Definitions
So this weekend, I had a fabulous weekend with S. I had booked a room at a luxury hotel (with more buttons than the control room NASA), and we watched movies, ate great food and had lots and lots of fun together.
And we talked.
We talked about a lot of things. We talked about our experiences with BDSM. We talked about our hopes and dreams. We talked about orgasms. And we talked about our relationship.
A bit of background….
S and met at a BDSM event where she got to try different things. She came with her husband, and they tried single tails. He wasn’t into it, but she was. I left a few marks on her, and we chatted about the experience. I gave her my contact information–something I always do in case some issue comes up later–and she went on to try other things. But I thought that her husband was a really, really lucky guy.
Well, not long after, S contact me and expressed an interest in developing some kind of relationship with me. She and her husband have had an open marriage for many years, and she was interested in exploring the BDSM side of her life. So we met, chatted and started dating. We’ve been seeing each other for almost half a year now, and it is one of most precious parts of life.
Well, we have been involved sexually and heavy play partners, and we are very close. And being the romantic that I am, I have told her many times how much I love her. And I do love her. We have other relationships, but we have a great time whenever we are together.
So we were lying on this very cushy bed and talking, and she asked me, “Does it bother you that I don’t say that I love you?”
And I said no. I know how she feels about me. And I know that she cares for me. And everyone defines love differently. My view of it is much broader than most people’s. I see love as a connection that goes beyond friendship.
But for S, love is something much deeper. It is something that involves more than just having certain feelings for someone. There needs to be a deeper, perhaps even more spiritual (in a non-religious sense), aspect for it to be love for her. She loves her husband (which is good). She loves a couple she has had a relationship for a number of years.
Does she love me?
Well, I know she cares for me. She does have feelings for me. But does she love me?
She does in a way. But for one thing, our relationship is still pretty new. We haven’t moved through the ups and downs of a relationship. We haven’t explored each other in ways that you need to if you are going to find that connection that ties you to a person forever. We haven’t even seen all our bad habits.
We always want to define things. I am a Dom. I am a Master. I feel happy. I feel I am in love. But these things are definitions–mere descriptions–that we use to figure out where we are in the world. We use them to establish our position in society. We use them to show how we fit in with the group.
But they are just definitions. They are imprecise. They are subject to interpretation. And they are not truly what I am, or how I feel. They are not who S is or how she feels. They are labels. They help, but they don’t tell the whole story.
So am I sad that S can’t tell me that she “loves me?” I have thought about that, and I can honestly say it doesn’t bother me at all. I know how she feels about me, and that makes me happier than I ever have been. As a linguist, I can appreciate the semantics of words, but I also know their limitations. I don’t need a label to tell me how I feel or what I feel when I am with someone. I don’t need a description to say what my relationship with someone is or is not. I just need to feel. I just need to experience. And I just need to revel in what it is.
Am I in love? Yes. Am I loved?
Maybe, but it doesn’t matter if I hear the word. I know what I feel, I am happy, and I cherish my time with her–that is all that matters.
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