Poly Feelings and Christmas Cute With The Guy Next Door: Part One

Friends, I am FREAKING OUT. Yesterday was my first real date with The Guy Next Door, and it went well! And today OCD wants me to know ALLLLLL the possible things that could go wrong, or could prove it didn't happen at all. So it's past time to write about what happened over Christmas.

Ever since he helped me with my left-my-phone-in-the-Lyft emergency on Election Day, TGND and I have been hanging out pretty regularly, just friend time with the occasional flirty spark. I didn't know what was going on with the other two ladies, but my therapist gave me this treasure of an advice:

"Maybe you don't have to figure things out and you can focus on having an amazing holiday"

AND OMG I DID IT!

He came over the Thurs before Christmas to help me put up my decorations (Definitely counts as Art Night!) but instead of doing that, we talked for three hours. He'd told me he was poly before, but this time I actually HEARD him. As he filled me in on his relationships, I felt an old familiar golden emotion sparking up!

Compersion!

But more than that, I felt like "Oh yeah, this! I know how to do this." The generosity and lightness I've felt during the best parts of poly life--there they were!

AND

OMG

I CAN'T EVEN BELIEVE IT

The Guy Next Door is a rope top! Gentlekittens, start your engines! (400 scream emojis)

As we sat there, looking through each other's hot pictures, (Though I held off on sharing all but the most chaste rope pictures of me.) I felt like yes. This is The Thing. It's happening. The Pink Haze that takes over sometimes and leads me in the right direction, here it was decorating my apartment, which was good, because nary a Christmas light was hung.

The next night, he came back to actually put up the lights. I was making cookies for Angel Face's Solstice party, so I assigned TGNS to put the lights on the tree.

And I said

(because I am extremely me)

"I think I'm about to get very jealous of the tree!"

He looked shy and startled and said "You're making me blush." and all the bravery drained out of me at once. I felt an ice floe of fear and clammed up, focusing back on the cookies. We joked back and forth like "Oh haha we're such flirty people, of course we're flirting, no big deal."

But I knew that wasn't what I was doing, so I asked, "Do you think we'll get to snuggle someday?" 

And he stopped, thought for a sec, and said "Maybe!"

"Maybe's good!" I said, and for maybe the first time in my whole entire OCD life, I believed it.

Closure Is a Thing, I Think, Part One

I’ve read so many Dear Prudence columns downplaying the idea of closure, and I totally get that! Talking things through can feel like a cigarette after having been quit for years, a grim sense of starting all over. Or, it can feel like a liberating sensation and a fresh start. I might be leaning optimistic because I had a really good first date Saturday night (We snuggled up on the couch and actually WATCHED A movie! So cute!) but that is an adorable post for another day.

Sometimes, a letter at the end of the year can be a lovely way of letting things go, a last thanks/sorry/good wishes before joining a new year as strangers. That worked for me with Gilmore Guy, with This Charming Man—the letters were probably very self-indulgent but they helped me with the process of letting go.

This adventure started with a spell at Angel Face’s Solstice party—his spouse handed me a slip of paper and asked what I would like to let go. I clutched my fist and said “NOTHING.” But I wrote The Shy One’s name on there anyway and put it in the fire as instructed.

Shortly after, The Shy One visited in a dream. He was standing outside my classroom (In real life, I do not have a classroom) looking dapper and fatherly in a winter coat. We hugged hello/goodbye and his spirit felt…lighter. It made me so happy to think of him not full of worry or stress, just peaceful. Of course, I looked for him for the rest of the dream, but he was gone.

So, partly because I forever live in a romcom, I sent him a thank you card, right before Christmas. His reply came SO QUICK.

What I Want, Part Two: Being a Romantic Slut

4. I want submission.

Near the beginning of the summer (Before it was even Kate Bush Summer!) I was on a mini-road-trip to The Fancy Garden with Rainbow Pal. I haven’t gotten to write about them yet, but they’ve been central to helping me dream up the creative sluttiness of the past couple of months. We’re both tenderhearted artists and I believe we might be platonic soulmates—they’re right up there with Angel Face when it comes to transformative friendships.

Anyway, as I was driving us home, they were telling me about a dom they used to have, and WHOOSH I remembered.

The hush of letting someone take over control. The precious, adorable feeling of being small, so small I’m almost nothing. And yet, seen in a slutty, delightedly filthy way that really happens to me so rarely. As anyone who reads me knows, I’ve been playfully spanked, had my hair pulled, been called a “good girl” during rough blow job practice, but none of it was THAT FEELING. Surrender. Pushing myself to bend and please. And that clearheaded feeling the next day, the one I didn’t realize I’d been missing.

And the DAY AFTER that conversation with Rainbow Pal, I ran into The Song Sender at the movies. So many aspects of subbing that I LOVED him for in 2011 came back again, and so many new games and desires sprouted up in my filthy heart. I assigned myself homework. I told him lovely, rough-to-sweet, elaborate slutty stories, fiction and not, in person and over text. I lost my mind and sent him poems about mystical submission to god. Aaaaaaaallllllllll the pictures I sent him, naked and not.

It’s confusing to have felt so seen by someone who will also never actually see me at all. To have been so fulfilled by someone who both feared and actively got off on disappointing me.

Somehow, in all of that, I got a taste of what a loving dom might feel like. I don’t know if it will be in the context of a romantic relationship (I hope so!) or if it will be its own thing. I’ll never find anyone to replace The Song Sender, yay and sob, but I hope to find a kinder, deeper, more sustainable version of that beautiful, BEAUTIFUL feeling.

5. I WANT ROMANCE and synchronicity.

The night I had dinner with The Shy One and we decided to be some kind of a thing again, it was like eleven million degrees out. But he’s not a PDA guy, so I had to put him in my car to kiss him. We kissed like it has been two years instead of two months. He smelled so him, and we were both dressed up so nice for dinner, and we were SWEATING. But it was so hard to let him get out of the car.

People get so tripped up by the word romance. I think it freaks a lot of people out because they think it’s about wedding dresses, and babies, and all the other Relationship Escalator things. Those things ARE a kind of romance, but they’re not what I mean.

Back to that road trip with the submission conversation, Rainbow Pal and I talked a lot about the Romance of Life, and that’s what I mean that I want. Beauty, sensuality, pleasure, awe, those things are all around us, whether we are partnered or not. When The Song Sender wasn’t passing the Turing Test or when somebody I wanted to date turns out to have been a hookup, I still always have flowers, the ocean, the intricacies of clouds.

There’s always a song that comes along and gives the exact right message. There’s always the advice I give myself in dreams. There’s always the Tarot deck to unstick my imagination when it’s getting stagnant.

I love the romantic moments I share with partners, like when The Shy One texts me flowers, but I’m also SO GRATEFUL that this list item is one I can keep giving myself.

6. And to that end, I want to keep dating myself. It was one of my 10 goals for 2022, and it has opened my world up maybe more than any other goal ever. I would love to keep giving myself the beautiful moments I deserve. Each time, I know a little deeper that I deserve them.

From The Museum of Bad Advice to The Library of Love (And Knots.)

Before I head-argue with BetterHelp lady any more, I just want to stop and celebrate the creative surge and series of breakthroughs I’ve been experiencing during and following my Quarantine Crush adventure! I’m never sure if its super-ethical to consider people muses, (Past and present muses, feel free to weigh in! Not here because the comments are turned off.) but QC is a powerful one anyway. Since Zooming with his poetry reading, I’ve written poetry I’m excited about for the first time in years, revived an old poetry series, made however many drawings and paintings, tried new drawing styles, gotten a new perspective on my business life, and written like a jillion paragraphs here.

I even signed up to read from the Kitten Calendar at an old-fave local reading so I’d have a way to re-experience rope adventures!

Miracle of miracles, I’ve even learned to love dressing up for Zoom events, including pretty shoes for no reason!

Whether or not I can justify the tears to a narrow-minded therapist, crushes fucking WORK for me, and they often lead to more friendships as well! (Angel Face is still one of my main inspirations—he invited me to Online Goth Night on Friday and I am TOTALLY going!)

Romantic lovewise, though. I know I can’t control if I ever find the requited version again. If I don’t, I think I can probably handle it, because I almost always feel completely full of all the kinds of love in my life: friend-love, family-love, work-love, talking-about-Gilmore-Girls-love, art love, book love, nature love, and of course good old fashioned self-love. Actually, I think I’m pretty amazing at love, even as I’m still missing a person or people.

It has really struck me in the past few days how simple, how ordinary, my romantic wishes/fantasies/hopes are. I don’t think it’s crazy or demanding to hope that someday before too long a masculine person will be sending me songs for smitten reasons, not for just-friendly reasons like QC or for opportunistic predatory reasons like Bill. And maybe, just maybe, that song-sender will know all the knots.

Because of my age and other particulars, it’s easy to see my romantic hopes as lightning-strike bonkers. I sure thought of it that way while I was divorcing, but I had to make room for that imaginary guy anyway, I had to try. Such an ordinary wish, to be like-liked. It happens to people all the time. I know that I deserve it as much as anybody, that no amount of self-as-project can make it come along any faster or slower. It comes when it comes. Until I get there, I fall, I get giddy, I cry, I make art. It’s a pretty good plan.

I am WILDLY underemployed this summer, so I need some CDC-friendly adventures. I need to be always writing paragraphs. So!

1.      Learn one knot a week. Think about how much the Republicans would resent me using stimulus (ha) money on a new set of shiny peacock-blue ropes.

2.      High Fidelity without the visits. I feel pretty resolved about all of my past loves, but it would be fun to visit them in my mind and heart. Since I already lavishly paid tribute to The Boy Who Sewed Me a Pillow, I’ll start with the guy after that. The guy who sang Rage Against the Machine on amusement park rides. The guy who looked like Eddie Vedder at just the right moment. The guy who was my first sex/love combination. Ohhhhh Full Name Guy, you’ll be a summer treat.

That way, until I find my next human true love(s) I’ll have all the rope-love and paragraph-love to keep me company. Thanks for reading, wish me luck!

About “I Love You”

It will come as a surprise to exactly no one that I regularly exchange “I love yous” with the Mystery Man and his Family, none of whom I’ve seen in person. At first I wondered if maybe this wasn’t going a little overboard, but as a reader and a writer I’m quite used to adoring people I’ve never physically met. The stakes are a little higher, but it feels natural nonetheless.

Back when my best friend Angel Face and I were almost a thing for five seconds, he admitted to feeling overwhelmed at the amount of affection I sent (Those who balk at “Call Me Maybe” may be glad you missed my Ke$ha-ful “Your Love is My Drug” phase…) but as friends we talk like that all the time. Getting to say it romantically to a guy, though,  is new, and every time I read it or say it, it’s like a little more of me gets repaired, like I’m a little closer to getting to express my true self.

In the movies, (and in last week’s New Girl episode) the trope is that the “I love you” should be withheld until the big reveal, some big dramatic moment, but that isn’t how it feels to me at all. I love easily, instantly, and thoroughly, and that’s always made me feel a little bit out of sync. But what if there’s actually a place in the world for people who see life that way, for whom love is like breathing, like weather?

“I love you” is both momentous and ordinary. Or COURSE I love you, why wouldn’t I? My time on this planet is limited and I’m choosing to spend some of it with you. It’s obvious, it’s easy, it’s who I am. If I wasn’t loving everyone wholeheartedly, my job would eat me alive, divorce would have kicked my ass, and nothing would ever get done. All of it is running on love, all of the time.

It wasn’t until that really terrible casual sex with a random OKC guy right after Christmas that I realized I hadn’t really been having any casual sex these past two years. In some way, I’ve loved every person I played with, and every person whose person I’ve played with. I loved Cute Master and Pretty Slave from the moment they walked into that Kinky Karaoke party glowing with good sex (and probably good weed.) I loved the Cutest Boy at the Party as soon as he sat down and started chatting me out of my party tears. I loved Old-Timey Guy from the moment he smacked my behind with that godawful hurty ceramic star. (As a side note, I think it’s the romance that attracted me to BDSM in the first place—all the outfits, special names, and secret whispers, how lucky are we that that’s real to us?)  I loved the Steampunks from the moment I sat down at their table, would have done absolutely anything for them. Fireguy’s paternal gaze, The Man’s first bus stop kiss, the rope-compersion I felt for the Boss of Me and Her Boy before I even met them—all of it, love.

Most of those folks wouldn’t say they’re in it for love, or they had enough love already when I came along, and that’s easier to accept now that I can just go ahead and admit to loving them. I did, and I always will, no matter how the story ended.

And the ones who’ll take the “I love yous” and give them back, too? You’re changing the way I see the world, the way I see my place in it. You’re helping me to settle into my real self and guess what? I love you for it.

Why It’s Awesome That I Cried at the Munch

It’s not my favorite kind of adventure to write about of course--I would much rather be describing underpants. But I do think it feels like a good step.

Saturday was one of those days where everything kind of caught up with me—the breakups, the divorce, another summer almost gone without having found my Beach Guy. I got sick of the guys who hit on me on the nude beach always not being the dream guy, sick of this summer in general and at the same time wanting to go back to the beginning of summer and somehow do things right. Stepping out of the forward flow of time is never a good plan, but I guess it’s understandable.

When I got home from the beach already feeling a little blue, I found the two letters informing us that, per our request, the city had dissolved my life partner status with Sweetie. In this time when everyone’s working so hard and making so much progress for marriage rights, I’m officially leaving Lesbian Island on a husband hunt. Nobody ever failed worse at gay marriage than I did.

My mood dropped all the way, but I couldn’t stay home and wallow. I got on the bus and wallowed there instead. I sent texts to Angel Face and the Lady of the House asking for support and strength, and they were both very kind. I walked the blocks from the bus to the bar feeling the prettiness of the cool night but being lost in my own failures and despair.

This was the same munch where I met Fireguy last year, and I knew that several nice friends were going. When I walked in it was lively and crowded and I was greeted with hugs, but I was sad and scared and I didn’t know what to do or where to sit. I felt lost. Luckily a girl I know from poly circles was there and she guided me to a seat and asked what was wrong.

I told her about all the heartbreaks and frustrations and she said “You sit there. I’m going to get you a drink.”

While I waited for her to come back I chitchatted and resisted the urge to run—I’d told myself I should stay for at least one drink no matter what my mood was.

She brought back a Long Island iced tea that was so strong I was afraid to drink it—I’ve really been keeping alcohol to a minimum lately. But I kept drinking it.

I started telling my friend about all of the things I was sad about, all the things I missed. Another friend’s husband came over to give me a hug, and as he held me I just broke down. I just let myself cry and nobody thought it was weird at all. In fact, they gathered around me. Friends and acquaintances, even some girls who I thought didn’t like me. Napkins were brought for nose-blowing. One girl told me “Well, your boobs are amazing, so I know it’s his loss.” and I laughed and things started to be okay.

Things went back to pleasant chatting. I finished the drink and the nice friend who’d bought it gave me a ride back to the bus stop.

I was still sad. I sniffled my way through church the next day (Totally okay since this month’s theme is vulnerability) but by coffee hour I was chatting with friends and signing up for a new spiritual development group. I came home inspired and found some nice friend requests in my Fet inbox. And! An invite to a party at Cute Master and Pretty Slave’s house! Just exactly the right thing. Woohoo for maybe some smutty adventures.

The fact that I could break down in the middle of a get-together and people took it with such matter-of-fact caring, that’s an amazing thing to me. I worry so much about being isolated by grief, about not being out adventuring enough, but it seems like I really am doing something right. It makes me deeply happy that I was so accepted and looked-after, and it will make the next sexy adventures around those folks all the more meaningful.

Divorce Times Week Six: Like a Part-Time Flu (But Also Some Little Breakthroughs)

Part of every day is okay. There’s an overarching loneliness that’s hard to take, but mostly I get through it. Sometimes, though, I just run out of trying. I get a bad headache and feel trapped, feel like I’m drowning, and the only thing I can do is get a drink of water and go lay down. As long as I just go ahead and let myself do that, the drowny feeling passes.

With exercise being my main antidepressant, I panicked a little when the city pools closed, but I went back to the gym at the community center by my house. For some reason I can’t stop myself from smiling when I get on the elliptical. Sometimes I am a little bit of a chick lit novel, I think. Zumba classes started up again and the instructor has the hottest ass I’ve ever seen, so I have that to look forward to.

On Monday, the Lady of the House and I had a nude beach day and it was fantastic. We talked our hearts out and I trusted her enough to tell her things I hadn’t told anybody, not even Sweetie. With Sweetie having gotten so sick of the sound of my voice, it’s wonderful that I have at least a couple of people in my life who don’t think I talk too much. (LOTH does think I might think too much, and I’m inclined to agree.) In between swimming and adding cute couples to my mental vision board, we worked on lists of what we want in our next partners. We’re awesome wingpeople for each other since almost everything we like is opposite—besides “Must love the ocean,” of course. I’ll post my list soon even though I’ve already written (and ignored!) many such lists.

One thing I’m proud of from this week is that the other night when I was crying it out over Steampunk guy, I didn’t lean on Sweetie for help. When I was lying in bed crying and trying to write, she came in and put her hand on my back but I sent her back out. I texted Angel Face a few times but mostly I handled it on my own. I cried and wrote and then cried and wrote some more the next day, until eventually they started to feel like productive tears, tears of acceptance, the kind that give my heart a little more breathing room. It’s important that I know how to fall apart and put myself back together without having to depend on Sweetie to tell me it’s okay, to tell me I’m okay.

It’s been a hard week, but I still feel like I’m doing what I can to move myself forward. One of my main goals is to have more community ties by the time my heart is healed, so I looked up a bunch of munches and RSVPed. This week was the local Master/slave meeting and it was exactly the right thing to go to. Everybody was so sweet and caring, and we/they talked about deep, complicated feelings for two hours—that is like emo-girl Christmas! There wasn’t any one person I felt an affinity towards, but the group felt like such a good place to start—one of them, anyway.

I’d still been feeling very reticent about making friends around the scene because of shame about the (way back when) Fireguy stuff and the (still kind of hurty) Scary Party stuff, but the more I talk to people, the more I understand that I’m not alone. The picture I had of myself as an outcast or pariah was a. pretty self centered and b. incorrect. There are definitely some mean girls who don’t like me, but for the most part no one ever says “Oh, that was you?” and runs away or yells at me. It’s just a part of who I am, and someday, I won’t be ashamed of it. While I do regret the fight with Fireguy, I can’t say that I regret the Scary Party thing—I can’t see any other way that could have gone. Plus, I kind of like tops to know that I have the potential to fuck their whole shit up (at least for a night or two) if they ignore limits.

That being said, while I was talking to one of the Scary Party regulars about The Man, a wave of compassion washed over me. He’s just like me, just like everyone—kind of a brokeny person who needs love and fucks it up sometimes. Not that I’d snuggle up to him anytime soon (I’m sure he’d be TERRIFIED at the prospect) but I don’t really feel like I need to be mad at him anymore, and I certainly don’t need to be afraid. With things in perspective, he was a love like any of the others, and he always will be.

So even though the days are long and sluggish, I do feel like I’m continuing to break down walls for myself.

Monday night when I came home all pink and happy from the beach, I was joking around with Sweetie about my “must love the ocean” requirement, and she said:

“You know, I grew up in West Texas. Most of the information I had about the ocean came from Jaws.”

“Come to think of it, most of the information you had about hetero sex came from working at the Rape Crisis Center.”

“Til I met you, yeah.”

Sweetie didn’t make up my fears and barriers, but she was very good at enabling and encouraging them. My fears brought us closer together, made me feel like I had to keep depending on her. I can see that her influence, while ostensibly supportive, helped me to cultivate my fight-or-flight habits instead of learning to react in more productive ways. She loved me through so many panicky tantrums, and I’m grateful, but also that wasn’t a healthy thing.

I want to be away from that influence, so living together is an oppressive thing. Sometimes it’s tempting to just give in, give up on the idea of my own place. This apartment is heartbreaking and suffocating, it sucks out so much energy just to be here. When we first decided we were splitting, I could see my new life so clearly, but now it feels much less clear. I don’t know when’s the next time I’ll fall asleep with somebody, the next kiss, or even the next spank. Sometimes that’s really hard to take.

Last week, my phone was finally repaired. (No miraculous retrieval of cute texts, I’m afraid.) I’d been using an old kind-of-broken phone and I figured out how to sync the phones so that I could transfer all the contacts and pictures. I figured it out by just poking around, not by asking Sweetie! These are the kinds of things that bring me joy lately, the little victories that make me feel like I might just make it on my own.