"Taken"

I changed my Flickr profile to "Taken," and have become oddly taken with the word (and its 106 definitions!). I know my younger self would've bristled at its implications, thought there was something unbearably anti-feminist about it, but it sounds perfect to me right now. I just just started seeing someone and so can't really say more than that about what's going on between us, but I can say that I am pretty smitten. I like "taken" because it's not about him dictating what I should or shouldn't do, or vice versa, in fact, but, at least for me, more about me not wanting to see or pursue or even fantasize about anyone else (for the most part, though I will admit my fantasies of late have tended to wander a little bit, but usually involve him too).

In a very short time he's come to occupy so much of my thoughts and things I didn't even really think I would have wanted, really dorky things like eating cereal together in the morning or calling him when I get home late at night on the subway or just checking in while I’m away, have become really special. I like the idea of being taken, in both senses of the word…by this person. Not "taken" generally or in some abstract way, I probably would still bristle at that, but taken by him? Yes, please. This sounds so backwards when I actually put the words down, but it's totally how I feel; I like, on some level, "belonging" to him. I like entering his world and vice versa, and feeling like someone is looking out for me and wants what's best for me, and that I feel the same with him. Maybe the more words I try to find to explain that the worse I do, but I can try. I even wrote in the journal I bought in January, that I promised myself I'd keep religiously and haven't entered a word until yesterday, and part of what I wrote is: "I'm impressed that we both have big enough hearts and minds to let someone else in in a way that may be threatening, that does necessitate change, that might make like a little topsy-turvy. He's why i can't do the personal ad thing, because I could never write down some list and come up with the magic and complexity and intensity I see in him."

I like being able to be equally silly and serious and sexy and that one doesn't have to detract from the other. I think in the past a big problem for me is that people I liked or were involved with could only see me in one way, and maybe didn't think I was capable of more than that, and this person, after knowing me for really only a few days, kindof got to the heart of all of that and cleared away all the things that to me as so fake and not real and just saw me for me, and liked what he saw. I have encountered way too many people who like me from a distance and the minute they get closer to the real person back off and freak out. I was going to say that I'm a contradiction, but that would be false. I'm not even all that complicated, I'm just multifaceted. I have a really dirty mind and topless photos online and I write smutty stories and get upset about some of the hypocrisy about sex in this country, which seems to flare up every single day, but I also am a board game-loving, cupcake-obsessed girl who likes dresses and shopping and having fun. I care about so many things that have nothing to do with sex and I really don’t want that to be the only thing I write about, because sometimes it gets to be too much even for me. So for someone to just come along and get all that, without it being a big deal at all, felt so comforting. Maybe it's that we've become so myopic that we think only have room in our brains to see everyone we meet in a one-dimensional way. The fact that he doesn't see me that way, along with many other very endearing and adorable qualities, makes me feel good about what's happening between us. And "good" is a total understatement. I'm pretty giddy about it and I just wanted to share that.

There's more I could say, but not here. That's another thing; as much as I'm besotted with this person, so much of that is just between us. Okay, and maybe a few close friends I can gush to. And believe me, it would be hot if I shared all the naughtiness, and maybe someday, in some highly disguised form I will, but right now it’s about my little reveries and really dorky, mushy stuff that I just want to keep really close to myself, just enveloping me in its own little cocoon. He’s made everything feel really alive again at a time when I was getting a little worried that my life was just stagnating. I don’t think I realized how much I missed “all that stupid old shit,” to steal a line from Liz Phair, and maybe I didn’t miss it, but I really like it with him and almost have to hold myself back a tiny bit from expressing all of what I’m feeling, though I would say the best thing about whatever it is we’re doing is that I really am myself. I’m so over playing games and bullshitting and trying to be whatever it is you’re supposed to be to get people to want to date you. I just can’t do that and it’s so blissful to be with someone I don’t have to hide any parts of myself from.

I will say that my coochie is no longer on lock and I have absolutely no regrets about that. In fact, I'm pretty proud of myself because I spent so much of the summer working on myself, and just plain working, and figuring out what I like and what makes me happy and how I want to spend my time and a lot of other things, and when I very unexpectedly met this person, it just felt right. He's very much an adult, which I've come to learn has little to do with chronological age and much to do with how you conduct yourself, but can also be like a little kid, and that combination is irresistible to me. And again, the whole experience shows me why I just will never be able to do online dating. There is nothing to me that beats looking at someone and hearing them speak and just that initial moment of sizing them up, I guess, although in this case I wasn't even thinking about that at first, it just kindof happened. It's hard to talk about why he's so wonderful in such utterly vague terms, so I will just go and think silent dirty thoughts about him until I get home and can put them into action.