Not Quite a Wesley and Cordelia Moment, But…

Do you think I should give it a third date?

My Man About Town is a catch in a million ways—he’s warm, sweet, excited to learn knots, excellent with logistics and making me feel cared for. I’ve been to his house and I like both his wife and his girlfriend.

After our hike last night, he sent me a Google Earth map of the route! Romantic, right?

But I just feel like the chemistry is off. I love talking to him but I just don’t feel quite right about kissing him.

If this were a romantic comedy, this would be a part where I realize that I’ve moved past the bad boys and I’m ready for some genuine affection, and choose the Nice Guy. And I really want to do that, but it just feels like we’re more a friend match than anything else. I DO want to be treated well, but a spark is important, too.

Please advise?

Song of the Week: Under My Thumb

Like I said last week, I'm on a busy schedule and sometimes I need songs to top me. Send more!

OkCupid Message of the Week

"So now that we're friends on Fetlife and I've masturbated to your photos, what are your thoughts on teaching me the 'ropes'? I'll supply the mix tapes."

I'm torn between:

1. My love of being masturbated to
2. My fondness for mixtapes
3. My desire to be treated with a modicum of respect

and

4. My complete aversion from trying to teach anybody to top me

Dangit, three and four win out! 

About the Man About Town

The week before my birthday, I kissed four people, which is maybe too many. The only one of those that you haven’t heard about yet is the Man About Town.

I’m calling him that because he’s got a lot of community stuff going on—his art is in local galleries, he’s in the pagan community, and he’s a leader of the local poly meetup, which is how I got to know him. I’d seen him around for about a year, but one night a few months ago during a poly book club meeting I noticed that he’s my type--big and bearish, warm, fond of easygoing public nudity. So I sent him a friend request on Fet Life and I guess my pictures did the trick. We exchanged emails all summer. He’s looking for a new play partner, so we made plans.

Our first date, during that week-of-kissing-four-people, was a hiking date on my favorite leisurely trail. We talked and talked and talked. Then sometimes we talked ABOUT the talking. I felt really comfortable with him and was as confessional as I would’ve been if I’d had two glasses of wine. I told him SO MUCH STUFF and he told me a lot too. It was like a miracle of yammering, I loved it.

I was trying to remember the name of a butterfly* that was helpfully splaying out its wings for us to study when I felt him move in for the kiss. He was gentle, a little tentative, technically proficient, but I’m not sure what I felt, emotionally. Still, I was impressed, and I couldn’t resist high-fiving him and saying “Good job!”

Then I was like “Wait, is that okay to say? good job?”

“Of course!” he said, “Feedback is always welcome.”

Man About Town is close with Fireguy’s crowd, so I talked to him a lot about that situation, which is good because it means that some disclosures are out of the way. It was a relief to talk about that stuff, I’d been afraid to for a while.

The Man About Town is just that, a man. So far, he makes me feel valued, understood, and oriented. My first date with him was a pretty island in the sea of insecurity that was the end of Mister Hazel Eyes. I got home that day feeling comfy in my own skin, pleased to have the rest of the day alone with a good book, not needy or clingy but self-contained.

He asked me out right away, but I was feeling really overwhelmed about everything else that was going on. I told him I needed a month or so to get back on my feet before any more non-Sweetie dates. Then, a few days later, I asked if I could put him on the calendar for the end of September so I’d have him to look forward to. He had absolutely no problem with planning things three weeks in advance, and that is so dreamy. I’m not sure how I feel about him, but I am so proud to have made plans with a grown ass man. Go me.

*the butterfly was a "red spotted purple"

Two Songs for a Good Beach Re-do

It might have just been the beach endorphins, but I was really glad to run into the Mayor of Kittentown and Monogamous Girl at the beach yesterday. You wouldn’t think so, after last time, but it was really illuminating.

They were coming down the path as I was leaving, which meant that we helpfully all had clothes on. He looked so handsome and she looked beautiful—they were glowing with health and happiness. In my version of reality, I would have happily pounced on both of them, but what really happened was, I felt a teensy little glimmer of compersion.

MG and I shook hands bravely. MKT told me about a baby horseshoe crab they’d seen. It reminded me of my nature-y endeavors with Sweetie, so how could I not be charmed? A few moments of chitchat and it was over, and I felt a great sense of accomplishment on getting past that initial awkward. (Though, knowing both of us, I’m sure there’s more awkward to come.) I texted him a *high five* when I got back to cell phone range.

I have to begrudgingly admit that my little jealous breakdown on the beach a few weeks ago is probably a good thing in the long run. It was another (like the millionth) reminder that he was a bigger deal to me than I thought, that I have to stop trying to be casual girl when what I really want is long term relationships. (Just like Rory Gilmore!) More importantly, it pushed me past Mister Hazel Eyes a little faster than I might have gone, and I’m starting to see that as a good thing.

Being ready for (or at least preferring) someone with the possibility for a long term relationship is a healthy and honest thing for me. I am grateful that MHE is behind me if it makes me more open to what comes next. It is time to start believing in love and doing what it takes to get there.

Here are some nicely bittersweet songs from the drive home:

My Crackpot Heart Wants Kryptonite and Other Dumb Mistakes

I keep trying to write around what’s bugging me this week, but it isn’t working. For the most part, it’s been a good couple of weeks. I had such a great birthday and my first few weeks of student teaching have been stressful and busy but very gratifying.

But when it comes to this project, I am lost. Mister Hazel Eyes's disappearance hit me harder than it should’ve, and I’m feeling kind of slutty/rejected because Mr. Popular hasn’t been in touch either. Neither should be such a big deal, but I just can’t get over the never-seeing-someone-again aspect of dating. Things just go by too fast. Since last year, six guys who really meant something to me have come (well, most of them came, anyway) and gone—I am grateful for the experiences and fun that they all brought me, but it all went by so fast that it’s hard not to feel like I’m extra-rejectable, like I’m a failure, like I’m in for a lot more loss.

It seems that whenever I am heartbroken over a toplike person, I get the insane urge to process it with Bill. I guess the heartbreak neural pathways just have his name on them. When I let myself think about it, I feel so unresolved about him, a deep dark, creepy, suitable-for-David-Lynch sadness that he persists in not being around. So I did something foolish that usually works: I wrote him a love letter. I find that sometimes if I write out all of my lovey dovey feelings, thank someone for his contribution, and apologize for my half of things, people can start to feel less haunty. In this case, more haunty. He said, thanks, he’s glad I’m not mad, but that I ruined a perfectly good exit.

I’ve always wanted to show this blog off to him (to show EVERYTHING off to him, really) so I friended him on the fb. It was fine at first, a little inspiring push—it made me feel brazen and hot just to think that he might see some of my smutty details. But after a few days, it felt just like it did last December, like I wanted so badly to be near him but didn’t know how, like I would do absolutely anything to get his attention. And that’s without much clicking—just the tiny bit of not-really-a-connection from facebook was enough for him to start sucking the life out of me, to open up that awful, starving well of want. I took him off, of course, I said goodbye again, exit-spoiler that I am.

Sometimes I really do worry that I’m broken, that the ten years that I spent trying not to be bi have left me too desperate and urgent to be able to make a real connection with a man. I am deeply ashamed of the attachment that I still feel to Bill after all this time—I feel like I’m breaking some rule of adultness that I just don’t let go of things in any kind of normal way. I should be bouncing back faster from Mister Hazel Eyes as well, but it’s hard to get past the hurt of someone not even wanting to say goodbye. I am a good student in everything but this, and I absolutely HATE to have a failing grade on the record, but I suppose there’s no magical sex-TARDIS that would allow me to go back and somehow make it work out—it just didn’t.

I really hope that I’m not broken. I hope that neither my half-closet years nor my mistakes this year have cause irreparable damage. I don’t know what the darkness is that I keep wanting to go back to, but I know that it’s closer to addiction than it is to love, and I know that it is the opposite of joy.

I’d rather follow joy. There’s a lot of good stuff on the horizon, and I thought it might be helpful to articulate this sticky tar pit stuff before it seeps back down into my subconscious. I need some courage, friends, I need to follow the part of myself that knows what it’s doing, my inner Bettie Page, not the glassy-eyed December-girl who’s still worrying how to please someone who has been gone for a very long time.

Song of the Week: Evil Boy

Can you think of any other songs with good takedowns in them? I don't have much time for play over the next few weeks, so music's the next best thing...

Also, sometimes I do listen to other bands...