Sex, love and looking for brains

14/6/10
When you are not in a relationship, there are certain parts of your anatomy that lay dormant, unnecessary, so to say.
And then when someone shows some interest in you, those parts awaken from sleep, prick up their ears and resurface as if saying: “Hey, I’m here after all!”.
Well, luckily for modern woman, she has also been endowed with a mechanism for blocking these primitive responses, more commonly known as a brain. It appears that in some cases, the male of the species has not been given this most essential of mechanisms and has instead been allowed free reign of the formerly mentioned parts of the anatomy. Herein lies the assumption that many women would make that men in fact think with those parts of their anatomy.
Well, if I may borrow the words of another wonderful woman I know: “There will be no more of that hole plugger! He can go and plug himself!”.
I am not sure if I am more offended by the fact that he thought that I desperately needed it and wanted it, or the fact that he thought I would go for it even though he is still in a relationship! His wife indeed lives in the same house as him in order to “keep the family together”, and there is no physical aspect to their relationship: this is where you come in, my dear, can you please fulfil this aspect in my life which is so missing.
GO PLUG YOURSELF!
But not only that, she fulfils all other emotional aspects in a relationship, so I don’t need those bits from you.
Well, something I have definitely learnt in the last few years of my humble existence is that I am unable to separate mind and body. Not that I would want to, they make rather a fabulous combination. But when I eat I know that I am nourishing my body, but I also think about the nutritional aspects of the food (or make myself aware of the lack of nutrition in some cases). When I hug my children I have a physical response of adrenaline and I am sure many other hormones that surface, but I also tell them with my voice, (which requires a fair bit of actual thinking) that I love them and that they are precious. Thus, it so happens that it would be impossible for me to do a schizoid trick of separating myself waist down and waist up and just do it.
The worst part of all of this is that I am not actively looking really, I am very happy on my own, but gosh, it would be nice to have someone by my side to lean on sometimes.
I think one of the difficult aspects of that is that when you have been alone for a long time you develop anchors that hold you up, a bit like roots I suppose. So there is very little leaning or falling over that happens these days. I hold myself up, and sometimes lean on my friends. Those wonderful people who hang in there day in and day out without expectation because they see beyond, they see me. And these people are my family, some of them are my birth family, but others I have chosen.
Most of the time, however, when minor decisions need to be made, when money is short, or my daughters are rude; I lean on myself. I am like a hardened piece of metal. Beaten over and over again and thus made more durable.
I sometimes worry that this hardness will be harder to get through when someone wants to peek inside and see me for real. I somehow doubt it, though. I am sure I will allow those defences down when the right man comes along. Or if, I should say.
In the meantime, I am like a really good bottle of wine. Ripening in the sunshine and cold of my life, a strong solid base only getting better the longer it is bottled for. Maybe one day I will toast to someone very, very special. Someone who can show me that very special organ that all men possess and I trust most of them use most adequately: their brain. Yum, I love brains.