am I more attractive...

...when I'm not around?

This is partially inspired by Essin' Em's post about her tendency to start having sex with people (including myself) right before they leave for extended periods of time, and partially by the goings-on of the end of the summer and my time thus far here in Spain.

As I've mentioned, I had a fabulous summer. Fantastic friends, a great internship where I got some amazing clips for my portfolio (and a job offer), and a house in an amazingly vibrant part of town that was central to almost all of those amazing friends. Also, my sex life was, well, really good. I was not only getting laid regularly, but it was really good sex. Primarily with one person for the bulk of the summer, although there were a few others before this person and I got together and one after we knew we weren't going to see each other again. (Which, as I've written about, turned out to be exactly what I needed.) So I knew it was going to be a little rough - perhaps more than usual - to adjust to life in a different country where I didn't know ANYONE when I had enjoyed being so comfortable in my environment. And it has been difficult. I'm getting there, but it's slow going.

This is not a post about the fact that I haven't gotten laid since I've been here. That's actually OK. Although I'd be lying if I said I wasn't feeling some skin hunger and an increasing desire to make out with someone. But this isn't a post about that, because that's about all there is to say about that. Instead, this is about my friends back in the states and a tendency of a certain one or two to flake on me when we're in the same state, but then profess their devotion when I'm gone.

Backstory on the worst culprit: I've known him basically forever, and we've been through a hell of a lot, generally based upon the fact that we can never seem to have feelings for one another at the same time. For quite a while, he wanted me and I didn't want him, then I wanted him and he thought I was a raging bitch (which, admittedly, I can be), and then we - for the most part - got our shit together and liked one another at the same time. We've never dated, due in large part to the fact that he lives a few hours away from where I live only a few months of the year, and he's not especially reliable. At the beginning of the summer, though, on a whim (and when I had the car), I drove the 90 minutes to see him. In the middle of the night. We didn't sleep at all that night, and had sex in all kinds of "unconventional" places. (There WAS something wonderful about wearing 5" heels and being bent over the hood of a car while it was pulled off a side-road in the woods.) And this was when I was still suffering - a word I use fully intentionally - from my inability-to-have-an-orgasm-with-a-partner brokenness. Well, he fixed that. Three times in a row. Needless to say, I couldn't keep standing in those heels because my legs and my entire body had turned to putty in his hands. Then I didn't see him again for the rest of the summer.

Not for lack of trying, though. We stayed in relatively regular contact, and I asked him (he who has a paying job and a car compared to my lack of both) several times to come see me. I invited him for weekends, for sleepless nights, for day trips. There were a few times where he said he was coming down, and then never showed. I accepted that I wasn't going to see him and told him so.

Now that I'm on the other side of the world, he's been in strikingly regular contact with me. Telling me how much he misses me. What he's going to do to me when I get back stateside. Telling me how I've "ruined" his fantasy sex life because he no longer fantasizes about a variety of women, just about me. That he misses me so much it's palpable. We instant messaged a day or two ago, and I gave him my cell phone number here. He promised he'd call. He hasn't. But this morning, I woke up to this message from him on facebook:

No i am not ignoring you, I'm currently over-enveloped by certain business ventures I can't delve into... meow kisses and hugs,
- Your boy

Unprovoked. I hadn't given him shit about not calling me. But I assume he was just checking in. Making sure I wasn't upset with him. And signing it "your boy..." it actually made me smile. And get a little bit of the warm fuzzies.

But here's my question: Why is he doing this now? Now that I'm gone? Why is he making such an effort to stay in contact with me, tell me he misses me, now that I'm away? Because, in reality, our inability to see one another is the same as it's been since the beginning of the summer. It's nothing new.

And he's not the only person doing it. There are another one or two people, as well, he's just the most prevalent right now. So why am I more attractive when I'm not around? Is there something about my physical presence that makes me less intriguing? And shouldn't it technically go the other way around?

*mew.*