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.

My First Munch

Okay, so I’ll call most people by their initials here, or by cute codenames, but I’d like to just call the heartbreaking pseudo-dom in the previous post Bill, which is his name.  Not too long after I broke things off with Bill, I went to a kink party, but I was too heartbreaky to get very much out of it. I did find out that a friend of mine had unexpected knot-tying skills, but it mostly made me miss the jackass.

What I really needed was some time to get to know people. As anyone who reads Dan Savage has heard him tell a million novices, the best way to find kinky folks is to go to a munch. That’s when you get to sit around and talk to kinky people, but in your regular clothes, and for some reason around here, often in a sports bar. I find the sports bar part more daunting than the meeting-kinky-strangers part.

It was a few weeks after the breakup-or-whatever and I was still a mess. My wife kept worrying about me and calling me dead behind the eyes. The Zombies’ “She’s Not There” was on repeat a lot during those weeks. I was such a mess, broken and still sometimes convinced that I couldn’t do better than him, and I couldn’t imagine being appealing to anyone, but the combination of the compelling nature of what I’d just experienced and spite for Bill still kept me wanting to push myself forward.

My wife (how about I call her Sweetie) agreed to come with me even though she is monogamous and at the time had very little interest in BDSM. She’s really shy but I found it comforting to have her there. It’s funny to think what a fragile little seashell I was only a month or so ago. We walked in to the back room of the tavern and found a nice lady in a corset handing out nametags: red for dominant, blue for submissive, gold for switch. Sweetie wouldn’t say she’s any of those things, so she was confused about which nametag to pick. (*ahem* She’s a switch, we’re starting to see.)

I guess people usually circulate at these things, but I liked the couple we were sitting next to, so we stayed put. She’s a Varga Girl redhead and he’s the kind of bearish snuggly type I tend to want to pal around with.  When I started bonding with the lady, H, over our mutual love of Project Runway, the gentleman was right there with “Well maybe I’ll tie you two together, and then as a reward, you can watch Project Runway together.”

See this is what I love about the local BDSM community! So quick with the imagination and so welcoming! I felt so included! That was one of the nicest things anyone’s ever said to me, and people have said some nice things.

So I was like, okay, we’re friends now.

The gentleman (well.), turned out to be quite the photographer. H handed me her phone and let me look through all of her pictures on Fet Life—there were about a jillion. The more I looked at the pictures, the better I felt about life. I was mesmerized, just kept looking and looking. There were all kinds of pictures of her, including some where she was suspended from the ceiling, but one caption stands out in my memory “My first boobs-out party!” That seems like a good goal to have.

So my take-away from that munch? I want to go to there, to accomplish part of what those two are accomplishing, to leave the sad parts (and monogamy!) behind and adventure wholeheartedly.