my careless contagion

It's a long-running joke. What do women want? Not even they know because women — all of them — are a mystery. A big, beautiful mystery.  It's no secret I have very little experience with women. I have experience with one woman . She was really my first serious girlfriend. I basically moved in with her the night I met her. Okay, we talked for about eight months on the phone and over the internet. But, really, I showed up and that was it.  So my first real relationship was full-on, all the way, live. And within a year, it was essentially over. She cheated on me shortly after we moved into an apartment after living in her mom's house for several months. I saw that infidelity as a test, like, she wants to see how much I love her. But, really, she was just an asshole because the testing never actually stopped. She abused my love until I no longer loved her. And that allowed me to engage in a lot of behavior (some self-destructive, some destructive to our relationship) I w...

Her lips moved against mine. I was vaguely aware she was saying something, then her body moved away from mine. An ache moved through me as her fingers trailed down my arm and across my hand and finally my fingertips. She stood next to me for a moment and then she was gone. That was my dream. It wasn't an erotic dream. Just a dream. What remained after the dream was the sense of feeling worthwhile. I've gone for so long thinking I have no worth. It seems inconceivable for a woman to touch me. If a dream can arouse such feelings in me, then it's clear I was getting a lot of my self-worth from being physical with a woman. Or from any physical touch, for that matter. I wouldn't normally write about a dream like this, but it reminded me of something. In any relationship, it's important to understand love languages. My primary love language is physical touch. I'm one of the easiest to please. I didn't always know about love languages. A dear friend expla...