Not long ago, I decided I deserved a short vacation in a warm locale, and one that involved copious sex. I realized that I had never (gasp!) gone on vacation with a guy I truly enjoyed sleeping with. So I broached the idea to my A/C repairman, he said yes, and within days, we’d booked a hotel on a beach.
I dreamt of a vacation that involved sitting by the ocean, sipping fruity drinks, reading, and having sex — and for the most part, that’s exactly what I got. It was sunny and warm and the mojitos flowed. I read not one but two novels. With both of us half-naked most of the time, I was in a perpetual state of turn-on. We would sit on the beach in our swimsuits, getting increasingly aroused until we couldn’t take it anymore and ran back to the room to consume each other. Even the plane trip there was hot: He wore a blue sweater that matched his eyes and I spent the entire trip fantasizing about taking it off once we got to the hotel. Which is exactly what I did.
Still, the trip wasn’t perfect. By any means. I was reminded in those three days of just how much you learn about a person when you travel with them. That’s when you discover how someone engages with the world around them. How early they like to get to the airport. How they drive. How often they brush their teeth. How they like to spend their free time. How they handle surprises and disappointments. How they engage with service staff. How they act when they are drunk. How much sex they can have in a 72-hour period. (NOT NEARLY ENOUGH, in this case, sigh.)
I got all this information about my A/C repairman on our short trip, and not all of it was welcome. Some of it, frankly, sucked, and maybe I’ll get into the details in a future post. But such is life. You get to know someone and sometimes discover that you don’t gel as well as you thought. It’s just that traveling with someone puts all those details on display so quickly, like an cringey fashion show where all the models are on speed.
So no, I didn’t enjoy his company the entire time. I had a lot of fun, but I was ready to fly home when it was time.
Still, even the bad parts of the trip were good in terms of what they revealed about myself — the new me, that is.
This was the first time I traveled somewhere with a man and did exactly what I wanted. The guys I’ve adventured with in the past always had strong opinions about what to do and when, and I’ve almost always deferred to them. This time, maybe because I give zero fucks, am finally centering myself and am not looking for a long-term partner, I articulated how I wanted to spend my days, and then I did exactly as I wished. He didn’t push back — and that, to be clear, was also amazing. A little voice in my head sometimes needled, Is he having enough fun? Is this what he really wants to be doing? But then I told that voice to shut up and let myself enjoy my vacation. And, honestly, he did seem happy joining me on the beach chaises, even though he didn’t bring reading material other than HVAC trade magazines, which looked like pure torture but I kind of loved because I get turned on by men who know things I don’t.
I also handled the low points of the trip rather differently than I would have in the past. At one point, at a bar, I lost my shit and walked out on my A/C repairman after he made a stream of incendiary political comments that contradicted my values. (This was after an earlier conversation in which I calmly asked him to please keep his political comments to himself, because we clearly had very different beliefs, which was fine, but I didn’t want to argue while we were drinking.) In the past, in moments of anger with men I’ve been involved with, I’ve typically held back. I’ve seethed, but bitten my tongue. I was always too afraid to speak my mind, because I didn’t want to rock the boat and give him cause to second guess being with me. What was most important to past me was being partnered, being accepted — so I almost always relented and deferred. And then, over time, I lost myself. I’m still a terribly indecisive person, and I think that’s because I’ve had too much practice ignoring and suppressing what I really want.
But now, it seems, I’m starting to find myself again. On that trip, my good girl filter was gone. I said what I felt, without fear of rejection. I set boundaries and told him that if we were going to keep seeing each other, I needed him to respect me and them. If he wanted to walk away, fine, good riddance. My allegiance was to myself, not to him. But he didn’t. He listened, and he accommodated. I’m still not sure where we’re headed, and we may not hook up much longer. But I’m hoping that this vacation I took from my insecurity becomes a more permanent thing.