Samantha Jones is my favorite character from Sex and the City.
I know what typing that sentence means on the interwebs, especially on the Black Interwebs, but I stand behind this statement. Firmly.
While her bedroom antics and perpetual inappropriateness made for great television and a great movie (Let’s pretend SATC 2 never happened), none of those things are what resonated with me about her character. For me, it was her signature line:
I love you, but I love me more.
That line represents the balance that has eluded me in my relationship experiences: the ability to love, without losing myself. In my mind, I high-fived Samantha every time she uttered those words.
This morning, my long-time blog buddy Muze, posed this question on Twitter: “If you could only have great Love or great sex, which would you choose?” By this she meant, you could have great sex with the absence of love, or great love with the absence of sex. Most of the answers she received were in favor of great love, but mine? Not so much.
“I’m a practical girl,” I said. “Great sex with a likable man (or men) trumps great love without sex.”
As I read people wax poetic about the beauty of great love, I thought to myself, “That’s fine, but I can do without.” Whoa whoa whoa. Was I sure? This couldn’t be the same hardcore, ride-or-die chick from my early to mid 20s who wailed along with Bryan Adams “Oh, I would fight for you. Yeah, I’d lie for you. Cross the wire for you. Yeah, I die for you…” Who was this voice in my head and how long had she been there?
And then it hit me. I’m not interested in that kind of epic, sweeping, life-altering love anymore. The stakes that come with it are too high, and there are certain chips that I’m not willing to gamble.
This conversation came up over the weekend between The Boy and I. We were riding around, listening to the Best of Phonte mixtape, and I explained that Phonte changed the way I viewed the male/female dynamic with his line: “A woman’s life is love, a man’s love is life.” I juxtaposed it with a scene from last week’s episode of “Sons of Anarchy” where Gemma, the show’s matriarch, said this of her late husband: “I was nineteen. He was my goddamned world.” The Boy wondered aloud “But who would want that kind of love, though?” To which I answered, “You’d be surprised.”
I’ve felt enough intense highs and lows in life to know that I’m happier operating in the middle. Blame it on the fact that I’m a Libra. Blame it on my history of mental illness. Call me what you will, but the days of wanting a man to be “my everything” are behind me. At least for now and the forseeable future.
To bring this back to the original point, I think this means I’m getting closer my goal: being able to say “I love you, but I love me more.”
