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Little Demon: My Adored One

You will have to forgive me while I oscillate between being Tony and giving voice to my Inner Mephisto. Who am I kidding? I’ve been going up and down like a yo-yo, worried that I’m losing my sanity! I’m realising, that maybe I did not get closure after my last counselling sessions over 10 years ago. It’s a non-issue now, because things may have resolved themselves over the proceeding years, that saw me leave Australia and live overseas for a number of years. A period which saw me learning a lot about myself, only to come back and allow myself to be trapped by my old life.

While I was out walking, I was thinking about what I wrote in Little Demon: The Adored One. Coming back to the issue of, why would tell My Adored One, if it won’t give me what I want?

The whole paean to Little Demon: The Adored One, throws up more questions, the more I analyse my feelings. It occurred to me some years ago that if I were to overcome my sexual attraction to a friend, what would I be left with? Would I even still like them as a friend.  That scared me. It threw up a challenge to the integrity of my friendship with him. Indeed, it questions the veracity of all my male friendships.

The sexual attraction is not present in all my male friendships, nor do I feel particularly moved by many of the men I meet. It takes a lot to move me. There is no sexual attraction towards my female friends, but there are times when I question my responses to some of the women I meet, and wonder for a moment, and only a moment, whether……. I’m known to flirt with both genders, and I could tell you what kind of woman I would like.

The platonic attraction, on the other hand, is present in all my friendships, both male and female. I bond well, and connect deeply with my close friends. I do not use the word like in reference to them. That is a kin to spitting on someone’s grave. The operative word is love. It’s just that my female friends by virtue of their gender, provide me with a  safety net that stops me from becoming sexually attracted to them. I’m really grateful that I do not experience unrequited love all that often [and too bad Noreen, if it's only a life half lived. That's why we have soppy love songs, sung by people who have done the living for us!]

Admitting to a sexual attraction, unrequited, challenges my ideas of what friendship is. It challenges me to remain a friend, in the face of the attraction being unrequited. It asks me, “If you don’t get what you want, what are you going to do?”

“Throw a tantrum?”

“Be an adult, and accept the fact that it won’t be requited?”

“Rechannel that sexual energy into love for The Adored One?”

“Or are you going to let the friendship fall on stony ground?”

I’ve actually tried running from my attraction to a friend, by not seeing him or socialising with him. Really it didn’t work. Amidst a storm of  volatile feelings and bad behaviour, I kept being drawn back to the friendship. In hindsight, it was obviously something stronger than sex. The realisation must have come when he asked me, If I thought he had a good body. Of course, I used my best deflection tactics, to avoid coming across as earnest or betraying any continuing attraction, by saying something along the lines of, “You know my responses to you are different.” I actually did say, if it was pure lust, our friendship would have died out ages ago. He agreed, but it must have been then, that I realised that perhaps we do have a strong bond, even though I still fancied the pants off him.

The risk of me admitting a sexual attraction to the Adored One, for me, is a small one. I’m more inclined to let it run its course, or just remove myself. Why would I admit my my attraction to my Adored One, when I know it will be unrequited? Why would I admit my attraction, when I know what the answer will be? Why would I let my Adored One dig the jackboot in, by telling me something I already know? Why should I invest the friendship with the exuberance of my feelings, where there is no physical expression only verbal; as if a handshake is an expression of love. A handshake is an avoidance tactic!

Let me ask the question again. Why talk about your feelings to your Adored One at all? It’s not as if I am trying to resolve a stalemate in a relationship that is going nowhere, or stalled before it even started. But you could argue that my attraction for my Adored One, is a stalemate, that affects the friendship.

Pulling back from my Adored One, offering no explanation, resolves nothing, and has the potential to really hurt him. The trust issues are for those outline two paragraphs above. Though, with the friend I referred to earlier, he knew why I pulled back, because I had actually told him I was attracted to him. But to my hearing friend, I have said nowt!

But a deeper question, that I have begun analysing, is whether I am confusing deep platonic feelings with sexual attraction. Like I said earlier, I don’t go looking for them, they come looking for me! Still, the question is a valid one, and one that I am perhaps not yet ready to answer!

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