Comfort vs. Excitement

So November. It's kind of flown past. Every day of it has been dense and concentrated, but somehow as a month it's escaped me. It's nearly Pickled Lily's birthday - which always seems to just creep up and smack me in the face. Every year, Pickled Lily's birthday is a surprise to me. Much as the early months of the year drag on forever and you feel as if icy spring will never pass, the last months of the year seem to speed up making you feel if you don't hold on quick, they'll run away without you.

I had a bit of a crazy weekend actually. Work has been my entire focus for weeks now, and this week I could feel it settling, feel myself able to not have to be on 100% all the time and just let loose my grip on the wheel a bit. So went out Friday night for drinks with the girls, which turned into quite a crazy one in which I ended up having an intense night with an American boy (singer in a rock band. Will I ever shake musicians..?) resulting in a mild personal dilemma - comfort vs excitement.

I love talking to people about music, and even more so I love talking to attractive guys about music - if someone I'm speaking to/flirting with says "oh you know who I love - Athlete", I get uncontainably excited and kid-in-a-candy-store giddy, and feel my heart just reach out to them and cuddle them. And I feel a tangible bond and a sort of heart-racing warmth in a way that nothing else makes me feel towards another person. Not like it happens a lot, but it's happened a few times (I think I attract boys who know how to get under my skin) and to me, there is nothing like it. I think maybe I chat to randomers often enough just in case I happen upon one of those "shit, you know that band? that album changed my life!" moments.. Because the after-moment, when you both look at each other, chuffed to have something that excites and inflames you, in common with another person - honestly, it's the biggest rush. And, to me, the biggest turn-on, in every way.

So once I've had that with someone, it's like a drug - I want more. I love it, and it feels like nothing will feel as good. And whatever I can do to continue feeling it, or to feel it again, I will do - happily. And when I connect someone with that feeling, it's hard to shake being drawn to them. The connection, even if fleeting, lingers on in my memory. And me, I'm a very singular person, there's very little I want that I can't get from/within myself - but that feeling is what keeps me from a life of seclusion.

But that bond, that rush is still just that - a rush. It isn't ever really more than that. It can't really grow into anything, all it can do is exist in that particular moment, and if you're lucky, ever so slightly bond you with someone else.

But is it a fake bond? Is it some way that humans have evolved socially to find a mate/procreate - by creating a momentary closeness. Oh, I like this, you like this, we must be soulmates. Oh wait, no, now we've shagged and actually it no longer matters that you love Athlete - because sitting across from the breakfast table from you in the morning is awkward, and in the cold light of day, you're still a stranger to me. Much as you may love Athlete. And much as last night we may have been soulmates and when you knew that lyric that I love I then subsequently directed that love your way, this morning I find no comfort in that. And you made me feel alive, and roused into life, and awakened, and aroused. But this morning I'm tired, and don't want to feel roused and excited, I want to feel comfortable and cosy and cared for. And I feel a little duped that you don't make me feel that way, because you love Athlete, thus I felt close to you because you love something that is close to me. What more honest connection is there? But am I confusing a spiritual connection with just assosciative memory. The warmth and familiarity I have with something I have warmth and familiarity with something that my brain has now connected with you, thus wrongly made the connection that I must share that warmth and familiarity with you also.

Somehow, I'm left uneasy.

Now picture an alternative scene. I'm sitting with a guy, we've been to the cinema, or dinner, and now we're having a drink. And he's nice, and cute, and we're finding ourselves with things to talk about - he's really cool, and has lots of really interesting qualities, and thinks that I do too. And we smile at each other occasionally, and we're both slightly conscious of being on a date. But we converse, we debate things, we swap stories about upbringing and friends and family, and it's all perfectly.. nice. I feel at ease, and I go with it.

And in the morning, in the cold light of day, nothing has changed. I don't feel a void, a come-down, a retraction of warmth on either side. I'm comfortable at breakfast, and I don't feel like I'm somebody else, I've still got a grip on who I am - he hasn't gotten under my skin and shaken me up inside, even remotely, not leaving me feeling unstrung in the morning. But.. he hasn't shaken me up inside.

Somehow, I'm left unsatisfied.

Uneasy or unsatisfied - when did those become the options?

The thing that runs through my head when I think of the latter is that there's just no heat in the air. But what am I, 16 - do I still need the heat in the air? We don't actually have that much in common. We're not hugely dissimilar, and we get along, and we've probably got a lot of common ground - we're both Londoners, for example. But there's never been even one of those "oh my god, that's my favourite film too! Have you read the book??" moments. I've always lazily thought that it's what you like that counts, not what you are like. And if any man ever got that that was a High Fidelity reference, I may well marry him on the spot.

But maybe that's just what I'm like - for someone to really get me, they have to get what I'm into. But isn't everyone like that? Oh, I'm so confused.

I don't think I'm ever going to not be, at least a little bit, sex drugs and rock 'n roll. And the excitement that comes with that comes so very naturally to me. Will I ever find comfort? How will I ever find comfort? And when I do, will I ever stop wanting inflamement?

And how will I know which is the more worthy? The thing with the momentary (music-based in my case) connection is that somehow it feels more tangible at the time. Like it's a proper, real connection. How can something that doesn't really count for anything feel so much more real than what is actually real. Maybe brushing it aside isn't giving it its dues though, as well - fuck it, maybe the moment is real, the connection - but what we do with it is what fucks it up. God I bet its as simple as sex fucks it up.

Or maybe it's so real that it feels like intimacy. That's it - bonding with someone in that way is a type of intimacy and it makes you forget that they're essentially a stranger, so once the excitement dies down you're left with the fact that that particular intimacy isn't really applicable in life really, you can't really do anything with it but feel it. And move on.

or.. build something on it?

But that sort of intimacy is exciting and heart-racing, but it doesn't make you comfortable with someone at the breakfast table. Then again being comfortable with someone at the breakfast table isn't ever going to make your heart race or invoke that passion. So which one is the more tangible, the more worth attaining..? Dammit!