Sex in the Grass | | Silver Haze in the City

In our modern society built for pillow talk pitches, how does one trim through marketable interactions for meaningful connections?

You wake up in the morning, get ready, feed the dog, stop for pressed juice, and then it’s off to the vision of the new generation of work days. Step in and you will see a merging of the days of internships until your next life crisis and an uprising era of business with a millennial cusp mindset. The generational gap in the modern corporate boardroom is shifting towards a bridge of possibilities across the ages. Unified goals and engaging mindsets seem to show that we’re not so different after all, across the boardroom, where clear goals and teamwork are pivotal markers for success. When office hours are over and the social gaps of contract and connections are ready to clock in, you light up your strain of choice and prepare to switch your PowerPoint for patio small plates, but the evening is fading quicker that your earlier flower buzz - the transition from marketing to mingling isn’t as easy as your shoe change. When you’re Lemon OG in the streets and Face Off in the sheets, one thing is for certain: finding the balance between the worlds of connecting and building connections comes with a definite list of difficulties. How does one find the balance to separate business and pleasure and stop the metropolitan habit of the seduction sales pitch? Leave the one sheet in the wind and lean on your qualities before your qualifications. Identifying with your accomplishments is a great way to engage with your work and show your passion, but there is a line between pitching your personality and pitching your position. Every business opportunity may be a chance to connect with another human on a real level, but every personal connection isn’t always the best time to showcase your resume. Most people aren’t going to give you their number or say yes to dinner number two because of your plans for a pension, so put down the pitch package and think outside the tie or tights. Who’s your favorite musician and why? What’s your favorite strain to spark the conversation? Where was the last place you traveled? When are you going to realize that you are more than your job offerings? Engage with your interests and involvements outside of the daily grind and show the world a side of yourself that anyone would sign on to. Changing time zones and digital dreams help set the tone for cliff notes conversations and engagements that justify the exchange of the best card print of the quarter. There is a responsible aesthetic to this “Netflix and no Chill” approach, where conversations about sexual health can be brought up as directly as morning meetings and unmasked with ease, while communication of wellness needs not apply. However, the art of reading between the lines best left for dissecting your next CV, often leads to the avoidable confusions of “What do breakfast plans mean” or “Why didn’t they ask me to stay the night” endings, that can cloud even the most simple seeming adult interactions. There seems to be confusion on practical reasoning being interchangeable with communication skills and desires, while the subtle irony in that isn’t lost. Sexual health and wellness are best connected but are not one in the same, just as are maturity and communication skills. Whether you need to be open and honest with a partner or yourself, proper conversation is a healthy part of sexual wellness. This is when it is time to think of you and the other person’s wellness as a business. Have you been thinking about your long-term goals or target plans? Are you putting effort into a passion project when your goals were expansion? Maybe you like the idea of contracting projects without long-term commitments. – That is all okay. But like any successful business, you have to let your partner or partners know about your business plan. Keeping any one in the dark about moves in love can easily leave to uncertainty in their position and a need to seek out security, in whatever form, elsewhere. Here lies the Holy Grail in all of its simplicity. At the root of most all interpersonal confusions, conversations, and conflict – proper communication is key. It’s still a part of social ritual to grind up a fine bud and roll it well to share among friends. Oh so easily, conversation flows, work moments are discussed in positive forms, practical considerations can be shared, all while the natural forms of dialogue are as high as the spirits in the circle. Infuse those ideas into your personal encounters and happiness and wellness will follow. Even simple or temporary moments need active communication in order to live up to their full potential. Listening to you partner, in any gravity of the word, will leave you both feeling more heard, comfortable, and on the same page. Do not be afraid to express desired commitment levels, no matter how small or large, talk about your interests, both inside and outside the bedroom, and discuss concerns or curiosities as they arise (like how to better infuse your love life – but more on that later). Open up yourself to different levels of communication and different levels of intimacy will continue to show themselves. There can be many struggles trying to break the barriers of your own shell, traveling between worlds continuously asking you to describe a different version of yourself in 150 words or less. It’s important to remember to focus on connecting and not connections. Take the clear goal setting mindset from the office, leave the projections out of your pillow talk, bud a flowering experience or relationship, and roll one for the road, before your roll in the hay, and take a minute to spark a conversation, because there’s nothing sexier than knowing how to communicate what you need.