A Nice Break from Being TOO MUCH: Thinking Through the Ma’am Stuff, Part One

 

I am Love-Kaiju, hear me roar.

Trying to access the emotions of my first real time as a rope top is like trying to make a map of Narnia once you’re already back in Britain: It was so magical and I think it was real but I have no other witnesses, I don’t know where or when it is there now, and I might have to accidentally fall into a painting to ever visit again. I really, really need an oversized anthropomorphized lion to show up and tell me what’s what. Maybe I should put that on my Feeld profile.

Being my own Aslan is especially hard at this moment because my ego is bruised and I want to detach from the whole experience and outrun the heartbreak. Through the annoying magic of the stupid internet, I know he has already moved on. (In Feeld, someone who has previously deactivated their account will show back up in your inbox, there’s no way to unmatch until that unfortunate moment. Yes, I too am reactivated, but it still irks my entire soul. I unmatched right away before I could be tempted to check what he’s looking for post-me.)

It's hard to reach the warm, generous, expansive Ma’am emotions thorough my brain’s David Lynch roomtone of bitterness and self-recrimination (Like, fucking LOVE, really?! Fucking AGAIN? What is WRONG WITH ME?) but I think it’s important to honor the big feelings, and maybe to learn to love them. So I need to retrace my steps.

So. Back to six weeks or so ago. It only took a few Feeld messages to settle into a new kind of flirting for me; A conversation between a Very Sweet Ma’am and a Very Good Boy. To me, it didn’t feel like taking on roles so much as stepping into a space. When he typed to me that he was fantasizing about my ropes wrapped around him, I wrapped around him in some spiritual or metaphysical sense.

I felt fully myself in a new way. Being able to lavish affection on somebody so beautiful and (thus far) worthy, being able to bestow praise and pleasure and have them (I thought) be unreservedly received was such a relief, such a feeling of stepping into myself.

As with anyone, there’s a LOT of me that has to be held back in order to be a somewhat functional and productive member of society. If I didn’t hold back some of my affection, awe, and wonder, I would be constantly exploding into a cloud of glitter, gratitude, and unhinged, terrifying-to-many joy. I would be a kaiju of affection, maybe that’s why I identify so much with Godzilla. There are plenty of non-dating ways to let out the giddy world-love that don’t feel like I’m being superscary: art, activism, teaching, friendship just to name a few. But paired with attraction, all the glittering gratitude makes me feel just like a crazy person. Like glitter, a mess that clings to everything and is impossible to clean up.

Even now, as I try to convince myself to write about the shiny joy of being free to praise a receptive partner, I don’t want to let it out. Because I always seem to land back in the same place: I’m too much. I’m too intense. I’m too open. My transparency asks for too much in return without meaning to. My affection for attached but presumably available poly partners gets me vetoed. My love makes me terrifying. I’m too much, I’m too much, I’m too much.

“Sometimes it’s all just…too much.” said The Southern Charmer on our second and last date. Granted, he’d taken too many weed gummies before coming over, and he might have meant *gestures widely* and not my whole thing specifically, but I heard it as feedback and it hurt my heart. What’s the former Good Boy out in the goddamn field looking for now? Probably someone who is NOT TOO FUCKING MUCH.

The thing of it is, though, EVERYTHING is too much sometimes, especially right now. The guys who panic and flee or who turn into human lo-fi or who sabotage the whole thing, and I, when I flee too soon or too late, we’re all relearning things as simple as how to touch other human beings. Thinking back to the first time I had a man in my bed post-pandemic (Nearby Guy last August) I remember how much awe I felt just at the gift of just being NEXT TO another human being, being able to smell and kiss and cuddle someone besides myself. When I arrived at The Lovely Guy and This Charming Man, that awe and overwhelm continued.

It doesn’t excuse my bad behavior or anyone else’s (SHALLOW, BRATTY, SELF-CENTERED, ENTITLED) defensiveness, but it does make it easier to be compassionate with all of us: the big emotions of attraction are roller-coastery in the best of times, but alongside the need to relearn and reinvent being around other people, it. IS. A. LOT.

Next time I hope to get to the Ma’am emotions, but I’ll also welcome whatever paragraphs stand in the way.

A Brief Match with Gilmore Guy

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

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

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

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

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

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