Jealousy, and the Twinge

It’s interesting to see Dee acknowledge her jealous streak. In the past, my insistence of the same has led to a number of arguments. Over the years, due to her reactions (which she does not notice in herself, and which, when pointed out to her by yours truly, has resulted in the aforementioned arguments), I’ve learned NOT to look – and, in truth, I really feel no desire to look, so this isn’t exactly a struggle for me. I don’t even notice the cute waitress serving my drinks.

In the past year Dee has become more comfortable with the idea of my checking out other women (and, yet, I STILL don’t notice the cute waitress serving my drink…), but even now I can’t imagine a realistic scenario in which I’d find myself interacting with another woman. The only scenario which might lead to such a thing involves Dee getting horny and drunk all at once – and then I’d be the unwilling participant. I’ve known the woman long enough to know if she woke up the next morning sober and regretful, there might be a relationship in crisis here, and I know better than to take such a risk.

In answer to the question Dee has posed (Is this what guys are like?): The answer is… Yes.

[Note that, even though I think I can speak for most guys, I will courageously resist the urge to write my response from the generic perspective of “most guys” and will instead stick with the first person. Also, note that I am reaching back to my single days to speak from experience here.]

As I pointed out in my post a couple days ago, sex (a physical act) and love (an emotion) are relatively disconnected. Combining the two often yields the most pleasurable results, but neither is dependant upon the other. This is a difficult concept to explain: My sexual desire for Dee is based on two things -- the emotional bond that connects us, and the basic sexual urges every male has for pretty much any good-looking female. However, unlike women (as I understand them to be) these two desires are separate rather than intertwined.

On a purely physical plain, I can desire to have sex with someone I don’t know at all – someone seen in a picture, or on television, or passed on the street. I can enjoy sex with someone I feel no emotional attachment to at all (or even someone I hate!). I can be struck by the desire to fuck someone I don’t normally find sexually compelling – in exactly the way Dee described reacting to FriendWife. These urges are connected to those basic sexual urges, and are unrelated to emotion.

This concept of sex disconnected from emotion is also why I define my twinge (wanting to be the only man in Dee’s life) as a Darwinian sensation – it’s not attached to an emotional reaction, but seated somewhere deeper, more instinctual. I would compare it to the fluttery case of acrophobia one might experience when looking out the large window of a tall building: you know your safe, but you still get that twinge (fear, in this case). It doesn’t make you run down the stairs and seek safety on the street. It doesn’t make you turn away from the window (or even want to do so). Yet, while there’s even a little thrill to it, if given the option, you’d most often choose to gaze out a smaller window, one through which that twinge wouldn’t be felt, or would at least be reduced.

For my part, I don’t know what to make of that twinge, or what it might mean, or what it might indicate about the future of our relationship if we ever were to experiment with others. However, given my understanding of Dee’s jealous streak, I’ve never dwelled on it, mostly because, at least until very recently, I never considered the possibility that this kind of experimentation would ever happen.