Multiple partners or just One?

We generally feel that we are able to separate love and sex, but the more I think about it, the more I doubt. I hear statements from guys that assume there’s this clear and magical distinction between those we fuck and those we want as husbands.

I have a friend who I travel with all over the world. He’s stable, cute and most people assume we’re together. In some ways we are like a ‘married couple’ since he’s my best friend and he knows me pretty well. There’s no sexual attraction but there’s closeness and trust.

Then there are guys with whom I’m not really close to but have passionate encounters with on a regular basis. I’ve become somewhat of a master at the off-again on-again sexual relationship during my tenure of being single. I don’t think I need a full scale relationship since I haven’t found a man that makes me want to commit wholeheartedly and monogamously. And having those occasional partners give me enough closeness without smothering me.

My last relationship felt like a single-trip ticket to Depression and I resolved to never go thru that again. Oh he wasn’t an asshole, mind you. Just that he gets bored easily and has guys throwing themselves at him on a regular basis.

The big payoff of a relationship is the emotional support, but my emotional needs can also be fulfilled with a night on the dance floor, gyrating with other like-minded males.

We’re so conditioned to think that finding a boyfriend is the answer. Yeah, we do need other people—but there are many ways to go about it. So, if you have been single forever but been putting yourself out in the market, it might be useful asking yourself what you’re really looking for.

Maybe you’ve already found it?

oh no She didn’t

Madonna may be a 49-year-old working mom pushing 50, but she still loves her dance floor, her catsuits and her pop hooks. She’s also an expert chameleon, co-opting current musical tastes for her own pleasure.

In ”Hard Candy”, Madonna aims high, enlisting two of music’s heavyweight producers – Timbaland and The Neptunes. The album jumps off the disco of 2005’s ”Confessions On The Dancefloor” with thunderous, up-tempo club grinds but also some surprisingly dark moments. The Neptunes (comprising the production duo of Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo) add retro-synth beats while Timbaland punches up the power R&B, along with Justin Timberlake. Madonna co-wrote and co-produced the album’s 12 tracks, which swerve from the psychedelic-horn blitz of ”4 Minutes” to the swooping drama of ”Voices”.

Whilst the album’s sound is not original and its tunes not particularly edgy, they still make your booty shake. ”My sugar is raw, sticky and sweet”, as she intones on ”Candy Shop,” fusing heavy beats with ”Like A Virgin” coy sex appeal and a later falsetto reminiscent of Britney Spears. ”4 Minutes,” one of the album’s best tunes, explodes with Timbaland’s repetition of ”fricke-fricke-four minutes” as Madonna and Justin Timberlake exchange shout-outs. Their voices, oozed through thick production, complement each other nicely (although their sexual repartee can feel a bit forced).

On ”Confessions”, Madonna shared her religious beliefs with a song about Kabbalah. On ”American Life” , she jumped into political commentary. Here, she cleverly steers clear of family, religion and politics, sticking to mainstream fodder: sex, dancing, relationships. But there are three tunes that shed the party vibe and reveal some necessary vulnerability. ”Miles Away” laments being far away from a love, while ”Voices” focuses on demons plaguing a romance. ”Devil Wouldn’t Recognize You” is made theatric by an interlude of thunder and rain, (cue Justin Timberlake’s bitter hit ”Cry Me A River”) touching on manipulation following a dead relationship.

There is a tendency for Madonna to steer toward too many throwaway dance clichés. ”Get stupid, get stupid, don’t stop”, she proclaims teen-style on ”Give It 2 Me,” a catchy synth jam with sputtering riffs sure to be another club smash. The lyrics pick up on anthem ”She’s Not Me”. In feisty form, over funky bass and guitar lines and electro claps, Madonna is letting her Royal flag fly: ”She started reading my books and stealing my looks and lingerie … she’s not me and she never will be”.

Disappointingly, ”Beat Goes On” (a much-hyped-about collaboration with Kanye West) recedes into retro disco territory with a tired callout: ”Get down, beep beep, gotta get up out of your seat”. [Yawn]

Still, the hits boom out loud and clear, one after the other. Madonna may be strutting her way into AARP territory but she still belongs on that forever shimmering dance floor. This is bubble-gum-Madonna-pop at its best!

Tracks I repeat: “Give It 2 Me”/”Devil Wouldn’t Recognize You”/”Miles Away”/”Ring My Bell” (Bonus track)
Tracks I skip: “Spanish Lesson”/”Candy Shop”/”Heartbeat”

 

 

A matter of Chemistry

Starting a relationship is akin to lighting up a barbecue – you need a spark and then it takes a lot of luck or a good level of experience. Whether you got one or the other, you still have to hope that it won’t rain.

Every time that I’ve been single, I experience some of those quick starts and the even quicker burn-outs that accompanies almost each of them. No matter the enthusiasm shown at the beginning, it seems that something had to go wrong after a few days. Obviously, natural selection also applies to love stories.

As I was finally recovering from my last break-up and slowly embracing my brand new single life by dating enough guys to allow my best friend to regularly call me a slut, it crossed my mind that I was experiencing one of the busiest period of my dating life. Some of my recent dates were really exciting and we’ve shared some great moments but none of the guys made it up to the subsequent date.

Last night, whilst changing the sheets, I couldn’t help but wonder why some promising stories never last more than a few dates. Why do some people (obviously into each other at first) lose it after a few days? What leads a crush to crash?

My fuck-buddy once told me that experience brings wisdom (in the bedroom, he meant). According to me, as far as relationships are concerned – experience brings fear. We are still healing the wounds left by our previous stories and cannot help but be more cautious about the new ones. Our fears lead us to make a wrong interpretation of everything that is said and, most of the time, to run away as soon as feelings are shown. We create our own scale in which to interpret the different ways to express our feelings. “I like you”, “I like you a lot”, “I like you very much” and “I love you” (to be used carefully) are the milestones we commonly use. However, because our pace is rarely the same as our partner’s, a simple “I like you” can be [mis]understood to mean “Marry me” and cause a story to prematurely end.

I once dated an extremely attractive and eligible guy and our first date was one of the best I ever had. We spent a great night out followed by some awesome sex. We even decided to spend the rest of the day in bed watching TV and having more sex. We seemed genuinely attracted to each other and it even crossed my mind that this guy could be boyfriend material. On our second date, we planned to have dinner in a nice Korean BBQ restaurant close to my place. After half an hour of remembering how good our first date was, it suddenly occurred to both of us that we had nothing else to say. An hour later, we were both bored to death and quite embarrassed by the long periods of silence that punctuated our date. We skipped dessert (for those of you who know me, dessert is a big affair) and called it a night.

Needless to say, I never saw the need to call that guy again.

Whether it is a matter of (a) adopting the right communication method, (b) getting past the physical attraction or (c) simply a question of good taste, brand new relationships are like birds in a nest. They require delicate treatment and attention. We can be frustrated about it but in the end, there’s probably something good in the fact that, in the matter of relationships, Darwin’s theory applies.

*Darwin’s theory – thru’ the process of natural selection, only the fittest make it