Reverie
Active member
Right?! Ugh, no.
The Best Life Yet
- Thread starter Reverie
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Right?! Ugh, no.
Reverie
Active member
Things have been pretty quiet here. I've been busting my ass at work. I met up with OKC friend on Tuesday and definitely only friend potential there. He seems like a nice enough guy and is even kinda cute, but he did not have good breath and also talked a bit too much for my taste in terms of people I would want to hang out with frequently.
Sam has been a lot less communicative since the weekend. We've exchanged a few sentences but mostly he has been laying low. I will just keep dropping interesting links into our chat box as I come across them. He always looks at them and responds eventually.
Rider and I made plans to visit Moss in a couple of weeks, now that we have the new car. It should be fun. Moss has a lime tree in his yard and there is talk of fresh-squeezed margaritas.
I spent a while talking to Jake yesterday. He just bought a house in our hometown, so I guess he is there permanently. Or at least long term. I am SUPER happy for him! The house looks really cute. I was really hoping to get at least one night in bed with him, but he broke the news to me that he's started dating someone new within the past few months who "isn't into poly" but "is trying to understand," so I'm welcome to stay over, but it will have to be a slumber party as just friends. Well, damn.
This is the guy who had been doing open relationships since way back when I was still mono with Moss, and who has been mostly happy doing so. There was a brief period of time when he considered switching to mono and tried to take me along with him in that, because he felt bad that he'd hurt his other partner by falling in love with me and had begun to question the ethicality of poly.
I guess he finally met someone else who he thought was worth it to take that challenge on with. I must say that I am selfishly very disappointed about this. I mean, of course I'm happy for him. But I was really, really, really looking forward to some sexy times with Jake. Probably not actual PIV sex, because we were never great at that together. But making out, some oral, naked cuddles...sigh.
As I went over to my "cast of characters" page to update some various things, I realized that...
...I am officially monogamous with the thing with Jake ending. He was the last person who I really considered to be a relationship partner.
Allie is a FWB, and Rider is way more into her than I am (though I do like her a LOT)—she considers herself single. Cayo I've kissed a few times but, in all likelihood, I will never have sex with him and there is no romantic potential there anyway. Max is a no. Elise is supposed to come visit in the winter, but I'm not going to count that until she actually makes it here. Aurora has totally dropped out of sight. I would probably hook up with Reina again if I saw her, but she lives far away and, even if we visited, I think opportunities would be limited
I'm never turning things with Moss romantic again. Sam and I are still broken up. Jake is now mono with someone else. Oona has never quite managed so far to get her OPP running in her relationship with Toby.
Yep, I'm monogamous. I...don't think I like it!
I have been perfectly satisfied being mostly with Rider, but knowing that there is love and sexual possibility between me and my long-distance partners. Knowing now that instead of relying on those open doors, if I want some sexual variety, I'm actually going to have to go out and meet people...ugh! LOL
And the thing is, I really have been craving a little variety lately. The last time I had PIV sex with a guy other than Rider was with Sam in December. I love Rider to death, and we have GREAT sex, but the thrill that I get when I think about my other loves is definitely partially the thrill of variety.
I really would, uh, appreciate some "strange" at this point. Preferably sex with someone I actually like and have no reservations about getting that intimate with. It doesn't matter if it would only be casual—my schedule is such that I couldn't really time-commit to more than casual—but I would like it to be at least more than an impersonal hookup sort of thing.
Maybe I'll reach out and chat the few remaining online friends I added to Facebook eight months ago from OKC—the ones who haven't ditched me yet for being too busy to talk to them.
Sam has been a lot less communicative since the weekend. We've exchanged a few sentences but mostly he has been laying low. I will just keep dropping interesting links into our chat box as I come across them. He always looks at them and responds eventually.
Rider and I made plans to visit Moss in a couple of weeks, now that we have the new car. It should be fun. Moss has a lime tree in his yard and there is talk of fresh-squeezed margaritas.
I spent a while talking to Jake yesterday. He just bought a house in our hometown, so I guess he is there permanently. Or at least long term. I am SUPER happy for him! The house looks really cute. I was really hoping to get at least one night in bed with him, but he broke the news to me that he's started dating someone new within the past few months who "isn't into poly" but "is trying to understand," so I'm welcome to stay over, but it will have to be a slumber party as just friends. Well, damn.
This is the guy who had been doing open relationships since way back when I was still mono with Moss, and who has been mostly happy doing so. There was a brief period of time when he considered switching to mono and tried to take me along with him in that, because he felt bad that he'd hurt his other partner by falling in love with me and had begun to question the ethicality of poly.
I guess he finally met someone else who he thought was worth it to take that challenge on with. I must say that I am selfishly very disappointed about this. I mean, of course I'm happy for him. But I was really, really, really looking forward to some sexy times with Jake. Probably not actual PIV sex, because we were never great at that together. But making out, some oral, naked cuddles...sigh.
As I went over to my "cast of characters" page to update some various things, I realized that...
...I am officially monogamous with the thing with Jake ending. He was the last person who I really considered to be a relationship partner. Allie is a FWB, and Rider is way more into her than I am (though I do like her a LOT)—she considers herself single. Cayo I've kissed a few times but, in all likelihood, I will never have sex with him and there is no romantic potential there anyway. Max is a no. Elise is supposed to come visit in the winter, but I'm not going to count that until she actually makes it here. Aurora has totally dropped out of sight. I would probably hook up with Reina again if I saw her, but she lives far away and, even if we visited, I think opportunities would be limited
I'm never turning things with Moss romantic again. Sam and I are still broken up. Jake is now mono with someone else. Oona has never quite managed so far to get her OPP running in her relationship with Toby.
Yep, I'm monogamous. I...don't think I like it!
I have been perfectly satisfied being mostly with Rider, but knowing that there is love and sexual possibility between me and my long-distance partners. Knowing now that instead of relying on those open doors, if I want some sexual variety, I'm actually going to have to go out and meet people...ugh! LOL
And the thing is, I really have been craving a little variety lately. The last time I had PIV sex with a guy other than Rider was with Sam in December. I love Rider to death, and we have GREAT sex, but the thrill that I get when I think about my other loves is definitely partially the thrill of variety.
I really would, uh, appreciate some "strange" at this point. Preferably sex with someone I actually like and have no reservations about getting that intimate with. It doesn't matter if it would only be casual—my schedule is such that I couldn't really time-commit to more than casual—but I would like it to be at least more than an impersonal hookup sort of thing.
Maybe I'll reach out and chat the few remaining online friends I added to Facebook eight months ago from OKC—the ones who haven't ditched me yet for being too busy to talk to them.
Reverie
Active member
I did end up reaching out to some of the OKC people. If nothing else, just to crack a few new friend-circles open that may eventually lead to something. I specified to all of them that I really just want to start as friends—still true, even with my vague thoughts of variety.
One of the guys is now mono with someone anyway, but he seemed totally down to make friends still. One of the guys was only ever friend material anyway.
And one I was vaguely interested in as more than friends but also happens to be the one I am the most skeptical of now, since he unfriended me when I didn't have time to hang out as soon as I had hoped—though we have continued to sporadically IM. It seems overly petulant to me to get grumpy about my not being able to hang out when we've never even met yet.
So I'm going to meet up with two of these people in the next week or so.
Rider was asking me if everything was OK, since I was suddenly being uncharacteristically social. It's funny that he hasn't noticed my pattern: I get all ambitious and meet up with a flurry of people when I have the energy, and then I am usually disappointed and none of them "stick," and I get burnt out on the process and lay low for a few months. Rinse, repeat.
I am placing WAY more emphasis on the friendship aspect of it this time though, in the hopes that I will be building an actual network instead of just some one-off dates. Dating has usually turned out poorly for me, and friendships that evolve into something have been better.
I did admit to Rider that part of my push to be more social is a tactic to distract me from missing my connection with Sam. He's been responding to my IMs so much more sporadically and IT SUCKS. I know it's only been a month, so it makes sense that I'm not over it yet, but it's such a weird mix of feelings—I still get a thrill when I think of him, but then it is immediately followed by a crash of sadness, followed by a sigh and re-acceptance.
In other news, the weekend was fun. Friday night, we partied with Mel, Tina, Carrie, and Joel. Joel and Carrie ended up crashing with us, then we went over to their place, played some music, headed out to catch Perry's other band, partied at Perry's place, went back to Joel & Carrie's, and crashed there. So basically we had impromptu sleepovers with Carrie and Joel two nights in a row, lol. It was like the fun part of being a kid again—long summer days spent with friends and just sleeping wherever we ended up.
We went out for Indian food before finally heading home. I was surfing my phone while Joel and Rider chatted and we waited for our order. Suddenly my sister messaged me a link showing that one of my favorite places in the world—not far from where I grew up—was damaged in a flood this weekend. That place has great emotional significance to me, especially related to my late father, and I'm still upset about it.
It occurred to me that the longer I live, the more places that I love and people know will crumble into nothing. Eventually, the world will be unrecognizable to what I used to be able to expect. Usually, when I think of time marching on and progress, it is fun and exciting. But I've always loved history, and things that seem like they've been there forever...I just kind of expected that they would continue to be there forever more. But no, everything crumbles eventually. That said, I am excited to get to Europe in the spring, to see all that history before it crumbles too!
After eating, Rider and I went to IKEA to get a few things we'd determined that we still needed after being in our apartment for seven months now. Small changes = big improvements! We still need to replace the rug that our cat ruined, as they were out of the one we wanted, but I can go some evening soon before visiting Oona. She lives not far from the store.
I feel like I have less and less poly news to report lately. We've just been hanging out with our mono-coupled friends or just the two of us, doing fun but mundane things. We're both pretty satisfied, though we both also have the occasional thirst for more sexual adventure. Life does seem to finally be settling into a place of routine and peace, though, FINALLY, and from that placid water, hopefully the chance for new connections will eventually rise.
One of the guys is now mono with someone anyway, but he seemed totally down to make friends still. One of the guys was only ever friend material anyway.
And one I was vaguely interested in as more than friends but also happens to be the one I am the most skeptical of now, since he unfriended me when I didn't have time to hang out as soon as I had hoped—though we have continued to sporadically IM. It seems overly petulant to me to get grumpy about my not being able to hang out when we've never even met yet.
So I'm going to meet up with two of these people in the next week or so.
Rider was asking me if everything was OK, since I was suddenly being uncharacteristically social. It's funny that he hasn't noticed my pattern: I get all ambitious and meet up with a flurry of people when I have the energy, and then I am usually disappointed and none of them "stick," and I get burnt out on the process and lay low for a few months. Rinse, repeat.
I am placing WAY more emphasis on the friendship aspect of it this time though, in the hopes that I will be building an actual network instead of just some one-off dates. Dating has usually turned out poorly for me, and friendships that evolve into something have been better.
I did admit to Rider that part of my push to be more social is a tactic to distract me from missing my connection with Sam. He's been responding to my IMs so much more sporadically and IT SUCKS. I know it's only been a month, so it makes sense that I'm not over it yet, but it's such a weird mix of feelings—I still get a thrill when I think of him, but then it is immediately followed by a crash of sadness, followed by a sigh and re-acceptance.
In other news, the weekend was fun. Friday night, we partied with Mel, Tina, Carrie, and Joel. Joel and Carrie ended up crashing with us, then we went over to their place, played some music, headed out to catch Perry's other band, partied at Perry's place, went back to Joel & Carrie's, and crashed there. So basically we had impromptu sleepovers with Carrie and Joel two nights in a row, lol. It was like the fun part of being a kid again—long summer days spent with friends and just sleeping wherever we ended up.
We went out for Indian food before finally heading home. I was surfing my phone while Joel and Rider chatted and we waited for our order. Suddenly my sister messaged me a link showing that one of my favorite places in the world—not far from where I grew up—was damaged in a flood this weekend. That place has great emotional significance to me, especially related to my late father, and I'm still upset about it.
It occurred to me that the longer I live, the more places that I love and people know will crumble into nothing. Eventually, the world will be unrecognizable to what I used to be able to expect. Usually, when I think of time marching on and progress, it is fun and exciting. But I've always loved history, and things that seem like they've been there forever...I just kind of expected that they would continue to be there forever more. But no, everything crumbles eventually. That said, I am excited to get to Europe in the spring, to see all that history before it crumbles too!
After eating, Rider and I went to IKEA to get a few things we'd determined that we still needed after being in our apartment for seven months now. Small changes = big improvements! We still need to replace the rug that our cat ruined, as they were out of the one we wanted, but I can go some evening soon before visiting Oona. She lives not far from the store.
I feel like I have less and less poly news to report lately. We've just been hanging out with our mono-coupled friends or just the two of us, doing fun but mundane things. We're both pretty satisfied, though we both also have the occasional thirst for more sexual adventure. Life does seem to finally be settling into a place of routine and peace, though, FINALLY, and from that placid water, hopefully the chance for new connections will eventually rise.
Reverie
Active member
I spent part of yesterday trying to talk Oona down from being (what I thought was) kind of unreasonable about something Toby did. She was angry because he was ten minutes late coming home from band practice, and didn't text to tell her he'd be late until it was actually the time he was supposed to be home. Apparently the door at their practice space malfunctioned and the band members all stood around until someone could come fix it.
Her argument was that they had already had a discussion about how he should err on the side of earliness and caution, since this 10:30 pm boundary was very important to her and he'd promised to make it. Also that there were three guys there, so he should have left the other two to take care of the door thing.
My argument was basically this: "Dude, 10 minutes? After texting so you didn't worry? And with a valid problem that came up? You need to learn to be a little more flexible."
Sometimes it's almost like one or the other of them is TRYING to tank their relationship, even though they both swear they want it to work. After their recent breakup due to Toby being an ass, he basically groveled his way back to her, and they hammered out these agreements, and that's fair. And expecting someone to keep promises is fair. But I don't think it's fair to crucify someone over grey-area stuff like being ten minutes late. In my mind, ten minutes late is still on time. Fifteen...OK, pushing it. But ten? It just seems like her being such a stickler is unlikely to benefit either of them.
And then she tried to compare it to the break from poly that Rider and I took for a few weeks a few months ago—I was feeling stressed and needed a compromise, some space to unwind in which to work on myself. Rider agreed to up to four months, talking me down from six. I ended up needing only the barest fraction of that. Oona called that up, saying "what if Rider had agreed to that, only to come back in a week or two saying he'd set up a date?"
That's apples and oranges, to me. One's a flagrant flouting. One's within a reasonable margin of grey-area error, to me. Like, I didn't make a big deal about Rider still flirting with Rita online during our "break," even though in my mind she was very much a "new person" since Rider hasn't seen her in person in 20 years and had only JUST struck up an online friendship with her. It was a grey area—could be argued either way that she was "new" or "not new." And I didn't want to die on that particular hill, so I just sucked it up. If Toby had been two hours late without texting at all, that would be on par with her comparison.
So, yeah, trying to talk my best friend down when I think she is being a bit too rigid—not fun. But part of what friends are for, I suppose.
She wasn't happy with me, and she canceled our hangout last night, pleading need of alone time. Which was fine. I needed to have some chill time anyway. Rider and I got tacos, and then I ended up doing some light housecleaning and then just lying next to Rider while he watched wrestling.
I don't think Oona is still mad at me. We've been talking normally today. She's still mad at Toby though. I swear, those two. Half the time, Toby really is being a jerk. But another fraction of the time, it really does appear to be Oona who is being too sensitive and demanding. Maybe because she's on high alert from the times when he's being a jerk.
I would just stay out of it, but Oona does love him, and also, she really wants to be partnered. Whenever it looks like they are going to break up for good, she starts talking about "being single at 40" and "dying alone" and "why does everyone else get happiness but not me?" and stuff like that. If they really love each other, and want to work it out, I want to help her. Sometimes a little yielding, a little flexibility, goes a long way.
Her argument was that they had already had a discussion about how he should err on the side of earliness and caution, since this 10:30 pm boundary was very important to her and he'd promised to make it. Also that there were three guys there, so he should have left the other two to take care of the door thing.
My argument was basically this: "Dude, 10 minutes? After texting so you didn't worry? And with a valid problem that came up? You need to learn to be a little more flexible."
Sometimes it's almost like one or the other of them is TRYING to tank their relationship, even though they both swear they want it to work. After their recent breakup due to Toby being an ass, he basically groveled his way back to her, and they hammered out these agreements, and that's fair. And expecting someone to keep promises is fair. But I don't think it's fair to crucify someone over grey-area stuff like being ten minutes late. In my mind, ten minutes late is still on time. Fifteen...OK, pushing it. But ten? It just seems like her being such a stickler is unlikely to benefit either of them.
And then she tried to compare it to the break from poly that Rider and I took for a few weeks a few months ago—I was feeling stressed and needed a compromise, some space to unwind in which to work on myself. Rider agreed to up to four months, talking me down from six. I ended up needing only the barest fraction of that. Oona called that up, saying "what if Rider had agreed to that, only to come back in a week or two saying he'd set up a date?"
That's apples and oranges, to me. One's a flagrant flouting. One's within a reasonable margin of grey-area error, to me. Like, I didn't make a big deal about Rider still flirting with Rita online during our "break," even though in my mind she was very much a "new person" since Rider hasn't seen her in person in 20 years and had only JUST struck up an online friendship with her. It was a grey area—could be argued either way that she was "new" or "not new." And I didn't want to die on that particular hill, so I just sucked it up. If Toby had been two hours late without texting at all, that would be on par with her comparison.
So, yeah, trying to talk my best friend down when I think she is being a bit too rigid—not fun. But part of what friends are for, I suppose.
She wasn't happy with me, and she canceled our hangout last night, pleading need of alone time. Which was fine. I needed to have some chill time anyway. Rider and I got tacos, and then I ended up doing some light housecleaning and then just lying next to Rider while he watched wrestling.
I don't think Oona is still mad at me. We've been talking normally today. She's still mad at Toby though. I swear, those two. Half the time, Toby really is being a jerk. But another fraction of the time, it really does appear to be Oona who is being too sensitive and demanding. Maybe because she's on high alert from the times when he's being a jerk.
I would just stay out of it, but Oona does love him, and also, she really wants to be partnered. Whenever it looks like they are going to break up for good, she starts talking about "being single at 40" and "dying alone" and "why does everyone else get happiness but not me?" and stuff like that. If they really love each other, and want to work it out, I want to help her. Sometimes a little yielding, a little flexibility, goes a long way.
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Reverie
Active member
Tacos are our way of life! We eat them AT LEAST once a week, but more usually two or three.
Spork
Active member
Tacos are our way of life! We eat them AT LEAST once a week, but more usually two or three.
I need to make tacos more often. Mexican food lends itself well to my stupid picky eating issues. It's basically so...modular. I mean, it often involves the veggies I hate, as well as stuff like sour cream and guac that I won't eat either, but it's easy to get my food without any of that. Meat, cheese, beans, rice, tortillas hard or soft, yummy red enchilada sauce. I like to make a pile of this stuff, tacos, enchiladas, beans and rice...and omg fried ice cream!!
Yep. Definitely need to do this more often.
Reverie
Active member
Oh. My. God.
Beckett just invited me to come stay with him in the nearby-ish city he is visiting until Monday.
And I can't.
Because I've already committed to plans where I meet Rider's ex-longest-term girlfriend who is a very important figure in his life. She and her husband are flying into town to attend an event, and we're supposed hang with them Saturday.
I'm looking forward to meeting her, and the plans have been on the books for months. So I'm definitely not going to flake.
But Beckett. Ugh. Pretty much any other weekend, I would in a heartbeat—just hop in the car and make an adventure of it. A whole weekend in a hotel with a beautiful someone who makes my heart pitter-patter faster? Yes, please.
At least I know he still likes me too. When I told him I couldn't go but wished I could be there, and told him to have all the fun, he sent me the little blow-a-kiss-with-a-heart emoji.
Seriously, this has blown my mind. Beckett was the most recent guy I really fell for. YES, it was extremely short-lived. And yes, he broke my heart literally the day after I decided to let my guard down and love him. But once I love someone, I love them for good—unless they do something terrible. And he never did that. He only did what he hoped would be right for him.
I know there's no chance of a real relationship with him now. He's too far away, and he adores the city he lives in. It is also where he has built a lucrative business for the past more-than-fifteen years, and is also where his family lives, so there is no chance of his ever moving closer. Plus, we're both too busy with our careers to make LDR a viable option. But the idea of an occasional weekend-long fling with him while he's single again is divine.
Maybe he'll be amenable to an overnight while we're back in our old city for five days in November, if he's still single. Or maybe he'll finally make it out here for a visit, as he has said he does sometimes anyway.
Funny that I've fallen for a new guy each year for the past three years. In 2013, it was Rider. In 2014, Sam. In 2015, Beckett. And none of it goes away. They just coexist there, peacefully, in my heart, whether or not I'm dating them, whether or not I even talk to them. The love is just tender and eternal, and bittersweet when I can't be with them.
I kind of get the feeling there won't be anyone this year, though. I can't imagine that it'll be one per year forever, and my heart is pretty tied up in the Sam thing still, waiting to see where that goes over the coming months if he makes it out here.
There's still plenty of space in there for Beckett, though. Maybe there is some fun to be had.
Beckett just invited me to come stay with him in the nearby-ish city he is visiting until Monday.
And I can't.
Because I've already committed to plans where I meet Rider's ex-longest-term girlfriend who is a very important figure in his life. She and her husband are flying into town to attend an event, and we're supposed hang with them Saturday.
I'm looking forward to meeting her, and the plans have been on the books for months. So I'm definitely not going to flake.
But Beckett. Ugh. Pretty much any other weekend, I would in a heartbeat—just hop in the car and make an adventure of it. A whole weekend in a hotel with a beautiful someone who makes my heart pitter-patter faster? Yes, please.
At least I know he still likes me too. When I told him I couldn't go but wished I could be there, and told him to have all the fun, he sent me the little blow-a-kiss-with-a-heart emoji.
Seriously, this has blown my mind. Beckett was the most recent guy I really fell for. YES, it was extremely short-lived. And yes, he broke my heart literally the day after I decided to let my guard down and love him. But once I love someone, I love them for good—unless they do something terrible. And he never did that. He only did what he hoped would be right for him.
I know there's no chance of a real relationship with him now. He's too far away, and he adores the city he lives in. It is also where he has built a lucrative business for the past more-than-fifteen years, and is also where his family lives, so there is no chance of his ever moving closer. Plus, we're both too busy with our careers to make LDR a viable option. But the idea of an occasional weekend-long fling with him while he's single again is divine.
Maybe he'll be amenable to an overnight while we're back in our old city for five days in November, if he's still single. Or maybe he'll finally make it out here for a visit, as he has said he does sometimes anyway.
Funny that I've fallen for a new guy each year for the past three years. In 2013, it was Rider. In 2014, Sam. In 2015, Beckett. And none of it goes away. They just coexist there, peacefully, in my heart, whether or not I'm dating them, whether or not I even talk to them. The love is just tender and eternal, and bittersweet when I can't be with them.
I kind of get the feeling there won't be anyone this year, though. I can't imagine that it'll be one per year forever, and my heart is pretty tied up in the Sam thing still, waiting to see where that goes over the coming months if he makes it out here.
There's still plenty of space in there for Beckett, though. Maybe there is some fun to be had.
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Reverie
Active member
Welp. I sent Beckett an email letter.
It was mostly an apology, because I kind of played too coy to the point of half-lie in a text yesterday and felt guilty about it and had to come clean. I had said: "Realized that probably I still dream about you all this time later because I still like you." Which was a double half-lie because a) it was not a new realization, and b) it goes way beyond "like." I was just fishing for attention by playing coy, which is ridiculous and something I should not do.
I also wanted to tell him things that I couldn't tell him last year because it would have been bad timing but that I thought he should know.
The letter included these bits:
and
Really, I just needed to explain to him that I had kind of lied, and WHY. And to hopefully just put everything out there so that he knows why I am sometimes a little loopy in communicating with him.
He responded almost immediately that he'd gotten it and would read it later when he could "give it the appropriate time and attention."
It will either deepen our understanding of each other, or he will run away, but either way, at least my conscience is clear and FINALLY I have told him how I feel/felt, since it was inappropriate at the time when it was first a thing.
Between that letter and the one I wrote Sam last month, now all of the people I care deeply about know exactly how I feel about them, for better or worse, even if I can't be with them.
I feel lighter, freer, and like I am living up to some sort of standard for honest living that I was a little afraid of for a long time. I've been feeling that way a lot lately, for the past year or so. Sometimes I slip up (text message case in point), but the act of correcting my mistakes is sometimes even more refreshing than not making them in the first place.
It was mostly an apology, because I kind of played too coy to the point of half-lie in a text yesterday and felt guilty about it and had to come clean. I had said: "Realized that probably I still dream about you all this time later because I still like you." Which was a double half-lie because a) it was not a new realization, and b) it goes way beyond "like." I was just fishing for attention by playing coy, which is ridiculous and something I should not do.
I also wanted to tell him things that I couldn't tell him last year because it would have been bad timing but that I thought he should know.
The letter included these bits:
and
Really, I just needed to explain to him that I had kind of lied, and WHY. And to hopefully just put everything out there so that he knows why I am sometimes a little loopy in communicating with him.
He responded almost immediately that he'd gotten it and would read it later when he could "give it the appropriate time and attention."
It will either deepen our understanding of each other, or he will run away, but either way, at least my conscience is clear and FINALLY I have told him how I feel/felt, since it was inappropriate at the time when it was first a thing.
Between that letter and the one I wrote Sam last month, now all of the people I care deeply about know exactly how I feel about them, for better or worse, even if I can't be with them.
I feel lighter, freer, and like I am living up to some sort of standard for honest living that I was a little afraid of for a long time. I've been feeling that way a lot lately, for the past year or so. Sometimes I slip up (text message case in point), but the act of correcting my mistakes is sometimes even more refreshing than not making them in the first place.
Reverie
Active member
I woke up this morning to find that Beckett had shared a photo of us on our first date in Facebook "on this day." Turns out that this was the day last year that the club where we went on our first date had published its photos from the previous weekend. Seeing that come up in my feed first thing in the morning made me so happy.
He messaged me later, saying that he'd read my letter before bed last night. He said it was very thoughtful and thorough, and that he doesn't communicate as effectively. He said that he appreciated it. That warmed my heart. He also sent me a picture of him lying poolside, which warmed my...other places. He has that effect on me.
Most of my day was spent with Rider and his old friends who were in from out of town, many of them new to me. It was his ex that he'd been with for seven years, her husband, her mother for part of the time, and another one of their old friends and his partner (both of those, I'd met before).
We met them at a hotel downtown, then grabbed a cab to a restaurant. The food was really good! Afterward, we cabbed back downtown to a large art installation, shot some pictures and video, and moved on to a cool bookstore. Then Rider wanted to have a beer, so we went to a bottle shop that also has a bar in the back. I've been off the sauce for a week, just doing a little temporary cleansing sort of thing, so I abstained. I did find a rad absinthe-flavored soda, though. It was expensive, but worth it—and cheaper than a beer would have been.
It was at this bar that I was IMing with Beckett. My reception there kind of sucked, but Rider was so sweet and set a hotspot up on his phone so that I could continue to message Beckett without delay. Rider is just the best. I am always filled with gratitude when he does something to assist me in exploring my other connections. It makes me love him even more.
I liked all of Rider's old friends, too. I had a good time, though I was kind of feeling introverted for most of the day. I spent a lot more time shooting photos of all the cool stuff we saw than I did actively socializing, but no one seemed to mind.
After we parted ways so the friends could attend their scheduled evening event, Rider and I went home and were lazy for a few hours. Rider wanted to see Cayo's band perform, though, so eventually we hauled our butts back out into the world, on the train, then on foot, heading a few neighborhoods over to a bar we'd never been to before.
Cayo's band was really good! And the bar was cool, too. And it was good to see Cayo after not seeing him for a few weeks. Unfortunately, I was almost entirely out of energy by that point. Without alcohol to keep my motor running, I get sleepy easily. We finally caught a ride home and are currently chilling on the futon, where I am typing this and—not gonna lie—kind of obsessing a little bit about Beckett.
He keeps shooting cute pictures and video of himself. And that brings back so many sexy memories. And those memories have such a particular effect on me—it's equal parts pleasant thrill and ache of longing for impossible things. That ache reminds me of the feeling I used to get as a kid when I would wish my favorite fictional characters actually existed: oh, the fun we would have if my wishes could come true!
But it's pleasant to feel odd and intense things. Even when they are not pleasant feelings in themselves, necessarily, the rarity of them makes their occurrence pleasant, if that makes sense. It's like the joy of experiencing a wider spectrum of possible emotion. It's enriching.
And just as I do about Sam, I can close my eyes and sigh and remember Beckett, as he was those times we were together. If I call a thing up often enough, I will never forget it.
He messaged me later, saying that he'd read my letter before bed last night. He said it was very thoughtful and thorough, and that he doesn't communicate as effectively. He said that he appreciated it. That warmed my heart. He also sent me a picture of him lying poolside, which warmed my...other places. He has that effect on me.
Most of my day was spent with Rider and his old friends who were in from out of town, many of them new to me. It was his ex that he'd been with for seven years, her husband, her mother for part of the time, and another one of their old friends and his partner (both of those, I'd met before).
We met them at a hotel downtown, then grabbed a cab to a restaurant. The food was really good! Afterward, we cabbed back downtown to a large art installation, shot some pictures and video, and moved on to a cool bookstore. Then Rider wanted to have a beer, so we went to a bottle shop that also has a bar in the back. I've been off the sauce for a week, just doing a little temporary cleansing sort of thing, so I abstained. I did find a rad absinthe-flavored soda, though. It was expensive, but worth it—and cheaper than a beer would have been.
It was at this bar that I was IMing with Beckett. My reception there kind of sucked, but Rider was so sweet and set a hotspot up on his phone so that I could continue to message Beckett without delay. Rider is just the best. I am always filled with gratitude when he does something to assist me in exploring my other connections. It makes me love him even more.
I liked all of Rider's old friends, too. I had a good time, though I was kind of feeling introverted for most of the day. I spent a lot more time shooting photos of all the cool stuff we saw than I did actively socializing, but no one seemed to mind.
After we parted ways so the friends could attend their scheduled evening event, Rider and I went home and were lazy for a few hours. Rider wanted to see Cayo's band perform, though, so eventually we hauled our butts back out into the world, on the train, then on foot, heading a few neighborhoods over to a bar we'd never been to before.
Cayo's band was really good! And the bar was cool, too. And it was good to see Cayo after not seeing him for a few weeks. Unfortunately, I was almost entirely out of energy by that point. Without alcohol to keep my motor running, I get sleepy easily. We finally caught a ride home and are currently chilling on the futon, where I am typing this and—not gonna lie—kind of obsessing a little bit about Beckett.
He keeps shooting cute pictures and video of himself. And that brings back so many sexy memories. And those memories have such a particular effect on me—it's equal parts pleasant thrill and ache of longing for impossible things. That ache reminds me of the feeling I used to get as a kid when I would wish my favorite fictional characters actually existed: oh, the fun we would have if my wishes could come true!
But it's pleasant to feel odd and intense things. Even when they are not pleasant feelings in themselves, necessarily, the rarity of them makes their occurrence pleasant, if that makes sense. It's like the joy of experiencing a wider spectrum of possible emotion. It's enriching.
And just as I do about Sam, I can close my eyes and sigh and remember Beckett, as he was those times we were together. If I call a thing up often enough, I will never forget it.
Reverie
Active member
I've been having some poly-related thoughts lately that are almost too abstract and ineffable currently for me to put into words, but I figured I'd give it a preliminary try here. I am pretty sure I’ll have to have a few thinks on these to completely crystallize my thoughts and understandings. Rider and I had a conversation about it yesterday morning before we went to go hang with his crew of old friends again, but I’m not sure he agreed with me.
I was thinking about the way that things went down with Beckett, and also with Sam, and I was thinking about ways in which I may have let each of them down that were poly-related that I wouldn’t have done if I had just been dating them as a single person.
In the case of Beckett, I didn't make time to go on that first date with him until two months after first meeting him and exchanging info. And then there was one time when he'd really wanted me to stay the night with him, but I couldn't due to having told Rider I'd be back. I really wanted to stay, and Beckett knew it, but I was afraid of what would happen if I tried to change my mind on Rider without speaking to him in person first.
In the case of Sam, there was once that I canceled a solo trip to see him because Rider and I were in the middle of serious issues (I can't even remember the exact circumstances anymore), and there were a few visits where Rider and I both went up to see Sam, and I didn’t make time to be alone with him. Not for any purposeful reason or lack of desire—it was just that we were all having fun and I wasn’t confident enough in the situation to ask Rider to step out for a while.
Thinking back on that stuff with a year’s hindsight, an idea started to catch fire in my mind: maybe I was being accidentally shitty by not putting those guys first sometimes, and maybe that was what put them off of poly, and off of the idea of a relationship with me. All of these things are poly-related and having to do with my being busy (in part because of my existing relationship) or wanting to make sure that I didn’t chip away at the stability of my relationship with Rider. None of these things would have been an issue if I’d been a single person.
Maybe the risks involved in coming to think of themselves as poly, or at least being in a poly relationship, were not worth it to them, given what I had/have to offer. Poly is not for everyone, of course, and while awareness of it is growing, the vast majority of their dating pools are still likely to be mono women who would be put off by the idea of them having another partner.
Maybe it would have been more worth the risks to them if I’d had more to offer—if I’d been more willing to make sacrifices to make time for them, or more able to trust that my relationship with Rider would remain solid enough that I could ask him for that time and space with others without damaging things with him. Maybe I could have communicated better that I am not just “Rider’s lady out on loan” (which is what I’m pretty sure they both thought, given various things they each said to me shortly before our breakups), but that I am also capable of real love for them and willing to build a real relationship with them.
I don’t know.
I do know that I did want to build something real with each of them, but I hadn’t any experience really hinging (with Sam being long distance and the Beckett situation being so short-lived), so maybe I did not do enough to let them know it. I also did do a fair bit of advocating for Beckett things—pointing out to Rider that Rider did not have claim on all my non-work time, keeping my “next time” promise to Beckett about the overnight situation, etc.—but I can see how it still might not have been enough.
It seems like…most of the people I meet who are OK with the idea of my particular poly situation…are not people I am interested in. And the people I fall hard for end up not being too keen on some aspect of the situation and so they bail. So what can I do differently next time (if there is a next time) to make sure the other person knows that even though I am marrying Rider, I really am capable of real love for people who are not Rider? How do I build the confidence in my own abilities to negotiate for what I (and another partner) might want, without causing that “rug pulled out from under” feeling in Rider?
In the example of the night I’d wanted to spend at Beckett’s, Rider had said after the fact that he would have been fine if I hadn’t come back—it was a night we’d all gone to a party, and he said he’d have crashed at the party instead of needing my ride—as long as I’d called. But I feel like if the tables had been turned, I would have been really upset if Rider had said he would come back for me and then called changing his mind at the last minute. I don’t do stuff like that because I believe it’s disrespectful.
But was it also disrespectful to spend a wonderful full day with Beckett, return to his home and have amazing sex with him, and then leave him standing naked at the door when he clearly wants overnight cuddles? If not disrespectful, surely at least dissatisfying.
Maybe the proper way to handle that night would have been to anticipate that I (and Beckett) may have wanted an overnight, and therefore leave the ending of the night uncertain with Rider, maybe also helping to create a backup plan for him. After all, it is actually pretty easy to predict that I would want to stay with Beckett. I was well on my way to smitten at that point. In my mind at the time, I had erred on the side of caution—but it was only cautious in terms of couple privilege. It was not cautious in terms of “what I might need to do to show Beckett that he matters enough to proceed.”
So I talked to Rider about all of this, and he seemed to disagree with me on nearly every point, which is pretty rare. He said that the situation with Sam was going to have its own issues no matter what, because Rider and Sam are best friends, so that adds a layer. He thought it made sense that I might not have time to have sex with Sam during every visit, if we were all hanging out.
And Rider said that Beckett left me to go back with his ex, which is at least partially true—but based on Beckett’s breakup speech, I don’t think that was the entire story. Beckett definitely at least talked about liking me too much, and about respecting Rider too much, which leads me to believe that he wanted more than he was getting and was unwilling to play dirty against Rider to get what he actually wanted—therefore he just opted out instead.
Rider said that, ideally, we will find people who already have primaries of their own, so they won’t mind. Maybe. But I’m not so sure. It seems like the combination of “people who won’t mind” and “people I actually want to date” might be an empty set.
Rider is generally so easy-going about stuff that I don’t think it would be too tough for me to build open-endedness into date nights with people, as long as they’re people whose vibe we have already sussed out, which our “be friends first” policy pretty much ensures.
I just have to think a lot about what I do have to offer another partner before the situation presents itself again, whether that be Sam moving closer and being willing to start things back up again, or whether it be a completely new person and situation.
I don’t really think I should write follow-up letters to Sam or to Beckett with this additional set of realizations; I’ve promised Sam to keep things on a friendship level until he indicates otherwise, and I’ve put enough “heavy” on Beckett already for the level of our connection. I do really wish I could have had a deeper understanding at the time and therefore given these marvelous creatures the care that they deserved, but I live and I learn, and that’s about all I can expect from myself: be thoughtful, try my hardest, and do better each day than I did the day before, to the best of my ability.
I also hope that Rider comes around to a level of agreement with me on this, or else it may end up causing friction down the line—even with how easy-going and full of compersion he usually is. Maybe there is a way to achieve results that are satisfactory to both of us, even if there has been a slight paradigm shift between us.
I also wonder what this line of thinking is going to do to my own issues around needing to feel “important” to Rider. A cursory inspection of my insides tells me that as long as we stick to the “friendly people” model, I would be perfectly fine with Rider implementing a similar framework of letting dates be more open-ended and letting other partners sometimes take priority. If I peek into the box marked “scary people” (i.e., not “friendly people”), then my chest starts to tighten a bit.
But by and large, a shift toward “what can we (together or individually) actually offer other people?” seems like a worthy place to invest energy now that we are not expending so much energy shoring up our own foundations, and now that our massive flood of NRE has mellowed into a bubbling brook of domestic tranquility rather than being a dam-breaking force of nature that obliterates everything in its path.
(continued...)
I was thinking about the way that things went down with Beckett, and also with Sam, and I was thinking about ways in which I may have let each of them down that were poly-related that I wouldn’t have done if I had just been dating them as a single person.
In the case of Beckett, I didn't make time to go on that first date with him until two months after first meeting him and exchanging info. And then there was one time when he'd really wanted me to stay the night with him, but I couldn't due to having told Rider I'd be back. I really wanted to stay, and Beckett knew it, but I was afraid of what would happen if I tried to change my mind on Rider without speaking to him in person first.
In the case of Sam, there was once that I canceled a solo trip to see him because Rider and I were in the middle of serious issues (I can't even remember the exact circumstances anymore), and there were a few visits where Rider and I both went up to see Sam, and I didn’t make time to be alone with him. Not for any purposeful reason or lack of desire—it was just that we were all having fun and I wasn’t confident enough in the situation to ask Rider to step out for a while.
Thinking back on that stuff with a year’s hindsight, an idea started to catch fire in my mind: maybe I was being accidentally shitty by not putting those guys first sometimes, and maybe that was what put them off of poly, and off of the idea of a relationship with me. All of these things are poly-related and having to do with my being busy (in part because of my existing relationship) or wanting to make sure that I didn’t chip away at the stability of my relationship with Rider. None of these things would have been an issue if I’d been a single person.
Maybe the risks involved in coming to think of themselves as poly, or at least being in a poly relationship, were not worth it to them, given what I had/have to offer. Poly is not for everyone, of course, and while awareness of it is growing, the vast majority of their dating pools are still likely to be mono women who would be put off by the idea of them having another partner.
Maybe it would have been more worth the risks to them if I’d had more to offer—if I’d been more willing to make sacrifices to make time for them, or more able to trust that my relationship with Rider would remain solid enough that I could ask him for that time and space with others without damaging things with him. Maybe I could have communicated better that I am not just “Rider’s lady out on loan” (which is what I’m pretty sure they both thought, given various things they each said to me shortly before our breakups), but that I am also capable of real love for them and willing to build a real relationship with them.
I don’t know.
I do know that I did want to build something real with each of them, but I hadn’t any experience really hinging (with Sam being long distance and the Beckett situation being so short-lived), so maybe I did not do enough to let them know it. I also did do a fair bit of advocating for Beckett things—pointing out to Rider that Rider did not have claim on all my non-work time, keeping my “next time” promise to Beckett about the overnight situation, etc.—but I can see how it still might not have been enough.
It seems like…most of the people I meet who are OK with the idea of my particular poly situation…are not people I am interested in. And the people I fall hard for end up not being too keen on some aspect of the situation and so they bail. So what can I do differently next time (if there is a next time) to make sure the other person knows that even though I am marrying Rider, I really am capable of real love for people who are not Rider? How do I build the confidence in my own abilities to negotiate for what I (and another partner) might want, without causing that “rug pulled out from under” feeling in Rider?
In the example of the night I’d wanted to spend at Beckett’s, Rider had said after the fact that he would have been fine if I hadn’t come back—it was a night we’d all gone to a party, and he said he’d have crashed at the party instead of needing my ride—as long as I’d called. But I feel like if the tables had been turned, I would have been really upset if Rider had said he would come back for me and then called changing his mind at the last minute. I don’t do stuff like that because I believe it’s disrespectful.
But was it also disrespectful to spend a wonderful full day with Beckett, return to his home and have amazing sex with him, and then leave him standing naked at the door when he clearly wants overnight cuddles? If not disrespectful, surely at least dissatisfying.
Maybe the proper way to handle that night would have been to anticipate that I (and Beckett) may have wanted an overnight, and therefore leave the ending of the night uncertain with Rider, maybe also helping to create a backup plan for him. After all, it is actually pretty easy to predict that I would want to stay with Beckett. I was well on my way to smitten at that point. In my mind at the time, I had erred on the side of caution—but it was only cautious in terms of couple privilege. It was not cautious in terms of “what I might need to do to show Beckett that he matters enough to proceed.”
So I talked to Rider about all of this, and he seemed to disagree with me on nearly every point, which is pretty rare. He said that the situation with Sam was going to have its own issues no matter what, because Rider and Sam are best friends, so that adds a layer. He thought it made sense that I might not have time to have sex with Sam during every visit, if we were all hanging out.
And Rider said that Beckett left me to go back with his ex, which is at least partially true—but based on Beckett’s breakup speech, I don’t think that was the entire story. Beckett definitely at least talked about liking me too much, and about respecting Rider too much, which leads me to believe that he wanted more than he was getting and was unwilling to play dirty against Rider to get what he actually wanted—therefore he just opted out instead.
Rider said that, ideally, we will find people who already have primaries of their own, so they won’t mind. Maybe. But I’m not so sure. It seems like the combination of “people who won’t mind” and “people I actually want to date” might be an empty set.
Rider is generally so easy-going about stuff that I don’t think it would be too tough for me to build open-endedness into date nights with people, as long as they’re people whose vibe we have already sussed out, which our “be friends first” policy pretty much ensures.
I just have to think a lot about what I do have to offer another partner before the situation presents itself again, whether that be Sam moving closer and being willing to start things back up again, or whether it be a completely new person and situation.
I don’t really think I should write follow-up letters to Sam or to Beckett with this additional set of realizations; I’ve promised Sam to keep things on a friendship level until he indicates otherwise, and I’ve put enough “heavy” on Beckett already for the level of our connection. I do really wish I could have had a deeper understanding at the time and therefore given these marvelous creatures the care that they deserved, but I live and I learn, and that’s about all I can expect from myself: be thoughtful, try my hardest, and do better each day than I did the day before, to the best of my ability.
I also hope that Rider comes around to a level of agreement with me on this, or else it may end up causing friction down the line—even with how easy-going and full of compersion he usually is. Maybe there is a way to achieve results that are satisfactory to both of us, even if there has been a slight paradigm shift between us.
I also wonder what this line of thinking is going to do to my own issues around needing to feel “important” to Rider. A cursory inspection of my insides tells me that as long as we stick to the “friendly people” model, I would be perfectly fine with Rider implementing a similar framework of letting dates be more open-ended and letting other partners sometimes take priority. If I peek into the box marked “scary people” (i.e., not “friendly people”), then my chest starts to tighten a bit.
But by and large, a shift toward “what can we (together or individually) actually offer other people?” seems like a worthy place to invest energy now that we are not expending so much energy shoring up our own foundations, and now that our massive flood of NRE has mellowed into a bubbling brook of domestic tranquility rather than being a dam-breaking force of nature that obliterates everything in its path.
(continued...)
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Reverie
Active member
(...continued from previous)
In actual news-news (as opposed to musing-news), I met one of my online friends from OKC yesterday. This was the one I’d been a bit on guard about because he’d seemed petulant. In person, I didn’t get any of that. Occasionally, he did pull out a bit of playful wryness, but not enough to ruffle my feathers. I’m historically pretty sensitive to that stuff—sarcasm and mocking are two of my least favorite personality traits in people—so it was good that he kept it toned down.
I really liked him as a person, and I am on the fence about the attraction thing. Sometimes I thought yes, and sometimes I thought no. In keeping with the friends-first thing, I don’t have to decide right now in order to keep hanging out, so that is good. The “no” was mostly physical quirk types of things, which I tend to get over pretty fast if I like someone’s personality enough. One major perk was that he doesn’t really drink. I love having friends who don’t drink because it helps me to drink less. Another perk is that he moonlights as a girl, which I love. I am not sure whether to name him yet. I will wait. He said he’s going to be really busy for the rest of the month, as well, which gives me breathing room. I love it when other people are busy too!
I did have brief message conversations today with Sam and Beckett. And Max messaged me wanting to get together, but I’m not sure I really want to make time for him this week. The attempt at hooking up in the bar bathroom soured me on him pretty good, and he’s “afraid of nature” (his own words) so pretty much any of the social stuff I like to do that isn’t in bars is sort of out of the question. I am not saying I would never hang out with him again, though. Dunno—ambivalent.
Also, yesterday Perry checked in with the band to see if we would be into playing our first real show out at a bar at the beginning of October. That is exciting.
And I have been reading A Literate Passion recently, which was loaned to me by Sam's SIL. It seems like there is an inkling of what could have been poly in there, but that I guess remained cheating instead. It's an interesting read.
Between Rider and me, things are still going well. I'm in a phase where I rarely want to get going with sex, but once the ball is rolling, I'm super into it and it's really hot. He still wants it every night, so we do most nights—and even some days recently, after our "time of day" discussion a couple of weeks ago. We were super happy Friday that we did a "fuck first" (thanks, Dan Savage) while it was still light out because Rider ended up getting an upset stomach later that evening, which put the damper on our plans for romantic meteor-shower watching.
Mostly my inner landscape has been filled up with the musings in the first half of this post, and with uselessly obsessing a bit over Beckett and his constant stream of sexy selfies.
In actual news-news (as opposed to musing-news), I met one of my online friends from OKC yesterday. This was the one I’d been a bit on guard about because he’d seemed petulant. In person, I didn’t get any of that. Occasionally, he did pull out a bit of playful wryness, but not enough to ruffle my feathers. I’m historically pretty sensitive to that stuff—sarcasm and mocking are two of my least favorite personality traits in people—so it was good that he kept it toned down.
I really liked him as a person, and I am on the fence about the attraction thing. Sometimes I thought yes, and sometimes I thought no. In keeping with the friends-first thing, I don’t have to decide right now in order to keep hanging out, so that is good. The “no” was mostly physical quirk types of things, which I tend to get over pretty fast if I like someone’s personality enough. One major perk was that he doesn’t really drink. I love having friends who don’t drink because it helps me to drink less. Another perk is that he moonlights as a girl, which I love. I am not sure whether to name him yet. I will wait. He said he’s going to be really busy for the rest of the month, as well, which gives me breathing room. I love it when other people are busy too!
I did have brief message conversations today with Sam and Beckett. And Max messaged me wanting to get together, but I’m not sure I really want to make time for him this week. The attempt at hooking up in the bar bathroom soured me on him pretty good, and he’s “afraid of nature” (his own words) so pretty much any of the social stuff I like to do that isn’t in bars is sort of out of the question. I am not saying I would never hang out with him again, though. Dunno—ambivalent.
Also, yesterday Perry checked in with the band to see if we would be into playing our first real show out at a bar at the beginning of October. That is exciting.
And I have been reading A Literate Passion recently, which was loaned to me by Sam's SIL. It seems like there is an inkling of what could have been poly in there, but that I guess remained cheating instead. It's an interesting read.
Between Rider and me, things are still going well. I'm in a phase where I rarely want to get going with sex, but once the ball is rolling, I'm super into it and it's really hot. He still wants it every night, so we do most nights—and even some days recently, after our "time of day" discussion a couple of weeks ago. We were super happy Friday that we did a "fuck first" (thanks, Dan Savage) while it was still light out because Rider ended up getting an upset stomach later that evening, which put the damper on our plans for romantic meteor-shower watching.
Mostly my inner landscape has been filled up with the musings in the first half of this post, and with uselessly obsessing a bit over Beckett and his constant stream of sexy selfies.
Reverie
Active member
Talked to Oona a bit about all this stuff. I was telling her about my recent thoughts and that I've started talking to Rider about rejiggering our ideas of what we might have available to offer other people:
She said this:
And I said:
I just am not sure where to start. I feel like I should have a "game plan" in place for figuring out what someone's relationship needs are before I get too emotionally involved, that way I can see if it's something that I can actually offer. I want EVERYONE to be satisfied and be getting their needs met, if I am going to be involved with them.
But I don't know how to have those conversations that early. This is something I am going to have to figure out before it happens again—how to bring it up on maybe hangout/date three if we are vibing and I'm really liking someone, and if they seem to be cool enough with Rider and poly that I'd like to take it up a notch.
What do you need in terms of time and availability? Do you currently have other partners? Do you want other partners? Are you shopping for a "full time" person and intend for this to be a stopgap?
I know I need to use my words, but I'm not sure how to get comfortable bringing important stuff up early, rather than just focusing on having fun and seeing where things go. But early timing is kind of important because I fall in love SUPER EASILY with the right people—relatively rarely, in my opinion, because I don't catch fire with many people at all—but EASILY in the presence of the right combo of intelligence, dorkiness, cuteness, and chemistry. History has shown that it only takes like a month of hanging out.
Right now, I feel like...I'm not actively looking, exactly. I'm following up on connections I hadn't made anything of before, but I'm not ready to fire up a dating profile or anything. My emotions are all shaken up because of the Sam breakup, and Jake going mono, and Beckett resurfacing, suddenly single and flirtatious and inviting me places, then going back to his far-away home.
I recognize that my thinking about dating new people is, in large part, a reaction to all of that upheaval, and that it probably wouldn't be a good idea to jump in with someone that I could see myself being excited about, even if they fell into my lap.
But at the same time, I think I'm feeling closer to ready than I have in a long time. Stuff with Rider is all stable and ironed out. I have a set schedule and actual free time again for once. I've done a lot of thinking and growing and have achieved some new perspectives. I believe that I still have a lot of thinking and figuring out left to do before I try to put my new ideas into practice, so I'm not 100% ready. But I'm closer.
I also realize that it's August, and my schedule is going to start getting crazy again in October. Work conferences in the fall, holiday travels, more work conferences after the holidays, wedding planning, honeymoon. I have basically two months of reprieve before things slide sideways into hectic-ville again. And by the time I resurface from that, it'll be practically May!
So I'm wondering whether it's a good idea to actually be open to taking someone new on. Is it better to start something BEFORE all that craziness, because there won't be time to start it DURING? Get the ball rolling and then learn what maintenance will look like as it unfolds?
Or is it better just to wait entirely—give in to temporary monogamy until I find out what is happening with Sam, until after the honeymoon, until I know I have another solid 6-month block of stability around the corner? I'm sure I'd be less stressed that way. But, man, if my lower-mammalian brain is already crying out for variety now, after only eight months of no actual sex with any other guy, where will I be in May?
I am still harboring a vague hope that eventually I'll get to be with Sam again. And another not-so-vague hope that if Beckett is still single come November, maybe I'll get a casual overnight with him. I don't have anything pinned on those things, but I can hope a little without it doing me harm.
For the moment, everything is all thoughts, no real actions. I expect I'll keep making friends. And maybe keep making out with friends. And thinking. And talking to Rider. And writing here, where anyone can jump in with opinions if they see something that they have a flash of insight about. I was really looking forward to this first summer in this city being a nice breather with space to learn and consider, and it seems like it has become just that.
She said this:
And I said:
I just am not sure where to start. I feel like I should have a "game plan" in place for figuring out what someone's relationship needs are before I get too emotionally involved, that way I can see if it's something that I can actually offer. I want EVERYONE to be satisfied and be getting their needs met, if I am going to be involved with them.
But I don't know how to have those conversations that early. This is something I am going to have to figure out before it happens again—how to bring it up on maybe hangout/date three if we are vibing and I'm really liking someone, and if they seem to be cool enough with Rider and poly that I'd like to take it up a notch.
What do you need in terms of time and availability? Do you currently have other partners? Do you want other partners? Are you shopping for a "full time" person and intend for this to be a stopgap?
I know I need to use my words, but I'm not sure how to get comfortable bringing important stuff up early, rather than just focusing on having fun and seeing where things go. But early timing is kind of important because I fall in love SUPER EASILY with the right people—relatively rarely, in my opinion, because I don't catch fire with many people at all—but EASILY in the presence of the right combo of intelligence, dorkiness, cuteness, and chemistry. History has shown that it only takes like a month of hanging out.
Right now, I feel like...I'm not actively looking, exactly. I'm following up on connections I hadn't made anything of before, but I'm not ready to fire up a dating profile or anything. My emotions are all shaken up because of the Sam breakup, and Jake going mono, and Beckett resurfacing, suddenly single and flirtatious and inviting me places, then going back to his far-away home.
I recognize that my thinking about dating new people is, in large part, a reaction to all of that upheaval, and that it probably wouldn't be a good idea to jump in with someone that I could see myself being excited about, even if they fell into my lap.
But at the same time, I think I'm feeling closer to ready than I have in a long time. Stuff with Rider is all stable and ironed out. I have a set schedule and actual free time again for once. I've done a lot of thinking and growing and have achieved some new perspectives. I believe that I still have a lot of thinking and figuring out left to do before I try to put my new ideas into practice, so I'm not 100% ready. But I'm closer.
I also realize that it's August, and my schedule is going to start getting crazy again in October. Work conferences in the fall, holiday travels, more work conferences after the holidays, wedding planning, honeymoon. I have basically two months of reprieve before things slide sideways into hectic-ville again. And by the time I resurface from that, it'll be practically May!
So I'm wondering whether it's a good idea to actually be open to taking someone new on. Is it better to start something BEFORE all that craziness, because there won't be time to start it DURING? Get the ball rolling and then learn what maintenance will look like as it unfolds?
Or is it better just to wait entirely—give in to temporary monogamy until I find out what is happening with Sam, until after the honeymoon, until I know I have another solid 6-month block of stability around the corner? I'm sure I'd be less stressed that way. But, man, if my lower-mammalian brain is already crying out for variety now, after only eight months of no actual sex with any other guy, where will I be in May?
I am still harboring a vague hope that eventually I'll get to be with Sam again. And another not-so-vague hope that if Beckett is still single come November, maybe I'll get a casual overnight with him. I don't have anything pinned on those things, but I can hope a little without it doing me harm.
For the moment, everything is all thoughts, no real actions. I expect I'll keep making friends. And maybe keep making out with friends. And thinking. And talking to Rider. And writing here, where anyone can jump in with opinions if they see something that they have a flash of insight about. I was really looking forward to this first summer in this city being a nice breather with space to learn and consider, and it seems like it has become just that.
GirlFromTexlahoma
New member
I've been thinking about a lot of the same things... How much can I offer someone, what do I need from a partner, when is the right time to talk about all of it.
The thing is, wants and needs and expectations aren't static. They change. Sometimes because you grow closer, sometimes because other relationships start or end, sometimes just because of random life shit that no one could see coming.
I used to think I was so on top of all of it, having early and frequent conversations about expectations, time, priorities. Don't get me wrong, talking about that stuff is good... But the way I feel one month in is not the way I'll feel after 6 months or 2 years. So those early conversations aren't enough. You have to keep having the conversation. And keep dealing with the possibility that at some point your needs and your partner's needs move so far apart that it's impossible to find a middle ground.
Sometimes I feel like where I "fail" in poly is that I pull a bait-and-switch on guys - I'm totally fine with low-key relationships and minimal time together for the first year or so, and then I start feeling close and comfortable enough that I want more time, more involvement, more everything. I know that could feel like I'm changing the rules or whatever. But hey, I'm human, I'm growing and changing, and I'm allowed to do that.
I see the advice to only date people who have a primary partner a lot. I'm not sure... On the one hand, yeah, I'm sure it is hard for someone to find a nesting partner when they already have other relationships to maintain. On the other... I'm like the ultimate example of how having a primary does not prevent being needy and clingy I have the most amazing husband in the world, and I still get butt hurt when I don't get enough time and attention from my boyfriend.
People aren't interchangeable or fungible. Love from Andy doesn't replace love from Dag. So even though your partner might have "someone to go home to"... That doesn't mean they won't miss YOU. They might not have the same issues as a solo person - they probably have someone to call in emergencies, you're not their only source of cuddles - but they will still have some level of "Reverie need" that only you can fulfill.
So, no real ~advice~ from me. Just some random observations, and commiseration. Finding partners who hit that sweet spot of giving you what you need, yet not expecting more from you than you can give... It's not easy.
The thing is, wants and needs and expectations aren't static. They change. Sometimes because you grow closer, sometimes because other relationships start or end, sometimes just because of random life shit that no one could see coming.
I used to think I was so on top of all of it, having early and frequent conversations about expectations, time, priorities. Don't get me wrong, talking about that stuff is good... But the way I feel one month in is not the way I'll feel after 6 months or 2 years. So those early conversations aren't enough. You have to keep having the conversation. And keep dealing with the possibility that at some point your needs and your partner's needs move so far apart that it's impossible to find a middle ground.
Sometimes I feel like where I "fail" in poly is that I pull a bait-and-switch on guys - I'm totally fine with low-key relationships and minimal time together for the first year or so, and then I start feeling close and comfortable enough that I want more time, more involvement, more everything. I know that could feel like I'm changing the rules or whatever. But hey, I'm human, I'm growing and changing, and I'm allowed to do that.
I see the advice to only date people who have a primary partner a lot. I'm not sure... On the one hand, yeah, I'm sure it is hard for someone to find a nesting partner when they already have other relationships to maintain. On the other... I'm like the ultimate example of how having a primary does not prevent being needy and clingy
I have the most amazing husband in the world, and I still get butt hurt when I don't get enough time and attention from my boyfriend. People aren't interchangeable or fungible. Love from Andy doesn't replace love from Dag. So even though your partner might have "someone to go home to"... That doesn't mean they won't miss YOU. They might not have the same issues as a solo person - they probably have someone to call in emergencies, you're not their only source of cuddles - but they will still have some level of "Reverie need" that only you can fulfill.
So, no real ~advice~ from me. Just some random observations, and commiseration. Finding partners who hit that sweet spot of giving you what you need, yet not expecting more from you than you can give... It's not easy.
Reverie
Active member
Amen to this! I rolled my eyes nearly out of my head not long ago when I told Sam over chat that I wish I could hug him, and he said "you have a Rider to hug." Well, yeah. And I do hug him all the time. It's great, and I love it, or I wouldn't be marrying him. But it's not the same! When I want a Sam-hug, no other hug will do!
Reverie
Active member
More musing—this time on the topic of abuse. I've had these thoughts before when reading people's blogs on here and reading posts in the "relationship corner" section, but reading the conversation happening on Amarna's thread, and this part in particular, made me want to put my thoughts down:
So, by many measures, a lot of the relationships I was in when I was younger were mutually abusive. A lot of my boyfriends were violent when angry (usually just throwing/punching objects, but one also harming me) and controlling/isolating. A few of them were cheaters and serial liars who would gaslight me. Several, including Moss the first time around, used cutting little remarks to shred my self-esteem.
But I was no saint, either. I, too, was abusive. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was. Which is where that quote comes in. I had no idea I was being abusive. I didn't even have an inkling of what abuse was, if it wasn't outright physical abuse. I literally had no concept of the definition of "healthy relationship" or "abusive relationship" beyond the kind that leaves bruises. But I was an abuser.
Until I was in my 30s, I cheated a fair bit. And I would also lie and gaslight people (not knowing the term) because, the way I thought about it, if I could convince someone that it hadn't happened and sweep it under the rug, then we could just go on living our lives as though it hadn't happened. I had no interest in coming clean. If I was generally happy in my first relationship, I'd rather stuff things down and try to do better next time than deal with the fallout of coming clean. Or if I was generally unhappy in the first relationship (usually the case), I'd end up leaving the first person for the second.
With the people I suspected were cheating on me, I'd snoop and lie about that, too. One time I even spoofed a partner's email address, knowing that the girl he was writing wouldn't notice, and I wrote to her, copying his writing style and trademark spelling errors, subtly pumping her for information. Of course, I was always right about the cheating, but that didn't excuse my own deception.
I also used to sometimes provoke people on purpose, out of some kind of sick desire for revenge if they'd hurt me. Or occasionally, just to see what it would make them do. I would feign innocence and that it was just carelessness, but my moves were designed to get under their skin. A lot of times the outcome was detrimental to me as well as to them, but that wasn't enough to stop me. I would love to provide some examples of this, but I can't think of any outright. I just know that I don't do it anymore.
Oona used to talk to me to try to help me "grow a conscience" about these things because I grew up really weird and without a normal sense of empathy. I was kind of Aspie (though never formally diagnosed), often an outcast among peers, and IQ-smarter than a lot of people around me, even as I was EQ-deficient. It was easier for me to feel empathy for animals and even for objects (e.g., the sad sweater that I never wear anymore) than it was humans.
I was often manipulative. Having a good intellect and learning most of my social cues by imitation and pattern recognition rather than by true understanding of what a person would do in that situation allowed me to get what I wanted passive-aggressively, sometimes with my partner never even realizing that it was my idea and not theirs. Having little true empathy allowed me to do this without even realizing that it was wrong. In this way, I was truly naïve, though far from innocent. It truly came as a shock to me the first time I realized that there were people who didn't manipulate other people. Sounds crazy, right?
It was incredibly difficult for me ever to think of what I was doing as actively harmful if I did not have to suffer consequences for it. I was one of those classic cases of "the only regret I have was getting caught" kind of people, and I honestly didn't see the harm in doing something if I felt like I could get away with it—where "get away with it" meant "what they don't know won't hurt them."
In high school, after feeling outcast and powerless for most of childhood, I discovered that people found me quite attractive, and my newfound "power" turned me into kind of a jerk for a while. I took what I wanted when I could, and I picked people up and put them back down when it suited me. But it was also, I thought, all in the name of love, which I felt deeply, desperately, more strongly than I felt anything else. Well, if I love TWO of them, and have no script for how to go about that ethically, then I MUST put one down to pick the other one up. (This particular thing is a problem that I have been trying to solve with poly.)
But at the same time, despite my own abuses, I was a total doormat in other ways. I'd stay with people far longer and at the hands of worse treatment than I ever should have. I tolerated their cruel words, their violence, their disregard of me. Those abusive partners? I chose those people. And I would fall for them super fast and glom onto them super hard until the NRE wore off about two years in and I could see their toxic behaviors—and my equally toxic reactions to them—for what they were. And at that point, I would often quite cruelly just cut them off, up and leave, as soon as I had gotten myself to a good strategic exit point.
I don't know how much of this was nature and how much was nurture, but it was almost like I'd inherited the worst sides of both of my parents.
As much as I love/d my parents, both of them were terrible relationship role models.
My late father was a Jekyll-and-Hyde alcoholic, sweet and then terrifying, and self-involved to the point of pathology. He was deadly charming and objectively good-looking, so he always had a new set of human toys to play with wherever we moved. There were a great many truly wonderful things about him, but the way that he treated people was rarely one of them. He also tended to pick significantly younger people (including my mom), so that they would not challenge his treatment of them. I always knew he loved me fiercely, but I also knew that the things he loved most about me were the things that reminded him of himself; I think those were his favorite things about each of his children.
My mom, for a long time, was the world's biggest doormat. While my dad was out cheating and drinking and spending the bill money, she'd get pregnant again and again, presumably hoping that another baby would make him change his ways...even though a baby hadn't saved the person he'd been with when he cheated with HER (when she was 15 and he 24). My dad wasn't even there for my sister's birth. My mom finally only left when the gaslighting didn't work anymore and he upped the ante to physically hurting her when she'd confront him, and even then, they went back and forth trying to be together till it ended up with my mom having a breakdown and needing inpatient time.
And me? Well, for a long time, I turned out to be a mix of them both. When I was bad to people, it wasn't out of any lack of love for them. I loved intensely, both my friends and my partners, but my idea of what love was supposed to look like was warped. I was half my intensely-loving-but-self-serving father, and half my intensely-loving-and-needs-sacrificing mother. And I still drink too much sometimes.
But right around 30, something strange happened. I became, for lack of a better word, conscious.
I think that between 28–30, I reached a tipping point. My brain was finally finished maturing. I'd had enough conversations with Oona about "what real humans are like" that I finally hacked my way into understanding empathy. I'd just gone through the perfect storm of first having a brief relationship with someone who "puppy-dogged" me as badly as I used to do it to my own love objects, and then immediately afterward having an ongoing relationship with someone who lied compulsively (though I don't believe he was cheating), which made me realize how damaging dishonesty can be even when it isn't directly and obviously hurting anyone.
(continued...)
So, by many measures, a lot of the relationships I was in when I was younger were mutually abusive. A lot of my boyfriends were violent when angry (usually just throwing/punching objects, but one also harming me) and controlling/isolating. A few of them were cheaters and serial liars who would gaslight me. Several, including Moss the first time around, used cutting little remarks to shred my self-esteem.
But I was no saint, either. I, too, was abusive. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was. Which is where that quote comes in. I had no idea I was being abusive. I didn't even have an inkling of what abuse was, if it wasn't outright physical abuse. I literally had no concept of the definition of "healthy relationship" or "abusive relationship" beyond the kind that leaves bruises. But I was an abuser.
Until I was in my 30s, I cheated a fair bit. And I would also lie and gaslight people (not knowing the term) because, the way I thought about it, if I could convince someone that it hadn't happened and sweep it under the rug, then we could just go on living our lives as though it hadn't happened. I had no interest in coming clean. If I was generally happy in my first relationship, I'd rather stuff things down and try to do better next time than deal with the fallout of coming clean. Or if I was generally unhappy in the first relationship (usually the case), I'd end up leaving the first person for the second.
With the people I suspected were cheating on me, I'd snoop and lie about that, too. One time I even spoofed a partner's email address, knowing that the girl he was writing wouldn't notice, and I wrote to her, copying his writing style and trademark spelling errors, subtly pumping her for information. Of course, I was always right about the cheating, but that didn't excuse my own deception.
I also used to sometimes provoke people on purpose, out of some kind of sick desire for revenge if they'd hurt me. Or occasionally, just to see what it would make them do. I would feign innocence and that it was just carelessness, but my moves were designed to get under their skin. A lot of times the outcome was detrimental to me as well as to them, but that wasn't enough to stop me. I would love to provide some examples of this, but I can't think of any outright. I just know that I don't do it anymore.
Oona used to talk to me to try to help me "grow a conscience" about these things because I grew up really weird and without a normal sense of empathy. I was kind of Aspie (though never formally diagnosed), often an outcast among peers, and IQ-smarter than a lot of people around me, even as I was EQ-deficient. It was easier for me to feel empathy for animals and even for objects (e.g., the sad sweater that I never wear anymore) than it was humans.
I was often manipulative. Having a good intellect and learning most of my social cues by imitation and pattern recognition rather than by true understanding of what a person would do in that situation allowed me to get what I wanted passive-aggressively, sometimes with my partner never even realizing that it was my idea and not theirs. Having little true empathy allowed me to do this without even realizing that it was wrong. In this way, I was truly naïve, though far from innocent. It truly came as a shock to me the first time I realized that there were people who didn't manipulate other people. Sounds crazy, right?
It was incredibly difficult for me ever to think of what I was doing as actively harmful if I did not have to suffer consequences for it. I was one of those classic cases of "the only regret I have was getting caught" kind of people, and I honestly didn't see the harm in doing something if I felt like I could get away with it—where "get away with it" meant "what they don't know won't hurt them."
In high school, after feeling outcast and powerless for most of childhood, I discovered that people found me quite attractive, and my newfound "power" turned me into kind of a jerk for a while. I took what I wanted when I could, and I picked people up and put them back down when it suited me. But it was also, I thought, all in the name of love, which I felt deeply, desperately, more strongly than I felt anything else. Well, if I love TWO of them, and have no script for how to go about that ethically, then I MUST put one down to pick the other one up. (This particular thing is a problem that I have been trying to solve with poly.)
But at the same time, despite my own abuses, I was a total doormat in other ways. I'd stay with people far longer and at the hands of worse treatment than I ever should have. I tolerated their cruel words, their violence, their disregard of me. Those abusive partners? I chose those people. And I would fall for them super fast and glom onto them super hard until the NRE wore off about two years in and I could see their toxic behaviors—and my equally toxic reactions to them—for what they were. And at that point, I would often quite cruelly just cut them off, up and leave, as soon as I had gotten myself to a good strategic exit point.
I don't know how much of this was nature and how much was nurture, but it was almost like I'd inherited the worst sides of both of my parents.
As much as I love/d my parents, both of them were terrible relationship role models.
My late father was a Jekyll-and-Hyde alcoholic, sweet and then terrifying, and self-involved to the point of pathology. He was deadly charming and objectively good-looking, so he always had a new set of human toys to play with wherever we moved. There were a great many truly wonderful things about him, but the way that he treated people was rarely one of them. He also tended to pick significantly younger people (including my mom), so that they would not challenge his treatment of them. I always knew he loved me fiercely, but I also knew that the things he loved most about me were the things that reminded him of himself; I think those were his favorite things about each of his children.
My mom, for a long time, was the world's biggest doormat. While my dad was out cheating and drinking and spending the bill money, she'd get pregnant again and again, presumably hoping that another baby would make him change his ways...even though a baby hadn't saved the person he'd been with when he cheated with HER (when she was 15 and he 24). My dad wasn't even there for my sister's birth. My mom finally only left when the gaslighting didn't work anymore and he upped the ante to physically hurting her when she'd confront him, and even then, they went back and forth trying to be together till it ended up with my mom having a breakdown and needing inpatient time.
And me? Well, for a long time, I turned out to be a mix of them both. When I was bad to people, it wasn't out of any lack of love for them. I loved intensely, both my friends and my partners, but my idea of what love was supposed to look like was warped. I was half my intensely-loving-but-self-serving father, and half my intensely-loving-and-needs-sacrificing mother. And I still drink too much sometimes.
But right around 30, something strange happened. I became, for lack of a better word, conscious.
I think that between 28–30, I reached a tipping point. My brain was finally finished maturing. I'd had enough conversations with Oona about "what real humans are like" that I finally hacked my way into understanding empathy. I'd just gone through the perfect storm of first having a brief relationship with someone who "puppy-dogged" me as badly as I used to do it to my own love objects, and then immediately afterward having an ongoing relationship with someone who lied compulsively (though I don't believe he was cheating), which made me realize how damaging dishonesty can be even when it isn't directly and obviously hurting anyone.
(continued...)
Last edited:
Reverie
Active member
(...continued from previous)
Armed with those realizations, I scrabbled and clawed my way out of the patterns of my childhood, and I have spent the last several years (more than two of them documented here) trying to live as ethically and benevolently as possible.
I still struggle with that sometimes. Sometimes it is still tempting to say/do things to evoke a particular response (i.e., be manipulative), rather than asking for it outright. Sometimes it is still tempting to sweep things under the rug rather than confronting them.
But I'm a lot better. I've learned how to not be abusive, at least by all the criteria I've read of abuse. I've learned how to have empathy—so much so that occasionally I think of all the bad in the world that people do to each other, and I cry about it. I've learned how to have remorse for the bad things I have done, but also how to focus on trying to do better rather than just existing in a constant state of self-flagellation over the past. I've even apologized to the people I believe that I hurt and accepted their apologies when they have offered them in kind.
These things are part of what make me so hypervigilant about trying to "do poly ethically." They are part of what made me have meltdowns when thinking of a hypothetical future metamour's hypothetical needs, and whether my standing up for my own needs might hurt people if they conflict. I fear these situations because I don't want to inadvertently hurt anyone: not them, not Rider, not me. I've dealt in enough pain on all sides already. But I have found (what I feel to be) that healthy balance—no longer swinging between selfish/manipulative and selfless/sacrificing, I have found a place of self-advocating and fair negotiating with others—and I will stand up for my own needs even if it does hurt the other people. I fear hurting them, but I fear not living my best life more.
These things are part of why I've taken great offense the few times Rider has confused my sticking to my boundaries ("I won't participate in this relationship with this toxic metamour") with my being manipulative ("I'm going to threaten to break up when things don't go my way"): my knowledge of boundaries and my perspective about abusive behavior (my own and others') is very hard won!
And they are also a very large part of why I am usually scared shitless about potential metamours' intentions when they are strangers: I've encountered enough "bad" in people—including in myself, and including when people don't even realize that they're doing something wrong—that it's hard to trust that other people aren't being manipulative when I don't know them, and when I know how easy/tempting it is to manipulate people if you see a clear path to what you want. And this is especially true after watching Rider fall for his ex's manipulating him (whether she was doing it on purpose or not) into wronging me more than once.
The ability to view a dynamic from a different perspective—to see the possibility where I could manipulate a situation to my benefit and then to choose not to do it, thereby increasing my self esteem by shoring up my trust in myself that I will do the right thing—is a relatively new ability for me, only about five years old. This, as opposed to blindly taking the path of least resistance to get what I want underhandedly, by faking something or hiding something or arranging things "just so." And because it is so new to me and didn't come easily, I feel like I have to take into account that it might not come easily to others, either.
In a way, I feel like I have a superpower: I have walked the path of darkness and the path of light, so I can see easily into either and know that I am doing right. But at the same time, I gained a superweakness: since finding the light was so hard for me, I am skeptical of the light in others, and it is hard to relax. Obviously, it would have been ideal to be born into health and light. But without that as an option, sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't have been easier to remain on the dark path with the other darkness-dwellers, not knowing better, not striving so hard for what is right. Not better, but easier.
Despite the difficulty of developing a moral code relatively late in life, I am glad that the light switched on. It is nice to no longer participate in cycles of abuse, on either end.
Armed with those realizations, I scrabbled and clawed my way out of the patterns of my childhood, and I have spent the last several years (more than two of them documented here) trying to live as ethically and benevolently as possible.
I still struggle with that sometimes. Sometimes it is still tempting to say/do things to evoke a particular response (i.e., be manipulative), rather than asking for it outright. Sometimes it is still tempting to sweep things under the rug rather than confronting them.
But I'm a lot better. I've learned how to not be abusive, at least by all the criteria I've read of abuse. I've learned how to have empathy—so much so that occasionally I think of all the bad in the world that people do to each other, and I cry about it. I've learned how to have remorse for the bad things I have done, but also how to focus on trying to do better rather than just existing in a constant state of self-flagellation over the past. I've even apologized to the people I believe that I hurt and accepted their apologies when they have offered them in kind.
These things are part of what make me so hypervigilant about trying to "do poly ethically." They are part of what made me have meltdowns when thinking of a hypothetical future metamour's hypothetical needs, and whether my standing up for my own needs might hurt people if they conflict. I fear these situations because I don't want to inadvertently hurt anyone: not them, not Rider, not me. I've dealt in enough pain on all sides already. But I have found (what I feel to be) that healthy balance—no longer swinging between selfish/manipulative and selfless/sacrificing, I have found a place of self-advocating and fair negotiating with others—and I will stand up for my own needs even if it does hurt the other people. I fear hurting them, but I fear not living my best life more.
These things are part of why I've taken great offense the few times Rider has confused my sticking to my boundaries ("I won't participate in this relationship with this toxic metamour") with my being manipulative ("I'm going to threaten to break up when things don't go my way"): my knowledge of boundaries and my perspective about abusive behavior (my own and others') is very hard won!
And they are also a very large part of why I am usually scared shitless about potential metamours' intentions when they are strangers: I've encountered enough "bad" in people—including in myself, and including when people don't even realize that they're doing something wrong—that it's hard to trust that other people aren't being manipulative when I don't know them, and when I know how easy/tempting it is to manipulate people if you see a clear path to what you want. And this is especially true after watching Rider fall for his ex's manipulating him (whether she was doing it on purpose or not) into wronging me more than once.
The ability to view a dynamic from a different perspective—to see the possibility where I could manipulate a situation to my benefit and then to choose not to do it, thereby increasing my self esteem by shoring up my trust in myself that I will do the right thing—is a relatively new ability for me, only about five years old. This, as opposed to blindly taking the path of least resistance to get what I want underhandedly, by faking something or hiding something or arranging things "just so." And because it is so new to me and didn't come easily, I feel like I have to take into account that it might not come easily to others, either.
In a way, I feel like I have a superpower: I have walked the path of darkness and the path of light, so I can see easily into either and know that I am doing right. But at the same time, I gained a superweakness: since finding the light was so hard for me, I am skeptical of the light in others, and it is hard to relax. Obviously, it would have been ideal to be born into health and light. But without that as an option, sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't have been easier to remain on the dark path with the other darkness-dwellers, not knowing better, not striving so hard for what is right. Not better, but easier.
Despite the difficulty of developing a moral code relatively late in life, I am glad that the light switched on. It is nice to no longer participate in cycles of abuse, on either end.
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Reverie
Active member
Wow, last night was great! Rider and I went up into the canyons to watch the meteor shower, as we had planned to do on Friday but were unable to because he had suddenly felt ill.
We drove to the park, singing along to one of our favorite bands along the way, and parked our car up on a ridge overlooking the ocean. We marveled at the moon on the water, and then we hiked up a park driveway till we reached the main parking lot. The parking lot is closed at night and so was empty—the perfect place wide-open place to lie down and look at the sky.
The entire experience was like heaven. Feeling the asphalt on my back, still warm from baking in the sun all day. Feeling Rider's hand in mine. Smelling that canyon smell of desert plants and mossy creek. Hearing frogs at the creekside and crickets in the bushes. And watching sparkling chunks of space rock light up as they streaked through our atmosphere.
Occasionally, we'd turn away from the sky and kiss each other. And we spent a lot of time discussing...everything...including a few tentative wedding plans. There was also lots of inside jokes and giggling. Rider and I are just SUCH GOOD FRIENDS in addition to being lovers and partners. It's incredible. The whole excursion was just so pleasant and romantic.
We timed it up so that we got home with enough space before bed to have some really good sex, too. I tied Rider up and got on top of him, and I had a flash of something clicking into place: he likes to be choked (which is usually not the first thing to come to mind for me to do, because I don't like it done to me, myself), and when I am on top, I usually clench my hands and grab the sheets when I am getting close.
Well, a lightbulb went on and I decided to combine the two: grabbing his throat instead of the sheets. It rocked his world! I used to be afraid of putting too much pressure on him, but I have since discovered that my hands are so small, and his neck so large, that it is literally impossible for me to hurt him. He once had me try as hard as I could, just to prove that to me, and I couldn't get a strong enough grip to do any real harm. I've relaxed about it since then. We had a good time last night.
I've been doing some plotting and planning about the future for the past couple of days:
Tonight we're driving to visit Moss for the weekend. I am excited to see him—it's been a couple of months. I am really glad that he and I remain such good friends, even after our (second) breakup. I am also glad that he and Rider get along so swimmingly.
It will also be my first time drinking in two weeks. I haven't mentioned it here, but as a weight-loss slash general-life-improvement measure, I've adopted a self-invented drink-less yardstick. See, some people, Beckett included, count days in a row sober. I don't really want to do that. For one, I decided that—while I do sometimes drink too much—alcohol isn't to a problem level in my life that I need to totally avoid it. But it IS too easy to slide down the rabbit hole of one drink to relax in the evening turns into three. And I feel better if I don't drink most of the time.
So my new measure is to count percentage of days not drinking. That way I don't fall into that trap of "not drinking during the week means drunk Fri/Sat/Sun" which is still almost half of the week. But if I've taken 13 days off (as now), and then want to visit breweries with Moss and Rider and partake Friday and Saturday, then go back to not drinking on Sunday to drive home, I'll have an 87.5% not-drinking rate. Which is like a B+.
My goal will be to stay as close to 99% as I can, while never dipping below 85%. That allows about one day per week, max. Or like a weekend every two weeks, etc. I want to go to new cities on vacation and taste their wares—The wines of France! The beers of Milwaukee! The margarita of Mexico!—without slipping into a habit of happy hour every other day just because I'm "a person who drinks." My guess, just based on my lifestyle preferences, is that I'll end up averaging somewhere around 92% over the long haul.
Maybe it's weird that numbers help me have self control, but they do! It's far easier to follow my own rules when I have something black and white that I can refer to. In this case, a calendar and a calculator!
We drove to the park, singing along to one of our favorite bands along the way, and parked our car up on a ridge overlooking the ocean. We marveled at the moon on the water, and then we hiked up a park driveway till we reached the main parking lot. The parking lot is closed at night and so was empty—the perfect place wide-open place to lie down and look at the sky.
The entire experience was like heaven. Feeling the asphalt on my back, still warm from baking in the sun all day. Feeling Rider's hand in mine. Smelling that canyon smell of desert plants and mossy creek. Hearing frogs at the creekside and crickets in the bushes. And watching sparkling chunks of space rock light up as they streaked through our atmosphere.
Occasionally, we'd turn away from the sky and kiss each other. And we spent a lot of time discussing...everything...including a few tentative wedding plans. There was also lots of inside jokes and giggling. Rider and I are just SUCH GOOD FRIENDS in addition to being lovers and partners. It's incredible. The whole excursion was just so pleasant and romantic.
We timed it up so that we got home with enough space before bed to have some really good sex, too. I tied Rider up and got on top of him, and I had a flash of something clicking into place: he likes to be choked (which is usually not the first thing to come to mind for me to do, because I don't like it done to me, myself), and when I am on top, I usually clench my hands and grab the sheets when I am getting close.
Well, a lightbulb went on and I decided to combine the two: grabbing his throat instead of the sheets. It rocked his world! I used to be afraid of putting too much pressure on him, but I have since discovered that my hands are so small, and his neck so large, that it is literally impossible for me to hurt him. He once had me try as hard as I could, just to prove that to me, and I couldn't get a strong enough grip to do any real harm. I've relaxed about it since then. We had a good time last night.
I've been doing some plotting and planning about the future for the past couple of days:
- My boss let me know that the weekend days I'll be going to conferences this year will count as "makeup days" in my day off count, so I think I can actually go to the music festival in October that I desperately, desperately want to go to. Sooo many bands are playing that I adore, including two of my newer favorites. It's a multi-day camping festival, and I have actually never really been to one of those, though I did go to an overnight rave that allowed camping back in 2000.
- Holidays. Rider and I have confirmed our travel days for our trip back east at Thanksgiving. We're going to start in Florida and see our friends there, then fly to my hometown and have family time. I will finally get to meet both of my baby nephews.
- Wedding stuff. I've done some thinking, but I need to do some more. Rider's friend/ex that we hung out with last weekend reiterated her offer to design me a latex dress for the wedding. She's a professional latex designer with all kinds of famous clients, and her offer is very generous. I explained that we'll be in the desert, so I don't know if latex fits well with that, and she said I could always do multiple costume changes. Maybe.
Also we need to decide on the itinerary for our European honeymoon, and I need to reserve our wedding-weekend lodging. If there's one thing I've figured out over the past seven months, it's that living in a metro area which has the second largest population in the country—and a population that has grown by two million people since the last time I lived here—means that if *I* have an idea, it is statistically likely that a ton of other people have had the same idea, and planning and foresight is just about the only way to make sure I get what I want. Desert lodging during flower bloom season? Limited and probably in demand!
- Timeline for being able to acquire a house (and therefore a dog). Once the honeymoon is over, Rider and I will be able to divert the money we've been pouring into our honeymoon fund each month to paying down debts instead. I calculated that, at that pace, even if I don't get any raises over that time (unlikely), I will have my non-school-debt paid off in 2–3 years. And then we can start pouring that money into a down-payment fund.
I did some research into housing price cycles around here. Houses here are INSANELY expensive. Like, the median house price is $600k. And right now, even the houses kind of on the edge of the ghetto, where I expect we may eventually be able to afford to buy, are at least $499k.
According to what I read, there is a 12-year cycle where houses get more expensive for seven years, and then get cheaper for five years. We are currently on year four of the seven-year trend. Which means that, hypothetically, in eight years, houses will be at the lowest they will get for a while.
The questions are whether 5–6 years (after paying off our other debt) will be enough time to scrape together that down payment, and whether the bottom of that price dip will be any lower than it currently is, partially up the slope of the upswing—if it's the same or higher, we'll have to depend on raises to afford a home, even with a large down-payment. So we'll see.
Maybe if it remains imprudent to buy, we can get a small, apartment-friendly dog. We really want a dog, though, and we were hoping to own a yard before getting one.
Tonight we're driving to visit Moss for the weekend. I am excited to see him—it's been a couple of months. I am really glad that he and I remain such good friends, even after our (second) breakup. I am also glad that he and Rider get along so swimmingly.
It will also be my first time drinking in two weeks. I haven't mentioned it here, but as a weight-loss slash general-life-improvement measure, I've adopted a self-invented drink-less yardstick. See, some people, Beckett included, count days in a row sober. I don't really want to do that. For one, I decided that—while I do sometimes drink too much—alcohol isn't to a problem level in my life that I need to totally avoid it. But it IS too easy to slide down the rabbit hole of one drink to relax in the evening turns into three. And I feel better if I don't drink most of the time.
So my new measure is to count percentage of days not drinking. That way I don't fall into that trap of "not drinking during the week means drunk Fri/Sat/Sun" which is still almost half of the week. But if I've taken 13 days off (as now), and then want to visit breweries with Moss and Rider and partake Friday and Saturday, then go back to not drinking on Sunday to drive home, I'll have an 87.5% not-drinking rate. Which is like a B+.
My goal will be to stay as close to 99% as I can, while never dipping below 85%. That allows about one day per week, max. Or like a weekend every two weeks, etc. I want to go to new cities on vacation and taste their wares—The wines of France! The beers of Milwaukee! The margarita of Mexico!—without slipping into a habit of happy hour every other day just because I'm "a person who drinks." My guess, just based on my lifestyle preferences, is that I'll end up averaging somewhere around 92% over the long haul.
Maybe it's weird that numbers help me have self control, but they do! It's far easier to follow my own rules when I have something black and white that I can refer to. In this case, a calendar and a calculator!
Spork
Active member
Milwaukee?
I don't drink beer, and it's not what we're known for these dayscool: *cue Bob Marley music*) but Colorado is chock-full of craft breweries. Whassup...
That trip up to the ridge to watch the meteors sounds amazing, and the wedding plans sound so fun. When I got married, I insisted (because we were poor and I was practical) that I wanted no frills whatsoever, it was a mere piece of business to get done. Jeans and a trip to the courthouse. I didn't even have a ring. Well, there wasn't much about that relationship to celebrate. But I've sometimes wished I had the chance to plan an actual wedding, with someone I was in love with. Would have been neat. Ah well.
I live vicariously through others I guess. If you get a latex dress, any way I could see pictures? That sounds freaking awesome, but yeah I wonder about the desert heat being an issue, too...
I don't drink beer, and it's not what we're known for these days
cool: *cue Bob Marley music*) but Colorado is chock-full of craft breweries. Whassup...That trip up to the ridge to watch the meteors sounds amazing, and the wedding plans sound so fun. When I got married, I insisted (because we were poor and I was practical) that I wanted no frills whatsoever, it was a mere piece of business to get done. Jeans and a trip to the courthouse. I didn't even have a ring. Well, there wasn't much about that relationship to celebrate. But I've sometimes wished I had the chance to plan an actual wedding, with someone I was in love with. Would have been neat. Ah well.
I live vicariously through others I guess. If you get a latex dress, any way I could see pictures? That sounds freaking awesome, but yeah I wonder about the desert heat being an issue, too...
Reverie
Active member
Milwaukee?
I don't drink beer, and it's not what we're known for these days
I'll certainly drink the beer when I make it there, too, then!
Actually, I have an aunt who lives not far from Denver whom I intend to visit eventually. Perhaps will get the chance to check out some beers whenever that happens!We're not going to have MUCH of a wedding either. Mainly we just want to go out to the desert with an itty-bitty group of our closest (both in terms of emotion and distance) friends, perhaps parents if they can make it, and a photographer, and then have dinner and drinks somewhere in the small desert town where we'll be crashing that night.
I did the "real wedding" thing with Moss when I was 26, and it was indeed great fun (even if the actual marriage didn't last that long).
Despite the fun I had, I really have no desire to go through all the chair rental, catering, bridesmaids hullabaloo again though. Nope nope nope nope!If I *do* go ahead with the latex dress, I will certainly share a picture! The chick that makes them is phenomenal at what she does!