Destructive behavior at its best

Daniel and I would often kid around about how our relationship was on the wild side due to our both being sex addicts. We'd laugh about it and even throw around the term in a manner meant to mock one and other. The very beginning of our relationship was met with a super concentrated physical union. We were easily having sex three times a day at minimum and, for us, this seemed completely normal. Our nights out were always ended with intense kink. For the first month and a half or so we kept the sex to ourselves but eventually we stepped outside of the normal male/female relationship parameters and introduced exaggerated variations of our kink.

In a previous post of this blog, I mention that I was introduced to the group scene via a dude I met on Craigslist. Scouring the Internet was not that uncomfortable for me. I have, indeed, engaged in anonymous sex. This behavior, looking back, was super dangerous but while you're doing these things you don't stop and look around at the warning signs because for the most part, these actions are dictated by something much greater than the sheer desire to cum.

In the Six Feet Under snippet linked to this post, Brenda goes to see a therapist at the push of her friend Melissa who happens to be a sex worker. I chose to include this clip for a few reasons. At one point, Brenda mentions that she thinks she truly enjoys the euphoric feeling she gets from these random sexual encounters with strangers while she is in a monogamous relationship. Save Daniel, I have cheated on pretty much every boyfriend I've had. There was a point in my life that I was allowing my sexuality to dictate the bulk of my decisions. The idea of being in a relationship that was not centered on sex seemed nearly impossible. I was condoning my behavior by stating, simply, that my activities were a result of my desires. It's a rather simple equation; you want something, you get it. Deep down inside, I think I would often wonder whether or not my behavior was out of the norm and time and time again I would condone it by rationalizing the fact that I was simply acting on my raw needs. And, to a degree, this was true. I did have these desires and curiosities and my acting on them made me feel as if I was a step ahead of everyone that was allowing their repression to filter their desires. I was on top of the world in my mind.

Sometime over the last five years or so, I began to question these decisions. I wouldn't say that I was particularly ashamed of myself for having experimented but I am confident in exclaiming that the events took on an unsatisfying air after a while. They just became a bit substandard at their core and I tried, for a long time, to figure out what had changed and why my interest in these self-gratifying events began to dissipate. I still don't really have a firm answer on that.

When Daniel and I went to a group event, I found myself taking a moral inventory of the attendees. I was creating scenarios in my mind of all of their lives and the paths that brought these folks to the same room in which I was sitting. How fucking condescending of me. Of course, none of this was said aloud, but I certainly do remember having choice thoughts about two women in particular. One was the very youngish girl that had come along with a much older man. Her skin was as alabaster as a fucking porcelain doll and her hair as healthy as could be. I would guesstimate her at around 20, tops. I wondered what type of fucked up shit had happened in her childhood to bring her to this event on the arm of a 40+ bi-sexual male with whom she didn't seem to have very much in common. The other area I focused the remainder of my attention on was this socially awkward mid to late 30’s female. It was very evident via the weird small talk we had that she was a very self-doubting woman. She was on the heavier side, probably around a size 14-16, and while I didn’t find her particularly sexy or attractive, she was not an eye sore either. I studied her awkwardly work the room while she was fully clothed and later sat back to watch while she turned into this sex-beast who suddenly exhibited the confidence of Aphrodite. It was a transformation like none I'd ever seen before and all that continued to run through my mind was the sadness I felt for this woman who could only feel strong and beautiful when she was a sexual object. Now, far be it from me to cement any of these observations as real. My opinions are nothing but opinion - and a part of me plays with guilt for even having these types of thoughts but our minds are interesting creatures and they will go where they may. After the get together and my little thought session I turned the tables onto myself and played with the ideas of why I had found myself in this scene at one time. I still participate in these thoughts and I endlessly come up with the same answer: I use sex as a coping mechanism.

When the therapist in the clip above introduces the basic fundamentals of sex addiction she says some choice words. "It involves the sublimation of emotions that are too painful to address". My onset into the world of extreme casual sex came less than a year after the death of a man I was dating for five years intermittently and was sure would eventually be my husband. My entrance into the world of sexual activity at all, came at the ripe early age of 13 and I was unquestionably looking to escape the reality that was my home life. My parents are recovering drug addicts. The word recovering in the previous sentence might as well have a toggle switch because their lengths of clean time vary even to this day.

I have no hesitation declaring that the bulk of my sexual experience was gained via the attempt to not sit down in my own skin and deal with my life. This makes the most sense to me now because as I go through the motions of this break up with Daniel, I have never struggled more with feelings and I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that it is because instead of having a dick in my hand, I am actually allowing myself to go through this. I don't know if I would go so far as to say that I need to attend sex anonymous meetings - but I am positive in exclaiming that avoiding unhealthy sexual encounters is becoming a real struggle for me. I am starting to set myself up to jump back into this behavior pattern and I need to keep a watchful eye on it because this is NOT what I want to revert to. If for no other reason than to have a one-up on Daniel, I cannot go out like that. But, seriously, this has absolutely nothing to do with Daniel. This is about my healing process and I'm proud of myself for actually feeling the pain.

Three days after breaking up with me, I spotted Daniel on a strictly-sex site looking to hook up. He'd been staying at a friend’s place over in Washington Heights and I noticed that his 'location' on the site had been changed to reflect his current whereabouts. I was hurt, obviously, but more so I was actually a bit stunned that he would so quickly revert to this behavior. We'd discussed our sexual exploits and repeatedly he'd mentioned that he did not want to go back to being "that guy". Here I was in our apartment, drowning in a bed of tears, looking at the online profile of "that guy". It was heart breaking on a number of levels. Even now, nearly two months have gone by and I can't help but check his online status on that site every now and again. He's still active, still seeking hookups. I went and looked further today - and found that he now has a match.com account, too. I was joking with a friend of mine after having read Daniel's Match.com profile and said "He's going to make me go out and suck a dick, and I don't want to do that!". The real joke is that I don't know how untrue that statement is.

I have not had sex with anyone since Daniel which may honestly be the longest period I've been without intercourse in over 10 years. It's a conflicting feeling because a part of me is missing the intimacy that comes along with intercourse. I want to have someone’s hands running down my post-coital flesh. The issue with this is that anyone that I would fuck right now doesn't do the snuggle thing. It'd be strictly sex and I am just not 'there'. Reading Daniel's Match.com ad had me nearly in tears. It's my own fault for looking, obviously - but the Internet will test your limits if nothing else. I am just 'not ready' for the next steps and I suppose that means I'll need to hold off on getting my rocks off accordingly. This is difficult.

Rebounds can be a good thing. Rebounds deflect and I need deflection. I want to nerve up the energy and resources to build my own damn Match.com account - or at least to go out to a bar, or actually attend one of those meetup.com meetups. Why the fuck did I even join if I'm never going to attend an event? Pointless! I suppose my process is one that will work at its own pace. And, I need to make certain that I don't lose sight of the fact that I am not the one with active sex accounts looking to hook up. Typing that sentence prompted me to check his online status - what do you know? Online! I have to stop that, seriously.

I can't say he didn't warn me...

I met Daniel at the very start of 2009. We began chatting after he responded to a personal ad I had placed on Craigslist. I know what you're thinking.. Craigslist? I suppose you're sort of right - but the fact of the matter is that I threw the ad up just to see what would happen. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd meet someone with whom a first date would last 5 days and after nine-months of dating we'd move in together. But, I did.

We have very different backgrounds and while that didn't seem to be an issue at first, it certainly began to present itself throughout the duration of our courting. His family is uber-successful where mine is, well let's just say that my father is meeting with a lawyer this week to discuss his options for a 2nd filing of Chapter 11. You'll learn plenty more about my family life as this blog picks up and I build a basis for you to understand why it is I am filing for divorce from Brooklyn, New York.

As this blogs title indicates, there is a bit of a double entendre thing happening here and I hope I can introduce the various ideas with which I am beginning this story in an eloquent and easy to follow manner. I am beginning my story in real time. Today is April 18, 2010 and while the rest of the world knows me as Kitty Graves, for the purposes of the remainder of this post I shall be termed Brooklyn.

Breaking up with Brooklyn: A play in one act - one short, vicious, and surgical act, was performed live in front of an audience of one; me, on March 17 of this year. Daniel and I had been having our various problems for a while and as this posts title indicates, I can't say he didn't warn me... I can't say he didn't warn me that if we continued to have these "relationship talks" for much longer he'd be on his way. I can't say he didn't warn me that he had a ridiculously easy time with letting people go. I can't say he didn't warn me that he could be a cold-hearted son of a bitch. What I can say, however, is that for some strange reason I truly believed he'd never do or be those things to me. Reality is a bitch, though - isn't she?

These aforementioned relationship talks began around a month prior to the actual break-up. My being this firestorm of emotion makes it nearly impossible for me to sit quiet with my thoughts. With that in mind, when I noticed Daniel had been acting a bit disinterested in - well, everything except for Playstation 3, porn, and our cat, Stratus, I began to feel pretty insecure and anxious. I asked for reassurance that we were OK - and I asked for it commonly. I've always been hypersensitive, or as I like to refer to it, very intuitive when it came to picking up on someone distancing themselves. Abandonment issues aside, I really do have some sort of knack for knowing when things are amiss. I brought it up - to a fault - and insisted we discuss the feelings I was having. Daniel went from a man that talked about marrying me and thinking about having children to someone that would jump for joy for a night alone in our apartment. If I was on your end of the intertubes reading this, I'd think to myself "well, maybe he just didn't love her anymore" - but I don't think that's what it was about. Love was never our issue - I believe it to be a lot deeper than that.

Earlier I mentioned our first date lasting 5 days. I wasn't kidding. Daniel and I linked up for a drink with the intention of following up drinks with a hip-hop party in Brooklyn, NY. There's this DJ troupe called The Rub and their parties are pretty awesome. I mentioned the idea and once he and I had met and been comfortable enough with each other to commit to a full night of hanging out, we walked the few blocks over to the club where The Rub was doing their thing. January in NYC is serious - and as we waited on the snaking line to get into the spot, I reached out for the warmth of another human in the form of a hug. Minutes later we had our first kiss. The night was amazing. We listened to and danced to old school hip-hop, drank plenty of alcohol, and generally enjoyed each other’s company. The reason I bring any of this up at this point is because before we even left the club we had begun to discuss our various 'issues' and we shared these thoughts with each other in an attempt to not fall into the same traps we both had in the past. Looking back on it, it’s almost like we were working to keep the relationship alive before it was ever technically born. Either way, my honest admissions included telling Daniel that I have a tendency to find reasons to run away from people who seem to be good for me. I admitted to not believing I was "good enough" for a higher caliber of human being. I admitted that I had tons of insecurities and wasn't sure I had anything in common with folks who have had a normal life. He admitted that he would look for various reasons to dislike someone quickly and then run the other way, never giving them a fair chance. He also admitted having an aptitude for dropping someone in the blink of an eye and never looking back.

I can't say he didn't warn me.....