Am I Easy on Vacation?

Now that I’m back to the usual grind, I’m momentarily shocked at how I acted on vacation. If I were in public relations, I’d describe that night as, “acting on instinct and with total freedom.” But my former Catholic School teachers might, in the bright mug-shot light of day, say that I was acting, well -- easy.

Easy??? Me???: Oh no, no, no. In normal dating life, you’re lucky- VERY lucky to get a damn kiss at the end of the night with me. Come upstairs? I don’t think so – you won’t be coming in my house or anywhere else near me until I know who you really are. I follow the advice of the Millionaire Matchmaker – no sex until monogamy. Any guy thinking I’m following the “three date rule” is going to be vastly disappointed.

But on Vacation: In the midst of the ocean breeze and the aforementioned blanket of stars at two in the morning, I was easier than a teenager completing a Fisher Price puzzle. I wanted him. Now. And it didn’t matter what he did for a living, what his religion was, or whether or not he liked dogs. Which makes me wonder, was I using him?

Matters of casual sexual activity are generally pejoratively described as a man pursuing a woman for cheap physical gratification. The woman, overwhelmed by his injurious charms and lecherous leanings, succumbs to a brief coitus. Then, walking in shame with her torn-off dress in her hands, she returns to her room scorned and ambivalent, feeling both sadness and regret. But I don’t. Not even kinda.

Maybe it’s my Thirties: Perhaps getting to my thirties has allowed me to wholly embrace my own femininity and not to apologize for indulging in a brief dalliance for the pure joy of connecting with another person. Maybe months and months of careful weeding of potential partners with self-enforced celibacy allowed me to break free and embrace a moment for just that – the moment, instead of focusing on what it will all mean for me and my future, or how such an activity should make me fell about myself. I feel great. And I don’t see a reason not to.

It’s Not How I’ll Always Be: I luxuriate in the not-so-distant memory of my night on the upper verandah deck last week. Do I think I’ll take home that attitude? No- most lifetime partnerships don’t start with passionate long-distance hook-ups in strange parts of the world on a floating mass of iron.

Maybe that’s the true magic of vacation- allowing yourself to be whoever it is you want to be – the free version of yourself separate from hours or sales quotas at work, family dinners to attend and bank balances to worry about. I want to take a part of that girl home though- being reminded of how much fun I can be, and how free I can feel, was definitely a good thing.

Melting on vacation is an easy feat, and being an easy-bake-oven, just once in awhile, can’t be that bad, or in fact, can actually be, that good.