"Good advice, like good medicine
is hard to swallow."
[Chinese Proverb]

Even for someone who spends much time in reflection on the past (as I do), or someone who spends time philosophizing in one's head over the nature of causality and how a single event can trigger an invisible chain of other events felt years after (as I do), there still remain a great many "M.T. Belly's moments" in one's life when you come to a stark realization about oneself, about something you've done, once or repeatedly, long long ago and from which has stemmed some aspect, some part of your life, forever subtlely changed.

Or put another way, isn't it amazing how, at 32, you can discover some small thing about yourself which may be consequence of a seemingly-trivial decision you made over a decade ago, and have simply always lived with without question or even pause?

And I'm not talking about the sort of life-altering things we normally think of, those are to be expected: deaths, changes of religion, and so on. I'm not even talking about a life-changing inspiration like a good book or even something really clever someone said to you once. I'm talking "seemingly trivial", and which you'd never suspect might have affected you for years without notice.

And it's interesting, isn't it, the way the human mind and body becomes so easily acclimated over time after such a simple decision? For instance, at some point in my youth I took up snacking just before bedtime. I've become so accustomed to it, especially of late, that I've come to notice I don't sleep right now if I don't. I wake up in the wee hours of the morning feeling hungry. By morning I feel starved and it would be impossible to sleep late.

I've become so accustomed to drinking Pepsi over the years that its caffeine doesn't seem to keep me awake even if I have one late at night, though I do crave it in a very tangible way early in the day, and it never seems to give me heartburn, even at times when other colas, fruit juices, or even water would.

Small decisions made long ago led to lasting effects right up to today.

But that fact that I snack before bedtime or drink Pepsi is probably still pretty trivial itself, right? Of course.

But I'm reading a sex column on the internet the other day, one I read weekly, and there's this reader who wrote in bitching about how he found it near impossible to achieve orgasm with a condom on, yadda yadda yadda. But amongst the to-be-expected response of 'cope, ya nimrod', what resulted, from the columnist and from other readers who responded, was something that'd never crossed my mind: all condoms are not equal.

I've used the same brand of condoms since I was 18. I've never questioned it. I've sometimes found them a little uncomfortable, and yes, I've sometimes had difficulty achieving orgasm. Once or twice it was suggested to me that I should try the "large" kind, but I never have, if only because I'd be a little embarassed about buying them; I've always claimed large condoms are for men with large egos, not large members. But here's the thing: I can count on one hand the number of times I've penetrated a woman without one on. To me, having myself wrapped in a good ole loveglove is... status quo. It's as much a part of sex to me as anything else. I've used other brands maybe a dozen times. So we're talking 99.999% of all the sex I've had has always involved a condom, and always the same kind of condom. And here, in this column, I find people writing in saying 'oh no, you should try this brand, because I've always found them much better than that brand.' And to top it off, the brand one of them is slagging is mine.

Is it possible, that after 14 years of sex, that all the sex I've been having has been just a little bit less than what it could have been, because long, long ago, I made a seemingly-trivial decision one day in a drugstore, and have never stopped to question it since? Yes, yes it is entirely possible.

What this means, of course, is that I need a lover who's willing to put up with an odd experiment and a bit of teasing some night. And that can't be the one-night-stand kind of lover, obviously. This has to be a proper-lover: an ongoing relationship with lots of open communication and good sex. Until I find her, I'll have to live with a rather nagging question.