thensepia

Mind you, this happened when I've had three hours of sleep, but tonight I had one of those moments, moments of perfect clarity, that moment when you absolutely, utterly click with someone.

I met Desiree for coffee tonight, much needed on my part. We were sitting there in Fido, amongst the teachers grading essays, the emo kids making eyes at the other emo kids, and the computer nerds raping the WiFi and eyeing the emo kids jealously. We were talking about Felicity, which I've been netflixing for the last couple of months and that we've been slowly working our way through together. We've recently finished disc four of season one, and we were talking about the last episode on the disc.

To explain, Felicity came out when I was still feeling all fresh and new in college, and some of the storylines were eerily similar to things going on in my life at the time. So whether or not you think it's good or crap, fact of the matter was at that time in my life it was relevant. Anyway, in the episode we were talking about, Felicity has been dating Noel, but they have a fight and he goes off to meet his exgirlfriend. Felicity ends up in the art studio for the night with Eli, a guy she hardly knows but has seen around, this random art student guy she has a sort of strange connection with. That night, as Noel and his ex start making out, the scene cuts to Felicity and Eli; he's sketching her, and they too begin to kiss. Back to Noel: he's still making out with the ex, they're peeling one another out of their clothes, rain is pounding at the window...but he stops, pulls back. Back to Felicity, who has spent the last six episodes wrestling with whether or not she should lose her virginity to Noel: Eli is kissing her, he unbuttons her cardigan and kisses her more... 'Do you want to stop?' he asks, and she shakes her head no.

So Desiree and I are talking about this episode. She says to me that she doesn't understand why Felicity would have done that, why she would have just randomly given it up to some guy she didn't even know.

I stopped for just a second, narrowed my eyes. "I think that, right there, is the fundamental difference between you and I."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Well...I don't think she did it randomly. I don't think it was her intention to go out and do some guy to get even with Noel, who she was sure was busy fucking his ex. I don't think that was what she meant at all. I think Eli was just this guy she'd crossed paths with, felt this strange, echoing connection with, and that she was so intoxicated with that and with the freedom to behave in the moment that she didn't think it through, she followed that impulse, that moment, and that was what it led to. But it was anything but casual."

Desiree looked at me, cocked her head to the side. "You're right. That is the fundamental difference in our worldviews."

We find ourselves looking at each other across issues all the time, from what a guy means when he says hello to what motivates people's actions to what choices a director makes in a film and why. We are very dissimilar, really, and we get along beautifully, whther in spite of or because of that difference.

But that one moment of Felicity perfectly illustrated the gulf between us.

Desiree thinks of sex at this revered thing, this act that has its place only within the bounds of love, and passion. She said tonight that sex had become the goal, not the thing that was the wonderful bonus when the goal had been achieved, it was no longer the gift with purchase, it was the end that justfied all the scheming, lying means. And she said that the act of sex is the same whether you're making love or fucking, and so making love is hollow and nonexistent. I knew what she meant.

I just don't agree.

I think, for one, there's a world of difference between the mere act of sex and the act of making love. She argued that physically it was the exact same thing, and I disagreed. Making love is when it's no longer about how good the person you're with is making you feel...it's when that no longer matters because it's become an act of worship. It's physically different.

She wasn't buying it.

And that's okay. I don't win anything by convincing her. And I come from the position of just really, really liking sex, all kinds of sex, the dirty, nasty, bent over an available surface fucking as well as that tender, slow, candlelit beautiful lovemaking, and all the things inbetween. She doesn't really like sex nearly as much as she likes all the parts leading up to it, the flirting, that slow build, those moments just before things happen. I like those moments, too, relish them in fact, and enjoy being teased by them, but at some point, I really just want things to commence. But the point is that we don't really understand one another's point of view...but because of this one choice of a fictional TV character, we understand the difference in our views.

Thoughts?