Two Phone Dates, Two In-Person Dates, That’s Enough for Now

Phone Date One: There’s something refreshing about the times it’s SO CLEAR someone isn’t a match. He seemed so promising! Cute, (Kind of a This Charming Man vibe!) nearby and! He was starting a flower garden! He suggested a call, so I told him what time I’d be working on my puzzle. (1000 pieces, a cherry-blossom landscape and soooooooooooo hard!) I sat down with a pink wine spritzer, hoping for a lively chat.

And it was okay! A little of that good banter thing I’m looking for! But when I asked him what kind of person he was looking for, he said “Just someone with some sense.”

“Oh, well that’s not me.” I said inside my head.

I mean, I’m sensible about lots of things—my apartment is passably clean, most of my bills are paid. My car’s maintenance is always up to date, though that’s partly because there’s Cute Car Place Guy. But going into a potential romance with the admonition to be sensible? Just, no.

He then went on a long tear about a lady who didn’t “pick up after herself” so my yikes became a superyikes.

Rope Date: I was at brunch showing Rainbow Pal my matches when this plan came into being—something about Rainbow Pal makes me want to be more hopeful and brazen. Friendship! It’s great!

Anyway, this thirty-year-old stoner dreamboat was just the SWEETEST, so gentle and kind and willing to learn. And willing to spank! Tattooed and spindly, he looked beautiful in my ropes. With my instruction, he did a pretty great job tying me up too! But this sweetie pie was just beginning his journey, and I want someone(s) more worldly, and with a little more fight.

There’s also this: The afternoon before this superpleasant rope date, I called BFF to cry my heart out about The Shy One. I’m SO TIRED of crying about that guy. Though he doesn’t read this and I’m sure he’s busy amassing Eid presents for some less-complicated girl, I can feel him over my shoulder, judging me for not moving on fast enough.

Phone Date Two: Facebook friend-suggested a kinky cutie I’d matched with summer before last but had never met, and I decided to give it a second try, violating my newish “no sequels” rule.

You know those profile pictures you sometimes see on Feeld that just show all the kinky toys some dude has? It was the conversational equivalent of that. He kept listing kinks like I was a questionnaire, and when I told him mine, he was like, “Is that all?”

When I described my very sweet Ma’am-ing style, he said “We’re going to have to work on opening you up.”

Jesus fuck. Friends, if there’s one thing I don’t need in this curious, fragile, regularly crying part of my life, it’s to be MORE opened up.

Kind (I hope) goodbye-again note, unfriend, reblock.

Couch Romcom Date: I’m not sure if I’ll go back and finish Ticket to Paradise. It made me yearn.

I liked this guy a BUNCH because he sent me a picture on Thursday of Junior Mints he’d bought for our movie date Friday. Thoughtfulness, attention to detail. I love it.

I ventured into the Frilly Things box and put on the gorgeous lilac Rihanna bra and panties set. I was hot from a long spring walk, so I just wore shorty pajamas over the frillies. I felt cute but tired.

He arrived a little late, but he was adorable—tall and beardy and cuddly AND he talked like Ron Funches. That may be a very specific fetish that I have.

He was warm and kind on the couch next to me, if a little unfriendly to my dear older cat. He was a gentle kisser and at one point he kissed me on the forehead, a gesture that makes me wish him all the miraculous hot gorgeous true love in the world. His presence was so calm and still that my EXTREMELY shy other cat came out from hiding behind the dryer and sniffed the toe of his shoe.

But I didn’t feel the spark, and I gently-as-possible told him that, before the movie was done.

Dear friends, I’d almost postponed the date because ninety minutes before he was scheduled to adorably bring me Junior Mints, I’d been sobbing to BFF about The Shy One again. I’d been frozen to my spot on the couch, unable to uproot myself enough to tidy the apartment or get cute. Eventually I rallied and I’m so glad I did! Movie date guy deserved my effort, and so did I.

But Let’s Be Honest: I’m still madly, pointlessly, helplessly in love with The Shy One. It’s time to take a dating break for a little while longer, hoping it won’t take too long to pass.

After I said goodnight to movie date guy, I felt an odd kind of happiness. It felt good to be alone with myself, to play phone games and listen to emotionally neutral podcasts and just have some private time to heal. I feel like I’m on the right path again. It’s all the right path.

A Beautiful In-Between Time

 

“We are still somehow bound together in a giant conspiracy of love, mutual care, and ongoing life. As we are not lost to creation, we are not lost to one another.”

-Martha W. Hickman, Healing After Loss: Daily Meditations for Working Through Grief

The past few months have been a prolific untangling of griefs. For a while, I had a list of eight main griefs and I rolled a D8 each morning to see which one to think about. I only wrote about a page and a half on them each morning for a while, but they really helped my sorrows get less crowded and easier to think though. Then I found Ms. Hickman’s cute book in the Little Free Library and now I prompt myself by opening to random pages—that made the grief writing more floaty and free, more sourced from the divine.

The idea of my inner tanglings being part of all creation, being part of a “giant conspiracy of love” feels so freeing, so hopeful. I can feel the invisible string between me and The Shy One healing, transcending, becoming more of a spider web than a boat anchor chain. He’s starting to feel more like a wished-well and beloved but not-my-business stranger than a permanent gaping hole of want in my soul. Most of the time.

That progress is bittersweet. I’m gradually making room in my heart for myself and for whoever is next. I’m spending less energy spiritually reaching out. It feels like the pain of being without him won’t last forever. Sometimes. But that means that someday he’ll really be gone. He’s really been gone for two-and-a-half moons, I know, but the pain is still a way to claim him, a magical-thinking way to keep staying in touch.

A better way to keep the love alive is to appreciate the ways that he changed me. The goddessness he helped me to tap into seems to be sticking around. I do still worry that I’m not lovable, not family-able, but I’m convinced down in my bones that I’m beautiful and worthy. The hotness I felt with and from him extends beyond the sparkly box of frilly things, beyond ALL the gorgeous pictures of both of us saved in my Hidden folder. It’s starting to feel like a permanent part of me.

It's deeper, somehow, than the brazen sexiness that has buoyed me through these ten years of adventures. A soul-shimmer, a glint of mischief that sparkles out whenever I meet a stranger’s eye. Even on a bad phone date, it’s there, playfully jollying everyone through.

And there’s this thing that happened the other day! An app guy asked me what I’m looking for and instead of doing a bunch of poly/hookup culture-equivocating, I wrote back “Boyfriend material!!!” with three Care emojis. Such an ordinary thing to be looking for, but it made me feel like a QUEEN. Like a Crystal Gem tapping into her powers, Rose Quartz but maybe less problematic. Or not!

I hope I changed him too, in some beautiful way, though I thought he was perfect. I hope I somehow lightened the load of the world for him, the way he did for me. I hope I’m living in The Shy One’s bones telling him that he’s beautiful, worthy, and free, that he’s not here on earth for duty or punishment. I hope I’m in his ear when he’s writing fiction, nagging him to maybe let his protagonists win once in a while.

I hope, like me sometimes, his soul gets lit up by all these profligate Ramadan flowers and he feels buoyant, playful and, I’ll keep saying it, free.

 

OMG I Almost Forgot This Awesome Ass Update!

Waaaaaay back during the Steampunks in 2013, I remember being jealous of Steampunk Girl’s story about her first anal sex. Her guy at the time had been so gentle, so careful, she said. He listened to her and let her go at her own pace, making it about intimacy, not conquest or transaction.

Marooned as I was with Steampunk Guy and my main partner, Divorce Grief, I couldn’t imagine a man ever being that kind, that tender towards me.

I’m kinda glad (Though still irritated!) that my Ass Project with Steampunk Guy got vetoed on account of feelings, because my ass journey with The Shy One was beautiful. I don’t remember exactly when my asshole came into the mix, but I love the memory of him playing there sweetly and lightheartedly, mischievous and amused. Standing over me, next to me, or behind me while I was on my knees.

Whereas Steampunk Guy would have ripped off the Band-aid (Probably a little traumatizingly) with gusto and wrecklessness, the Shy One was in it with me. He tried a few times, after lots and LOTS of other things, to enter my ass, but, though I relaxed my jaw (Like I learned in that one anal sex class I took!) and took deep breaths, I couldn’t convince my inner sphincter to relax. He tried, ring of pain, he stopped, repeat. Deliberate, responsive. A dream come true as he almost always was.

The closest The Shy One and I got to anal sex was during his after-the-big-trip visit. He’d missed me and he wanted all of me—even fucked me even though I was (I almost always was!) on my period. I wanted him to have all of me, and I pushed through the pain as much as I could. He was too big, or I was too deep-down tense, but it was close. He was inside me in a way that was totally new, in a way my body and my curious mind had wanted for SO LONG. Painful as it was, I was woozy with gratitude and wildly, helplessly in love, even more than I’d already been.

So part of the dream came true, hooray! Cue choir of slutty angels! But then, jetlagged and getting sick and also just him, he withdrew afterwards, both went home and became a little less reachable, and I felt abandoned. Abandoned is a big scary dramatic word for a grownup to be using, but there we are. In those needy, vulnerable, most love-dizzy moments, he went away from me. Even if he only withdrew a little, I felt foolish, lost, stupid. I felt like the world was being taken away just as quick as it had been given. Like the sun had stopped shining.

(I do wonder how much of that emotion I owe to my own trauma. I kinda wish he and I had been able to sit down and sort out our traumas like laundry. I wish I could know more about what he was feeling, whether those shifts to not-liking-me after sex were as real as they felt. But in the end, it’s as simple as “this feels bad” I think.)

I think, someday when I restart this part of the project, I’d like to be kinder to myself about it. I’d like to hold out for someone who wants to be with me after. A guy who feels the afterglow with me and wants to bask in it. Somebody patient who can pat my head and soothe the vulnerable feelings. He’ll bring me fizzy water and tell me what the experience was like for him. We’ll talk all night.

What I Want, Part A Million

 

Like what Lorelai Gilmore eventually got, but with fewer hats.

Stars, hide your fires,
these here are my desires,
and I won’t give them up to you
this time around.

And so, I’ll be found,
with my stake stuck in this ground
marking the territory of this
newly impassioned soul.

--Mumford and Sons, “Roll Away Your Stone”

Festive Easter Mumford and Sons are waaaayyy more assured than I am, of course. It’s not that I think new love’s not possible, it usually-to-sometimes feels possible. But I sort of have no idea what kind of person will capture my imagination next—love surprises me and vexes me every time.

At the same time, I want to rid myself of the idea that I have to adapt to any given situation that comes along, as if it’s somehow…undemocratic? to have preferences, as if I’m not entitled to want perfectly ordinary things. Specific things. It’s necessarily a kind of bitter don’t-make-mistakes-again list, but I’m sure time and attraction will soften the edges soon enough.

(OMG someone in my self-compassion group just said that oxytocin is physically addictive and takes around 90 days to…un-addict? I have no idea if that’s true but it makes me happy to retroactively curse every sweet ex with 90 days of jonesing.)

Anyway! The list so far:

1.     I’m a get-in-all-your-business person. I’m a family person. No matter what someone’s situation, I want to know their entire gestalt. I loved the way that The Shy One had begun folding into my family and chosen family, and it would have been so fulfilling if that folding-in could have been mutual.

 

Yesterday one of my neighbors told me she was trying to win over her boyfriend’s kid, and I felt so full of joy for her. Her perfectly ordinary trajectory gave me the hope that those kinds of steps might happen for me AND that I might have the courage to admit I want them. Doesn’t have to be kids, could be family, chosen family, neighborhood bonding. I know it takes time and trust, but I want to be in the next guy’s world.

2.     No closets. There are plenty of reasons to be compassionate toward closeted folks, to support them and listen to them and root for them exactly where they are at. But if I date them, I’ll end up being treated as a threat to their happiness, their safety, their social capitol, their parents’ approval, whatever. That is an AWFUL position to be in, and SO TRIGGERING given my life as my own family’s scapegoat.

So here’s the rule: I have to be able to tag a guy on my main-feed, un-anonymous Instagram and be like “OMG look at my boyfriend’s whole face he’s sooooooo dreamy.”

I feel like a lot of the stuff on this list is what straight (and straight-sized) women feel entitled to as a matter of course. So I’m gonna try to learn that good entitlement.

I want to remember that shame that’s understandable is still shame. It still gets on me and in me, and the world (and past traumas) will provide me with enough shame without me voluntarily signing up for more. Discreet boys can stick with discreet ladies. Maybe the shame makes it hotter?

3.     I’m going to scream the next time someone calls me “Solo Poly.” I think it’s a totally valid thing to be but for me, it feels like I’m expected to be on the margins of someone’s “real life.” That’s really sad and triggering for me, and it’s possible I assign it to myself as punishment.

Or maybe I’ve been afraid to say what I want—I want a guy’s undivided attention. He can be poly, I think, but he has to have the capacity to be ALL IN, to give me his whole heart. I can give my whole heart to lots of people, flowers, clouds, sunsets, etc, there HAS to be some dude who can do the same.

And he should please definitely, definitely, DEFINITELY stay over and make pancakes in the morning. Maybe linger around all day and snooze.

That’s enough for now, I think!

Knotty Thursday: Untangling Break

 Last night I had such a lovely rope time, but it was followed by a big surge of sadness. My body is not dealing well (still!) with the Shy One being gone, so I need to give myself the time and space to heal before I can push myself into any more sexytimes, even with myself. That SUCKS and feels embarrassing, but it's the kindest thing I can do for myself right now.

Send healing vibes if you're into that sort of thing! I'm sure I'll be cheerfully slutty again someday! 

Two Moons Later

January 3rd moon--we were free and in love.

I wasn’t going to type this one up, but there, last night, was the full moon looking down from a halo in the sky when I went to take the trash out. Moving on is a labyrinth. It’s the cycles of the moon. Grief is an unpredictable tide.

Last week, I had that lovely burst of horny healthy moving-on inspiration, and it was real. But then, just as quickly as the happy, hopeful vibes had come: a wall. A panic. The vulnerability, hopefulness, and mostly-real self-assurance it takes to be dating is A LOT, and I just sort of crashed.

It helped to tell the lukewarmly interested new guy that I heard his lukewarmness, that I was glad I’d gotten to meet him but we weren’t a match. But the feeling of exposure kept coming until I deactivated Feeld and took it off my homescreen along with Hinge and Bumble. I turned off all the notifications.

I felt the panic recede after that but, close to the end of my workday last Friday, a new tide of missing The Shy One came in. The way I deal with that grief is finite: I sing along to Frank Ocean’s Moon River. I screech along to Robyn’s Dancin’ on My Own. Sometimes when I really want to twist the heartbreak knife a little, I put on Virgo’s Groove. (I didn’t realize that Beyoncé sings about “You’re the love of my life” in that song-aaaaaaalllll the times I heard it when he and I were snuggling, I never noticed. At least I know my life doesn’t have just one love.)

I wanted, when I parked at home Friday night and the blaring speakers went quiet, to find out if The Shy One had really loved me. It had been an unspoken agreement with myself for a few weeks that his love wasn’t real, it was a way to be less mad at him for going away, less mad at myself for not finding a way to feel okay in that relationship. I knew where to look, that his second-to last letter was probably right there in my “sent” folder.

It had to be finite. I do NOT go down heartbreak rabbit holes, my depressive brain can only confront these things a little at a time. So I set a timer for 20 minutes. I got into child’s pose and said a prayer for him, for me, for moving on, for new love. I sang the loving kindness meditation I wrote myself right after the breakup:

May I bloom and expand.

May I remain curious.

May I honor the longing.

May I thank and let go.

May I put it away til it feels
easier.

May I hear my heart, my body, and my mind.

May I internalize the love.

May I leave scarcity behind.

May I live in faith.

The Shy One’s second-to-last letter was from after our second-to-last fight. It was full of paragraphs and plans, apologies and ideas for how we could get closer, how he hoped to help me feel more secure. It was a lovely letter, hopeful, kind, and attentive.

Rereading it, I felt my body calm down and my heart quiet: He’d loved me. The knowledge was like a warm internal blanket, soft, solid, dependable, secure. I knew I had that love with me, that it was going to be a resource for whatever comes next.

Then I read through the WhatsApp messages from his Sierra Leone trip—no struggle. Just hotness, kindness, and future plans. And one video I definitely was not ready to look at, maybe never will be. My soul aches to think of the couple who wrote those texts, who selected those GIFs, so full of hopes, so briefly free.

I was done before the timer went off, full and secure. I worked on my puzzle and lay down for a peaceful sleep.

It definitely doesn’t feel like that all the time. They say (or used to say in, like, the Eighties when I was little?) that it takes at least half the time you were with someone to get over them. If I count from our first date, which I do, we were together ten months, so that’s five. Two down, three to go?

I don’t know how long it will take til my body stops missing him, stops wanting him only. Dear moon, dear universe, dear Christmas box of pretty lingerie (a completely reasonable thing to pray to!) please let him not have been my last love. Yes, give me time to honor him and heal, but don’t take too long sending the next sweetheart. Please.