Just A Random Curiosity
Conversations over Coffee with Elena, a sex and relationship coach.



Santa Fe Takeaways
I have nothing bad to say about this city. Sure you get a few uncomfortable stares but it wasn’t that bad. I didn’t want to leave. I wish I knew someone here so I could stay longer.
Santa Fe has a lot of weird — that is a compliment — people. It would have been fun writing about them for a week or two. Time — being that it was constrained — made getting a coffee date hard.
Three days and two nights were all I had. But the real problem was that nearly all of my matches were people in Albuquerque, which is an hour-long/60-mile drive from Santa Fe. Two hours of driving was not something I wanted to do.
And that doesn’t even factor in how long the coffee dates would go.
I wanted to have my cake and eat it too. I wanted to take in the art and nature of Santa Fe and have a coffee date within my vicinity. That was the best part about Santa Fe: everything is in the near vicinity.
I went to Meow Wolf, Counter Culture Cafe, Books of Interest, and Sun Mountain Trail with back and forth trips to my Airbnb all before 5 p.m. All of which were in a five-mile radius.
I was laying in bed at my Airbnb when Olivia gave me her number.
Who’s Olivia and what about Elena the sex and relationship coach? Stay with me, I’ll tie it together. Via Bumble messaging, I was asking Olivia questions — as I do with everyone I match with — before she gave me her number to call her.
I was asking too many questions for her to respond through text.
She was wrapping a gift for a baby shower and needed to free up her hands. We spoke for 32 minutes. The majority of the conversation was centered on dating and relationships.
She asked about my blog and what I look for.
Olivia is what I was looking for. But she was in Albuquerque with plans and I was leaving early to Phoenix the next day. She had a date that night — or kind of a date — a third meet up with a guy she met on a dating app.
I wished her a good night, as we both said our goodbyes.
And that’s as close as I thought I would get to a coffee date. If Olivia was free and willing that night, I would have made the drive, she seemed worth talking to. But that was the crux of the issue in Santa Fe.
I didn’t want to make the drive out to meet most people I matched with.

Then I picked up a conversation I was having on Halloween night. It was with Elena, a 45-year-old sex and relationship coach from Oakland. I started asking about her job: what she loved and what was challenging.
I was intrigued and bummed.
Elena was in Albuquerque. I lamented to her how sad I was about being in different cities. Then in full Javi fashion, I found a way to create time. How do you create time you ask? It’s simple:
You don’t sleep.
I asked if she was free for coffee — the day I was driving to Phoenix — in the morning. I had to be in Phoenix at a certain time. I was already on the clock with my seven-hour drive.
But she said yes, so we met. Albuquerque was on the way to Phoenix anyway, so we settled on Zendo Coffee at 8 a.m.
Let’s play a hypothetical.
Marriage does not exist. Furthermore, the concept of marriage isn’t even in the realm of relationships. We have no idea what we are getting ourselves into at all.
Here is where I come in with Scenario Number One:
I’m a salesman, going around door-to-door, pitching you and your partner on this brand new product. But before I ask you to purchase, I tell you about the raw numbers of my product:
“For starters, it has a 40 to 50 percent failure rate. Luckily we do have a return policy but… the failure rate climbs to about 60 percent. Luckily we have our “third time’s a charm” package for Golden Members but… the failure rate climbs to about 75 percent.
Within our 40 to 50 percent success rate, 25 to 30 percent of our customers indicate some type of general dissatisfaction with the product. Lastly, our product lasts about 8 to 11 years with climbing interest rates and annual fees.
So, would you like to invest!?!
Oh! One last thing, my product is called Marriage.”
Most people with half a brain would say:
1. No.
2. Get off my lawn.
But those are the marriage statistics in the United States and people still fuckin’ do it all the time! I’m not saying I don’t believe in marriage. I’m not saying people shouldn’t get married. I’m not saying I will never get married.
But it ties into what I hate most about people: no critical thinking skills. Why do we continue to do the same shit over and over again for tradition’s sake when it’s obviously failed? Tradition is a cheap way of excusing dumb behavior.
What if Marriage was a sexual kink instead: a Dom-Sub situation.
Here is where Elena comes in with Scenario Number Two:
She’s a respectable sex shop worker telling you about this new underground kink that is making all the waves in the BDSM community. She tells you to come a little closer and whispers in your ear:
“You sign my contract, binding you to a life long agreement. You can only have sex with me for the rest of your life and you will enjoy that shit! If you break that agreement, you get punished!
You lose half of your shit. Then we go to court and roleplay like the naughty disgruntled spouses that we are and we fight! After that dirty-filthy Judge declares you to be the loser you pay me *SS* for the rest of your life!
*Spousal Support*
So kinky right!
So what do you say? Do you want to be my naughty little bitch or my nice little slave aka partner?”
At least some sexually free thinkers would say:
1. Yes Daddy!
2. Where do I sign?
I think of traditional marriages as a failing product that has plenty of consumer reports indicating how poor and antiquated it is. Elena thinks traditional marriages would be better off as a sexual kink. Who’s right?
Product or Kink, fewer people should be married.
Elena’s job can entail fairly traditional couples therapy like refereeing and translating communication lost in translation. With that, her clients experience a better sex life, more intimacy, and overall an improved relationship.
She loves facilitating authentic and vulnerable conversations about sex and desire. With that, she gets to teach erotic, emotional, and relational literacy. God Damn! Where do I sign up?
But it does come with challenges.
Navigating the shame, trauma, and judgment that one builds up over time living in a sex-negative culture (so basically everywhere in the United States) is not easy. Then you have couples in long-term relationships with yeaaaaars of built-up resentments that have to be unpacked. Lastly, you have the types who want the quick fixes and answers right out the gate.
Most importantly, she finds it fulfilling.
She’s been practicing for five and a half years but has been interested and studying the concept of sex and relationships most of her life. This woman has knowledge for days. But even with that she still struggles to navigate her own sex life.
That should be refreshing for anyone struggling with dating, sex, and relationships to read. It’s easy for no one.
Certainty is the killer.
Humble yourself to your inability to predict how things are going to play out for yourself. You don’t know what’s going to happen. More importantly, you can’t control anything outside of yourself.
Elena has gone into dating with certainty.
Her ex-husband was in a relationship when they met. He couldn’t commit to her because he was committed to someone else. He was someone she could be with while maintaining her personal freedom to do as she pleased.
The perfect setup!
Then they got married, lasting 16 years. If Elena had to write a consumer report she would probably give the product a failing grade.
Then in her 40s, she met a man in a polyamorous relationship. Even better! A dynamic perfectly laid out for her to get what she wanted without compromising her freedom.
Then he basically lived with her for nine months.
She fucked up because she went into these relationships with the certainty of what it would and wouldn’t be. Never do that.
Three minutes late, I ordered a $3 dollar black coffee and found Elena sitting down at a long table. We shook hands, groaned at the time and traded small talk on traveling and favorite destinations.
Elena is a Bay Area native.
A cliche of the 70s, she grew up in a hippie cult in San Francisco. White, with blonde hair, and light blue eyes she fits the stereotype. Now in living in Oakland, she found herself back in Albuquerque for her son’s birthday.
He turned 15 on Halloween.
I’m 10 years older than her son and 20 years younger than her. I guess that was the most pronounced difference with this coffee date as opposed to the previous 18 people I wrote about.
The age gap and life experience were pronounced but she had something I craved: perspective. If she had advice, insights, or general thoughts to pass along, I was ready to take it. I wonder if she knew how impressionable I made myself during our time together.
Probably not.
Now, as I write, I can’t say I left learning more about myself or anything in relation to what we talked about. Maybe that’s because we conversated as equals and not as an adult woman speaking to a boy. Whereas if I was in her shoes, I doubt I would have been as congenial and open to speaking to someone 20 years younger.
With this blog, I’ve been pretty prejudicial towards people under the age of 20. I don’t give them the time of the day. I just don’t think they will have anything interesting to say. Elena could have thought the same thing about me but she still gave me a chance. Maybe age shouldn’t be a factor.
Maybe that should be my biggest takeaway.
Thanks Elena, stay free.
A Few Questions For The Road (Elena’s Takes)
Rank by most to least pleasurable: Art, Food, Love, Sex, and Sleep.
T-1st: Art, Sex, T-3rd: Food, Sleep, 5th: Love
What is the hardest/worst thing about being a woman?
Navigating the Madonna/Whore Split. The Madonna is the woman you marry, mother of your children archetype. The one who gets the gilded cage of social respectability and security but… she doesn’t get fucked. The whore gets fucked but is treated like she doesn’t have feelings. I never wanted to be a Madonna (wife) but ended up doing it anyway. If I had to choose now I would choose the Whore every time but… I have feelings. I need care and respect.
What is the easiest/best thing about being a woman?
I always wanted to be a mom and the best thing about being a woman — in a female body — is having made my son. He said once when he was little that we were one body that became two and that is pretty fucking cool.
If you like what you’ve read, make sure to give it a clap, comment, and share. You can also follow my journey on Instagram at fh_travels_2019.

