What Is Love? Tell Me, Tell Me, If You Think You Know

I fall in love easily.  But I do not think that word means what you think it means.
For me, “love” is an inefficient word, like “Democrat” or “Polyamory” – sure, it contains a loose definition, but when you scratch the surface you’ll find the only people who definitively know what it means are the people who know the least about it at all.
By which I mean that the only people who know for sure what polyamory is are the people who want nothing to do with it because they saw a poly guy once and he was scum and ugh I know all about it.  Whereas those who are polyamorous know there are so many ways to be poly that the only thing it really means is “You can date more than one person.”  And sometimes, like bisexuality, the accent’s on the “can,” not the “you actually are.”
So love.  What’s that mean?
I dunno.  I love a lot of people I’ve never even met.  To me, love is a form of concern – if they were in trouble and I’d be distressed about that and want to help, to me that’s a sign that I love them on some level.  Their happiness has become integral to my own.
Now, it’s not like if an email pal of mine loses his job, I won’t be able to function until he’s re-employed.  I’ll just fret about him at times until he manages to get picked back up.  But to me, that’s a love.
Which means that friendship is love to me, even weak friendships.  I love a lot more of my friends’ list than I think they’d ever suspect.
Sex is love, to me.  I mean, it doesn’t have to be, but at one point I was talking to a friend of mine who was having problems connecting with some of her sexual partners, and what I told her is that the way I do things, I have to like the person I’m with before we can have sex.  And in that moment of intimacy, when we’re trusting each other enough to do all of the foolish things that sex consists of, all the goofy faces and fear of being bad and exploring pleasure honestly, I have to fall a little in love.
We’re sharing something that’s an act of trust, and the fact that they are trusting me in this moment of literal nakedness means something, and so I let the love flow for this hour that we’re together, feel that flow through me, and accept it.  And when it’s done, it’s not necessarily a deep romantic love (though it can be), but is usually the sort of friendship-bonding that we’ve had a moment together that can’t be shared effectively with anyone else.
I can do sex without love.  I just find it unsatisfying.  Always have.
Yet that love is not the love that swells in my heart when I think of my girlfriends or my wife.  It’s a tiny love, but that makes it no less real, any more than large sunflowers are better than a small cluster of baby’s breath.  The love I feel for Gini means more, but that doesn’t mean I can entirely discount what happened.
I dunno.  Gini says that my love is so wide as to be meaningless at times – what I call “love,” others would call “friendship.”  And I can’t debate that.  But to me friendship is love, just a different flavor of it, and love permeates so much of what we do that it’s hard for me to distinguish it on any meaningful level.
If I were to measure love it’d be distinguished by not how I feel, but by what I would do, and that’s a tricky thing.  Obviously, I’d do anything to ensure Gini’s happiness, whereas maybe I’ll see if I know anyone in the area for my out-of-work friend.  But even then, it doesn’t mean I don’t love them both, it just means that my love has practical limits thanks to time.  Or maybe that difference is how it’s measured for everyone.
It’s simpler for other people, I guess.  Some people dole out love like it’s an award you’ve unlocked on the X-Box, giving it to three or four people in their lifetime after a certain emotional catharsis has been reached – and that’s not bad, but it just strikes me as being limiting in some way, because I think they feel the same emotions as I do, they just don’t want to admit it until they’re absolutely convinced the other person won’t hurt them.  Or maybe they do feel it differently, and I’m a free-loving freak.
I dunno.  Love is a universal, for me; I’m lucky enough to be swimming in a wash of love from friends and lovers and families, and I find when I hand it out it tends to come back.  But there are times when Gini’s words nag at me and I wonder whether I’m misusing the word “love,” and whether it means anything real.
I feel it does.  But there’s no way of knowing.  Because everyone measures it so damn differently.

G'wan, G'wan, G'wan

I do have an essay quasi-written for today, but it’s a tricky one and I’m gonna sit on it for a day while I consider.  It’s a tetchy subject, to be sure.
So while I consider, let’s do an exercise: is there anything you want me to answer?  I’m happy to respond to any questions on anything – writing techniques, the shows I’m watching, my kink, poly advice, or just plain shit you’ve been wondering about me but never asked.  I’m open today.  Hit me in the comments.
Oh, and asking me a clever question that you don’t actually want the answer to, such as “How much wood could a woodchuck chuck?”  Not clever at all.  Annoying, in fact.  Eschew it.

George R.R. Martin's First Publication

…is a letter in Fantastic Four #20, published when he was fifteen.

Dear Stan and Jack,
I was really excited to pick up Fantastic Four #17, “In The Clutches of Doctor Doom!”  This epic story, as exciting and spectacular as it was, could have been even better. After the Fantastic Four defeat Doctor Doom’s robots by destroying the control discs and then jet off to Doom’s flying laboratory to rescue poor, blind Alicia Masters, I think you could have put in a lot more emotion if they had gotten there to find Alicia dead in a pool of blood.  Then Doom could have surprised them by ripping the head off of the Thing, extinguishing Johnny, and forcing poor Reed to watch as Doom gets his triumph by repeatedly violating Sue Storm with his hideously scarred Doom-penis.
Seriously.  I think there’s a market for this kind of fiction.  Can I get a No-Prize?
George R. Martin
35 E. First St.
Bayonne, N.J.

Followups To Yesterday's Rant (Will This Appear on Broken LiveJournal, Ever?)

So I have a couple of follow-up thoughts on yesterday’s post on how women are not ethereal, mysterious beings:
1)  I did mention my genitalia as being my “credentials” for being a dude, which is not something that I strictly believe in.  I’m pretty much of the attitude that if you say you’re a guy, you are to me, and if you say you’re a girl, you are, too.  I can even agree with someone who says that they’re a guy when dressed in this clothing and a girl when dressed in that clothing.
That said, when I write quickly, I tend to write towards the person I think is most likely to read it – and in the case of yesterday’s rant, it was written at the douchey sort of guy who would completely freak the fuck out at the idea of separating gender from genitalia.  So I didn’t think to make that argument then.
I don’t necessarily know that I would have made that statement if I hadn’t been whipped into a foaming rant on women – I probably would have made some other reference to my dudeness.  Because I think that going into gender fluidity is a whole different can of worms, and a guy who’s having problems understanding that core concept of “Women have differing needs but are not alien beings” is not going to be able to digest “And dicks doth not make the dude” at the same time.
Both are necessary arguments, but I think if you have them both at once you just overload their little heads and they go splodey. And I was writing to a specific jackass, and as such I left out the argument for a very vital thing I believe in.
It happens.  I’m sorry when it does, because it leaves the impression that “This is what I think” as opposed to “This is what I think person X can handle at the moment,” which are often very different things.  So apologies to anyone who thought that was untoward. When I write quick, I tend to write specific, and that’s a failing.
2)  That post, as predicted, exploded over at FetLife, getting onto their global “Kinky and Popular” list and getting over 70 comments and 110 likes.  Yet not one person mentioned the anti-genderqueerness in that statement, which makes me wonder whether FetLife is secretly very gender-bound, or whether my audience here is very progressive in such an area.  Odd.
3)  Of the 110 people or so who loved it, about 80% were women.  Zero surprises there.
4)  The highlight of the FetLife post was a guy called “MrCunningLinguist” – always a good sign – who, when told by women that they found his concept of “chivalry” to be stifling and irritating, went off on this magnificent rant:

Not pleasant eh???

• So when I leave the elevator before you, that’s pleasent for you
• So when I don’t hold that door open so you can go thru first, that’s pleasent for you
• So when I walk right by you going up stairs and see you have a baby in one arm and a stroller in the other and maybe a bag and I don’t stop and assist you down or up those stairs, that’s pleasent for you
• So when you and I are carrying stuff in the house from shopping and I let you take all the Heavy stuff in, that’s pleasent for you
• So when I sit down at the table before you, that’s pleasent for you
• So when I walk on the inside of the street, that’s pleasent for you (although in some countries I’ve learned why men do that, but that doesn’t apply in the US..snicker)

So doing all that after a month. And not putting you on this genuine pedestal of “Womanhood” Would create this feeling???

…and went off on some more thoughts on how the problem with chivalry is that women think they don’t deserve it.  To which I said:

Basically, your entire comment breaks down to one astonished gout of, “YOU SILLY WOMEN, THINKING YOU DON’T WANT MY HELP. HOW FOOLISH YOU ARE.”
And then you wonder why someone might be offended by this.
Come on, dude. If I had a baby and a stroller and an arm full of baggage, it’d be nice to offer a hand to me regardless of any perceived gender. If you do it only for women, it’s because a) you think women need the help more, and b) you’re a tool hoping to score points with the chicks.
That’s chivalry. Don’t confuse it with the genuineness of, y’know, “Being nice.”

Love 'Em And Leave 'Em: Boardwalk Empire

When it comes to women, I will chew my own arm off before I give up the ship.  There is always one more conversation to be had, one more issue we can solve, one more fight and this will be all good again.
But I am a terrible show boyfriend.
Seriously.  Piss me off once, Ms. Television show, and I will abandon my whole fandom in a heartbeat.  I can be radically in love with a show one moment, and then three weeks later I’ll be all like, “Who?  Oh, that show?  I forget it even existed.”
It’s like my love affairs with books.  Hey, buddy book, I can leave you at any time.  I can be three hundred pages in and still wander off, don’t think I’m one of those compulsive finishers.  When it comes to media, I’m a “love ’em and leave ’em” kinda guy.
Case in point: Boardwalk Empire.  Haven’t seen it in three weeks.  May not return.  And about two months ago, it was my Sunday ritual with Gini, my deep love, my favorite show on television.  Then they started in on Nucky, and Nucky was no longer a canny politician but a whiny runt who seemed to have spent the past decade in power notably acquiring no blackmail material on anyone, to the point where a Senate page had more moxie than Nucky.  All of Nucky’s time in power seemed to have been spent cultivating gratitude – which, as we all know, has the shortest half-life of any political sentiment.  Nucky had no muscle whatsoever, to the point where two guys with guns run rampant over Atlantic City and they had to bring in an explosives bohunk to give Nucky any chance physically.
Nucky was no longer a smart protagonist, he was an idiot surrounded by people who did him favors that he never appreciated.
Now, Nucky’s wanderings could have been forgivable, but Marget?  Oh, fuck you, Boardwalk Empire.  Margaret was second in command to the throne, the one person who looked like she could step up and take charge of Nucky’s empire… And what do they do to her?  They make her a bored housewife making googly-eyes at explosives bohunk, a plot I’ve seen a billion fucking times before.  Hey, I wanted to see Margaret become the next fucking crime lord – which you don’t see on TV, women acquiring criminal power – as opposed to her sluggishly pondering infidelity with Nucky.
Boardwalk Empire always had its flaws.  But that happened, and then Gini and I skipped a Sunday because we were out of town and I didn’t feel like watching it that next week, and then Sunday came around again, and now we’re way more excited about The Sing-Off than I am about returning to the turgidness of Boardwalk Empire and its unfeasibly stupid characters.  Maybe I’ll return at some point.  But only if someone I trust tells me it’s gotten good again.
Be warned, other shows.  I’ll boardwalk out on you, too.  ENTERTAIN ME OR DIE.