(3pm) Somehow, putting oil on my skin today unlocked an aspect of me I had totally forgotten about. (Neat.) (In high school, part of my job in athletics was the day to day care of injuries. As part of that job, I studied the art of massage and gave 100's of them over the years. (That is another aspect that helps to please women. (I never experienced any sexual feelings during the years I worked with athletes, which is probably why I never seriously considered that my sexual problem was that I am gay.) (With women though, it is very definitely something that brings out my sexual aspect.)))
Sometime in '77 / '78 I started getting an irresistible compulsion to visit a massage parlor, and went half a dozen times or so. (There the deal was you got a full body massage with no actual sexual intercourse, from a nude woman.) (Then I started getting super intense guilt feelings, and the compulsion to tell my ex about that. Finally, I was going to KC for a few days on business, so I wrote my ex a letter confessing, saying I was sorry, and that I would give her a divorce, since I knew she couldn't accept infidelity, and that I wasn't good enough for her. When I mailed that letter it was like the weight of the world being lifted off my back. I was happy for a few days, and then she wanted to talk, so I went to the house. She had gotten my sister to take the kids, and when I got there she said she forgave me. Then got down on her knees and gave me a blowjob. (To make a long story short, for the sake of the kids, for the sake of "matrimony", and for the sake of great blowjobs, I gave the marriage another try.) (Looking back, I suppose I should have seen she only wanted reconciliation to get the chance to punish me and whip me some more.) (Part of how she punished me for my trips to the massage parlors was flying into a rage if she heard the word massage or if I tried to give her one. (So, to avoid the rages, I totally suppressed that part of myself until today. (I am glad it's back!)-(In honor of its return, I gave myself a four-hour massage today. (Yum!)))))
I would say, looking back, that my unconscious knew I needed to end that relationship, and it started looking for a way to state that message in a way that my conscious mind would accept, and which my ex would hear. (One constraint it had to deal with was my conditioning that divorce doesn't happen. (There are well over 100 people in my dad's immediate family, and I was only the second to get a divorce.)) (At the time of the massage parlor visits it chose a pretty safe form of infidelity. (There was no real chance of catching anything there.)-(By '80, when I got the compulsion for hookers, it was willing to risk disease, to get out. (Even if I had gotten herpes, it would have been worth it to get out of that relationship.))-(After all the years of jealous rages I can see its logic that infidelity was a way to get out.))
I was thinking again about how far away Erica sits when she is here, and it occurred to me that it's just not here. (Regardless of who sits down first, or where we are, we always seem to sit about that far apart.) (Actually, it's about the distance I need to be comfortable with anyone. (Anytime anyone gets closer than that, I start getting anxious and withdrawn. (e.g., when I go to bars, I try to leave one bar stool in between myself and anyone else. (I can cope with being closer, but tend to avoid it.)-(Weird after all the years I spent in packed bars.)))) (Maybe part of the reason I tend to only talk to bartenders, if I don't know anyone at the bar, is that the width of the bar sets up about the distance I am comfortable with socially? (Maybe one aspect of my relationship with Erica is that we still tend to play our bartender / customer roles? (That fits our pattern of emotional intimacy. (I tell her lots of stories, and she tells me few, and that is the norm for those two roles.)))) (That distance and pattern of emotional intimacy is also similar to the therapist / client roles and I think that is another aspect of my relationship with Erica.) (Since I am comfortable with that distance, maybe I should try becoming a bartender? (Playing the customer role, I meet only one person; but switching to the bartender role, I would meet lots.))