A Tender Date, A Little Ghosting, Part Two

 

Rainbow Pal and I have decided that all weird dating things require a romantic French term!

There was a moment. I was toying with Thoughtful Guy’s dick through his underwear, just kind of nuzzling around down there, when he placed his arms around my shoulders in a soft embrace. A breeze of kindness blew all through me, an almost supernatural affection. Stillness. Peace.

He couldn’t stay late, he had to get home to his kiddo. As he started to get dressed, I wrapped up in my aqua-blue summer robe, feeling flushed and decadent and beautiful. “You look so good,” he said, with a little growl in his voice. He backed me up against the pillar on the pony wall of my loft, and kissed and kissed and kissed me.

He picked up his phone and said absently “Annnddd one of my partners is texting about making a date…” then went back to kissing me. When I finally, reluctantly got him out the door, I felt happy and hopeful, like my life might actually make sense! I’ll never stop believing in that feeling.

The next day, instead of feeling lonely and insecure, I felt grounded in my own life, sure I was cared for. But when I told him as much, he abruptly cut off the conversation and said he didn’t want to be keeping me up. I was up! I was working on my 2000-piece puzzle! It’s an intricate undersea scene! It was only like 10.

Oh, the little ghosting. When I texted in the morning to start planning our next date, his tone had changed. He said laughing emoji to the time I suggested, not whether it was too late or too early. He suggested a better night for our date, and I said sure. Then he left me on heart-reaction and disappeared.

By the time it was ten again, I hadn’t heard from him all day, and plans hung in the thread unfinished. The internet, always the most toxic, let me know he’d had time to change to an even-sexier profile picture while he was busy not texting me.

So I texted to suggest that we might not be a good match because our rhythms were off. I didn’t want to say goodbye, but I hate le petite fantôme. You liked me the day before yesterday, I wanted to say, then radio silence.

He texted back ALL the paragraphs (OH, the self-justifying man-paragraphs of polyamory. May I never again read them.) including “Do you know your attachment style? You seem insecure.”

First of all, I find attachment theory to be the most unhelpful therapy thing of all time, like oh, you weren’t loved properly as a baby and now you’re fucked up forever. What is anybody supposed to DO with this?!

I mean, misnamed Thoughtful Guy was probably right, but you don’t get to psychoanalyze me after ONE date, if ever! And you don’t get to make it my deep personal flaw when you mini-ghost instead of finishing a conversation.

I’m grateful to Summer Therapist and a lifetime of self esteem work that I got mad instead of accepting his assessment of me, instead of accommodating and building something new and cute and misery-making.

It was a fantasy that he could be boyfriend material while already having five partners. Like, who do I think I am, hoping that I wouldn’t slip his mind among all that beauty and tumult and day-to-day? Like so many precious darlings before him, he just wasn’t the right match. I miss him, but onward.

A Tender Date, A Little Ghosting, Part One

 

My date with Thoughtful Guy last Sunday was so lovely, even if the naming was a little premature. We met on my Favorite Woodland Trail. I instantly felt comfortable with him. By coincidence, we both wore pink. I saw a fellow hiker smiling to herself as she passed us. We were CUTE. I took the perfect selfie of us with the trail and bright trees and was sooooo excited that he’s out as poly and I could post it! Probably even tag him!

I had wondered if the trouble with past folks hadn’t been the poly at all, but the closet! This sweet connection seemed like a good way to find out.

Telling Rainbow Pal about him earlier in the week, I said “I listened to him talk about bringing his five partners home for Christmas. It kinda made me want to join him like a cult.”

(I’m not saying polyamory is a cult. I’m saying that there are tendencies there, just like there are with any ingroup that involves humans and our tender need to belong. I definitely have a culty relationship to poly. I’ll say more about that in Part Two.)

Since I’ve committed to the (Maybe long! Maybe futile! Definitely worth it!) quest for Actual Boyfriend Guy, I’m not sure why I swiped right on such a very poly character, but I absolutely could not resist the face. In a long text thread before the date, he said he was very concerned, rightfully so, that I was describing myself as “probably poly.” (And that was probably rounding up. Today I’m landing on the admittedly wishy-washy “monagamish.”) He didn’t just want to be a fling, he said. “Don’t worry,” I told him, “We’ve already flung.”

(Why are we talking like this before we even met in person? The word “lovebombing” has whispered through my brain all week, though I don’t think it’s fair. Attraction. Hope. Affinity. Fate?)

Back to us being cute on Favorite Trail, it was humid and buggy and I really wanted to take him home, so we didn’t walk far. Back at the trailhead, as we parted to go to our respective cars, I kissed him on the cheek and felt giddy and sexy and joyful.

Once I had him in my apartment, we kissed for real and it was perfect. A kiss like this is a miracle all on its own. A lifetime worth of goodness. Soft, wet, firm, emphatic. I was breathless.

“Okay, I’m ready to join your team,” I gushed. “Contact HR. Send me the packet. When is orientation?”

(I’m just gonna stop and notice that Thoughtful Guy shares a name with a famous cult leader. It’s not relevant, but it a little bit is.)

Upstairs, he was INTOXICATING. As we cuddled, kissed, grinded, looked for tickle spots, I went from swoon to swoon. I felt both urgent and stunned, an almost debilitating bliss. This guy. <3

He did a thing no other lover has ever done—he treated the fat at my waist as part of the hotness! He grabbed and kneaded and I groaned with delight and surprise. More of this please!

“Just lay there and be you,” he said, and I did. He was like a day at the beach and I lay there, we lay there, still and sunny.

Frilly Fridays: Last One in the Christmas Box!

 Well, there was one more frilly thing in the Christmas box, but it wasn't quite my style so I gave it to the Goodwill. Now the frillies are all hung up neatly, and the box can look forward to its life as a box to put Christmas stuff in.

This week was fun and a lot. Things didn't work out with the Thoughtful Guy, more paragraphs on that later. 

Another flirtation came and went this week too. These pictures are from a beautiful Saturday chat with a stranger who turned out, when face to face, to be Boring Guy.

Last night, I ended a SO BORING WhatsApp video call and felt a surge of joy. Partly it was the joy of not having to keep trying to make a conversation happen with Boring Guy ("I've asked all my questions." he kept saying. ALL of them?!) but there was a bigger joy too!

Going back to my puzzle, chatting with BFF, doing the dishes while listening to the MSNBC hosts talk about the Republican debate, I was just elated to be in my life. It's a good one, and I'm so proud of my quest for love.

Frilly Friday: Oh, Thoughtful Guy!

 

I’m not sure why anyone wants to date a lady who is doing a whole art project based mostly on Christmas presents from a beloved ex, but sometimes they do! Hooray!

Thoughtful Guy is Cuuuute. We haven’t had our first date yet (Sunday!) and he’s already asked about the second one.

When I turned the apps back on a few weeks ago, one of the guidelines I came up with alongside Summer Therapist was: LOOK FOR THE BANTER.

Heck yeah! Thoughtful Guy earned his name by being a wonderful texter. He’s full of information about his days and he asks deep questions (and regular questions) about me. He’s reading The Kitten Calendar, which I find equal parts touching and mortifying: SO many feelings! Oh well. He has a podcast, so it’s kinda fair.

He was my text company for Lingerie Night on Wednesday. It wasn’t a sexting session, just getting to know each other. It was vulnerable and bittersweet.

These Rihanna undies are the most heartache-inducing member of the frillies collection. That Christmastime date to the Fancy Garden, coming home to open presents, the shocking feeling of so many pleasures and pretty things all at once.

It’s a little sad that I can feel the forward motion away from TOS, the long and shaky process of letting him be in the past. It’s scary and sometimes I worry that I’m headed right back into heartbreak, that one wrong move could stumble me into a new tearful relationship and six long months of grief.

Also, I’m happy! Life is so cool right now and I wish TSO was here to cheer me on. I guess he is, in my heart, as long as I keep leaving him where he belongs—six moons ago and counting.

Thoughtful Guy just kept being thoughtful until it was time to sleep. He sent a selfie of him and his nesting partner that made my heart overflow with joy.

It’s almost Virgo Season, friends, and it’s time to be hopeful.

Dear Ribbons! My Date Will Be Here in Ten Minutes Annnnnddddd…

 

Trust the Pink Haze of Horniness!

If you would like some heartfelt and experienced-but-nonexpert advice and love, etiquette, grief, self-compassion, and/ or what emojis to use, please write to me! Email thekittencalendar@gmail.com and put Dear Ribbons in the subject line. I promise to love you and your story, and to steer us both/all towards optimism, self-love, liberation, hope, and hotness!

Dear Ribbons,

I have a super exciting date coming up with a cutie I met while traveling who is coming to visit my town. I’m monogamous and they’re not, but we both are interested in casual but ongoing sex. I checked my date’s Feeld and it said they’re looking to hookup with people in [my city]. I know they’re poly but I was more hurt than I expected to be? Even though I’m also on this dating app! I am trying to get my emotions together and close down the tiny part of me that was like ‘it would be cool to really date someone like this.’

 

Help?

 

Love,

Can I Please Just Get (Safely!) Tied Up?

 

First and foremost!! No closing down any parts of you, no matter how tiny! I’m glad you listened to your heartful hesitance and sent me the question! It is, as my Gen-Z niece would say, extremely valid!

 

We’ll get back to the heartfelt hesitance in a bit, but first let’s get your ass out the door!

 

It’s so vexing, isn’t it, that the cuties in our lives would be attracted to ANYONE but us! Look at us! We’re so cute! But even if this weren’t a poly/casual date, we don’t get any claim on the rest of their weekend. I know! What the heck, right? There’ll be time to figure out what it all means, what you mean to each other, how often you’ll find “work trips” to take to their town, etc.

 

But this is not that time! Get your body near the cute person and see what you feel! Trust in the pink glow of horniness to guide you forward for now!

 

(If this were a situation where exclusivity might eventually be on the table, I’d say have that conversation about five to seven dates in, unless you get a strong intuition about it before that. If you’re me, you’d know faster probably!)

 

Back to the “it would be cool to really date someone like this.” part—pay attention to that information. Start making a mental collage about what a lovely relationship would look like. Learn by doing, by stepping into grey areas, by listening to what your mind, body and spirit tell you about this particular person and about partnerships in general. Trust yourself!

 

Whether this particular connection sparks or fizzles today or in six weeks or in ten years, try to remember that dating is something you’re doing for yourself, rather than an assessment of your worth or charm. It’s way easier said than done, but it’s a reframe that will ease the inevitable anxious moments of dating.

 

Somewhere, my Summer Therapist applauds the advice I’ve just given you and also myself.

 

Worth and Charm Forever,

Pretty Ribbons

Proud Graduate of Summer Therapy!

 

“It really pisses me off that in like six months, I’ll be like oh, poor us, just a bad match. I hate magnanimous.”

--Me, a Little Over Six Months Ago

The last session I had with Summer Therapist, Tuesday before last, I’d given myself the assignment of telling her the whole fortune-cookie-Thursday-to “It’s Monday morning” Shy One breakup story without turning the frustration back on myself. I had the feeling she’d wanted me to get a little better at blaming him for what happened, and it seemed like a good experiment! It was!

I liked not stopping the story to empathize with TSO’s perspective, blame myself, or say for the millionth time “How did I let this happen?” or “Why couldn’t I have just made it til Tuesday?” (Or made it til our trip, or not sent so many needy texts, etc) Bargaining is a really powerful destination on the Billy Map of Grief!

Dear Young People Who Probably Don't Remember The Family Circus: This is what I mean by the Billy Map of Grief! He goes all over the place!

But when the experiment was over, there was something I had to admit to myself about my (dear!) Summer Therapist—she was really into the idea that TSO hadn’t really loved me! She even, in the midst of some advice about taking it slow heartwise, suggested that maybe I hadn’t really loved him either!

This seemed crazy to me, because I’d started therapy with the goal of taking the TSO experience on board, letting myself believe it had really happened so I could let it go! I was hanging on to him in my head and heart because I wasn’t sure it had happened, because maybe I thought he was the only one who could witness the fact that I’d been loved by a man. Of course, there was another witness there, the only one I’ll ever really need to check with: me.

I kindly typed this all into the therapy app and said a gracious and grateful goodbye to the Summer Therapist. Then I called BFF and sobbed. It was the kind of sobbing (I just mistyped it as “subbing”) that scrubs out my insides, that came up from my soul in a wail and a gust. And then I felt better.

I could see why ST wanted to downplay the relationship—it was a way of trying to make me be kinder to myself, to get me to expect more. But in wanting to assure me I deserve better, she ended up seeming dismissive of this experience that had meant a lot to me. I didn’t need it not to be love in order to let it go. I didn’t need to (as ST did) dismiss the realities of poly happiness in order to envision a partner all my own.

It made me realize that no matter how monogamous I get, and I think it might be quite monogamous indeed, I’ll never subscribe to the narrow, heteropatriarchal definition of love that my ST was (probably unintentionally) leading me towards. That’s because, no matter who or how I love, I’ll always be queer, I’ll always be silly, I’ll always be curious and expansive and wholehearted. I’ve never been more grateful for my adventures, for my weird heart, for the messy and ill-advised and beautiful alchemy I’ve always been able to lead myself into. And out of!

I realized a thing that maybe shouldn’t have been new at almost 49: I’m the only one I need to check with about what’s happened to me. I know when I’ve loved and been loved. I don’t have to run it by anyone. I don’t have to prove it.

Friends, it’s still a Billy map. Though I don’t visit the Hidden Folder much any more, there are days when my heart is full of him, of them, of bitterness, of what ifs. But there are also days when the banter is going well on the apps, or I get turned on by myself, or I start to picture what Boyfriend Life would be like, and I’m so, so grateful for all of it, for everything ever. Magnanimous is my heart’s default setting, mostly, and I hope that never changes.

Happy Frilly Friday! Introducing Dear Ribbons, A Nonexpert Advice Column

 

I have a shoulder injury that makes me leery about getting back to ropes, so darn I'll just have keep getting frilly! 

Friends, I’ve been having the nicest week helping a friend of mine get their mind ready for an anticipated date! They are going on a picnic! I absolutely adore giving out advice and cheerleading when asked. Plus helping my pals steer themselves toward their slutty dreams helps me steer my own life better, too!

So if you would like some heartfelt and experienced-but-nonexpert advice on love, etiquette, grief, self-compassion, and/ or what emojis to use, please write to me! Email thekittencalendar@gmail.com and put Dear Ribbons in the subject line. I promise to love you and your story, and to steer us both/all towards optimism, self-love, liberation, hope, and hotness!