Happy & Healthy
Why you need two lovers
Yes, you read that right. I do claim that you need two lovers. Or even better: three. First, let's define what a lover is. Because a lover has a fundamentally different function than that of a steady relationship. A lover is someone who temporarily fulfills a desire. Someone you don't take to your parents, someone with whom you have no long-term plans, someone you don't appear in public with and someone you don't spend the Christmas holidays with. Or to put it bluntly: just someone for attention and sex. Or someone who has YOU for attention and sex, although you might hope that is not the case.
So after it ended with my previous boyfriend, I urgently needed such a person. I was not ready for a new relationship yet, but I had an enormous need for someone who found me beautiful, sweet, and attractive and expressed that appropriately. I soon found this man in the form of a tall Rotterdammer. He seemed to be the ideal lover because:
1. he lived in another city
2. he had his own apartment without a girlfriend, children, dogs, or other housemates
3. he was ten years younger
4. he had a six-pack
5. the chance that I would fall in love with him seemed quite small
6. he was also not looking for a steady relationship
I met with him a few times to test whether he met other conditions, such as a general respect for women, a sense of humor, and clean nails. After he was approved on this as well, I had my bikini line waxed, bought new lingerie, and went to visit him to take a test drive.
After the naked part, he asked if I wanted to eat something. I knew I had to leave, but a warm fuzzy feeling inside me said: ‘yes please.’ We cooked together (slavinken, green beans, and fried potatoes, you are in Rotterdam, or you are not) and that’s where it went wrong. While I was scooping some potatoes around, he stood behind me and wrapped his arms around me.
Something broke inside me. I think it was the lid of my oxytocin supply. An overwhelming feeling of happiness flowed through me, I wanted to drown in his arms, what am I saying: I wanted to celebrate Christmas with him, adopt a puppy together, and introduce him to all my girlfriends. While I knew it made no sense. When I suggested seeing each other for the third time in two weeks, he started to withdraw a bit and before I knew it, I was more concerned about him than about my ex, which was favorable in itself, but made absolutely no sense. I wondered what was happening to me. I was not in love, I was just inexplicably... attached.
And now I return to my statement that as a woman you always need two or more lovers. Our big problem is that after reaching an orgasm, we produce large amounts of the aforementioned oxytocin. This is the hormone and neurotransmitter that also plays an important role in the attachment of a mother to her baby. The hard drug among hormones, so to speak. Do you understand that we as women are doomed to attach ourselves to those who give us orgasms? (whereby: the better the orgasm, the more oxytocin)? Even if it was never your intention to attach yourself, even if you are not really interested in the gentleman in question, even then our body plays tricks on us. Moreover, as if it wasn't bad enough that we produce oxytocin from orgasms, sperm also contains a small amount of oxytocin, causing us to attach in any case (by the way, another good reason to use a condom)! The bastards!
There is actually only one solution to this problem: maintain a multi-track policy. The moment you feel that you are becoming too attached to one lover, you switch to your other lover. This way you prevent ending up in a relationship with a man who was never meant for that or becoming too dependent on a man who is not waiting for that.
So: be good to yourself. Treat yourself to overwhelming orgasms, let yourself be cuddled, and let him cook potatoes for you, but do not make yourself dependent on one supplier.
Written by Marion Pauw
