The Goodbye Boys

Connection and attraction are weird. The two times that Mr. Adorkable came over, I felt like we were almost supernaturally linked, not just the way our bodies fit together, but personality-wise as well. We chatted and laughed like friends and played so beautifully. And then he’d go back home and hardly ever text—I should have taken that signal and kept it moving, probably.

Not-texting wasn’t how it started though. The first weekend that he had my number, back at the end of August, he was attentive, flirty, infinitely selfie-able. He was my cute text company on my solo birthday trip, to the point where I missed him when my hotel room turned out to be a Wifi-hole. I sent him a picture of a sunset mountain, of my outfit matching a wall of Warhols. Company.

But after our first date, the textiness stopped, and I don’t know why I didn’t just admit that I HATED that. Anybody can text anybody every day or so! Still, I was mindful of bandwidth. And he was so lovely and present and playful in person.

Before our second date, I reached out to ask him if he’d ghosted, a really bad sign! But he said he hadn’t, and I got more attached. Again, a song came on at the right time like we were in a movie.

But then, the not-texting again. We made a third date, but it took some nagging.

(My work life is mostly nagging--it’s my superpower! I vow to not opt into any more of it in my free time.)

(And I also vow to just recognize the next case of He’s Just Not That into You when it comes along!)

Anyway, when Mr. Adorkable told me a few hours before the planned third date that he “wasn’t feeling connected.” I wanted to be like: Duh. You didn’t even try. But I know things don’t work that way.

My point is, besides BEING TEXTED BACK IS NICE, that I’m feeling burned out from the goodbye part of dating.

A partial list of goodbye boys since last fall:

The Coach, (didn’t want to be in person, possibly dick-catfishing me)

The Lovely Guy, (very lovely, it just ran its course)

Superhot hookup guy who looked like Finn from Star Wars, (Gave me a fake last name)

This Charming Man, (Love, heartbreak, Chappelle fan)

The very-not-a-match-hookup who probably gave me Christmas Covid,

The Good Boy, (Can’t really complain about that one)

The Shy One, (GLAD I UN-SAID THAT GOODBYE!)

The Southern Charmer, (“Sometimes it’s all just…too much.”)

The Adorables,

The boy with the Sonic the Hedgehog tattoo, (Also one that said “Keep it real”)

The high school principal who had First Corinthians tattooed on his arm, (I thought this was the most romantic thing ever.)

The goth boy who was delightfully dommy in the car, (Also a terrible texter)

The Song Sender Part Two (Electric Boogaloo),

and Mr. Adorkable.

No wonder I’m so tired. I’m not writing this to slut-shame myself, far from it! I just want to acknowledge that that’s a LOT of hope/hotness/goodbye for one year. Some disappeared, some ended in wrenching conversations, one re-ended in a sweet, healing way, one un-ended.

So it’s time for a little break from strangers, time for my body and heart to process all the sexiness and wonderfulness and sadness and shame and loss and phone-checking. This year of adventures was a busy, beautiful, ravishing gift, but Mr. Adorkable was one goodbye too many for now. Just for now though.

What I Want, Part One (The Easy Part)

There’s always a certain amount of futility in these lists, because the next characters who come along could knock me on my ass just as much as any ever have. If you’d told me in June that “summer fling with The Song Sender” would be in the cards, (Literally. The Lover and The Devil! Yikes and yay. Yay and yikes.)  I would have laughed in your face and told you about a dream I had a few years ago, wherein I was explaining to him: “We just call it strangling now.” More about that guy in part two, but for now, the easy things:

1.     I’m solo poly, and not necessarily destined for the kitchen table, at least not right away. I like my space, and I’ve discovered in the past few weeks that I like each combination to have time to grow before stirring my darlings’ darlings into the mix.

 

That doesn’t rule out future deep relationships with metamours or even some magical unicorn miracle, but I want to take my time. Every person is a LOT. I am A LOT. I would like any given combination to have its feet under it before I start to learn the next humans. Because I will LOVE THEM TOO and that will be, you know, a lot.

 

2.     I definitely do want polyamory. I would love to stop trying to wedge myself into monogamy every few years out of—self-protection? Weird poly/bi phobia left over from my divorcing years? There have been such LOVELY combinations of humans, such bursts or yes-this-is-exactly-it happiness that I would love to see some more.

 

The Shy One, The Song Sender, and a hookup whose name I barely remember but who made for a fucking GLORIOUS week. This Charming Man, The Lovely Guy, and that other hookup who gave me the wrong name. The Good Boy, The Southern Charmer, and The Adorables. Ideally, most of those would have lasted a lot longer, and I know that humans are NOT art supplies, but I felt like an artist working in the medium of slut, and I would lovelovelove for that to happen again.

 

3.     I don’t necessarily want The Relationship Escalator, but I want feelings. Lovey-dovey feelings, friendly feelings, and d/s feelings. Nobody has to love as easily or as quickly or as thoroughly as I do, but I want them to not feel/seem like a trapped animal when the warmth and affection come into play. Talking about relationships the other night, The Shy One said “I just go in kamikaze, and if it doesn’t work, I just try again.” BFF-Formerly-Sweetie has always called my same strategy “jumping in with both feet.” I don’t always, but when I do, I would love to hang around long enough to let them see if they can catch up.

 

To accomplish that, I would like to not get so mad at myself for the feelings. I would like to give myself space to feel them and be a little less quick to flee.

 

And yes, I would like some of them, eventually, to adore me. To love me wildly, emphatically, and forever. Please.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Knotty Thursday: True Lover's Knot.

 

A dramatically named knot for a heartache week. I miss The Shy One so, so badly. I'm at the part of heartbreak where I question every choice I made that led me away from him. Where I wonder if there'll ever be anyone(s) so special again. The fancy teacup. The daily pictures of flowers. His sweet face. The month of sunsets. The kisses.

I've started flirting again, because it cheers me up to picture putting new cuties into my ropes, but I'm not sure what I can/should ask for. The Shy One told me I had every right to ask for what I need, but there's nothing in the universe that gives me the right to find it. I may never find it. I know I've had three good romances and some hot playpals in the past year, but each heartbreak still feels like it must've been my last chance.

All that aside though, I had a lovely time with myself last night. I started from two True Lover's knots and ended up with this harness. I love the way the colors go together, especially since these are the ropes I ordered after my first date with This Charming Man--it was a treat to see and feel that harmony, even/especially two loves later.

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.

Knotty Thursday: Untangling

 

I know letting go of the things that don’t work makes way for more awesomeness. That’s even one of my affirmations for this year! I have been doing a pretty good job moving forward, cheerfully doing my swiping and “Good morning”ing on the apps and smiling at most of the people I see out in the world. Of course, if I’m inside, I’m smiling with just my eyes because Omicron is a jerk.

But in my heart, I haven’t let go of This Charming Man. We haven’t had contact since day of the ill-fated Fancy Garden trip, but most of the time I low-key wish I could just go wait on his porch until he comes home. Or even-

He keeps an open cage with a blanket in it on his porch for when his favorite half-feral cat comes to visit. I don’t think cats need pseudonyms, his name is Hank. I sometimes want to shrink down to Hank-size and curl up in there for This Charming Man. Not to be any less wild myself, just to be near him. Even just to be near the idea of him.

The afternoon of the Winter Solstice, freshly un-quarantined from a blessedly mild breakthrough Covid infection, I went to the Fancy Gardens on my own to feel some awe at the Christmas lights and commune with the places along the way where that November 11^th seventh date fell apart. In those places, it wasn’t just heartbreak that filled me up, but also a solemn acknowledgement. Those places, even the Kohl’s parking lot on the way there where I cried because he told me he never thinks about people when they aren’t around, felt (annoyingly) important.

“You’re shaking” he said that day as he held me in the front seat of my car, close but already unreachable. I was shaking. My love and loss were profound.

“I was so careful this time,” But I really wasn’t. What even IS careful when there are ropes and bodies and pasts and politics and deadly diseases and painful scars and cultural gaslighting?

What even IS careful when I’d spent however-many months not touching or being touched at all? When elbow high-fives, even as mathematically inaccurate as they are, had become a normal and welcome thrill?

I wasn’t careful. I got tangled up and it was way too beautiful to regret.

But I hope it won’t be too long before I can leave the cozy open cage of love and venture openhearted into new adventures. Maybe I’ll swipe right on the right smile tomorrow or maybe it’ll be a long, longingful year—there’s only so much about my heart’s fate that I can control. For now, I’m just a little bit waiting for him all the time. Sometimes, a silent little prayer of “Please come back” reverberates inside my head. I know it shouldn’t, but it does.

I sent away for these ropes in an optimistic fit of pre-New-Years mise en place. They came with a weird industrial smell so I put them in a pillowcase and threw them in the washer. Of course they came out of their neat coils and got all inter-tangled.

So this Knotty Thursday, I’m untangling the new topes and melting the ends so they won’t unravel, or so they’ll unravel less. Next week I might be a mermaid, or my own bunny, or just a lady who is somewhat better at a particular knot. Happy New Year! <3 <3 <3

This Meaningful Sex, Part Two

 

Before I wade back into the feelings, I’m writing myself a permission slip to put dating life aside until after New Year’s. (Aside from The Lovely Guy, who’s easy to trust and be myself around!) There are plenty of year-end crafts and projects to lean into, and I’m especially excited because I’ve decided that I don’t have to spend time with my unvaccinated brother! Having excused myself from traveling to family, I’m excited to spend the month in my own life, making room for whatever quietly arrives. I may even get to see a gemstone exhibit with The Boy Who Sewed Me a Pillow, if I’m superlucky!

Anyway, back to the processing at hand. A (mostly in my own head, but still) horny week has given me a little perspective, but I still find it hard to imagine  connecting with anyone as much as I did with This Charming Man. I understand, on some level, that This Charming Man was maybe just really good at sex. But so were Steampunk Guy, Mr. Shiny Eyes, so IS The Lovely Guy. I remember that glimmer-of-love moment when I came with Mr. Sweetheart as Mr. Shiny Eyes held and kissed me. I remember the Mayor of Kittentown’s endlessly welcoming dick.

But this was the first time, with a man, that I felt truly present, safe, and adored. Truly intertwined with him, body and spirit. That feeling could have been solely provided by my ridiculous love-drunk imagination, but I don’t think it was. Not solely.

When I set out on this quest ten years ago (!), this was the thing I was looking for. Not just to be able to step over my decades of barriers and fuck men, but to learn how to fully and unselfconsciously let them in. It was the missing piece I’ve deprived myself of for so long. The longing crashed and burned so many relationships, probably a little bit this one too.

I told him, the last naked night, that no one had ever fucked me so right before. I don’t think that’s grammatically correct, but he said “thank you.” and sighed the most satisfied sigh. I loved the way he held my head up by my hair because he liked to watch me cry out for a while before he let me bury my head in the pillows. (Let us now praise doggie style, now and forever my favorite possible thing.) He would hold me so sweetly and gently after we (“good girl”) came, but his dick stayed hard and I liked just laying there, petting it. Making friends.)

(The time he slept over, in the morning as he was getting dressed, he let his dick stick up through top of his boxers, pointing upwards out the top of his jeans. Such a fucking treasure of an image, that alone makes all these paragraphs worthwhile.)

I don’t really know how to put these pieces together to help me understand how I ended up feeling so deeply, but I guess love doesn’t need an explanation. A few months ago, before I met him, when dating life started to be so exciting and unbalancing again, I told my then-therapist that my goal was to “let the moment live.”

And I did! I put the paragraphs aside for a little while, didn’t ask what the meaning or status was, just let us be. I just let him please me. I let myself have him.  I let down my guard and let us love, and even if he wouldn’t have phrased it that way, I think it was something real and true.

In the context of the five-millionth breakoff of this blog’s life, it’s hard to frame my time with This Charming Man as progress, as a major heart-victory, but it was and is. I wholeheartedly let a man in. I let us adore each other so fully until our time was done. As the heartbreak lifts, little by little, I can feel the truth of him return to my body and soul as the gift that he was. As a strength. As another facet of the love that I am made of.

I don’t want to face the world of men with the hurt and defensiveness I’m feeling now. Yes, I probably should screen better, but I also want to leave room to be open, to push myself, to be surprised. I hope that openness will blossom out of me before too long, but for now there’s the grief that honors this big important thing. For now there are Christmas crafts, and friend-plans, and gentle hope. Putting the swiping aside for a bit, I feel sad and free.

 

 

This Meaningful Sex: Part One

 

Thanksgiving was so much lovelier than I could’ve hoped for. Talking to my sister about the fancy garden break-off gave me some much needed perspective, as did just getting the heck out of town. Today, I made some gentle moves toward Whoever Is Next, but longing for This Charming Man is making me so blue. So I’m typing to lo-fi and disentangling the lost-love feelings.

Conventional thought says that hot sex can be distracting from seeing someone for who they really are, can keep us from powering along to better matches and more-fulfilled expectations. That’s certainly true in this case, but I think the opposite is also true.

Sometimes, I think, bodies know how to love in ways that hearts and minds can’t translate, aren’t ready to see, or just can’t fit into the rest of day-to-day life. Knowing who This Charming Man and I really are, the fact that we connected in ANY way, let alone a (to me at least) spiritually meaningful way, is a MIRACLE. It was a miracle created by the wisdom of bodies. (Okay, yes, also by the wisdom or post-quar horniness, and the not-wisdom-but-welcome break I took from screening for politics.)

The first time I felt him inside me, after ropes and so much other cuteness on our daytime second date, the FIT of him was uncanny. I do partly mean the physical fit—if I could write symphonies to his long, friendly, and eternally hard dick I would. But there was also, I felt, an emotional sliding-together. A rightness. A made-for-each-other. (Wait, is this how women who are used to PIV sex more than I am feel all the time? Is this swirl of attachments and emotions and chemicals something most people just know how to navigate?)

Even (especially) as he pulled my hair and I bit and twisted and sucked his nipples, I felt drawn into his heart, into tenderness and sweet team effort. Every kiss and touch and graze and handhold felt like a recognition, a welcoming home. You were made for me. We were assembled out of stardust and Hentai and playlists and national emergencies to care for each other in those hours, in those weeks.

Yes I know. Oxytocin is strong stuff. But so is love and fate and wet, slippery magnetism.

He was exceedingly PRESENT. He felt both entirely in service of my pleasure and SO turned on. Miracle, miracle, miracle. On our handful of nights together, whole albums went by, looped around once, twice. Long playlists weren’t long enough, the music only sometimes had to be tended to while we played, so easily.

Knotty Thursday: Simple Handles (There’s a Danger in Getting a Deep Need Met)

One of my favorite moments with This Charming Man was when, on our second-to-last date, I tenderly showed him how he could do a girth hitch around each of my upper thighs to use as handles.

Once the handles were on and cinched tight, he told me to get to the edge of the bed. I lay parallel to the headboard, knees in the air. He stayed standing, held onto my ass and thrust in, then regained the handles. I was always (and still am, writing this) soaking wet for him, the gushingest I’ve ever been for anyone, and that is REALLY saying something. Everything in me flowed out to him, to his smell, his charm, his humor, his beauty, and ohyeah the ropes. In all my years of adventures, I’ve never been as turned on as I was for This Charming Man.

I’m afraid I’ll never feel attraction that powerful again.

He tugged the ropes from side to side and then APART, pulling me open, wider and closer. Open, open, open, pussy, heart, and soul.

“You make me feel so good.” I heaved and sighed and huffed.

“I’m glad. You deserve it.” It’s kind of a miracle that I didn’t cry for him until our last day. His words threaded up inside me, stitched me up, gauzed up wounds with a peace I didn’t know was possible.

That’s a lot to put on one young man who has a lot of other stuff going on. I try now (though I certainly didn’t see it this way in the moment) to understand it was just dom stuff. I didn’t and don’t know where to go with all that fulfillment, all that healing, all that emotion. I don’t know how to take it to heart now that he’s gone, but I hope I can before too long. I don’t know what any of it felt like from his perspective, I wish I could. Either way, that bliss, that comfort, that rest, is mine and I hope it doesn’t always hurt so bad to think about it.

Anyway, we came together beautifully, and if I hadn’t already fallen for him like four dates ago, I was certainly a goner now.

Afterwards, when he was up taking off the condom and I was laying back tangled in the comforter, feeling ravished and adored, this thing happened. I think he said a thing. It was the second or third time I thought I heard him say it, probably a dick-drunk trick of the ears:

“I love you.”

It could have been “how are you?” or any other set of syllables. I left it there because I couldn’t have heard what I thought I’d heard. This is the part (one of the parts) where I feel truly crazy, this shimmering hallucination of my dearest wish. He can’t have said it, not on the third date or the sixth, not in the afterglow or the throes. If he did, maybe it was a trick, maybe a spellish part of the charming. Or maybe it was real.

 

Seventh Date Tears, Part Three

 

To get to the rest of this hard, hard day, I have to backtrack to the date before it. The Failed Fancy Garden Date was on a Friday, and the Monday before we’d had (my favorite) a make-out-in-front-of-Gilmore-Girls-then-have-all-the-beautiful-sex date. Our connection that night felt so thorough and deep (Ha, yep, that too, but for now I’m parsing out the emotions.) that I couldn’t think how I was going to shift into casual mode for The Lovely Guy’s already planned Friday night visit. Awash in satisfaction, peace, and a little bit of the Relationship Escalator, I decided it was time to let The Lovely Guy go.

The Lovely Guy and I had a sweet and kind text exchange, and he told me to reach out again if I ever felt the need.

This Charming Man hadn’t asked me to be monogamous, but I wanted to give him my whole self. I was ready to sink into lovely-dovey mode like a warm bath. I had well and truly fallen for him and I was doing the move-too-fast thing. It made me happy and also freaked me the fuck out.

Anyway, back to the Friday of the garden date. When This Charming Man left to go home and plan for his D&D game that night, I had time for a little nap before work. But instead of napping, I texted The Lovely Guy and asked if he happened to be free that night, and he was. He showed up fresh from work with a big bottle of my favorite pink wine.

The Lovely Guy really came through as a friend that night. He advocated hard for me to keep going with This Charming Man, explaining the cultural differences between me and both of them, shedding welcome light on some of my white lady blind spots. Plus, after the moderate tangles of the afternoon, it felt really nice to be talking to a cute liberal. Really, there’s enough to disagree about here on the left.

I sent The Lovely Guy off early even though he was so cute and smelled so good. Neither he nor I wanted to make things more complicated or confusing with This Charming Man.

When I woke up the next day, it’s possible that TCM was already all the way gone from me. His like-clockwork “good morning” (Which we’d sometimes followed by talking about what we’d dreamed. Ohhhhhhhhhh OMG I miss him.) was noticeably absent.

Either way, I knew I had to let This Charming Man go. I wrote a way-too-long breakup text. I used the word love, which I meant. It sucked. I cried all day. I watched The Starling, and then Birdbox, and then A Quiet Place, all scratching the itch of my lost and fighty mind.

I know dealbreakers are real. I know you should never start a relationship hoping that something deep about the other person will change. That Friday, in that great garden tangle, we’d both been trying to fix each other, and that is fundamentally unkind. Still, it feels like a great failure on my part, to have found such a beautiful connection and then let it fall so thoroughly apart.

I wish, wish, WISH there was something I could’ve done—not panicked, slowed down, asked the right questions, let him know I heard him. I wish it didn’t have to end the way it did. I wish it didn’t have to end at all.

Seventh Date Tears, Part Two

I miss him so badly all the time. I still, nine days later, can’t believe such a pretty date could go so, so wrong. By the time we were just starting our walk through the fancy gardens, he was correcting everything I said, taking up for anyone and anything I had a problem with—my disinformationy unvaccinated brother, Thanksgiving, Ronald Reagan, he took their side.

As we hugged and tried to reconnect in a quiet little vined alcove, he started in about how “Democrat” and “Republican” are just labels that divide us, how people like me on the left are just as responsible for the “discord.”

“You have to put “Moderate” on your dating profiles, I could have just swiped left!” I said in defeat and exasperation. I’m really, really glad, even in the midst of this annoying story, that I didn’t swipe left.

There was a moment, before I turned back up the path to go home. The alleé of pines and fall trees was decorated for Christmas, and even in the bright noon light, a cascade of blue lights lit up over the oranges, reds, and browns of the trees. He held my hand there, tried to keep me still. He tried to briefly to hold me by the wrists, but I was already fleeing.

(“Why don’t you just MARRY the moment?” I asked toward the end of the day. “I would love to, but it’s already past.” I guess that was the last time he made me laugh.)

I started missing him as soon as I turned away from those daytime Christmas lights. We talked/fought all the way back to the city. On our (dear, dear) third date, we’d watched Gremlins 2, and now we were breaking all of our own Gremlin rules. Instead of “don’t feed them after midnight” it was more like, don’t talk about Dave Chappelle, vaccine-deniers, Russian disinformation campaigns. I felt the kind of crazy I felt before I estranged from my mom, the kind of scary detachment that comes from living in separated realities. The gaslight feeling.

I took him home with me anyway, I wasn’t ready to let him go, I’m still not, even though I guess I have. We’d missed our garden lunch so we had peanut butter and honey sandwiches. We sat close on the couch and my queenly fat cat crawled into his lap. The three of us sat there, beautifully captured in time.

I was still kissing This Charming Man, but I wasn’t reaching him. I asked him to come up to bed and hold me, and he did, off-to-the-side and chaste. As soon as we were there, more tears came, so many tears came, brokenhearted tears, all-the-topics tears. Grief and loss and shame and fear and loneliness and love.

He did this thing that I can’t quite get my head around, that I love so much and maybe shouldn’t. I was apologizing for crying, trying to stuff my face into the pillows. I kept saying “This SO isn’t cute.” But he restrained my hands away from my face, stayed above me, and just kind of witnessed the tears. It was (maybe creepy, I don’t really care) an act of love.

“I’m still here,” he kept saying, but he wasn’t, not really, or I wasn’t. We were both trying hard for it not to be over, but the day was broken, it just was.

 

Knotty Thursday: Untangling Break

To post this picture from a couple of weeks ago, I cropped out the most beautiful, the silliest, the most unrestrainedly (ha) joyful smile. I'm deep in heartbreaktown for the foreseeable future, only seeing  (FWB) The Lovely Guy and giving the rest of dating a well-earned break. Not for long, I hope!

The lesson here, or one of them, is not to go another five years before I find someone to tie and be tied by. I guess I can't really control that, but I think it's really, really important to keep looking. The rope part of love isn't the only part, of course, but it's vital to me and I want to keep honoring it. Thanks for being there, dears, to keep me accountable!

It's gonna take me a while before I can write about the emotions and sensations of all the intimacies of my time with This Charming Man without just crying and wanting to call him, but I'll start here. The moment on our first date when I realized he was game to work on knots with me, such a breath of fulfillment filled me up, an anticipation and joy that I hadn't realized was missing. As we learned and practiced together, it was more than just the warm, deliberate touch that meant so much to me. I loved the pressure, the attention, the patient steps so much, but there was also a deep, deep sense of being cared for. It's hard to know for sure, but I think it was mutual and real, at least in those moments.

I don't think you're reading this, TCM, but if you are, thank you. I love you. Maybe everything means more to me than it should, but who needs should statements?

Seventh Date Tears, Part One

 

As I picked up coffee and scones for our mini-road-trip date, I yammered through the pickup window to the barista about how nervous I was. (I had also been panicky for a day or so about unrelated things, I maybe should have scaled back or postponed this big-step date!) This Charming Man is already gone and I’d only just learned how he takes his coffee. I am absolutely devastated and having the HARDEST time not just calling him up and saying “PLEASE.” Please what, I don’t know. Just please.

When I picked him up, we happily kissed hello but it was a little like having one feral cat in the passenger seat and another in the driver’s seat. He had the energy of one of those Garfield toys they used to suction-cup to car windows in the Eighties, just absolutely ready to escape. I wish I would have paused and asked him why he was so jangled. He second-guessed my driving (he doesn’t drive) and kept listing off accidents he had seen around home. I gave him the AMAZING lemon poppyseed scones I’d brought because! Special occasion! And he said “I thought we were going to eat.” Right or wrong, my jangled brain registered that as food-shaming. Whatever it was, I would have liked it to be a “thank you.”

We were going to eat. When he asked me out for Friday-day, I’d gotten up the courage to invite him to have lunch with me at my favorite fancy garden, about an hour away. I wanted to hold hands with him, kiss against trees, and try not to take too many pictures so I could pay good attention to him. This garden is my happy place, and I’ve only ever taken one other date there. (https://kittencalendar.blogspot.com/2015/09/in-which-i-realize-how-lucky-i-am-to.html?zx=fec1588cfc2887d4)

This Charming Man, with maybe the exception of this particular day, is PRESENT AS FUCK. It’s what made sex with him, most things with him, so dazzling, so seemingly almost loving, right from the start. Somewhere in ouroff-kilter start-of-the-trip conversation, he said a thing he’d said before, that hadn’t sounded so alarming before I’d fallen for him. In order to give his full attention to The Moment, he doesn’t think of people when they are not there. (“Have you heard of mindfulness?” was the start of this conversation.) I said it didn’t seem like he wasn’t thinking of me because of what an attentive texter her was, but he insisted. And I started to cry. And he second-guessed my driving some more.

I know my heart tends to go too fast, but I thought I was doing better this time!

I kind of wish I’d turned the car around at this point, just gotten us home from this already somehow painful day, but I didn’t want to let him go. I tried to tell him what was the matter, that I’d been going about my own life daydreaming about him. Part of me was with him when he was working or running his D&D games or just doing whatever, but he claimed not to think of me at all. Or, in fairness, anyone else when they weren’t around.

I don’t know why, after a brief break to cry in a Kohls’ parking lot, I still kept driving toward the flowers.

Lo-Fi and Rope Highs (How It’s Going)

I can’t make myself write the play-by-play of sex with This Charming Man, as hot as those paragraphs would be. I’m still disentangling my feelings about him, mainly the feeling of being startled (and, because I’m me, a little alarmed) about how connected and grounded I feel when we’re together. Our bodies and our learning curves fit together like the pretty knots, unraveling and being re-tied. Just like it was on our first date, the other main feeling is laughing-while-kissing.

Last Thursday was our fifth date (though the fourth was more of a get-over-here) and I was ready to relax into almost-always coziness at home, so I invited him to come over and paint. But he had a real out-in-the-world date in mind, at a beer garden/barbeque that’s between our two neighbs. Just a simple little while of snacks, cocktails, and running into casual acquaintances of his, but it meant a lot. To get cute for him, to feel his proprietary arm casually draped around me, to make out in front of strangers and probably be a little nauseating. A perfectly ordinary dream come true—not sure if it’s a big deal because of post-quarantine or because my dates have been casual and couch/bed-specific for a while…probably both.

After I took him home for ropes and snuggles, (and before more snuggles) we stayed up all night talking. I kept checking to see if he wanted to go home, and he kept not wanting to go home. At one point, I turned my face away to spoon, and he said I “went away.” I was right there!

I asked him, at like three or four in the morning, what he wanted us to be. He volleyed the question back to me and I admitted that I saw him as boyfriend material, but I didn’t want him to feel constrained. Kind of a cop-out. Can I get Rory Gilmore in here to do this part for me? Anyway, I kept yammering: “Romantic, not casual. Not just friends, but also friends.”

“Friends with ropes?” he joked but then sort of sighed/settled in, saying “Romantic. Yes. Definitely.”

So Friday night while he was running one of his two D&D games, I was sitting here so tired writing a first draft of this post in my notebook, with candles lit and a very him lo-fi mix playing, (Extremely unsurprising take—it’s also so good for typing!) feeling dizzy and off-balance unsure of how to make whatever next plans. (We asked each other out/in for two separate dates the next day, is how.)

But. His eyes shining when he watched me “come like a Good Girl.” His arms submitting to my ropes. The way my throat often hurts from too much laughing/moaning/forgetting to drink water. His heart. Yikes.

There of course are still things that make me feel hesitant about him, about the combination of us, but I’m glad to spend occasional moments just going with it, just feeling quiet and still.

So There’s This Charming Man, Part Two

 

The day after our first date/first kisses/spontaneous rope-ordering, he texted to tell me he was out for coffee and looking for books on Shibari. (!!!) “My new hobby” is how he put it. I tried not to get toooooo excited—after all, The Lovely Guy had made noises about learning to make a mojito for me and a bottle of white rum is sitting lonely in my cabinet waiting for me to learn mojitos for myself. Guys get excited and they say stuff. It’s cute!

The night before my second date with This Charming Man, I was trying to learn a tie I could NOT FOR THE LIFE OF ME remember the name of, but which had been a fave during the adventure days. And then! BFF to the rescue! And/or she and I need maybe a little more with the boundaries! Either way, she taught me the tie (using the banister, not any of my own columns) and I felt like everyone involved, past and present, must be amazing at life. BFF even looked up the name: chainstitching.

This Charming Man arrived at may apartment for brunch looking out-of-my-league stylish and SO PRETTY that I wasn’t even sure if I could touch him. (Spoiler alert, I COULD.) It felt really right and natural to have him standing tall-ly next to me in my teensy kitchen, chopping up sausage for the omelets. I really messed up the first one and tried to keep it for myself, but he gallantly took the way-less-cute omelet.

After eggs and cinnamon rolls, I set about teaching him chainstitching on his gorgeous long arms. It’s so easy and cozy and I almost immediately (for the first time in YEARS) fell into a rope haze. Deliberate, patient, and still while both tying and being tied, he seemed right there in that pretty haze with me.

There’s this thing. It can happen even with the most tentative rope time. A cinch or a tighten just ***switch*** turns every anxiety off, every defense mechanism. As he worked and reworked the steps of the tie, as he unraveled his work and started again, his hands felt so kind. Being handled with such care and attention made my whole self sunny with happiness.

Work was in like three hours, plenty of time, but I couldn’t imagine in a million years that I might ever emerge from this glittery soft head-cloud. I couldn’t imagine how we might, as he put it two more dates later, unfurl from each other. I was the most still and present I’ve been in months, years, maybe ever.

So There’s This Charming Man, Part One

I’m really struggling to write this even though it’s past time to start processing the wonderfulness that is This Charming Man. OMG I feel superstitious that I will somehow write the connection out of existence. Regular anxious and oh-my-goodness-he-is-so-cute-anxious are conspiring to keep the paragraphs from coming out.

So of course, he is beautiful, a gorgeous black man with supersweet cartoon-deer eyes.  TCM is tall, like, my head fits right next to his neck when we stand next to each other. (Oh my, I really wish it weren’t ALL THE WAY TIL THURSDAY NIGHT until I could do that!) He has the kind of skinny-strong look that up until recently would have made me assume he wouldn’t be into me. (SO glad I changed that perspective!!!) He showed up to our first date looking dapper as heck in a houndstooth jacket and the slightest hint of an artsy fauxhawk. Very low-key goth night. AND YES, he DID used to frequent our local goth night. FUCKING DREAMBOAT.

His vibe reminded me of Poly Friends’ Partner, that not-date poet from summertime. Except that This Charming Man is sillier, more freewheeling, less self-conscious. He chose an Irish dive bar for our lunch date and it was absolutely perfect, even as the bartender gently mocked me (well-deserved) for having coffee instead of beer. We ate voraciously, laughed so much. We talked about Animal Crossing for SO long despite the fact that he isn’t even playing the current iteration. And best, swooniest, we rifled around in each other’s playlists!

When I mentioned that Frank Ocean’s Pink + White is the best makeout song in the universe, he insisted on playing it over the nondescript bar music. I tried to press pause but he (eee!) gently wrestled my hand away every time I tried. I had to let the makeout song play, and we kissed. The feeling of that day is laughing while kissing, bubbling over with silly joy.

I told him about Knotty Thursdays and he was interested. We segued so easily into being knot-tying pals that I don’t even remember how it happened.

As I was settling in for my post-date/pre-work nap, he sent me such a cute picture of him cuddling with a friend’s dog while I was in the middle of ordering (us) some new ropes. At lunch he had expressed some hesitation about being wrapped up in pink ropes (a hesitation that has since evaporated) so I asked him what color he would like, and he said orange, so I ordered orange.

Who orders someone his own ropes after a first date? This moi. It was one of my better choices of ever.

Knotty Thursday! Farrimond Friction Hitch

 

It's a little janky, I should practice a few more times before This Charming Man comes over for our Gremlins 2 date tonight. He might be practicing it a little today too! :D 

A Bad Date, Good Hookup, and a Helpful Google, Part Three

There was something about Hookup Guy having such a narrow window of time that made him seem a little sus. Sure, he could have just been horny and urgent (like, you know, ME) but it felt like he was on more of a cheating husband schedule than a divorced dad schedule. I knew I had to look him up before I let him come over anymore.

These moments never don’t remind me of Psyche bringing the lamp into Cupid’s room and wrecking everything. Darn lamp!

I couldn’t find anything under the name he’d given me, aside from a lower-rung Marvel actor. A facebook search turned up various not-hims. He’d told me that in addition to his teaching work, he had started doing real estate on the side, so I tried “fake name realtor” in the search bar and still found nothing. I know not everyone is an internet open book, but sheesh.

So I typed in his phone number and up came the same him with a different last name. He did seem divorced on his (mostly professional) facebook page. And there he was, a ways back, holding up his “I’m vaccinated” sticker, so at least he wasn’t lying about that? I suppose anyone could get a sticker though. Should I be asking to see vaccine cards? I mean, you can fake those too! Will this fall’s adventures land me in Deltaville?

It’s very Nineties to wonder if fucking is going to kill me. And also very now, very always, I guess.

I texted him to ask why he’d given me a wrong last name, but I knew there wasn’t any answer he could give that would change things. After a few skeptical-but-hopeful hours, I blocked and unmatched. People are just gone so fast sometimes.

I felt more off-balance from Hookup Guy’s lying than from the morning’s bad date, but the combination of the two left me feeling discouraged, self-slut-shamed, and generally turned upside down. The sense of unreality that permeates all of 2021 life and especially online dating descended like a not-cute cloud.

I talked it over with Pagan Boy’s Crush (I’ve come to think of PBC and Sweetie-Now-BFF, along with my new therapist, as my emotional board of directors. I stole that idea from someone, but I forget who.) and realized that I’d been handing out so much trust and generosity lately, and I needed to turn some of that towards myself.

Now, a week later, I’ve basically stopped swiping for the time being. New therapist referred to The Lovely Guy as my “regular (his name)” and I think I’ve got us into a nicely casual place. (knock wood) There’s This Charming Man who has nothing to do with The Smiths and everything to do with ropes and good texting! I should probably write about him soon.

And there’s friends. And work. And sleep. And time’s almost up on my 2021 goals. I’m happier and less scattered than I was a week ago, so that’s good. And it’s only mostly because of the ropes. 😊