I’m a little worried that my non-binary climber/skater friend with benefits & I might have different expectations or levels of attachment — theirs being stronger than mine. I hope that’s not the case — and I need to clarify ASAP.
Where I stand in this relationship, as with many of my closest & most meaningful friendships/relationships, is a desire or willingness to explore together, while still leaving each other plenty of independent room.
For me, exploring together is a very powerful way to build trust with someone. It requires a base of trust to start with, that might even just be instinctive or an intuition at the beginning. But then exploring together, going on adventures together, is what strengthens the bond for me and builds trust.
It’s always been this way for me: from my sailing buddy (& sexual/romantic partner) from over two decades ago, who’s still a close friend; to a dear friend with whom I went on a “fun girls trip” in the summer of 2019, exploring activities and parts of the U.S. that were new to both of us to help each other get over respective heart-breaks; to the little trips discovering new parts of coastal California and Southern Colorado with my dear friend from Iowa; to exploring art and gender through photography with my artist/swimmer friend in California; to exploring Pride events and queer clubs and sex and gender through sexuality with my European queer ex-lover this past spring & summer; to the exploration of emotions, thoughts, identity, and gender with many close friends here in Colorado and elsewhere; to the climbing adventure in Utah, driving through a snow storm and trouble shooting car engine problems with my closest climbing buddy a month ago. I’d like to be able to explore together with my non-binary climber/skater friend with benefits, too — do some trips together, both here in the U.S. and abroad, since we have similar traveling styles & desires; explore sex and gender though sexuality together; and simply, but also maybe most importantly, overall explore the possibility of having a very deep connection, a relationship that includes emotional closeness, intellectual alignment, sexual & romantic aspects without being in a standard relationship, being “royal chosen family” for each other (as they put it) while avoiding the “relationship escalator”, i.e. queering it together and thus building more & more trust.
Is that possible?
The Little Prince and the Fox 