Southern Charmer Postscript

 

My oldest cat is sixteen and she's been sick. The first time I turned on the heater this fall, she abruptly left her perpetual spot next to me on the couch and fled for more hide-y places upstairs. She sleeps on the vent under the vanity or on a big suitcase I took out when I changed the clothes over for winter.

This plus the coming (impending) election was giving all of life a way-too-urgent feeling. It's a feeling I had all the time when I was younger and unmedicated and would contemplate the shortness of the lilac season. I knew they'd be gone soon and I worried I wasn't enjoying them enough while they were here.

The one thing that WASN'T making me feel that way was The Southern Charmer. After our lovely night together, he told me that, considering his recent breakup, he felt like he'd gone too fast into sex with me. I took that to mean that he wanted to slow down, not stop. We chatted every few days and I hoped we'd eventually make it back to smoochtown.

I was lying on the floor next to Oldest Cat's ersatz suitcase bed, holding her paw, when I decided to check in with SC. His update was that he had made a new friend, a platonic one, and they'd hung out a couple times lately.

I thought he'd been laying low because of his breakup grief, but here he was making a lovely new confidante. I started to cry, realizing he'd left me behind a few weeks ago without me realizing. People will say literally anything when they mean "We're not a match" and no matter how many times it happens or how many paragraphs I've paragraphed, I still miss getting it sometimes. It's a thing that makes me feel every one of the seventeen points of my Autism Spectrum Quotient. https://embrace-autism.com/autism-spectrum-quotient/

I asked him why he hadn't spent some of that time with me. He said again the thing about having gone too fast, how he couldn't handle the emotional intimacy right now. I didn't even know we were DOING emotional intimacy! A true first. I heard it now, a break-off, not a slowdown. 

Making Out In Front of a Romcom (ala) and Other Perfect Things: Part Four

 This series is taking forever to write, what with the whole triumph-of-evil thing un-hottening life most of the time. (Not last night though, I had a really nice date! But that's a story for another day.) Whatever stage of grief today finds you in, I'm with you. I love you. And I'm here to provide cuteness whenever I can bear it.

Back to being splayed out on the beach-day of my bed, with my beautiful sweet Southern Charmer smiling down at me.

"What do you want to do?" I asked.

His finger slipped down into my absolute sopping wetness and he said:

"I'd like to be inside you."

*****Welcome***** is the emotion I felt as he slid inside me. I felt so filled and fulfilled, happy and free, He was SO PRETTY and so good at kissing and so beautifully and easily part of me.

After what seemed like a good long time, he started apologizing and I didn't really know why. 

"It's been a hard time, I've been going through a breakup, I'll have to owe you."

I think he felt like he was coming too fast, but even if he had been, I wouldn't have seen it as a problem. I always feel gratified by a quick come, like, oh good, this guy is willing to give me what he has.

"I need it," I said, as I always say, when he came. (Or fake-came? Maybe he just needed to stop? Maybe this is the moment when the breakup grief washed back in for him? Oh I wish I could have known and soothed him, that I could have taken care of whatever had brought out all those sorries.

I switched the Donald Glover to lofi as we cuddled up. He asked if it was okay to fall asleep and I said sure, I just have to get up and have my night cereal. After Cinnamon Toast Crunch, I climbed over him to the inside spot and (Just like that, says the part of my brain that thinks only of Sex and the City) I was falling asleep (trying to) with a guy for the first time since The Shy One.

I haven't gotten any better at it in the intervening years. Though we cuddled up sweetly, I felt so alert. I thought about what had just happened. I thought about whether he would stay for breakfast, if he would drink coffee on my couch.

But he woke me up at six AM, same cursed hour whenTSO always left, and seemed a little distant, like he was already out the door. His voice had the cadence of a Barack Obama, if Barack Obama was late for a school presentation.

At least I was able to fully sleep then, warm and content but already a little lonesome for him. And I kind of still am, all these weeks later.

Knotty Thursday: Ribcage Harness

 Well, it's supposed to look like a ribcage, but every harness just looks like fancy boobs on me. I remember doing this one on The Good Boy way back when, it was nice having that memory for company!

Happy Halloween dears! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADN90FVYty0

Making Out in Front of a Romcom and Other Perfect Things: Part Three

 

It took so much thinking about this night to realize that it's a classic body adventure, like way back at the beginning of this blog! I've never had sex all the way high before! Mostly it just gave me an excuse to be more lovey-dovey, more free, more ridiculously myself. And to have way too much fun listening to my two favorite albums.

Before I take us there though, this story will always be incomplete because I don't know ANYTHING about what it was like to be inside The Southern Charmer's head. He told me a few days afterwards that he felt like he'd moved too fast into sex after his breakup, but I don't have any more insight than that. I really really hope that, even though it was emotionally complicated, he had an equal amount of fun. Otherwise it's just not fair!

"Could we go cuddle upstairs?" I asked breathlessly after so SO many kisses. Finding out what happens to Adam Brody and Kristin Bell would have to wait until another day. I asked if it was okay to put on Frank Ocean's Blonde and SC said of course.

I became a puddle of warmth with him. It was the first time in SO LONG that I'd been allowed to take my time, to savor the before-sex things. As we kissed and cuddled and petted and our feet tickled and our legs intertwined, I thought "Wow, Frank Ocean uses the word "love" a lot. While love might not have been the story of this encounter, it was certainly the right name for this state of being.

I don't think love has to look like star-crossed romance. I think it can also be the exquisite joy of holding onto a friend's meticulously sculpted back, tangled up in his pretty arms. Loving the sensations. Loving him in a right now way, and loving myself for letting go of The Quest long enough to enjoy him, and let him enjoy me.

I was alert enough to skip the track where Frank Ocean's mom tells us not to do drugs. I didn't fully lose myself to the lovey-dovey atmosphere. I knew it was brain chemicals being magical and kind and benevolent and giving me a break for like five fucking seconds. This was my version of becoming human lofi, except hungrier for him.

Frank became a little too much and I switched to another favorite album, Childish Gambino's Atavista, which starts out sounding like the Stranger Things theme song but does eventually get dreamy. "Is this Donald Glover?" scoffed The Southern Charmer, but he let not-favorite-of-his record play, a sacrifice I could never make.

I was so happy when it was time to be naked! I'd never met The Southern Charmer's dick the first time around, wasn't even sure he was a penis-having person, until I was. When he stood up to get a condom from my drawer ("I LOVE my drawer so much!" is a thing I said aloud in front of this very cute human being.) his dick stuck straight forward, pointing out from his black briefs like a dowsing rod.

SC and I kept chatting about music, the eternal question of whether Childish Gambino was a bit or not. There were moments when I found him surprisingly like boyfriend material, like before when he'd told me he was reading How the Word is Passed, or when he told me his workout regimen was because he usually dates bigger girls and he wants to be able to help if there's an emergency. (Maybe this was bullshit or MAYBE some of these fit guys who match with me AREN'T trying to take me on a weight-loss journey?!)

Anyway, back to his dolphin/compass of a dick. He was sitting up while I lay back splayed out for him, warm as a day at the beach.

"What do you want to do?" I asked.

Made Out In Front of a Romcom, and Other Perfect Things: Part Two

Definitely watch Nobody Wants This, it's so cute!!!

 I never wrote about my second date with The Southern Charmer, way back in 2022, because it spooked me all to heck. There was a thing that happened sometimes post-quarantine where a date would just get here and get immediately so relaxed that they were like human lofi, so calm and self-contained as to be unreachable. 

The Southern Charmer had tried a new kind of gummy and it had just zapped him entirely! Now that I've spent a few Friday nights in a woozy D8 haze listen-dozing to the 99% Invisible breakdown of The Power Broker, I understand a little better, but that night, it was startling!

I lay with him chastely as he rode it out, scared and ashamed of how actually helpless this person in my bed was! Once he was alert enough, he went home. I thought he had taken an Uber, but it turned out that he drove.

So the next day, once I knew he was alright, I let him go with a few (I hope) gentle texts. His tuned-outness really freaked me out, and I felt ashamed and worried that I'd let him drive home in that state.

Since then, I've remembered him as beautiful and sweet and just not in the right place for me. Good job me, I guess? The eyes-on-the-prize recognition that he wasn't the one for me, amazing! Stars all around.

But a thing he said to me in his hazy time really stuck in my mind, probably unfairly. "This is all too much" he said, and he could have just meant *gestures widely* but it hit my heart as meaning that I was too much. I worried about that, not being too much physically but just being too intense or whatever to really be in relationships. I still worry about that all the time.

I wrote some blog posts about being part Kaiju, a regular refrain. "Too much" stuck with me like a splinter.

But when The Southern Charmer popped up again this year around my birthday, I had a different perspective--I'm a stoner now too! It was so appealing to bond over the 15-25 milligrams of peace I've been enjoying every night, and a nice fantasy to think about sharing that feeling with somebody pretty and kind.

And here we were! Making out on the couch without one single care in the world. My body, heart, mind, and soul were all aligned and ungrasping (except literally I mean), all together an open gate. I felt one wholehearted emotion and that was...welcome!

I felt so far outside the everyday concerns of dating, like all the baggage of these last thirteen years just clocked out for al little bit. I was innocent and free. I felt filled up with trust and happiness and ***friendship***. The Southern Charmer made me feel so safe and seen and embraced. It was a profound relief to rest in him. In us.

The kissing on the couch lasted so beautifully long. Kissing like nothing bad had ever happened to us. Kissing like we had all the time in the world, and we did.

Knotty Thursday: Spider Web Weave!

 Friends! The kitten hung out peacefully in her crate and I finished a whole rope tutorial! It's a joyful new start for our household. Once I decided it was a rope day yesterday, I lifted out of my post-Southern-Charmer gloom and got a little giddy.

It was so much fun getting the whole ritual ready--putting on a little makeup, lighting a rose incense, slathering on rose-scented lotion while I fired up Rory's Brainworks. The real version is so much prettier than mine, but I don't mind! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVN1iRcdJfI

It was supposed to be the same knot the whole way round, but I had a hard time being consistent. So it ended up alternating between a half-hitch, a Munter hitch, and a just-sort-of-figure-it-out hitch. But I'm so proud!

Also, I think it's time for some new rope colors, definitely need a light blue. A bright new palette would be lovely to try before too long!

Making Out In Front of a Romcom, and Other Perfect Things! Part One

 For a surprising night, I was a go-with-the-flow gal. It wasn't an act, just where my head and heart were! A lovely night just came to me, and I let it happen! Things didn't turn out the way I wanted them to, but still, I'm proud and pleased!

It was a couple weeks ago now. Even before The Southern Charmer reached out, I was having the perfect Saturday night--I was surrounded by cats and snacks, watching Nobody Wants This on Netflix, and tending to my long-neglected Animal Crossing island.

The Southern Charmer had been reticent to try anything because of other relationship stuff, but on this day, he was feeling adventurous! (Or maybe, as it turned out, avoiding some feelings about other stuff, Why not both?) He invited himself over, and I said the easiest yes (Actually the easiest "Can I have a few hours to tidy up first?") in the universe. 

And then here he was! Two years after our second date. He had medical-grade weed gummies, and we split one. I could not believe my luck.

It shouldn't seem like a miracle to have somebody cute on my couch, catching up an watching a romcom, but it felt like a miracle and an oasis.

So many of my recent dates have been handsy, urgent, somewhat systemically understandably wanting to get me over with and get back to their gig work. But The Southern Charmer was looking at me without expectations, looking me like I was a whole person to him. Another thing that shouldn't feel like a miracle, but does.

Maybe he was a little in denial of the grief of a recent breakup, maybe he was trying to bandaid the pain with some cuddles, but I didn't see that. I don't know if I wish I had or if I'm glad I didn't.

From my perspective, a synchronicity. A gift. A chance to relax with/into someone beautiful, free of expectations. I wish I was clearer on what he felt, then and now, but all I felt was joy and playful relief.

For the first time in a long time, I was sharing my couch with someone who felt like a true friend, someone who saw us as equals. For the first time in a long time, a man who wasn't breathing impatiently for price-of-admission sex, pawing inexpertly at my boobs. 

 Instead, he was just smiling at me. I wanted to kiss him so badly, not just because I wanted to break my kiss curse, but because he was whole and beautiful and (I thought!) present and his eyes were sparkling.

When I asked him the dreaded HSV-1question, his answer was perfect, perfect, perfect: "Well, I've passed enough blunts in my day." And that was that! And then, cue the choir of angels, his mouth warmly and beautifully and emphatically on mine, his sculpted arms pulling me close. I liked when we paused sometimes to see what was going on with Kristin Bell and Adam Brody.

Friends. I've had so many beautiful, transcendent, daring, creative body adventures, but I don't think there's anything in the world better than making out in front of TV. That's how it was with This Charming Man watching Gremlins Two, and with Gilmore Guy watching Gilmore Girls. I guess feeling like ordinary dates are miracles is a pretty good way to go through life.

Southern Charmer: The Satisfying Sequel, Part Two

 

First date ropes, winter of 2022

In the midst of the birthday gloom, a glimmer. The possibility, however remote, of somebody SO PRETTY to get stoned and snuggle and maybe play ropes with again lit a little fire in me. My HSV-1 thing is listed on my Feeld, so maybe it wouldn't even be an issue. Maybe I could get...dare I say it?! Kissed?! I remembered him being a good kisser--my mouth remembered him so vividly.

I felt a renewed drive to practice my ropes again, and it didn't feel nostalgic or pine-y or performative--the idea just felt like play.

But! Something even better happened--we texted like friends. Even the day after my emotionally stormy birthday, even with both of us processing grief about other people, my heart felt lighter talking to him. After I paragraphed my birthday existential fear, I apologized for the brick of text, and he scoffed. Hardly a brick by his standards.

He told me about his tangled heart too, and somewhere in there, we talked about the possibilities between us. The hope that I might be a Ma'am to him again was a warm little flame in my heart. A sweet and trusting Good Boy felt like such a vulnerable thing to wish for, but there was something about the angsty, friendy chats made me feel peaceful enough to imagine that kind of trust.

We put a date on the calendar, a coffee date to see if we still liked each other's vibe. But before we could get there, the mentionitis! Oh the poor dear could find any old way to mention one of his partners, he was melancholy-preoccupied with her, like something between them needed ALL of his attention, even as he was aiming to give some of it to me.

So I sent one of my all-time favorite texts:

I am so, SO proud of this text!!! Not only was I honest about what I'm really looking for, I sincerely meant it when I offered friendship! My heart felt so full of the entire situation. And he did want to stay in touch as friends! Hooray!

There's already a Part Three of this treatful story, but even if there weren't, the confiding and the breakthrough text would have been enough. Thank you, Southern Charmer, from the bottom of my searching heart.

Southern Charmer: The Satisfying Sequel, Part One

Now in our story we've made it to early September, my birthday week! Fifty, the first age I've been genuinely unnerved about. I was freaking and grieving. I had to stop writing in my six-year journal because of the on this day of it all. I always love my birthday, but it also brings up memories--the fancy dates with The Shy One, the falling out with my brother, the creeping fear that I'll never achieve any kind of closeness again. The newly arthritic knee that had kept me from swimming in the ocean all summer.

The one thing I wanted on my birthday was to walk along the beach.

Pause to let TS Elliot chime in:

Do I dare to eat a peach?

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each

The rest-stop peaches were sublime and the day was clear and cool enough, but my mood was definitely Prufrockian. My knee ached (The medication would come the next day.) and my tire light was on. I felt a million years old and I wanted to sleep forever instead of going home for friends and cake.

(No matter WHAT'S going on next summer, I need to not shirk the beach. At least 9 times in 2025, any season, any length of time.)

BUT ALSO, in the midst of all the pining and nostalgia and the knowledge that the arthritis is sending tiny bone particles everywhere: An easy light. A cute new old friend.

A week or two before the birthday waves, the Southern Charmer had pinged me on Feeld, and I didn't register at first that it was him. When I did realize, I felt a spark of yes run up my sternum and up to warm my ears and cheeks. Yes.

Kitten Versus Ropes: Part Three

 

We had a very important development around here last week! I had to crate the kitten during a work meeting, and she didn't even peep! She just curled up all nice with her crate-specific alien catnip toy. I rewarded her with gross wet food after, so happiness all around. One more step towards getting to practice my ropes more often, huzzah! 

(A few weeks ago, I went over to the Water Ceremony at my neighborhood Unitarian church. The theme of the day was "Love is a River" and the pastor encouraged us to take down dams where we could and let the river do its thing. Maybe this is that.)

Anyway, back to mid-August and Reluctant Kisser. He was very un-reluctant otherwise! When he told me to turn over, I worried aloud about my newly-arthritic knee (I'm currently and always a symphony of bodily entropy),but he said that's okay, just lie flat.

"Ooh! I love being flat!" I lay on my belly and happily smushed my face into the pillow. This position always reminds me of Steampunk Guy, but whereas he was feral and rough, Reluctant Kisser was kind, deliberate, thorough.

His long dick went in far, even with all the padding. Though I felt a little abstracted from the proceedings, I reveled in scream-moaning into the pillow, yelping joyfully when he got brazen enough to land a few hard spanks. I loved it when he said:

"You're gonna make me come..."

and I huff-sighed "Yes, come on, come on, I need it, I need it."

The glow didn't last long afterward, he said he had a late-night shift, which felt like an excuse to me. He asked how often I'd like to see him, which was nice, and we talked a little bit more about herpes versus kissing. (Not quite as chummy as Godzilla versus Kong!) (That wasn't part of the convo.)

I have NEVER been so surprised when someone texted me the next day! But as we kept chatting on and off, I could feel him disengage. Or maybe it was me that was disengaging. I think I'll sometimes project a fear or a not-wanting-to onto somebody else because I still,
after all these years and ALL these paragraphs, feel obligated to accept any and all attention that comes my way, whether someone is right for me or not. Sometimes I allow myself the not-wanting-to by projecting it onto the guy. Or maybe we both just didn't want to.

After a week or so, I texted kindly that I didn't think we were the right match. It's hard to keep the faith when I'm drowning in a sea of app-people who are beautiful but not the right ones.

My quest for a hot love story with someone other than myself feels futile almost all the time. But there's always a new glimmer, and as long as people keep being cute, there's hope that I'll eventually figure it out.

Kitten Versus Ropes, Part Two

 

I have a problem I don’t know how to solve: I’m desperate to be kissed. I’m SO scared I’ve lost kisses forever, that gentle little Herpes 1 has doomed me to a lifetime of cheek kisses, of soft mouth-deflections, of down-the-neck avoidance. I LOVE a good kiss down the neck, but since the diagnosis it’s been a pathway to shame, just like, oh no, this again. In Codependents Anonymous speak, kissing and maybe all of dating has become unmanageable.

I even Googled “Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous,” but there’s no meetings near me and I don’t think my schedule can handle another regular thing. Plus, it’s not ALL of it that I’m freaking about, literally just the kissing.

I’ve had one really emphatic kisser since the not-a-big-deal-but-apparently-it-is diagnosis. He was rough, too suctiony, but absolutely ravenous. I’m so grateful for the hope and chafing he gave me. There was a sweet-but-not-a-match kiss outside of a perfect-in-every-way lunch date. (Oh, this whole kissing embargo thing might be just in my head. I mean, duh.) Then there was Heart Emoji Guy, the connection that ended with a very scary “I know where you live.”

Which brings us to mid-August, and the Reluctant Kisser. After I finished my pretty harness despite the kitten’s best efforts, RK climbed into bed with me, still shy but a little less so. He wrapped me up in his long arms big spoon style, and I wiggled my butt cozily against him with a happy sigh. One of my favorite parts of any first date, the venture, the pull-and-tingle of a man’s hands inside my bra. He was gentle and playful, and I let out a bigger moan than I meant to.

I turned over toward him and went for a kiss, and he did the glancing-off thing—cheek, chin, neck, cleavage. I was so hungry for a mouth on mine that it was hard to enjoy those sensations, but I was determined not to let the fear get the best of me. I wanted to just let myself have nice things, just be in the moment and reward this guy for all his very sweet kitten-distracting.

But when he took out his gorgeous cock—so long, hard, and perfectly cylindrical, so very very cozy to hold, to squeeze, to run my thumb over the tip and feel the happy warmth of pre-cum—I just couldn’t make myself get past the kissing thing.

“I can’t fuck without kissing,” I admitted, and we talked for a little bit about the herpes situation. I’d disclosed before we met in person—after Heart Emoji Guy I was scared to have anyone in my space without telling them first. Here in bed, I tried to be factual, honest, and open to his boundaries. I hope I did a good job, I’m so extra scared lately about not being a good citizen of sex!

He did kiss me, and it was a good one. His tongue was kind and expert, and I liked the way his beard enveloped my lips. But I still felt like I was harming him, so I didn’t press for more kisses, just relaxed into the next stages of a gorgeous fuck.

Yesterday it occurred to me while I was washing my hands—the fear of disease, of infecting someone, of accidentally being some kind of germ predator, is a pretty understandable reaction in the wake of not just my Nineties coming of age, but of the bad Covid years. My body and heart went through so much then and is still living in that time a little bit, the death, the isolation, the heartlessness of some, the general eugenics vibe I was getting from my brother, mom, and aunts—that’s so much for a body and mind and soul to take in.

Plus I lost almost my entire sense of smell! Of all the senses to lose, that’s the best choice, but it’s still a pretty painful change to go through. I haven’t caught Covid since last December, but long Covid still seems like a force of entropy living in my bones.

I’m still broken from all of it and I’m sure so is everyone I might hope to kiss.

Unmanageable.

So I guess before part three wherein I tell you about the good fucking, I just want to stop and say, oh bodies. How do we get through any of this. How do we touch and kiss and risk and trust in the midst and the wake of so much terror, so much needless destruction.

Thank you, bodies, you are miracles of generosity and strength and tenacity and pleasure and beauty. I love you so, so much.

 

 

 

Kitten Versus. Ropes, Part One

 

This story happened like a month ago! I’m having so much writer’s block and so, SO much dater’s block. The algorithm and the universe keep matching me ever more beautiful men, but I cannot believe there are SO MANY people in the world who are not the right one! It’s so weird that I’m spending so many spoons of my beautiful life on what honestly feels like an impossible dream. Mary Oliver said “keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable,” so on I go.

Reluctant Kisser was a promising Facebook Dating match! He was tall with long locks, kind, blue collar, and lives not-too-far. He was in a hurry to meet!

Friends, I have really been dropping the ball on the rope practice. I love, love LOVE my youngest cat, but she cannot keep it together when the ropes are around. I’ve missed it so much though! So, one Wednesday, I decided it was time. So when RK asked if he could come over, I was like, yes, but this is what I’m doing tonight. I thought maybe he would enjoy getting a show and! Maybe he could distract the kitten for me! Adorable.

I’m still collecting lingerie, and I had a new set to show off. It was sheer so I wrapped myself up in my purple satin robe and opened the door. The vibe felt okay so I invited him upstairs pretty quickly.

I sort of warned him, “When I take off this robe, you’re gonna see pretty much everything. Are you ready?”

He assured me that he was. I found a second string (ha) rope for him to dangle for the cat, but she immediately lost her mind when I started working on my harness. One good thing about the kitten messing up rope time is that it’s so, so funny. The main memory about that night and others—laughing and “ouch” ing because the cat was so nutso.

The Reluctant Kisser looked so mystified that I wonder if maybe I should have sent him home. It must have been a LOT to take in! Nipples! Lace! Ropes! Laughter,

“This is weird, right?” I said, checking his eyes for the urge to flee. His look was more like that meme of the lady trying to math—curiously trying to make sense of what was happening.

“Uh, yeah, it’s pretty weird.”

Remember when I used to GO on adventures instead of BEING someone’s adventure? Sudden empathy for all those top-types who guided me through! This is so hard!

Heart Emoji Guy: A New Way to Break Me, Part Three

 

Part of how I'm dealing with my oversize herpes emotions is

painting abstractions of the virus under a microscope. Pretty?

The unmatching that night seemed so mild, so good-natured, that I guess I forgot to block his number after the date.

But then, the following Wednesday, four days after our pleasant and cordial mismatch, I woke up from a dreamy morning nap to see that Heart Emoji Guy had texted. No heart emojis this time:

“So you called me there to infect me with herpes? what the fuck is wrong with you?

You got the wrong one, I am not the one.”

I’m not sure why I wrote back, but I did. I wanted to stand up for myself a little, to let the ashamed teen self at the core of this issue know I’m still on her/my side.

“I hope I can find someone who is less stigmatizing about STIs. I still deserve to be kissed, just as you deserve to have your limits too.”

I cried on and off all morning. The kitten was sleeping by my face and I got tears all over her. I felt sad for myself having to field this weird freakout, but also felt sad got HEG, for all the guys who get tangled in Reddit threads or something and decide women only exist to trick and harm them. I cried on my cat because we all have to be so afraid of each other all the time. It’s so hard and it’s not fair.

I blocked HEG, but he borrowed a phone:

“Kiss you n get herpes, you damn fuck?

Only thing you deserve is an ass whooping.

That’s why you are an ugly looser, you stupid fuck..

Karma

I know where you live..”

The 2/3 elipses kind of undermined the menace. I cannot overemphasize how sweet and mild this guy was in person. This is one of the worst things about dating—violence can come out of nowhere and there’s no etiquette, no strategy, no kindness or finesse can keep potential partners from exploding into shame bombs. I know I’ve done it myself, though without the threats. Still, I’m sorry with my whole heart. Shame bombs can go right to hell.

Herpes is such a common, minor thing, it’s so stupid for people to get so upset about it. It’s a virus nearly everyone could be carrying, but that doesn’t matter. They’re GOING to freak out about it sometimes, and I don’t want to be in denial about that anymore.

So I went where I often go when I’m struggling with being a good citizen of sex: Planned Parenthood. There, the nice nurse practitioner lady told me its fine to kiss if I haven’t had an outbreak on my face!

I’d thought about doing daily Valtrex to eliminate the worry a little bit, but the nice lady told me that according to the CDC, there’s no evidence that that would reduce transmission of HSV-1. She gave me a prescription to keep on hand in case I have am outbreak again.

“We all worry about our bodies.” She said.

I’m so grateful for her! I’m so grateful for the couple of dates who have kissed me with abandon post-disclosure. I’m so grateful for the epic, transformative, transcendent kisses I’ve experienced in the past. I took a break from swiping for a week or so, but my inbox is getting back to full again.

One disclosure at a time.

One date at a time.

Staying hopeful is the best and most that I can do.

Heart Emoji Guy: A New Way to Break Me, Part Two

I chose the purple ropes for him. I remembered all the times that winding rope around a stranger had taken me to connection, an “Ohhey it’s you!” of recognition.

And it was beautiful! And silly! I have a four-month-old kitten, how was she supposed to resist playing with the bottoms of the ropes while I wound them around and around Heart Emoji Guy?! I really should train her not to do this, but I was laughing too hard to make her stop. I considered how much nicer an evening this could be if I could just end this performance and switch gears to cat-kindness and solitude. Am I destined to be alone with the cats forever? On my more confident days, that actually doesn’t seem so bad!

I reached around Heart Emoji Guy to cross the ropes at his back—usually a reliable segue to a kiss. I felt his sweet eyelashes against my cheek as he avoided my mouth again.

I was sure he didn’t want to kiss me. I had to honor that despite the loss bubbling up from my hearts like the patrol balloon thing from The Prisoner—evil, ominous, strangely effective.

I was sitting on the bed behind him adjusting the ropes at his lovely waist when I finally admitted it: “I’m so sorry, this just doesn’t feel right.” He was very understanding, I thought. He stayed smiling all through the process of getting dressed, finding his phone, getting his sneakers on; polite, kind, deferential.

After he closed the door, I felt lonely but relieved to be with the sad—the wistfulness of still missing Blue Ribbon Work Crush, the loss of this new hopeful-seeming connection. The idea of sex without kissing hurt so badly and clouded my heart and mind with teenage trauma and loss. A thunderstorm of shame was coming, whether I deserved it or not.

The other day at the pool. I saw a kid with purple hair and felt joyful that her hair color was playful, accepted, probably not fraught in any way.

I remembered my own teenage purple hair, right after The Bad Thing happened. I somehow found it comforting that it matched the deep bruises under my eyes. It was a way to define myself, to take control of my own body in the wake of losing all control. In the wake of almost losing myself. Or, in some ways, losing myself entirely. My purple hair was a haphazardly done piece of art, giving the finger to heartlessness, abuse, and rage.

My mom saw the purple hair as another thing people would judge her for, another way that I had gone completely out of her control. She kneeled me down at the tub with Chlorox bleach, made me bleach and rinse and bleach and rinse over and over until she finally let me stop. My hair wasn’t brown again, it was a sickly lichen green. The color of queasiness itself. Still, to her it was closer to “normal” color, so no one would know. She didn’t want anyone to know what she had allowed to happen to my body, which she definitely considered hers.

All this is to say, the STI diagnoses I got when I was 16 or 17, a bouquet of them from encounters both welcome and horrific, came at a time when I didn’t really know how to process what they meant. I wasn’t present-day me with all these years of sex-geekery under my belt. I was raised Catholic and everything I knew about sex was bad, except most of my own experiences.

So my teenage self took in the STIs as more evidence that I was bad, that I was rotten all the way through and this was my own evilness just starting to show itself. There were no cheerful infographics Planned Parenthood’s Instagram page—that was a million years away. There were Sex Geeks in the late eighties/early nineties, I’m sure, but I definitely hadn’t met any of them.

Now, with my extremely low-stakes HSV-1 diagnosis, I have every resource and every support. I know that herpes is incredibly common and that the stigma around it is ignorant and cruel. But the shame is still in there deep. It’s my shame and I’m gonna have to be the one taking care of it for now, at least until the universe sends me my next fairy-tale kiss.

 

Heart Emoji Guy: A New Way to Break Me, Part One

Weekend after last, I was a little sad about my job with Blue Ribbon Work Crush being over for the summer, but it was okay because this beautiful, kind, eager young man (29, his profile said) was sending me all the heart emojis. Definite good boy potential, it seemed. We planned a Saturday night movie night at my place.

I ask all my first dates to bring flowers, and Heart Emoji Guy showed up with RAINBOW ones. With glitter on them! And like the biggest bad of Sour Patch Kids you’ve ever seen. AND Junior Mints. And popcorn! I was microwave popcorn and I don’t have a microwave, but still!

Our date was starting at around the time the fireflies come out, so I asked if we could take a walk around my neighborhood. Twilight is one of the prettiest times around here, and there was a poetic slice of waxing half moon to keep us company. We held hands, lacing our fingers together in that way that always feels pleasantly teenage-crush. Dreamy-innocent in that way that David Lynch associates with goodness. (Sorry, I’m audio reading Room to Dream and rewatching all of Twin Peaks so I’ve got my second-favorite filmmaker’s aesthetics all tangled up with my own.)

When it came time to get cozy and pick something to watch, Heart Emoji Guy asked for standup comedy. I braced for him to choose Chappelle (The great date-ruiner of 2021) and free up the rest of my evening. But we landed on (Slightly less problematic? But my niece hates him?) John Mulaney. The new special is sad weirdly smug and funny and maybe not the best makeout material.

But I did hope to make out! I just had to do my disclosure first—HSV-1. I’ve often disclosed over text pre-date, I may go back to doing it that way. Or I may date exclusively on that dating app for people who have STI positives. Or I may hide under the weighted blanket and never date again.

But it really seemed like he took it in stride. He’s in the healthcare field, so I felt not-too-anxious telling him.

When it came time to aim my face toward his, his lips landed everywhere, anywhere, but on my lips. Ears, neck, cheeks, forehead. My heart sank to about the center of the earth.

I wasn’t having an outbreak, but I can still understand someone not wanting to kiss an HSV-positive person. Even if I couldn’t understand it, it would have to be okay! That’s how consent works!

I asked him, trying to keep tears out of my voice, “Do you not want to kiss me?” and he said he did. But his body said that he didn’t. Ears, cheeks, shoulders getting kissed would have been lovely if not for the WHAT IF I NEVER GET PROPERLY KISSED EVER AGAIN grief overtaking me.

It would have been helpful to feel less urgent, or not to think about sex without kissing as tragic. Heart Emoji Guy was so kind and sweet and eager, I wanted to please him. I wanted to open up my mind and, like, glow myself into Ma’am mode. I didn’t want to get swept into the tide of grief, I wanted to accept this gift I thought life was trying to give me.

So I invited him upstairs to try the ropes!

Blue Ribbon Work Crush, Part Three

Three words, “no april fools” and then nothing.

I’d known I had to ask about the “smokes often” of it all. My hope was that it didn’t mean cigarettes, juts weed. IT NEVER MEANS THIS! But he’s my ******work crush****** and so beautiful so I had to at least try. Should I never have matched? Maybe? But I’m glad I did because I like this silly story.

Maybe I was too businesslike or cutesie or boilerplate or presumptuous when I asked him the cigarette question. Or maybe he just smokes, or maybe no answer was my answer for any other reason in the universe! If this were a stranger, I’d have felt pretty neutral about deleting the convo after a few days. Instead, I kind of…strived.

Spring is the perfect excuse to look extra cute, show a little more leg at work than usual. I posted a kind of Feeld-y lingerie pic on my regular dating app profile, hoping that might move the needle. When I wrote the first draft of this paragraph I felt a little judgey towards myself about the picture, but there’s something so tender and sweet about wanting him to just see me. I hope he did see that red lace. I hope he took a screenshot and put it in his hidden folder. Oh and a bad little part of me hopes he shows that hypothetical screenshot to the other guys at work.

The blue ribbon here is really for me, being so totally overflowing with fantasies and, at the same time, almost totally profesh! It’s almost like I have a sense of self-preservation.

The striving went on for a week or so, until one night when I had a beautifully hot hookup with a dreamboat who left a little too quick. That combination of satisfaction and melancholy opened me up enough to get a little bit honest with myself—Blue Ribbon Work Crush was the one I wanted, but he was probably a smoker and DEFINTITELY wasn’t a good texter-backer. I didn’t know what was going on, but I knew it wasn’t what I wanted.

I wrote him a note on our now-feeling-cursed dating app thread. I think it was a pretty good end-of-thread message. I apologized for my maybe-businesslikeness and was maybe a little too flowery about how great I think he is.

“Okay cool, I think you’re a nice person too.”

*dies a thousand deaths*

I’m not sure why it’s so devastating to be called a “nice person” but I hate it SO much. I cried, ended the thread, and realized it was only ever gonna be a flirtation. 

Probably, we're both just flirts! Some days I like thinking over every minute detail of what we say to each other, some days I feel mortified and ashamed if I pay him a little too much attention. Today, I’m tired of it and ready for something real.

But as I’m feeling the loss and muddle and awkwardness and BOREDOM, I also want to acknowledge the everyday gift of what has happened, the free-of-charge joy this not-quite-connection has brought. I liked the cute guy at work! He was attracted to me back! Huzzah! I’m proud to be walking away with a minimum of fraughtness. Learning and growing! I might be getting somewhere.

Blue Ribbon Work Crush, Part Two

I had (still have) no chill every time I pass BRWC in the hallway. I always feel compelled to sing out his name or give him a little present.

My department had a whole week of feasting right before Christmas break-- which was wonderful except alllllllll the diet talk that came along with it. If I could wave a wand and make food talk cease to be a small talk topic!!! Anyway, there was an amazing coconut custard pie and I brought him a piece, all wrapped up un foil with a fork and napkin on top. Gave it to one of his teammates to pass along, which in retrospect seems hurtful! Teammate deserved some pie too!

The next day, the last day before break, I looked all over the building trying to give him one of my fancy gingerbread cookies. After that dizzy afternoon, I kept resolving not to chase him! There’s a reminder on my Finch app that says “Do my best about cute people,” because “Don’t fawn all over ___________” seemed too high to aim.

The car got fixed up unfraughtly, and the gentle flirting kept being the icing on the gingerbread cookie of any given day. Sometimes, there was a moment—like when I told him to high five better next time. Like when he told me in a hopeful/bonding tone that his car has lots of stickers on it too.

There was one such moment the day before Easter vacation, a little bit of a blink-and-you’ll-miss it D/s glimmer between us that made me decide that, if the moment came, I was gonna ask him out before the end of the day. There have been several moments like that, that I didn’t end up taking, usually because he was standing around with a bunch of dudes, but sometimes just because I didn’t want to.

Two days later though, a thing happened—he “liked” me on one of the dating apps! OMGGGGGGGGG! Even though he had a “smokes often,” I matched him and said “Hey pal!” and then three big grin emojis.

Seriously, who does this happen to?! I know a “like” is the smallest move possible, but still! He made it! The person I was daydreaming about all this time! The cutest guy at work! Liked me back!

And then my unhelpful brain was like, are you sure? Look at what day it was when he matched: April Fools Day. Several scream emojis!

When he didn’t respond for a few days, I went ahead and asked. “Ohno is this match an April Fool?! If so I will have to schedule some time to be mortified!

(No one I obsessed about this to had ever heard of this as a kind of April Fools prank, so apparently I should have slightly more confidence.)

A few days later, came his three word, no punctuation reply:

“no april fools”

Blue Ribbon Work Crush, Part One

Does everybody walk into a new job and wonder who’s gonna be the Cute Person there? This time, I didn’t even have time to wonder. He was right there when I walked in on my first day last August. A different department from mine! Carrying heavy things! And so exactly my type: handsome in a lighthearted way, tall as me, dark-skinned, locs.

I found a way to say something to him that day and every day since, feeling completely ridiculous after every interaction. He flirted enough to spur my imagination, and firing up the fantasy machine about somebody at work felt scary and delicious.

(And reminded me of Mr. Makeout Music and Lady Work Crush, those cute harbingers of sobbing and job-quitting. I LOVE my current job, top two of all time, so caution is wise.)

Speaking of machines and warmth, after a few months of chitchat, I knew he was a car guy, so I asked him for advice when Valentine’s heater started making a weird whirring noise. And! He said! That it was just the blower motor and if I ordered one online, he would put it in for me! POSSIBLY THE CUTEST THING THAT’S EVER HAPPENED TO ME. Or anyone.

I asked my coworkers about it and the office leader said “Ms. ________, not everything is a Hallmark movie.”

She wasn’t entirely right, my life is always very romcom, but she had a point. The fraughtness of what if he doesn’t do it right? Or what if I ordered the wrong part? Or if I did order it and he never had time to put it in? And how were we supposed to get in tough about it—did I need to *gasp* ask for his number? I didn’t know my post-Christmas museum trip was gonna get Covid-ed out, Val needed to be ready.

I’m learning how to keep fraughtness to a minimum, so I think I made the right choice taking the car in to the new post-Cute Car Place Guy service station. I was grateful that Blue Ribbon Work Crush had explained to me what I needed!

But I wonder—if I’d let him do me that favor, would we have gotten to know each other better? Would we have been able to try each other out in a way that would have been more organic than what did end up happening? Was I too cautious, too closed off to chance and hope and fate? Probably not, but it’s a very cute “what if” to walk around with.

 

Mr. Long Distance Is a Dear, Part Four

 

I loved laying there talking with him, playing with my nipples, and talking some more. When I asked to see all of him, he very sweetly said he wanted to save that for in person. He said that a few times, but I guess eventually the horniness won out. He angled the camera up from under his dick and oh fuck yeah, it was a profound beauty.

His cock was a fat cone of goodness, angled up and rock hard. I wanted to taste the salty tip of it. I could imagine myself riding it for days and nights, maybe for actual ever. I liked watching him play with himself, the way his thumb squeezed up and down his shaft. His warm face smiled down on me.

I asked if I could get out my trusty big pink rabbit, and of course he agreed. I was watching his face when I came, and he came not too much later. I’d like to have seen the evidence, but I’m definitely glad to have been looking into his sweet face as he got off.

He said goodnight pretty quickly then, but texted with praise, just as we’d agreed upon that afternoon. It’s not as good as snuggling, but it meant a lot to read his kind words, and then read some more in the morning.

But that weekend, I had a trip just a little bit longer than the trip to his place would’ve been, and the reality of our distance sunk in. I took stock of all the spoons I have to gather for any given trip and how much I need to take care of in my own life, and realized that it wouldn’t work.

I spent so much time being lonely during The Shy One, I didn’t want to set myself up for loneliness, for another form of unrequitedness. I wanted to celebrate Mr. Long Distance for the big life he is in, and do the same thing for myself.

This is my home. There are literal millions of men in this city. I had an even-cuter-than-his-picture breakfast date yesterday, a local and sweet and beautiful guy who brought roses. (I hadn’t remembered my favorite brunch place was flower-shop adjacent!) Still, as I type this through, I feel wistful for Mr. Long Distance. And grateful. And a little back-tracky. Matches go by fast, my heart moves slow.

Mr. Long Distance Is a Dear, Part Three

 

The night of not-in-the-mood, Mr. Long Distance and I had a lovely text chat instead of our planned sexytimes. “I just want to see your beautiful face,” he said, but I asked if we could type it through instead.

I was so touched by the way he reacted to my confusion and stuckness, how openhearted and patient he was. Even though (spoiler alert) I ultimately decided the distance was too much, my heart feels so comforted by Mr. Long Distance.

Once the mood returned, I asked if we could try our video sexytimes date again. Thursday at 9, we decided, two Thursdays ago by now.

Before he called, I put on a little bit of makeup and my Easter-blue lingerie. I climbed into bed and got all cozy under the weighted blanket before he called. When I opened the FaceTime, I just LOVED seeing him. His smile is truly so special, open and warm and joyful—just the face you want to see when you’re ready to get naked over video for the first time.

“Let me see you,” he said, not dommy but definitely hungry. I snuggled down into the blankets and said “not yet!”

We caught up a little more, ranging from pillow talk to logistics.

“Would you ever move to________________?” he asked, his voice a little feverish.

“Uh, no. I love (my city) so much, I never want to live anywhere else!”

(That’s not strictly true, I might not need to live here forever, but let’s just take a moment to appreciate the life I’ve made in the ten years since my divorce! My friendships, my business and other work, my neighbors. There’s even a Unitarian Church I can turn to when grief arises! A life.)

Unhelpful geography aside, the chitchat got me ready to lower the blankets. It felt good to move aside the lace of my nightie and slowly, lazily touch my nipples as he watched. I found a way to prop up the phone so he could mostly see me and I could have the use of both of my hands. I picked up the phone and put it above me so he could see my whole rosy, pleased self. I wanted him to see all of me.

“Get rid of the panties,” he said after I pulled them aside to reveal (at least, I hoped he could see) my soaking wet clit. I reluctantly complied—I love the feeling of pulled-aside undies. But if he wanted to see everything, he was going to see everything.

Mr. Long Distance is a Dear, Part Two

 

Since The Shy One, I’ve been kind of frozen as to whether or not to have texting preferences. I’d rather a within-a-couple-hours reaction than a left-on-read. I’d rather know what time a date is than wing it. I think those wants are okay, but I still have TSO haunting me with his “How long am I allowed to go without texting? I’m not trying to be mean, I just want to know what’s going through your mind.”

(There was a lot that had been going through my mind, but most of all it was the fact that he’d recently endured “a little bit of malaria” and I hadn’t heard from him much for a few days.)

(It had been about eight hours that day in late January 2023, for the record, which isn’t long and also is. If I hadn’t been honest about being worried that day, would we have somehow made it? Still bargaining I guess.)

(Made what?)

(I’ve started going to Codependents’ Anonymous meetings, they’re helping with this particular spiral. And others!)

The day, Tuesday-before-last, when I was supposed to have my sexy video date with Mr. Long Distance, he got busy with work stuff and didn’t confirm the time, so I wasn’t sure if we were still on. In the meantime, I was working on a poster for our city’s Trans Visibility Day tribute to Nex Benedict. I’s also listened to one too many episodes of Talking Backwards, a Twin Peaks recap podcast. Now that I’m typing this, I realize I was just too vulnerable and sad to try such a new adventure that evening. It’s maybe just as simple as I wasn’t in the mood.

Which, whoa, I could have just said!

Instead, when the not-confirmed time arrived, I found myself sobbing into my thousand-piece puzzle, just stuck in a loop. Should I tell him I just like clearer communication, especially since we’re so far apart? Do I wait til we know each other better to mention it? Do I just say goodbye now so I don’t find myself later in love with someone who’d hiss “Why? Why are you crying?” at me in the middle of the night.

To be clear, aside from a similarly cute accent, Mr. Long Distance is not like The Shy One at all. He’s bolder and more transparent, more grounded in his life, in his creativity, and in his skin.  He definitely didn’t have anything to do with the grief that was bubbling up.

When the time came to chat, I guess I just was the mess that I am. I told him I was confused about whether we were on for our date or not. I let the feelings leak out in some pretty embarrassing texts, but bless him, oh BLESS YOU Mr. Long Distance, he hung in there.