One day: one crippling decision. Two
offers, both feasible: love or sex? It can’t be both. Not with these two.
One
offers a pleasing and sultry look in his countenance, exhibiting their
beautiful graces best in hotel rooms up and down the coast. Up and down he went
while claiming that I am and always will be the best lay in the bar. The best
he ever had. He delivers more than orgasms…a shred of self-esteem in a hurricane
of ego. I cease ruminating on this man any further and instead obsess over my
fingernails. But can I, maybe, be that girl who can separate love from sex?
Shackle-less and free?
The other is the one who offers poetry
and authentic praise. Not about my bedroom abilities, but my smile and uncanny
ability to recite Yeats at any moment…at the perfect moment, as he put it. He
brings back all the dreams I had as a college freshman. The virgin who just
wanted to hold hands and laugh under trees. I find this childish and
boring now.
So, both offered their best, but it isn't good
enough. Why must they be separated into
two different people? Is this what dating is? An eternal compromise of the
least possible things you are willing to go without? It’s nauseating. Both of
them are.