"Good enough" partner

My boyfriend/partner is Swedish, and there is a Swedish word, "lagom," which has no direct translation, but can mean "good enough," or suitable, adequate, just right, perfect, normal, average, ordinary, depending on context, but never implies that anything is lacking. There's no direct equivalent English word, but when the farmer from Wisconsin says "pretty good okay" that's pretty close.

He (my Sig) got himself in trouble when we were talking about sex and he said he at first found it hard to believe that a woman so ordinary (me ) could be so filled with (sexual) desire. I did not take kindly to being called ordinary.

But, he just meant that there was nothing abnormal about me. Except my appetite for sex. With him. He didn't mean that I wasn't special. Swedish lagom. Ordinary and special, good enough and just right, normal and perfect. All in one word. Pretty good, okay, eh!

 

I dunno, my Spousemart order would be really close to what I got.

 

I thought this about my husband before we were married.
He checked all the important boxes.
He was not perfect. But I realized I was happier, more mellow, and balanced around him. And therefore he was my match, he was good enough for me.
Sure, there were other men who were better in bed, or who my family liked more. But honestly - he's the best person for me. And I'm glad I'm with him. And since I made that conscience decision to be loyal to him, everything else has fallen into place.

 

Precisely.

 

Those kind of choices are what makes a good relationship instead of a "situation."

Men who really like sex (instead of just wanting to get their ashes hauled at their convenience) are very trainable. Because they enjoy the act, not just to Git-R-Done.

When I first dragged Sig into the bedroom on our second date, he'd been widowed from a long term marriage where sex was grudging, once or twice a month, mish in the dark. I'd had better, but I would never tell him (or any other man) that. Certainly not anyone I wanted to see again.

But with real communication, and "doing it" hundreds of times he's up there at the top, ready, willing, playful, and, oh so able. I've been five years with a disciplined, responsible, adult, who's a great lover. I truly can't imagine what could make it better with someone else.

Hire for character, train for skill, as they say.

 

Everything and everyone has to be epic.

That's what the Internet says and Cosmo says.

 

Certainly no reason to "step away from the keyboard." But I'll stand by my usage of the word training, and here's why. One of my aunts says that training is something you do with a dog, but that educating should apply to people. I disagree. When a practice requires specific skills in addition to knowledge, train is an appropriate word.

That's why @snowy had to do teacher training practicum before she could be certified to teach. Joshua Bell is a classically trained violinist. Frank Lloyd Wright was a trained architect. You want to go under the knife of a trained surgeon, not just one who knows your anatomy inside and out. You want skill in addition to knowledge.

Violin pedagogue Shinichi Suzuki put it perfectly when he said, "Knowledge is not skill. Knowledge plus ten-thousand times is skill."

And pleasuring a woman requires specific skills. Men also, of course, but I think to a lesser degree. Men, correct me if I'm wrong. But I've heard men say "The worst blow-job I ever got was great" that proves my point. We are all born with the necessary instinct to breed, but that's not the same as giving (or receiving, for that matter) sexual pleasure. We can all benefit from training, in that regard.

A good illustration of the difference that I ran across is that most parents, even many conservatives, would approve of a sex education class in middle school. But even the most enlightened, progressive, liberal parent would not likely want their fourteen year old daughter getting sex training at school.