This Is Why You Should Have Amazing Sex With Someone Who Is Not Your Soulmate

Take a moment to imagine your perfect partner. What qualities does (s)he possess? What does (s)he look like? Is (s)he handsome? Smart? Funny? Successful? Loving? Amazing in bed?

Mine is passionate, sexy, well spoken, self-assured, and successful in his own right. He’s happy, attractive and deeply in-tune with our intimacy. He touches me confidently like he’s stroking the chords of a string instrument that he has already mastered, and he makes me feel secure and adventurous in bed.

In a perfect world, we are all living happily ever after with our dream partners; however, passing the time until we find this person can be long, lonely and arduous. For the majority of us, it takes years to find a person who possesses all of our desires, and in the mean time it’s important for us to have other relationships and experiences to help us learn, grow and fine-tune our true desires.

If you’re anything like me you have yet to find your dream partner, and you spend your time scratching off ‘partial win’ lottery tickets hoping each date, relationship or sexual encounter will get you closer to your perfect match.

Having sex with NOT “The One”: A true story

Now, I want you to imagine having incredible sex with someone who you would never dream of bringing around your friends and family. But, the sex is good, oh so good, and you just can’t get enough. You avoid dinner parties, social gatherings and basic outings, Essentially, you spend all of your time indoors, safely hidden away within the parameters of your house.

I have had this experience, and I enjoyed it very much. My fling was with a man I would have never in my wildest dreams envisioned bringing into my life experience, let alone my bedroom.

His name was Brian, and we spent three months working together during the summer of 2014. He was tall, dark and 30 pounds overweight. He was blunt and culturally rude. Having immigrated from Turkey 10 years previously, he believed in the superiority of men and submission of women.

Brian was 41-years-old and 14 years my senior. Black curly hair covered every inch of his body, including most of his face and head. His stomach was shaped like that of a woman in her third trimester of pregnancy, and his small dark eyes beamed intently, watching and examining each woman as she walked by. Although he would hardly produce a 1.5 on a scale of one to 10, he still had the confidence to grade women passerby’s by society’s rigorous standards of beauty.

Initially, I found myself totally turned off by him. However, one night after a particularly busy day at work he invited me out for drinks—something he had done several times before, but I always declined. Despite that, work had been long and hard, and I desperately wanted to unwind with a drink, so this time (much to my surprise) I accepted.

We ordered two glasses of Pinot Grigio and talked about work, society, our backgrounds and dreams. He was a basic man, happy with his life so long as it was full of submissive women and a comfortable amount of money. He exuded a special kind of confidence, the kind that dissolutions people into trying things they probably shouldn’t and I found it engrossing and sexy.

As our conversation continued, I felt a shift in our sexual energies—they were aligning. I saw him reborn in a new light, and I could feel my libido throbbing– it was desperate for some action. I looked at him in all of his glory–the hairiness covering his body became a manly form of identification, his overweight belly suddenly represented years of free choices and the ability to act on his desires.

We went back to my place that night and had amazing sex. He knew exactly what to do—how to hold me, where to place his hands, how high to life my hips and exactly when to finish. I sat on my bed trembling in pleasure afterwards.

There was no future for us—of this I was certain. Brian and I had different goals and dreams in life. He believed in the submission of women whereas I believe in our equality. Physically, he was not my type, and while I could learn to get over that, outside of the bedroom he possessed absolutely zero of my desired qualities in a partner.

I knew I wanted to continue sleeping with him, but would avoid labeling our intimacy as anything more than two adults consenting to regular sexual relations.

Initially, he didn’t press me to be more than his ‘adult’ friend. But, as the months passed and we continued to meet up at my apartment several times a week he did begin to question our future.

“What are we? Are you sleeping with other men?” He would ask demandingly.

“We are two adults who meet to have mutually beneficial relations, and no, I am not sleeping with anyone else.” I would reply.

“But, I want to be with you. I want to be your boyfriend,” he continued.

“I honestly just do not see us together. I am having fun now, doing what we are doing, but I am not ready for a commitment,” I replied, trying to be honest without risking the end of our sexual relationship.

We continued in this manner for three months. We never went out to dinner. He didn’t meet my family or friends (in fact, they didn’t even know about him). Our public appearances were nonexistent as we only met in the late hours of the night. It all came crashing down when I quit our mutual job, and decided it was time to end our summer of fun because I knew in my heart it was time for me to move on.

The Benefits of Good Sex (With or Especially Without a Relationship)

Now, you may be asking yourself, what is the point? Why bother having a casual sexual fling with someone who you don’t want to have a real relationship with?

Well, there are several reasons I encourage you (if you have not already) to experience what I did:

• Good sex is good for you. Seriously! Not only is sex a good form of physical exercise, but it also helps your body to release prolactin which is a hormone designed to help your body relax and sleep.
• It can reduce stress and anxiety. Sex allows you to channel your frustrations and feelings into a physical release.
• It can regulate your hormones. Regular sexual activity keeps your estrogen and testosterone levels in balance.
• Having sex with someone you would not normally consider to fall under your select soulmate “type”  allows you to explore intimacy more in-depth. Sex with someone who you would never consider boyfriend material can take you outside of your comfort zone.
• When you take the focus off of growing a relationship, and just focus on sex, you become more in-tune with what you like in the bedroom and feel more confident and comfortable to be assertive and adventurous. (After all, your friends and family will never meet this person and be in a position to judge, right?)

What I Learned

By having great casual sex with someone outside my normal type, I learned that life is not static, so why should our partner(s) be?

When I first ended things with Brian, I spent a lot of time thinking about the time we spent together. I asked myself, “was our time together a necessary stepping stone for the future of my love life? Or was it just good sex?”

Relationships aren’t static—instead they are constantly evolving and adapting. It is part of our nature as human beings to learn, grow and change. Why should we expect our partners to remain unchanged while we spend our lives going through personal metamorphoses?

We need to be more flexible in regards to our expectations of others as we enter into relationships (or relations), and understand they have a need to change just as much as well do.

Remember, people come into our lives to help us learn lessons about ourselves, and our physical experience. They are our teachers and our guides. It’s important to embrace those who can help us transform into a better version of ourselves. For me, that transformation happened with Brian. Thanks to him I am confident and sexually empowered (Shhh! Don’t tell him. He would be devastated if he knew this! :).

I am also open to all types of men, so long as they possess my core requirements (happiness, love and kindness) and we have a true spiritual connection. I feel freer and self-assured in my choices. He released a part of me that I didn’t even know was trapped.

Now, I am not saying you shouldn’t have a list of certain core characteristics you want your partner to have. Some things are non-negotiable and that’s okay.

What I am suggesting is that you open yourself up to being with someone who you can learn from. Perhaps your “Brian” is embarrassing like mine, or you feel a sexual but not a physical connection with him or her, and that’s okay. Stepping outside of your typical “type” is not an easy thing to do, but it can help you discover who you want to be as someone’s partner, and who you want your significant other to be as well. And hey, at the very least you will learn something about yourself, and maybe even enjoy yourself too.

This post originally appeared at Attract The One.