Masochism

Once in a while an interaction of mine exposes my masochism for what it is – mostly vanquished, but still omnipresent.

It manifests most clearly in my desperate desire to extract from a woman what she doesn’t have to give.

L first, and then V, were revelations to me – revelations that I could get what I wanted in a primarily sexual relationship, that I need not be continually frustrated, denied, failed.

I triumphally identified, recently, that such a thing exists, that I can, indeed, have it (although, as I’ve often written, it’s much harder, and more complicated, to have than it is to get).

Once in a while, though, I march toward inevitable – and repeated – frustration and disappointment. I do so compulsively, desperately, insanely hoping that somehow, I will succeed. That I’ll transform someone who can’t give me what I want into someone who can, that I can escape the fact that I’m not capable of being satisfied by someone, that she’s not capable of satisfying me.

This is an infantile fantasy that I’m omnipotent, that a) if someone (almost, but not always, a woman) isn’t giving me what I want, it must be my fault, and that therefore b) I should be able, somehow, to extract from her that which I want – that if I just try hard enough, just say the right thing, do the right thing, magic will occur and what I want miraculously will be produced.

It’s no fun, at all – not for me, and not for my partner.