Sex, Feelings, & Flawed Expectations

How to Become a Better Lover - Pt. 1

Joshua McKnight - Pexels

Hello friends, and welcome back to Gay Gourmet! Today, I'll continue laying out my framework for a healthy relationship inspired by some tenets of Romantic Pessimism. However, as I was writing, I found this article was well over double the length of my usual ones, so I've broken it into two more digestible parts, one today and the second half next week. If you haven't read last week's piece, I strongly advise that you do so here!

Now that we've defined Romanticism and Romantic Pessimism let's dive into how you can practice this in your life. Remember, these are tools to help you see unhelpful lessons and then create happier, healthier relationships. This is not an easy thing to do. Our patterns and expectations have been ingrained in us since we were children. Even if our parents did excellent jobs raising us without preconceptions about love, we all still exist in a world where Disney is our formative educator and I've yet to see a kid's cartoon about the daily struggles of a healthy relationship.

This Part One will tell you how to:

• Ditch the myth of "The One." - because searching for perfection will only set you up for disappointment

• Love your partner’s (many) flaws. - so you can fight for the relationship rather than against each other

• Let go of the honeymoon period with grace. - those feelings will fade, but what's underneath is even better

• Reframe your relationship with sex. - because desire changes, and that's an opportunity, not a failure

If any of that sounds interesting and you want to support Gay Gourmet as I help folks untangle the mess of relationship teachings we've been fed, please subscribe below! And if you're already a subscriber, thank you so much for your support, it really means the world to me!