A Brief Match with Gilmore Guy

After hearing it recommended on the How to Do It podcast, I gave Feeld a try and felt at home pretty much right away—leading with ropes brings a lot of joy and inspiration to the sometimes-demoralizing process of chatting/vetting/ flirting with strangers! I’m hoping I’ll have some adventures to report before too long. Wish me luck!

Anyway so they give you the premium thing for a little while when you first join, where you can see who liked you already. And there was Gilmore Guy! He had pressed like! Even though the last time I saw him I was full-on yelling at him for underestimating Kamala Harris and being pessimistic about 2018 midterms. (We were kind of both right, but have you seen the House of Representatives since then?!)

I felt incredulous, but curious too—had he meant to press like after that debacle? Was he one of those swipe-right-on-everybody-and-then-figure-out guys?

I really hoped his like was sincere, and my imagination/nostalgia kind of ran away with me. Seeing his picture, all swoony eyes and meticulous locs and proffering a definitely bespoke cocktail, I wanted to just tell him to come over here, watch some (Come on, it’s not that bad!) Season Seven, and get tangled up in his warmth and tenderness and attention to detail and overlook the mansplaining a little better this time.

So I wrote the first note, and the second, first just asking him how he was and then apologizing for being so harsh back in 2018. I felt off and longing-y when he didn’t write back, and when he unmatched the next day without saying anything, it will surprise no one that I felt wistful and hurt. An ache in my heart as if our four-or-five dates were last month instead of an utterly world-shifting four years.

And I was sad, yes, but also impressed with the way the connection still lives in my body, the warmth I still have for that relatively brief try back then. When I got the (His Name) has left the chat notification, it broke my heart just a little, and I’m honestly kind of glad it did.

 

Knotty Thursday: Not Quite a Heart Jumper!

 

One of my 2022 goals is to date myself, and it is going EXTREMELY well. Sometimes I manage to go out into the world (The local art cinema has like eight kinds of hot chocolate, and I aim to try them all!) but my rope nights have been especially wonderful. Even though this tie seemed (and partly was, so far!) impossible, I had the best time naked in front of a full length mirror, trying to puzzle it through. It goes all the way to the thighs, but I spaced out in the middle so only the top really ended up looking like anything. No matter, I had the BEST time.

Knotty Thursday: Easy Corset!

 

I am (very gradually) looking for some bunnies to practice on/with, but meanwhile I'm pretty excited about how this corset came out! I'm getting antsy to try something fancier, but I guess it's best to keep practicing my fundamentals! 

Knotty Thursday: In the General Direction of Mermaidness

 

I had a post all ready to go about how I was too SAD to practice ropes again today (The loneliness of the past two years has really been walloping-me-not-in-the-good-way lately!) But then I got annoyed with myself and decided to finish untangling the purples before work. Something about the rhythm of working/unworking the knots in the tangles put me in more of a let's-give-it-a-try place, so the MINUTE I was done with work tonight I went upstairs, lit some candles, pressed play on the lo-fi mix, and made this.

I had another length of rope to add, but by the time I was making the larks head to attach it, I started to get a little loopy. So I used the rest of the purple to make a lovely harness (That picture is just for me!) that I eventually figured out I could loop to the bedpost. A nice. long self-ravishment ensued.

The lesson here, I guess, is when in doubt, untangle. 

Knotty Thursday: Untangling

 

I know letting go of the things that don’t work makes way for more awesomeness. That’s even one of my affirmations for this year! I have been doing a pretty good job moving forward, cheerfully doing my swiping and “Good morning”ing on the apps and smiling at most of the people I see out in the world. Of course, if I’m inside, I’m smiling with just my eyes because Omicron is a jerk.

But in my heart, I haven’t let go of This Charming Man. We haven’t had contact since day of the ill-fated Fancy Garden trip, but most of the time I low-key wish I could just go wait on his porch until he comes home. Or even-

He keeps an open cage with a blanket in it on his porch for when his favorite half-feral cat comes to visit. I don’t think cats need pseudonyms, his name is Hank. I sometimes want to shrink down to Hank-size and curl up in there for This Charming Man. Not to be any less wild myself, just to be near him. Even just to be near the idea of him.

The afternoon of the Winter Solstice, freshly un-quarantined from a blessedly mild breakthrough Covid infection, I went to the Fancy Gardens on my own to feel some awe at the Christmas lights and commune with the places along the way where that November 11^th seventh date fell apart. In those places, it wasn’t just heartbreak that filled me up, but also a solemn acknowledgement. Those places, even the Kohl’s parking lot on the way there where I cried because he told me he never thinks about people when they aren’t around, felt (annoyingly) important.

“You’re shaking” he said that day as he held me in the front seat of my car, close but already unreachable. I was shaking. My love and loss were profound.

“I was so careful this time,” But I really wasn’t. What even IS careful when there are ropes and bodies and pasts and politics and deadly diseases and painful scars and cultural gaslighting?

What even IS careful when I’d spent however-many months not touching or being touched at all? When elbow high-fives, even as mathematically inaccurate as they are, had become a normal and welcome thrill?

I wasn’t careful. I got tangled up and it was way too beautiful to regret.

But I hope it won’t be too long before I can leave the cozy open cage of love and venture openhearted into new adventures. Maybe I’ll swipe right on the right smile tomorrow or maybe it’ll be a long, longingful year—there’s only so much about my heart’s fate that I can control. For now, I’m just a little bit waiting for him all the time. Sometimes, a silent little prayer of “Please come back” reverberates inside my head. I know it shouldn’t, but it does.

I sent away for these ropes in an optimistic fit of pre-New-Years mise en place. They came with a weird industrial smell so I put them in a pillowcase and threw them in the washer. Of course they came out of their neat coils and got all inter-tangled.

So this Knotty Thursday, I’m untangling the new topes and melting the ends so they won’t unravel, or so they’ll unravel less. Next week I might be a mermaid, or my own bunny, or just a lady who is somewhat better at a particular knot. Happy New Year! <3 <3 <3