Love
So here's the latest.
I've been "dating" an extraordinarily beautiful, young Navajo (Diné) man for the last six weeks. We see one another (often only for morning coffee) several times a week. He's a senior at a local university... and works full time besides, so only late evenings and mornings are open for him, seven days a week.
I can only tell the short version of the story, so I'll pick out some contextual bits and highlights.
It has never been clear whether we're destined for something more "romantic" or more platonic -- of course. But we met in a context in which "romantic" possibilities are more foreground (online, initially). And we soon discovered that there was mutual attraction. But attraction is just attraction, and having coffee together is just having coffee together, and exchanging text messages and emails is just that. And when I first spent the night in his bed we "just" cuddled. We didn't even kiss.
We have tended to communicate some every day, by text and email... and phone. And we have tended to meet for morning coffee (pre-work) about three or so times a week, maybe four(?).
After a while of getting to know one another, early on, I learned that he very recently ended his first "long term" relationship -- which lasted only roughly a year. This sense of what a "long term relationship" is (and that he's not had any of these previously) clues the reader in here that he's probably quite young. Indeed he is. He's hovering near 30, but under -- and I can't divulge too many identifying details, for obvious reasons.
I've NEVER before spent so many "dates" with a person before swapping kisses or cuddles, usually soon proceeded by ... well, you know.
The night before last I was at his place, helping him with a writing project for school. It got very late, and I had arrived at his apartment by bus, and all in all I decided it would be better for me to spend the night than to spend money on a cab. For various reasons the reader here will have to guess at, I offered to just keep my hands (etc.) to myself ... and asked to spend the night in his bed with him -- without cuddling... without touching. After all, we were pretty much decided to be platonic, though lovingly intimate, friends. After all, he had recently broken up with a man who he had seriously considered marrying. Etc. Time wounds all heels. Etc.
He knows I love him. He knows I'd love him any way he wants it -- platonically, romantically.... He knows I'm attracted to him. He knows I'm in love with him, but not a desperate, clingy, attached kind of love.
So there I am in his bed, contentedly waiting for sleep to arrive, which was slow to arrive. Quite slow.
And I hear his voice, which says, "It's okay to hold me."
So I did.
Such delicious cuddles!
Lots of cuddling.
And sometime nearing sunrise, but a while before, in the darkness of a full moon night (was it a full moon night? - almost morning?) it happened. We crossed a line which included open-mouthed, passionate kisses (and etc.).
And we had coffee again this morning. But for the life of me, I have no idea what we are together. And I suspect he's in the same boat.
I know he's never even considered "polyamory" or being involved with anyone
polyamorous before me.
So far under water here, swimming..., totally okay with the uncertainty, yet completely human and stuff.