Grant was an average guy. He didn't even know why he had come out to this place. He had had a long and sordid history, and found himself here alone… but that was about to change.
When he was growing up, he had the usual mix of good luck and bad luck. He had an interest in sports, but wasn’t extraordinary in any way when it came to his hobbies. He just enjoyed them. As he grew up he had a burning desire to be special to someone… at times, to anyone. He didn’t need the spotlight, he just wanted to be loved, and to have someone to love. He went through a failed marriage, fortunately had had no kids because even though he couldn’t admit it even to himself, he always felt like he needed the attention. He tended to think of himself as a victim, which of course was stylish in this modern day society – everyone was a victim of something or other, after all. But people had been groomed to be litigious and told they deserved the best, and so there was no gratitude, and thus no happiness (for one cannot be happy if one isn’t grateful for anything… they see the universe as simply owed to them, and they the king of it all, always watching out for the next person to just try to victimize them.)
So after his marriage failed, he got into the really dark stuff. He had been with both men and women in all kinds of ways and combinations, diving into hedonism. And after a decade of this, he discovered he felt emptier and lonelier than ever – after all, lust and animal pleasures only go so far, they simply couldn’t fill the empty hole in him that longed for real relationship, real love, instead of lust and people using one another to feel good about themselves. It was a strange thing, that one could be so very sexually and emotionally close to someone else, even share many opinions, yet as long as there was that mutual using going on – even when they told each other and even themselves that it was really love… the truth was obvious. People didn’t stay together, only as long as their own needs were being met; after that, so long and on to the next person.
He had been in sexual bliss, felt emotional warmth, and it had all been a lie, because he and those he had been “intimate” with lacked the caring and love to truly love someone else enough to work through the hard life issues that most people seem to run from when the newness wears off and two people discover that this person with me isn’t some perfect fantasy, but a flawed and needy and human individual just like themselves.
So Grant discovered himself wishing not for a sex partner, not for a cheap thrill or excitement, and not even for what passes as “true love.” There were so many kinks and so many twists in his life, he just wished for some normalcy, for a true friend who would be willing to stand by him, and who he would stand by in the hard times. He had had enough sex for a lifetime, and he saw how powerful it was, yet how empty it was after… a sweet promise whispered from a pillow, that faded with the dawn; a candy coated lie that reigned supreme today, leaving billions of unhappy and pathetic people. And it wasn't just sexual use... people bartered themselves in so many ways; the co-dependent mother using her children to feel needed and loved, instead of preparing them for life; the preacher reveling in and worshiping the spotlight on Sunday mornings, instead of truly seeking God’s love and sharing it; the college student infatuated with sexual gratification and not really caring one bit about all those partners – be they online or in bed. So on and on it could go, and each one in denial, looking at other relationships as “proof” that they weren’t guilty of this… yet blind to how they used people in those other relationships too. Blindness and darkness, their egos lighting the way.
I wish I had an honest friend, not someone out to use me for their own gratification in some way. I’m tired of using people, and I’m tired of them using me. These were Grant’s thoughts when he bumped into Lance.
Everyone wants to be touched, in a real, meaningful way. An honest touch is more precious than any sexual thrill; live long enough, and you will discover this.
An amazing thing happened that day. Lance transformed that day. It wasn’t a physical transformation, it was something much more profound. He learned to truly care about others, he learned the power of becoming and having a real friend.