Oh boy and oh girl, a real comment! Thank you Garnet, from the bottom of my heart. Questions would be even better, but it is wonderful to know that at least someone that I don't know personally finds it worthwhile to read these communications.
This blog is a way of taking the first step in what could become a more or less intimate relationship with any or all of my readers. Of course, with some of my readers it is not the first step, because we have a more or less intimate relationship already.
Somebody always has to take the first step "across the great divide." It is risky, but the intimacy for which we hunger is a prize worth that risk, at least for me and at this time in my life. "Nothing ventured, nothing gained." Obviously if one's last venture in human relationship has led to excruciating punishment, one may be very, very shy about taking the first step, or responding to someone else's overture. It is equally risky either way. It is really not so easy to say who is penetrated and who is penetrating. Human beings are in more or less intimate relationship. The quest for empathic understanding is fraught with risk for both, and the prize of intimacy, I think, is greatly desired by all humankind.
I have the courage to take the first step, as you see. I have great skill in protecting myself, so it isn't stupid for me. For me, it would be stupid not to take the first step. Still, it is risky. Writing, of course, is intellectual communication, more or less. Poetry and fiction are less. It is still verbal. 97% of communication is nonverbal. That is the deficiency of the Internet as a vehicle of communication.
Like many men, I am, as it were, right handed, dexterous, with thought. Women, in my experience, tend to be dexterous with feelings. It isn't a hard and fast distinction based on physical sex. Let's say, it's a thought that I have, but a thought that I believe many people could agree with.
I am not apologizing at all for being a man. I am not guilty, and neither do I feel that I have been cheated at all. I don't get to have a vagina, periods, or give birth, but it is also an extraordinary, miraculous experience to have the equipment and capabilities that I do have. And viva la difference.
Traditionally, it is considered appropriate that a man should be forward in relationship, whether with man or woman. The rules are in flux. In any case, for me and I think for any real person, that forwardness, that intrusion into someone else's personal space, is not any kind of evidence of invulnerability. The "man of steel," Superman, doesn't exist. A man of steel is dead, or more accurately, never lived. I am present enough to be aware of my vulnerability.
One risk is indifference. The other may not even care that I have entered her, or his, personal space. That is potentially crushing, but I can deal. The other may be uncomfortable with my presence, may not like it, may reject me. I can deal, I am skilled in protecting myself in relationship. But it seems to me that the only response that I would really desire to my forwardness would be a question- not rejection clothed in the form of a question, but a real question. Then my interest is whetted, it doesn't wither. Potentially I am being invited to penetrate further, if I can present satisfactory credentials, if my intentions are proven, thus far, to be good, loving and stimulating, if I am showing genuine kindness of human kind. It is also a two way street. Maybe I hesitate to penetrate further just now. Penetration does carry commitment, emotional commitment. Only a fool can fail to learn this, or more precisely, only a fool is capable of denying it, the kind of fool who tells himself that he is a man of steel. Enjoy your stroll down suicide road, stupid. It might be that I just don't have time to become more deeply intimate with someone right now. Still, I do not wish to pretend indifference. We are all neighbors here.
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