Re: [Boating: Hugh and Atticus]
"It's not for everyone, but it's definitely helped me," Hugh shrugged. The time in which he'd felt strange about talking about the fact that he had a therapist was really long past. It had gotten him through daddy issues, and university challenges, and the trial and relationships, and mostly he just wished that his therapist lived in Repose so he didn't have to figure out how to talk around Repose strangeness.
Hugh took a sip of his own coffee and considered this notion. He'd just said that he did open relationships, although really what he'd done was various forms of hook-ups, the handful of relationships that had been more steady had also been open in the sense that he'd been clear that he was still dating other people, and it hadn't been pushed, but they also hadn't lasted. He shifted. "I think my views have changed. When I was younger I just went out to meet people, to have a good time together, dancing, or watching a film, and we'd end up back at my place or theirs, but it wasn't really a relationship. And I had one long lasting benefits relationship and I fell in love, and it didn't work, but I think it showed me that I did want something steady after all. It's one thing to have casual when they're all different and you don't see them more than once, but it's another when it's the same person over and over."
He turned the coffee mug around a couple of turns. "I don't think commitment is about ownership either, it's not something that you can demand from another, it's something they give, and they've always got the freedom to rescind it. That's... the tricky part," he sighed. "I suppose what I'm coming to understand is communication is hugely important," he hadn't done so beautifully at that recently, and he grimaced slightly before reaching for the coffee. "If or when I get myself to a point where I'm willing to try love again, I don't want open, I want... I want someone who wants me. Not sometimes, or every other weekend, or because I've got a mansion with a lake view and it's nice. I want to be wanted and I want to want someone back, and I don't think open really fits that well. I guess."