had answered.  But that’s the letter (here) that she never received because she’d left camp before it got there.   She wasn’t mad though.  In fact, any hurt she felt vanished once we began talking this time.  As we each reestablished to the other, that in spite of our sparse correspondence, we still cared, all the loneliness disappeared. 

She went on to catch me up on her life, saying that she’d gotten into some sort of trouble. But she offered no details.  The result however, was that she now lived in a juvenile hall which wasn’t too far from WPSBC.  So she asked to visit me again now that she could get to me with little cost.  Apparently, her infractions weren’t very severe, as she was not confined to the hall full-time; she just had to board and attend school there.  But she could go out in the evenings after finishing her homework.  I eagerly agreed to see her.  Her behaviors, whatever they were, never concerned me.  Now days I’d likely break immediately with anyone with a history of police problems once I discovered it.  But as an eighth grader, in a school virtually free of crime, I had not yet developed any sense of caution; I was still quite innocent and naive.  So I profusely assured her that I still accepted her no matter what she’d done.  The fact that she accepted me with my low vision compelled me to do likewise for her and her juvenile problems.  So we discussed them no more; she, content to avoid them, and me, content not to ask.  Then, we quickly moved on to other, more pleasant matters.

Not only were our telephone conversations too far apart, but also way too short.  When we managed to have them, they rarely lasted more than ten minutes.  This one was no different; though I did squeeze in a bit about my vacation at camp Beacon Lodge, and she discussed her summer at camp Heritage Hills.  But the reason for this call was not chit-chat, but rather, to arrange a visit with me before the time ran out and she’d have to deposit another thirty-five cents in the payphone for three more minutes.  So we got to those details in short order.

Her visit was easy to work in, as my evenings, though rather full with study halls, religion on Tuesday nights, and recreation periods on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, could easily be adjusted for callers.  We arranged our get-together for the next evening.

She arrived, like last time, with a friend.  But this time, it was a guy who accompanied her, and she introduced him as her boyfriend!  True. He drove her to me after all.  So in some ways I was grateful to him.  Perhaps this is why I did not get upset at this much unexpected twist in our story.  Indeed feeling as little hurt as I did, bewildered me, because I thought I   should   be angry.  After all, she said nothing of a boyfriend last evening.  In fact, she talked then like she still hoped that the two of us would go together eventually, though we both knew that that would be unlikely.  Apparently she thought it less likely than I’d imagined, now that she had this tall and dark-haired fellow with dark-rimmed glasses on her arm. 

Like the girl who brought [Molly] to visit last May, this fellow is but a dark silhouette to me now.  I remember very little about him other than the fact that he was there.  He hovered around very little, and he and I exchanged just a few small pleasantries; he was not the jealous type.  She may have preempted such feelings by explaining before they arrived about the sort of special relationship that she and I enjoyed. Perhaps he perceived no threat to their relationship from a vision impaired boy like me.  But whatever the source of his security, it seemed unshakable, and I guess I’ll never know what it really was.  Indeed, he knew to back away once she and I started talking quietly, and he did so without a grudge.  As we headed toward the recreation area from the reception hall, he fell back to half a hall length away, and she and I were thus in effect walking alone, together.  I forgot all about his presence until it was time to say good bye.

Now in late October, 1974, it was too cold to sit on the merry-go-round or lawn swings.  So instead, the three of us traipsed downstairs to the pop room.  During the colder times, students and staff alike hung out in this room, located in the basement, underneath the pool table rooms on the first floor.  There was a Coke and a Pepsi machine; a can of pop in those days cost a quarter.  A jukebox blared out currently popular music along with some classic rock favorites, and this place had a pool table as well.  Shiny maroon was the waxed floor, and the walls were a pale, glossy yellow.  A white ceiling capped the area, at least what one could see of it; lots of water, drainage, and steam pipes ran to and fro, hiding the rest of it. 

Lit by cool white fluorescent lights protected by screen mesh cages, the room had a decidedly industrial or gymnasium look.  But it was perhaps the most popular place to go, for in addition to the pop machines and the jukebox, a bowling machine offered many hours of fun gaming for both high school and grade school students alike. 

Back then, students could smoke tobacco as long as the school had signed permission on file from their parents. Many did smoke, particularly in this pop room, and the haze often hung thick in the air, just like it does in a honky-tonk bar.  There were numerous brass-colored cans full of sand scattered about this place that served as very large ash trays.  Some of us non smokers rubbed snuff and chewed “side chew” tobacco, and we’d use these cans for spittoons as well.  So their contents got to be pretty gross-looking after just a few days, and they weren’t emptied but once or twice during the whole school year.  Yet I was not embarrassed to show [Molly] this place, though I might be today.  I wanted her to meet my friends, and I wanted them to see me parading this gorgeous sighted girl around.  Yes, I admit it.  I wanted to gloat just a little.

We walked into this recreational hangout / lounge to find between ten and twenty folks milling about the tables, bowling on that clickety-clackety machine that was always breaking down, and listening to that thumpy jukebox that played so much outdated music, and sometimes got jammed.  We ran into [Tad], my long-time, dear friend, and when he heard [Molly's] voice, I could feel him snap to.  She got his attention alright, and it was quite easy to see, even in a school full of blind people, that he desired her.  So we joined him.  

For an instant, and only silently to myself, I objected.  Why?  Because the scene was just all wrong.  Seeing the drooling [Tad]’s amorous feelings expressed as we sat with some of our buddies, hanging around a spittoon like it was a camp fire on a cold night, was not my first choice for quality time with [Molly].  I wanted to go off alone with her, so that we could talk in private, for longer than the mere ten-minute spurts that we’d gotten used to on the payphone.  The wonderful letters received since meeting her last April, still left so much unsaid, and I had hoped to say all that on this evening.  I’d been waiting for months to say it.  I wanted to tell her in person that I cared, to hold her hand, and enjoy her long and sweet bubblegum-flavored kisses.  But the fact that her boyfriend came with her crossed out that option.  I knew that on this occasion, I’d have to make due with being together in public only.  So I bore no grudge toward [Tad].  After all, he was not the one keeping me from a private meeting with [Molly]; only circumstance was to blame and so, I felt jealous for neither   [Tad]   nor her boyfriend. 

So I introduced her to [Tad], and in less than five minutes, the two of them were laughing and chatting.  [Tad] seemed never to have problems getting girls to like him; indeed he was quite the lady’s man.  But he was also a good friend and so, he took every opportunity to make sure that he included me in the conversation.   Every few minutes, he’d direct the talk at me by saying things like “Isn’t that right, Tom?” or ”I bet Tom has something to say about that, don’t you Tom?”  He clearly liked [Molly].  But I don’t believe he wanted to steal her from me, though she was not mine to be stolen from in the first place. 

I’m not sure I needed his help though, for [Molly] really liked me.  I knew that then, and now.   I could feel it in the way she watched me and in her tones of voice when she addressed me.  But on some deep level, we both knew that the circumstances made it impossible for us to go together.  Neither of us drove, and had neither the money nor the freedom to meet very much and for very long.  She in ninth grade and me in eighth, were both still quite securely underneath the thumbs of our parents, house parents, teachers, and customs, as well it should have been.  But I so wished it could be different, and she did too. 

She communicated this as we walked outside around the cold playground after leaving [Tad] and the rest of the gang a half-hour later; she wanted to see the boy’s play area again even though the weather showed no mercy.  A raw and cold wind whistled around my ears through the hooded jacket I wore as the pelting sleet made a hissing sound as the little white beads of ice hit the sidewalks and gravel near the unoccupied merry-go-round.  No daylight remained in the sky, as it was nearly 8:30 PM. Only the incandescent floodlights beaming from the distant porch gave us any visibility.  The rain, sleet, and snow mixture resembled a white sheet flapping in the wind when seen in that lighting, and as blustery as it was, this picture was still quite a romantic one.

We walked along; her boyfriend trailing far enough behind so as not to hear our words. In fact, he might have even waited inside by the porch door for us to return. But with all my attention on [Molly], I knew not where he was; nor did I care.  

As we shivered, she admitted that it was out of place for her to have brought her special friend here.  She apologized repeatedly, squeezing my hand with gentle pulsations to augment her sincerity.  “I know I said that I loved you,” she went on, “and I still do.  But I,… I…”  She trailed off, not knowing how to say what was to me, already so clear.  She needed to say no more, for I got it.  I knew not, how to tell her with words. that I got it.  So I relied on my body language to do the talking, and just hugged her.  She understood and fell silent as she cradled my head against her bosom (she was a head taller than I), rocking me gently from side to side. 

While there in her arms, and enveloped by her emotions, I stopped noticing the cold and rain hitting my face and messing up my glasses.  I could have stood there with her forever.  Yes, she had a boyfriend.  Yet I could tell that at that instant, her heart was actually mine.  So I felt no jealousy.  If anyone would be jealous that night, it would be him.  But as for me, I easily avoided it because I knew, without a doubt, that she cared, even though she called   him  her boyfriend, and not me. 

She then put her right cheek against mine, and whispered one last time, “I love you, Tom.  Please. Never forget that.”  I sensed the unmistakable depth of her feelings.  She really meant it, because her words were pure and without any hidden agendas tied on.  She was the first girl I’d ever encountered, who said this to me with such conviction and zero hesitation.  Besides, convincingly, she sobbed as she said this, struggling to hold back her tears that just wouldn’t stay away.  I tasted them as they passed by my lips, on their way down my cheek from her moist eyelashes.  They were warm, salty, and in fact, quite real. 

Yep.  She loved me, and I   never have   forgotten that.  But also, ironically, I discerned from the tone of her words, this in-your-face finality that clearly spoke a last good-bye.  Apparently, she thought that we’d never again see each other, and I believed this too.  So far, we’ve been right. We haven’t.  But one day, I would like prove us wrong, and find her once again. 

Her love, which I was one hundred percent convinced that she felt, vanquished the hurtful edge that a true love saying good-bye forever might otherwise have produced.  Indeed, I felt nothing hurtful or negative then.  Instead of being angry or sad, my heart rejoiced at having known her.  There was no pain, and when I thanked her and wished her all the best, I truly hoped she’d lead a charmed life, even though I would never again be a part of it.  My love for her as well as the knowledge of her love for me, enabled me to let her go without one bit of jealousy, or feeling of loss.

At that, we slowly pulled apart, our arms stretching further and further in a vane effort to keep touching each other, as the distance between us grew larger.  She didn’t want to leave, and I so wished her not to go.  But it had to end.  Her silent boyfriend nearby was an all-too-poignant reminder of that.  Plus, it would soon be time for us eighth graders to head upstairs to the dorms for bed. 

I was thankful to her buddy in a way though, because if he hadn’t brought her, she and I probably would never have had this time together.  So I shook his hand with sincere gratitude as we met him inside the door near the steps down to the pop room. 

Then, I led them out to the reception area where our evening had begun, and now, was about to end. They departed with little pause as I watched through the ornate windows in the double front doors, while their bright red tail lights grew dimmer and dimmer as they pulled out of the main driveway, never to return.

And then, she was gone; just like that, leaving behind a love-stricken boy once more. I found her bubblegum scent all over my shirt, and slept with it near my pillow each night afterwards until the scent faded away several days later.  As I walked toward the back stairs, I covered my eyes and nose with my right arm, partly to smell her, partly to remember her, and mostly to hide my tears.

I basked in the memories of the previous hour, playing them over and over in my mind as I climbed the stairs to my third floor dorm in room 310.  I hurt because she couldn’t be mine, but celebrated because she wanted to be.  I hated that she had the boyfriend, but appreciated her visit anyway, in spite of that baggage.  No, she’d be more difficult to forget this time.  Yet the practical side of me wanted to forget, because I’d be in for weeks or even months of heartache if I didn’t.  But the romantic side of me also desired to keep her front and center. After all, she was the first perfect-10 girl who thought me as attractive as I did her.  She was the first to welcome my love, boyish though it was, and she never embarrassed me or pushed me away because of it. 

Even at the age of thirteen, I suspected that this sort of mutual attraction was indeed rare, and  I would discover in the more than three decades between then and now, that I had sadly, been so, so right.

Take care.

Tom Hesley

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