Deadlines

Dropping the impersonal tone. Makes me sound like a douche.

I just recently finished a lovely affair with a lovely person who I have been flirting with for quite a while. Due to changing circumstances, the end of the affair was planned from the beginning. I was more comfortable with so and so than I have been with anyone in a good long time, and I believe that a good part of my comfort was due to the defined end of the fling. Not one moment was wasted wondering how or why or when things would end (as all good and bad things do) because we already knew. I was enabled to engage in enlightening physical contact of every sort, and unbridled musshyness, because there was no danger of giving the impression that we would be stuck together for long periods of time. I was leaving at a definite time, no matter what happened and no matter how much I wanted to stay. The relatively near end to the affair allowed me to be free within the time I had.

Who likes whom more, and maybe too much, is a moot point when the time an affair can last is limited. The end is no ones fault. It just had to happen. In this case I just had to leave.

There is an opposite situation, when there is no definite end to a relationship. In those cases I'm constantly worried that I will not show enough affection, or will show too much, or make some mistake and the whole thing will end. My worry dooms everything. Frequently I err on the side of showing too much affection. In these cases the other party starts worrying that I like them too much, and that's the one suspicion that it is almost impossible to dispel. The lack of a time limit, and the indefinite end causes nothing but trouble, cause I can never stop worrying about how it all will end, and how I will go wrong to make it end. Nothing ruins a good time more than an unhealthy dose of self consciousness. I am never comfortable with situations when I don't know when they will be over. I only feel free to act honestly when I know that I will only be able to for a short while. There's some sort of freedom of action that comes with time restriction.