Things that are left unsaid

I recently spoke with a good male friend about his latest conquest.

He has admittedly been sleeping with a multitude of different women of late, simply because he can.

As he told me about this latest woman that he'd slept with, I asked him what she believed the nature of their relationship is and he told me that she believes that they are sleeping together and building toward something---that "something" being a committed relationship.

He then went on to explain how he did not want to be with her at all but is actively pursuing another person.

This led me to wonder: If this woman had the knowledge that the relationship did not have the potential to evolve beyond the sex, would she really be interested in sleeping with him at all?

Granted, many of us have sex with people because it feels good---nothing more---nothing less.

In most cases, many of us want to have sex with someone that we can potentially, build a relationship with.

How many of us "date" people that we know we have not got the slightest chance of a future with?

I know that I, personally have done it on more than one occasion and have justified not telling the other party because I felt that it was not his business.

A part of me wonders whether or not the knowledge of that would really make a difference when it came to his decision to see me.

After all, if one is getting to spend time and have sex with someone that they are attracted to, does it really matter if it will not turn into more?

This information might be significant to some. The knowledge could ultimately impact their lives in more ways than one could imagine.

I suppose that it reveals that the things that we don't say in relationships are often just as important, if not much more important than those that we do verbalize to each other.

I think about my situation with Ron and how things played out.

For a very long time he did not bother to articulate that he felt that we really had no long term potential. Had he verbalized that when he initially made the conclusion, I would not have bothered to see him anymore or, at the very least, I would not have bothered being exclusive.

This thinking leads me to Damien. Damien was honest from the start about his unwillingness to get into a relationship. He did the opposite of what Ron did and was open about that from the outset.

This knowledge helped to keep me from blaming him for my dissatisfaction with the "relationship" and ultimately offered me the incentive to choose to stop dealing with him romantically.

I wonder what were the things that he didn't say to me that he must have thought about me or the relationship. Would I be surprised by them?