A Good Drink with Xav

Xav and I hung out and drank some beers last night, before meeting up with Tim and his new girlfriend. Our 2-hour talk covered the full gambit of subjects in our lives: work, friends, sex and relationships. Nothing said was a revelation or particularly new, but it was good to take step back and look at all these things from a different perspective.

Here are two small arcs in our conversation, that I feel willing to share:

Xav: Have you ever experienced that perfect moment when you're having sex, when you stop thinking and you're just going with what's happening? From my point of view, that's the moment that I would call love-making.

Me: Honestly, no I don't think so. My mind is always so on that it's impossible for me to ever stop thinking, even during sex.

I keep going.

Me: Part of me thinks that it's because 80% of time I'm always being active. It's not that I want to dominate, because I don't. It's just that the other person almost always seems to be passive. It bothers me... you'd think it would be 50-50.

Xav: Oh ya man, I hate people who go cosmic starfish.

Me: I know - so fucking unsatisfying. I might as well just go home and masturbate, because it takes less effort and it's more satisfying.

Note for the readers: my group of friends use the expression cosmic starfish or going starfish to refer to a partner you're having sex with, who chooses to simply lie there and assume you're going to do all the work. They are like passive participants - they aren't doing anything so really it's as if you're having sex with yourself. Take my word for it: it's pretty fucking unsatisfying sex. Imagine, if you will, they are like a starfish: they're alive, although you wouldn't guess it because they're just lying spread eagle, without really moving.

Me: But in another way, I want the other person to enjoy themselves, so I can't help but keep thinking. I can't just relax.

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Xav: I'm looking for the person who's confident and perfect as themselves. And I just haven't found her yet. No fucked-up problems and self-esteem stuff. Just someone who is comfortable with themselves and doesn't specifically need other people.

Me: That's a really interesting way of putting it, because you're actually going against our common culture's view of relationships. Typically, relationships are seen as "Everyone needs someone else. Every person is looking for their other half, because they're not whole without him/her.

Xav: I know! For me, I want to be able to say to a girl that "I don't need you, but I do want to be with you.

This second moment was a nice reminder of why I'm very lucky, honored even, that Xav and I are such good friends. For the most part, I already knew what he told me before: he is a very independent person and I genuinely believe he doesn't need other people. Of course, he does have friends. This is because he chooses to hang out with us because he genuinely likes us. Of the literally hundreds of people who get immediately enamored upon meeting Xav (I'm not even exaggerating) and continuously offer him to come hang out, my group of friends are the lucky few that he chooses to see. It really does give me a nice, little warm feeling inside. Unlike Xav, I very much need people.