Love
I live it like this. For as long as I can recall I have loved many people.
I love my Children. I love my Mother and Father. I love my Brother, Sister, Cousins, Aunties, Uncles Brother-in-laws, Sister, In Laws and so on. I love them all in different ways and they don't have to love me back as they didn't get a choice in the matter. I literally have hundreds of Family members all around the world, some of whom are reading this who I have never even met.
So, I have also many close friends. Friends who I am close to in shared life experience that allows us to hug deeply when we meet, to do things for each other without question, at the drop of a hat. I have friends who I get naked around and I have friends-with-benefits. I have thousands of friends of whom I get to really connect with deeply sometimes as a brief encounter, sometimes as a longtime physical relatedness, some only online.
Within my network there are literally thousands of people I admire from afar, who engage with me closely on all sorts of personal matters, that tell me their life story, tell me of their desires, fetishes and of their regrets.
I often know more about them than their own partner's do as I...keep.
I keep their secrets until they are ready to let them out and be free themselves or in lots of cases just to keep sharing it with themselves and then with their partner, who upon hearing of them (sometimes) lets them go and that is when my acquaintance friend then gets back in contact with me.
Then there are my keys - very special chosen people who I didn't get to choose. People who keep my secrets until I am ready to let them out. People who keep my story or segments of it for me in sharing and who do not EVER share that information with others. They are in my case predominantly women, of all ages and in a number of cases living in different parts of the world.
"..I can count on two hands and two feet how many close, bonded and deeply passionate friendships or relatedness I have with men. It is a tragedy that society brings us to bear a deep mistrust of that relatedness between men that is firmly grounded in acceptance that we kill each other more often than we hug each other."
Relationships, sexual relationships make up a very small part of my life although some of you reading this might at this point have a deep chuckle. I agree, as a man that has been married three times, had children with people who were not married, been a stepfather to three children at age 26.....you get the picture. So even say I have had sex with 150 people in my life and perhaps 50 of those could in some way be declared as a relationship they only really make up a very small percentage of the entire count of those whom I have a close relatedness with.
It would be an interesting exercise to have everyone I am friends with, those who have passed and those who are present together on one huge expanse of ground and for everyone to get to meet each other and in doing so I wonder of those who met each other, how many of them would become firm friends and again, being human, how many of those would pair off and become partners of others.
Relationships for me are those relatedness moments I have had or continue to have that are not bound in time, that I understand are finite and in many cases particularly those whose groundings or foundations were bound by the edicts of marriage, simply put, the worst of my relationships.
I observe people everyday who are in long term relationships who are unhappy, disconnected from that person by their unrealistic ideals as to what it is that makes them happy, deeply sick in their bodies as they self abuse and spread toxic behaviours to others. I observe couples who cheat on each other, lie to each other, continually bicker and in some cases actually hate each other but stay living in the same house "for the kids" or more often than not simply for convenience.
"...I firmly believe now after many many attempts at trying to be in a relationship for relationships sake that there is only one true relationship we ever have - with ourselves."
When we are at one with ourself, when we realise that we will be ALWAYS single, that in being independent as the baseline and interdependent as convenience that all those co-dependent aspects of a relationship can disappear
I, myself, Alexander Hayes have given up on the constitutions that churches think that they can instill in a relatedness with others that bind ourselves to an ideal that we strive for and never achieve. That does not mean I say anything to those who feel that marriage is for them the only way to be happy in their life. It would be a hypocrite to suggest that for those who are married that an open way is any better a way than the one they have chosen for themselves.
Provided I don't get told how to live my life nor be told that who I am is worse than those in those marriages everything will be fine...seriously, I will not judge you if you do not judge me...commandments of the supposed Gods.
Whilst religion contains every known answer for why we exist and provides us answers as to being human, in many cases, it does not provide us with a reality as humans twist and turn that over time and through time to suit themselves. I prefer to see it as a spiritual domain that guides us all, that there is Father Nature as much as there is Mother Nature.
So, after 46 years of living in every known conceivable arrangement of relationships I have come to a non-binding awareness of the following. I have put them as dot points in a list because I know some of you might like to consider them as separate things but in essence they are all the same and interwoven as one.
We are single, always.
The most powerful relationship we ever have is with ourselves;
We have many, many, many relationships in our lives and those we have sex with make up a very small proportion of the total count of who we related too;
We have only the capacity to have one bonded, fully articulated, affinity centred, trusted relationship - a partner, who essentially is our witness in our life;
We can have sex with as many people as we want but we cant have as many people as we need having sex with us;
In being open with our partner, in being open with our Family, friends and the world we can be in ourselves and not spread out across others;
In each relationship (of all descriptions) there are only three things that matter - treat each other well, respect each others differences and to show on a constant basis in an explicit way gratitude for each other;
Above all, trust - trust is the core essence to any relationship especially with ourselves.
