Hurt-Comfort In Real Life

[vulgarweed]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., "cindysphynx" <cindysphynx at c...> wrote:
> Following up on our discussion on the main list . . . 
> 
> I was interested to see so many of the women folk admit that the 
> attraction of Lupin/Sirius/Snape is this Hurt-Comfort idea.  
> 
> That got me wondering whether the people who find themselves 
> reacting strongly to Hurt-Comfort in fiction wind up with Hurt-
> Comfort men in real life.
> 
> Well, do you? Hmmmm?
> > Cindy (who wound up with a Sensitive Man, but not the Hurt-
Comfort 
> variety)

Hmmmm, (know I've been lurking--been meaning to switch to the email 
version of this list for a while now). See no one's really answered 
this one.

I would say when I was younger, yes, I did. I was very infatuated 
with young men who fit the wounded-bird/no-one-but-me-can-REALLY-
understand him image. I had to learn the hard way by being involved 
in a pretty nasty _mutually_ psychologically abusive obsession with a 
very mentally ill person (I was hardly the picture of health myself) 
to cure me of it. After that I kind of took the H/C in the other 
direction by getting involved with someone who liked broken birds and 
fixer-uppers himself and seemed such the White Knight in his sardonic 
way: a bit older, made more money and paid the bills, seemed so much 
more "together". But that didn't work out either, because the dirty 
little secret is that both rescuers and rescued alike after a time 
come to resent each other a LOT if they get stuck in those roles. We 
parted, after narrowly dodging the bullet of marriage, and are 
working on being friends again now that we live in different cities.

My guy now is someone I see as a peer in almost every way. He's a 
little younger and flakier, but that's a relief after Mr. Daddy. 
We're *both* impecunious artsy types with strong wills: unlike in the 
last relationship nobody plays the "somebody has to be the 
breadwinner/protector" martyr, so we're broke and content, as opposed 
to not-broke and resentful (with one partner hating every millisecond 
of his accounting-firm day job, yeeesh). The important thing is, we 
put our heads _together_ to make decisions--which means if we get it 
right or screw up, the credit or blame is *shared* and not a cause 
for head games. Real-life relationships are so much nicer with a 
minimum of psychodrama. If something awful happened to him, 
goddessforbid, I'd certainly do everything in my power to help, but I 
don't think I could eroticize it.

As I've said, though, fantasy is a *totally* different animal. 
Probably Too Much Information here, but there is a definite BDSM 
component to my sexuality, combined with a strong element of the 
fantastic...I mean, ordinary men, pish tosh--bring on the 
otherworldly creatures. A little blood always gets spilled in a good 
kinky fairy tale.

I'm very mildly bi-ish; personally I'm more drawn to women who kick a 
whole lot of ass as opposed to the ones who need rescuing...blech.

AV