Role play and word play

“Single is not a status. It is a word that best describes a person who is strong enough to live and enjoy life without depending on others.” - Azuri Malik

In a single gal’s world, the search for the perfect complement always starts the same. You meet someone new, you start spinning the tale of seduction and you get to know more of the person. As you get on knowing one another on a deeper more intimate level, we learn that there are things you either need to let go or sacrifice for love. In our love sick minds, we would identify that as a progression; a step forward in the relationship evolution. As women, when we were younger, we tend to be more accommodating (might be because we didn’t have a concrete set list), but as we grow more assured of our needs and what makes us happy, the accommodating factor lessens. If men are not settling for anything less, why should we, the single, independent women settle for anything less than butterflies?

Just like the vision of a perfect wedding or the perfect dream home, every girl has a set list – a list of criteria we are looking for in the great guys that we have fun with. Here are some of mine as a general guideline:

1.Personally, I need the stimulation of the different cortex of the brain associated with love – romance, sex and mutual dependency. A mutual dependency in fulfilling romance and sex. Primarily, a physical and emotional dependency that is mutual and secondarily financial dependency. That being said, we do not mean that the guys would pay for all the bills and cover expenses for the house while we keep our money. Note to those who think this is the way: For liberated women who make our own money, long gone were the days when we have to depend on our significant others to bring home the rice. The price we pay for equality is in sharing the responsibility when it comes to expenses.

But in the event that calls for something a little indulgent, which we hope are aplenty,we would like to be able to depend on our complementary pea in the pod to deliver. “Now fellas if you have a girl and she treats you right, ain’t you gonna spend every dollar, every cent? Ain’t you gonna make sure she looks fine, especially if she’s wearing you for life?” – Mary J

2.The next criterion has a patriotic angle. I need a man who loves my country and would not mind calling it home. I don’t mind if we keep two homes if that is called for. I have a career to build here, a fuzzy in tow and the love of my life-my mother, to be here for. This is one of those non-typical arrangement, but in an era of feminists empowerment we can no longer subject ourselves to the typical. How else do we keep our career and not give up on the other loves of our lives should we not be open to change? My best girl Milla would concur.

3.Any Ms. Independent would want to have the space and room to grow which I would gladly barter with space and room for him to do the things he loves, things I might not necessarily be into. I believe this is the key to preservation in any relationship. Accepting one another as an equal and taking each other for what they are instead of trying to change one another or expecting the other to change is imperative in keeping the respect for one another.

4.I also need someone with a good heart…and drive. A gentleman who treats me with respect in front of people and who works me like his sex slave behind closed doors. Sex is important to me and what can I say except I’m very much into role play.

5.Great communication and being at the same frequency are also on my set list. I need someone who can turn me on with his words. I am for the scribes and the mental stimulation they bring with word play.

6.Since laughing keeps you younger, obviously I need someone who gets my jokes and can make me laugh.

7.I need someone who can be a father figure even if it’s only to my cat.

8.I need a man who loves to eat to complement the inner chef in me.

9.I love meat for the main course, preferably lean and love the occasional seafood as a side dish. I need him to get that.

With a set list like that, I wonder if I will ever find the one that can stir me in more ways than one. As for the present, I am enjoying the continuous surges of serotonin and oxytocin into my system courtesy of my muses from the virtual realm and the one physically present. Love in the first place should not be painful and should make us happy even to the point of being delirious.

Don't call me baby

I had a talk with my lover about the labels and the terms of endearment (TOE) that we choose to call the significant others in our lives. For every man, there is a term that is sacred and reserved for the one. It could be love, or honey or sayang. Those are my version of the holy grail of TOE. Others may differ of course. And for a woman to get to that plateau, it takes a series of progression of the emotions and longing that evolve into something of significance. I am somewhat freer with using the terms. I buy into the idea that we are capable of loving more than one person. That one person has a lot of love to give. That love is not love if it’s not given away. Why would we not spread the love? It is such a beautiful thing not to be shared with the people in your lives, people around you. Most people would throw a standard TOE like babe or sweetie to those that come into our daily lives. Sweetie is a standard for me. All my girlfriends have earned that label. I don’t think that it is such an exaggeration or over doing it to even be calling my girls darling or sayang. I have shared many secrets with my flock and even after knowing all my flaws they are still there providing me my life’s balance, supporting all the decisions I make; even the stupid ones. Doesn’t matter who comes in and out of my life, they’re there as I am for them. So the idea of a singular soul mate doesn’t really work for me. I actually have a handful of soul mates who I hang out with on a regular basis. Our activities are quite predictable – karaoke, dinner, movie or skinny lattes at my pad that usually come with a dash of gossip and men talk. Yes, we do talk about guys, probably just as much as guys would think about sex. And yes, we think and talk sex too. Probably more than an average guys would. Sex, food, travel and love are our main topics. Between Azura and I, we could be talking about anything under the sun but our conversation will always take a detour to the dark alley. TMI for many but we communicate in a censorship-free zone, my soul mates and I.

What I would call the knights and the princes who would come into my life differ from one to the next. My feelings will guide me and take me there. Maybe I have too much feeling that I can afford to be generous with my TOE. But then there are some people who are just too stingy with theirs. That doesn't mean that they are cold and void of romance. “Tis in the inflection comes the tenderness”, is a recent perspective that I concur with. I can’t deny it is all in the evolution of any relationship. You start cold and you end up somewhere warm, fuzzy and caliente. When the honey comes easy, it makes me nervous. I’m repelled by the scent of desperation. As to what I’d like to be called, as long as I’m not a generic ‘you’ or dear, which makes me feel like an old hag; anything goes.

To all lovers out there, may you find honey pots so sweet that you might even let yourself be called baby even when you have silver streaks in your hair and clearly you are off by decades to qualify as one.