Quote Originally Posted by Starfall View Post
I would never do this (benching - ed.) either. I do however know sx firsts who have been known to do this (aka, have multiple flirtations going on at once or keep someone on the back burner should their current relationship not work). I've also known sx firsts who easily grow bored of people and have strung them along as part of a game/ego high.
I was surprised to read about benching. I have let relationships taper off before, and I didn't associate that with being sx-first, but maybe it is. I guess my thinking on this is that a relationship can be intimate or impersonal or anything in between, and it is the actions which are repeatedly taken by the participants which determine its exact nature. The nature of the relationship is related to the effort put forth and the purposely arranged circumstances, rather than, say, a letter of commitment.

I also tend to have a lot of relationships going at once. For me, this is not an ego thing (at least, I don't think it is) or a back-burner thing (I find this repellent), but rather it is a way to slowly learn more about several people over time. I read that when someone is lacking in their first function's needs (sx-intimacy for me) they use their second function (so-social for me) to achieve those needs. But once I do find a close relationship, I simply fall back and stop looking at anything else. I don't think it is healthy to simply look at someone you just saw five minutes ago and say "You look incredibly good, let's form a permanent partnership". I also do get bored with some people, but not with others. I imagine that everyone is this way. When I find someone whom I like a lot, I tend to keep talking to them. Sometimes, indefinitely.

When I was first learning about my ex-wife, I was pretty slow to commit. It was six months of dating before I thought she might be permanent material. I raised the question of how she felt about marriage, and she (SLI e5 sp/so/sx - desire for security and independence) said that we should not get married, but instead she would continue living in her apartment, I in my house, and we could just see each other a few times a week for whatever. I told her that that was not a life I could live (LIE e8 sx/so/sp - desire for merging and support), and we would either get closer or get farther apart.
She agreed to be married, then years later she moved back to an apartment and we got divorced when it finally became clear to me that I could not get her back.
I should have listened to her when she told me who she was, because she never changed what she basically needed. On the other hand, if I had done that, we would never have had a son.