A Threat Or A Promise

It Just Might Depend On Your Point Of View


She is familiar with people taking and has difficulty understanding why he does not “ask” anything of her. She has come to believe there is always a price and most times the price has been high.

He is not use to people giving and has difficulty understanding why she puts herself at “risk”, appearing to let him into her “life”. Giving, for him, what is truly important, herself…

He has come to believe there are no such things as “a free lunch” but he feels it may be worth the effort. He is use to walking the edge to play within the twilight of the evening. It is who he is. He risks understanding or lack of it. She risks gaining who she really is, as she plays with walking away from what she has become.

An attraction maintains their orbit. A dance, where each search for the “fissure” that would prove their fears accurate but each risk something neither desire to give but each protects - TRUST. Each, for some reason believes it is worth that vulnerable stance, a stance that makes them “game-less in a world full of games”….

A stance that is not common for either. What is developing is a “relationship”. One, not based on preconceived beliefs, ideas or experiences but one based on circumstance and need. As one once said, “It is all in the eyes”. Some say, a window into the need of the soul.

A need concentrated enough to draw one into a ritual, tough enough for each to break a pattern, yet strong enough to do something out of their “ordinary”. It is an attraction based on necessity. Now that’s a concept, although not new. It has been a dance played out throughout the ages, if one makes the effort and takes the time to look.

Two people caught within a vortex of need, risking their defenses against the world. Complicated because of a “gender” difference, the “dance” filled with “sexual” tension. Each wondering how real it is and each questioning – “if” at a different time, a different place, a different age, a different circumstance?

It is here you find sexual tension giving way to “comfortableness” and that comfortableness giving way to “trust”. Is this how friendship develops between men and women? Or is it all “just” a manipulative game, a game of threat or promise?

You have heard me say that friendships between men and women are different from friendships between genders of the same sex. You have heard me say that men are not friends with women they are not attracted to on some level.

You have heard me say women, on the other hand, do not appear to have that quandary. Once women get past the “trust” issue, attraction doesn’t appear to be as relevant. Getting over the trust issue appears to be their strongest hurdle.

Trust, it may seem, lies deep within the heart of this complicated matter, an attractant in itself... And sexual tension, well it throws a little energized twist to the affair. Unaddressed, this is relationship suicide. It is an unstable explosive waiting to be set free. Addressed, it can lead to a fuller, more highly, honest relationship.

If one does not give into fear or get caught up in the distrust of the past, it can set the foundation of a strong relationship. Fear, we find, has the power to build or destroy. Now do not take me wrong, by addressing “it” I do not mean one has to act upon “it”, but it does need to be addressed. It needs to immerge into the open. Unaddressed, it lies waiting just under the surface, a potential threat.

As a friend once told me, “Expressing your thought isn’t bad”. It’s a necessity. Some would say a cross-road of sorts. It is, at this juncture, you start to set the boundaries of a potential relationship. Boundaries develop safety, safety develops trust, and trust is the foundation of lasting relationships... and Yes, an attractant in itself.

It provides the “plan” in which the relationship can develop. It provides the environment for many questions with little concrete answers, at least not in the beginning. It’s a foundation, which sustains a true relationship.

Sometimes these relationships react like falling stars. Intense and fast, they burn effortlessly, giving way to the moment with little consequence for the future. At other epochs, they grow slowly until they reach the safety of a time when they begin to grow exponentially. In either case, its mark is left within the sands of time and the star-crossed path of the heavens…

Some Random Thoughts:

• When one says, “It’s your call” and the response is “Playball!”, does that mean you are already in the game?
• Then again, sometimes in life we are thrown a “curve” when we are only prepared for something “hard, fast, and right down the middle”.
• Sometimes, Threats need to be treated as a Promise with the knowledge that promises can be as toxic as threats…

Questions:

• Have you ever been “concerned” with someone you really have no right to be “concerned” with and you don’t know what is really right, what is really wrong, or if there is really any difference?
• Have you ever been “drawn” towards someone with no explanation as to “why”?
• Have you ever put yourself “at risk” and you knew it was “wrong” but for some reason it just felt “right”?
• When confronted by these realities do you embrace them or do you try to deny they exist?

Tonight I seem to have more questions than answers. My mind floats between my senses and my brain, lost somewhere in the “between”.

• Between right and wrong.
• Between good and bad.
• Between taking the road less traveled or the one most often trekked.
• Between the choice to “grow” or the “choice to stay within the confines of the safety of what is familiar.

In relationships it is vital to remember how special you are, that you are vital, not only to yourself but to the other as well. Through this mutual need and willingness to risk, you grow and that my friend is not all-bad.

So in this day and age of “screw your buddy”, or “screw” your buddies partner, take the time to develop a new “friend”. You may just find it opens horizons and motivates you to new levels. After all, we all need someone to believe in who we are, not just distrust what we do or believe we “do” everyone we can.

As always, it is a choice. I’ve made mine, are you going to make yours? My guess is that you are. Maybe you already have. How have you “risked” new relationships and new growth? Was it worth it? Are you going to continue?

Until later, this Reservation Recluse is going to “research” the balance between the males need to “breed” and his need to “protect”. When triggered, which one do you believe wins?

I already have an idea, what’s yours…... And how does that relate to friendship, or does it? My guess? Well its twilight and the clouds cover what promise to be a full moon.