The Best Life Yet

The stuff I've been doing at work today is drudgery, which is giving me plenty of time to think about stuff. I started thinking (because of Aurora) how I agreed to close down with Dustin except for Rider. And that got me thinking of how oddly the timeline has gone this year, and how rapid the changes.

In January, I wanted to be basically mono. I was completely #overit. Rider agreeing to this was the only thing that allowed me to go forward with the wedding in April. If he hadn't been willing to give up poly, I would not have married him. We'd discussed breaking our engagement and continuing to live together as platonic friends while we figured out how our romantic paths would diverge.

In the span of literally one week at the end of May and beginning of June, I ended things with Jasper, started talking to Rider about being open to poly again (mostly to make it easier for him to find sex partners to help with my cratered libido, because I felt bad, and because I knew he really wanted it), met Cherry, and made these plans with Aurora that are in fruition this week. I was hoping that dating girls would give me the sexual variety that I desired without injecting the emotional complications that dating guys does.

And then less than a month later, totally by accident, I met Dustin, who completely turned everything I thought that I knew upside down—making me feel more cool with poly, while at the same time not being cool with it himself. It may have seemed that I started talking about poly again BECAUSE I met Dustin, but the truth is that I'd been starting to aim at it just a few weeks before I knew he existed. The date stamps in this blog back me up on it.

Dustin feels about poly the way that I felt about it in January. I can't really fault him for that, because it is so recent in the past that I remember perfectly what it felt like. What started changing my mind? Feeling bad about Rider's sex life and knowing that he ultimately would prefer poly. What finished changing my mind? Meeting Dustin. But Dustin seems unlikely to have the same sort of sea change for the same reasons. For one, our sex life at the moment is phenomenal. For two, he's not trying to date anyone else, and if he did try, I think he'd just go be mono with them if it seemed like it was working out.

My mind keeps returning to this. How can I fault Dustin for feeling the exact same way that I felt not long ago? How can I expect his mind to change when his circumstances are different?

There's something weird that my brain feels like it's working on about all of these events. Like there's some puzzle that my subconscious has solved that my conscious mind does not see yet. Like how it feels to try to remember a word or a name, and you can feel it hovering there, but it won't materialize.
 
This weekend was insane and I am exhausted. Too exhausted, in fact, to even tell a story, so this blog gets bullet points today. Things that happened in chronological order:

- Biking 7 miles to downtown to meet Rider and Aurora for downtown adventure
- Margaritas and saying hi to Cayo at his bar
- Japanese food and sake
- Falling asleep before midnight in front of Rick and Morty with Rider and Aurora
- Saturday morning sex with Rider because he was making pouty faces that we'd fallen asleep without making time for it
- Walking around the touristy beach area with Aurora and Rider for 3.5 hours
- Driving up to the mountains to hike and hiking for 3 hours
- Driving down to the amusement pier, having dinner with Rider and Aurora, and then leaving them there to do pier things for a while
- Briefly rendezvousing with Dustin before his show which was at a bar only about a mile from the pier—all in all, I walked 13.6 miles that day
- Going home with half an hour to feed the pets and pack before hopping in the car to drive the two hours to Moss's because Aurora wanted to adventure in that vicinity
- Staying up too late shooting the shit with Moss, Rider, and Aurora
- Waking up too early, getting breakfast in Moss's city, then taking the train to yet another city that Aurora was determined to see while on this coast
- Walking around that city for three hours, bar hopping and buying trinkets before taking the train back to Moss's to pick up my car
- Driving the two hours back home
- Dropping Rider and Aurora off at home and going to Dustin's honky-tonk show
- Staying up way too late doing processing with Dustin in his car before he dropped me off home
- Waking up way too early this morning to go to work

I plan to come directly home after work and have a nap and a shower before rehearsal. Then I'm spending the night with Dustin, which means I will probably be up late again. Therefore the nap is imperative. To that end, I drove my car instead of biking today.

I'm not sure if I'm too tired right now to properly lay out the Dustin/processing stuff here, but I'm going to try. Apologies in advance if it is garbled or does not make much sense.

So Dustin was struggling yesterday while I was hanging out with Moss, Rider, and Aurora. He said all he could think about all day was how I was hanging out with my "two husbands and girlfriend." I felt like he was picking a fight with me, because I'd told him that Aurora is not my "girlfriend" and that I have just been hanging out with her as friends—not even flirting. And he also knows that Moss and I are just friends at this point, having been married and then re-dating. But I've specifically told him that I'm not interested in being with Moss in that way again. Twice was enough. So I feel like Dustin was just being inflammatory saying that to me.

He said he feels like he has to take a number and get in line, like all three of them are probably in love with me and he's just one of the pack. He said he had trouble believing me that I'm not in love with Aurora because I flew her out and because I've been going above and beyond doing so much stuff for her while she's been here.

I reiterated to him (it had come up in the past) that I don't fall in love with women. It's never happened even once. I'm doing a ton of stuff for her while she's here because, IMO, that's how one should treat a guest. I'm trying to give her a wonderful birthday week. I got the idea to fly her out because there was a cool concert on her birthday (Wednesday), and tickets were cheap when I checked. Yes, when I originally planned the trip (before I ever met Dustin), I was thinking there would be a possibility that Aurora and I (and possibly Rider) might hook up. Not even a definite thing—I'd never talked about it with her—but some kind of possibility. But when I told Dustin I'd close down to other partners besides Rider, I meant it.

And then there is the fact that, to be honest, I'm not even attracted to Aurora anymore. I think she's awesome, of course. But my long-term sexual chemistry with women is even weaker than it is with men. Time passes and it fades away. When I saw her for the first time in a while Thursday, it was gone. I was curious whether it'd flare back up over the course of the weekend (despite planning not to act on it if it did), but it did not.

(A whole other issue, which I didn't even bother broaching with him, is that I am feeling way less gay at this exact moment in time than historically. They say that women's sexuality is fluid, and mine appears to be creeping straighter than usual at this point in time. I suppose it might just be having NRE so strong with Dustin, but I haven't been really attracted to any women since I stopped things with Cherry. I haven't looked at any lesbian porn, which used to be my go-to. I haven't checked any women out. I just have sex with my dudes and I'm more than satisfied. I did not mention this to him because I didn't want him to get the idea that it's the new normal forever. Because I don't know whether or not it is.)

I expressed to him that I was frustrated that he was thinking that way when I'd already told him there isn't anything going on between me and Aurora or me and Moss. I get his being jealous of Rider—I know how hard it is sometimes to come in as a new partner to someone in an established relationship—but it was hard for me that he was also jealous of my friends. I currently have less than zero desire to get with either of them (or ANYONE since I cannot even imagine further dividing my time and energy) and, even if I did have the desire, what matters is whether I act upon it (after saying I would not). But there has been neither action nor desire, so I didn't see what the issue was.

After I expressed my frustration, he said he was frustrated too, and he was talking to me about it just so that I know how he feels. He also said he can't talk to anyone else about it because no one understands—some of his friends give him shit about the situation, some of them are sick of hearing about it, and some of them, the really nice ones, just shake their heads sadly and say "I don't even know what to tell you, man." So he has no kind of support system to help him through his struggles. He'd told me back at the beginning that he had a friend who was in an open marriage, but that was the last I'd heard of it, and that friend and his wife literally just had a baby a few days ago, so they are in no kind of position to be a support system for anyone, if they are even still in the same situation. Obviously I can't ask him about whether they could help him. But I was really glad he was at least talking to me—I'm the one he should be talking to about it the most.

It took me a while to realize that my own frustration was coming from myself. It was the same sort of thing that used to happen to Rider when he was hinging: I was frustrated because I felt like Dustin wanted me to do something, and I felt like my hands were tied. I can't send Aurora home early. I don't want to end my friendship with Moss. I can't just explode my life with Rider. There is no action I can take to make things better or easier for Dustin without doing things that are not right for myself right now. Once I reminded myself that he was NOT asking for action, he was just telling me how he feels, I was less frustrated.

I am still really, really sad about it when I stop to think about it, though. I sort of feel like I have gotten myself into a situation that is too deep and where I am just barely treading water. Like I am constantly hurting someone. Like I am somehow also hurting myself. I want ALL THE THINGS with Dustin, and I feel like I can't actually pursue them. I know a lot of it is NRE, and that I get crazy-intense NRE in general, and so I am refraining from doing anything rash, trying to wait it out till it tempers itself some. Quite a bit of the obsessive side of the NRE has indeed worn off. I'm no longer content to just scroll through Dustin's old Facebook pictures for countless minutes on end. I'm once again capable of listening to music that is not his music or playlists I've made for him. I think I can even go for a whole hour of conversation without mentioning him.

But the desire to DO ALL THE THINGS is getting stronger instead of weaker. The sense that there is never enough time and I'd be happier if I were near-constantly at his side is also getting stronger. The intense happiness whenever we are reunited, even if just for half an hour, has gone off the charts. Breathe. Wait. Keep reminding myself not to do anything stupid. Let time pass. Time changes everything. Maybe this year's lesson is that change is the only constant. I know it's an ancient idea, but I don't think I've ever before realized how true it is.
 
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Zen tells me that one of the easiest ways to make yourself miserable, is to compare yourself to other people. Sounds like that is a struggle Dustin has, and I'm sorry to hear it. I'm glad he's sharing his feelings with you, but troubled that this is how he feels. I find it interesting to contemplate in context with other things you've said, not only about how he views male/female interactions but also how his dating and sexual history before you has played out.

It did not sound like, from what you described, he has EVER had a "healthy" long term relationship. As in, an honest and mutually loving and respectful one. And now he's in the deep end of a poly V, of all things, trying to figure out how to even ethically and sanely relationship let alone how to reconcile all this jealousy. I really hope, that if things don't work out for you two at some point, that he doesn't close his heart to the idea of having a long term relationship at all. Like it would follow, with some dudes, to say "The one time I let myself really love and feel, it's like this" and the truer thing is that he could just be ready for something more meaningful, but he may eventually find that poly is not a thing he can live with. Not everyone can.

Of course my words come from a really Sporky sort of place. I am ok with the idea that a relationship might not last forever, but I'm way less ok with the idea of it ending BADLY, with hurt, anger, or drama. So I'm not being a naysayer, I'm just hoping that if it goes on and lasts, and he can get comfortable somehow with these things, that is awesome, but if not, at least he doesn't let his hurt make him bitter or closed off to love. After all, it's obvious that he feels VERY strongly for you.

Best of luck...and I hope you get some really good rest, it sounds like you need it! You kids and your burnin' candles at both ends and stuff.
 
Zen tells me that one of the easiest ways to make yourself miserable, is to compare yourself to other people. Sounds like that is a struggle Dustin has, and I'm sorry to hear it. I'm glad he's sharing his feelings with you, but troubled that this is how he feels.

I'm actually not perceiving what I wrote in there that was "comparative"? Unless maybe it was that they were getting to spend the day with me and he wasn't, maybe? I would say that he's not particularly bad about the comparison thing, actually. The one flavor of it that I have seen in him is a super-strong desire to feel like what we have is super special and not like what I've experienced with others before.

And I can tell him, truly, that it IS super special, and it's NOT like what I've experienced with others before. Our weird cosmic-level world-building magic, our level of mind-reading and preference matching, and our physical fit are all completely new experiences for me.

I feel like each time I've been in love, it's been different. There are, of course, some elements of sameness. Our language and culture have limited agreed-upon ways of expressing love, so, necessarily, there has been some degree of overlap, but each person has been so different, and my dynamic with each has been so different, and the Venn cross-section of things we've had in common has been so different, that it is totally true that the experience of loving has each time been different.

And, you know, I get his desire to not feel like just an interchangeable piece filling a slot. I remember feeling a similar feeling when Rider was in other relationships: wondering what "special" even meant, if Rider was doing the same sorts of things with other people that he was doing with me—if he kissed and cuddled and laughed and had sex with them, if he took them to the same bars and restaurants, etc. I felt a very strong desire to be set apart somehow—to know that I occupied a place of value in Rider's life that no one else could fill. It showed up in my song lyrics a lot when I was struggling. And it was, indeed, a struggly place to be—one that I remember it so well that I would feel like a hypocrite expecting Dustin to be immune to it.

In other ways, though, I've never really heard Dustin do any comparison. He seems to be perfectly comfortable in his own skin, confident in but not braggadocious about his skills, abilities, talents, and likeability. I don't think he believes himself to be especially objectively good-looking, but he seems to have no trouble believing that I find him to be attractive and that we fit well together, and that seems to be good enough for him without feeling the need to compare himself to others physically. I've never once heard him express a wish to appear different or change anything, other than quipping a couple of times that he looked kinda fat in particular photos. He also seems comfortable being a nonconformist and an outlier in many of his viewpoints and opinions, but without the kind of desperation to feel unique that I've seen in many people who strongly identify as nonconformists and outliers.

It did not sound like, from what you described, he has EVER had a "healthy" long term relationship. As in, an honest and mutually loving and respectful one.

With this, I believe you're probably right. He's told me before that, of the 22 years he's been an adult, he's been totally single for 12 of them, and the four times he has had some kind of a steady girlfriend, he's cheated on them and/or been on the road a bunch to the point where it wasn't really recognizable as a stable, serious thing. He said he's been in love, but it wasn't really a healthy, mutually respectful thing—there was always lying and cheating on at least one side. He also said that he always had to "talk himself into" really liking them or loving them at the beginning, because he wanted to be in a relationship at the time, and they seemed like a satisfactory choice; there was not a lot of natural chemistry. As soon as they started wanting something more serious from him, he would find some way to either sabotage it or walk away over something relatively minor.

I really hope, that if things don't work out for you two at some point, that he doesn't close his heart to the idea of having a long term relationship at all. Like it would follow, with some dudes, to say "The one time I let myself really love and feel, it's like this"...

Me too. I could kind of see in him the possibility of closing down like that. He already has trust issues and has told me that before he met me, he'd figured he'd be perfectly happy being single for the rest of his life. He said it'd be a little lonely, but he'd come to terms with the idea and been OK with the idea of living only for himself. He's already said to me that he was never expecting to meet someone "like me," which he has defined as cool, smart, beautiful, and with crazy chemistry with him, and he has expressed that I have probably "ruined him" for future prospects, if it ends. But he is so sweet and has so very much love to give. It'd be a shame if he ends up hiding that from the world.

. . . and the truer thing is that he could just be ready for something more meaningful, but he may eventually find that poly is not a thing he can live with. Not everyone can.

I think that the first part here is definitely true—he's said before that he thinks that timing in his life is a huge part of the equation here. He's getting tired of the rock star life and is ready to start building something lasting.

For the second part, yeah, I have my suspicions about that, too. And, like with the "special" thing—I get it. Like I said in an earlier post, I was totally exactly there myself, about nine months ago. Literally the only two things that changed my mind were some kind of vague-but-ever-increasing guilt about not being able to give Rider the hot sex life he deserves anymore, and then meeting Dustin, which pretty much instantly knocked me deep into "I need to be poly so I can explore this without exploding my life" territory.

I think that, ironically, what Dustin wants with me right now is more or less what I wanted with Rider at the beginning of the year: something mostly monogamous but with enough understanding and flexibility built in that the odd occurrence of extra-pair sex, or sexual adventure such as a threesome, isn't the end of the world. Our baseline desire for relationship shape is about the same.

Where the irony comes in is that, like, it is poly itself that allowed me to get to know Dustin in the first place. If Rider and I were not open, then Dustin would have just been some guy I flirted with at a party once. The elements are so strange:

- Rider: prefers poly no matter what
- Me: actually would prefer mostly mono if libido-guilt and then Dustin had not been a thing
- Dustin: actually would prefer mostly mono but tolerates poly because Rider is a thing
- Me + Rider: was only working because Rider agreed to mostly mono, which was a sacrifice for Rider; then we were considering poly again, which, until Dustin, would have been a sacrifice for me; now poly but Rider is making the bigger sacrifices
- Me + Dustin: is only possible because Rider and I switched back to poly, which is a sacrifice for Dustin

I dunno. I keep thinking about this. It's such a puzzle to me. Poly makes me+Dustin possible. But it also makes Dustin kind of miserable. And, without Dustin, it has tended to make me kind of miserable too. What Dustin and I underlyingly want is more similar than it is different, but having exactly that is made functionally impossible because of the chronological sequence of events, which is that I met and married Rider before knowing that Dustin existed.

So Rider+poly+Dustin is the only way I get to have Dustin.

In turning all of this over in my head, I have had the (actually quite unwelcome) thought that if, instead of giving Rider the choice—ditch poly and marry me, or keep poly and just be best friends, both options I was at peace with—back in January, I'd made an executive decision that we should each stay true to our core selves and go our separate ways, then there might have been less agonizing all around. But, y'know, I really love Rider—enough that it made sense to me that his sacrifice was his choice to make, and, later, my sacrifice was my choice to make.

And now Dustin's sacrifice is his choice to make, too. And Rider is being a wonderful sport about all of my NRE and ongoing existential crises—surely a sacrifice for him, as well. And you'd think I'd be super satisfied being the recipient of all of this compromise in my favor, but instead I just feel like I'm hurting everyone a little all the time . . .
 
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Last night with Dustin was pure magic. We didn't sleep enough, but the four hours I did get was so high-quality that I woke up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed mere minutes before my alarm went off.

I took a brief nap after work, showered, then went to rehearsal. Then Rider dropped me off at Dustin's. At this point, it was already 11:30. Dustin was in the shower when I arrived, so I climbed into his bed and was fiddling with my phone. When he came through the bedroom doorway, wrapped in a towel, he saw me and lit up from the inside like an incandescent bulb. He flopped down on the bed beside me but upside down, and we kissed every part of each other repeatedly, clinging to each other as though it were our only chance of staying afloat.

I cannot even express the utter joy. I felt like how a dog looks when its owner gets home from a long work day—just pure, unpolluted happiness surging through my veins. Grinning and kissing and hugging and hair-stroking and patting each other like each didn't quite believe the other was real. The light in his eyes—I have never seen anything like it. I couldn't stop looking. I stared at him till it was probably creepy.

He'd bought us a bottle of wine, and he kept saying "let me get up and pour you a glass" but we couldn't pull away for a long time. We ended up 69ing for a little while, just lazily, not really trying to get off. Then I finally did let him up to get the wine.

We spent the next four hours so decadently: a sexathon, a shower together, trading lotion massages, and talking, talking, talking. Countless kisses. Intricately entwined cuddles. Sharing stories and hopes and feelings and fears and dreams. Apologizing to each other for rough patches. Laughing hysterically over silly wordplay. Perfection.

I didn't used to like showering with lovers. There never seemed to be enough space. Or I wanted the time to be my private time. Or I felt like I had too many tasks to complete. But Dustin and I move around each other with fluidity and grace, and he cuts down on my tasks by washing my body while I rinse my hair. And he's so fun to touch while all slippery and wet. I'm a convert!

Until two, we were afraid to even look at the clock. After two, we decided we didn't give a damn. We kept saying "we should go to sleep" but then saying "but right now is so perfect." Finally, at four, we turned off the light.

After the alarm went off, we stole a few more minutes to have sex again. It left me with only about ten minutes to get ready for work, but I can hustle when I have to. The drive to work was too fast. I wasn't ready to stop holding his hand when I had to get out of the car, but I had no choice.

Tonight I'll be working (probably very) late. Rider is going to entertain Aurora for me. Tomorrow is a concert with Rider and Aurora. Thursday is Dustin time again, but I also have to make Oona's birthday ice cream and pick up the ingredients for her cake. Friday is conference then Rider time and cake baking. Saturday is conference then Oona's party. Sunday is more Dustin time. It'll be a very full week.
 
Yesterday was relatively uneventful. I worked till 10 p.m. and had originally planned just to Lyft home and go to sleep, since Rider and Aurora were planning to be out adventuring till late. But Dustin got done with his own work stuff early (he helps a friend out with some plant things for like 10 hours on Tuesdays) and offered to pick me up, take me out for a drink, and drive me home so I didn't have to spend money on a Lyft.

One drink turned into two at two different places and eating guacamole. Two turned into him suggesting I just stay with him since Rider and Aurora would be out late and I wouldn't see them anyway. My main objections were not having a change of clothes and wanting to feed my pets since Rider wasn't home to do it, but Dustin said he could still take me home to do that—I'd just come back with him after. So that is what we did.

I IMed Rider to let him know of my change in plans. I saw in the morning that he hadn't written me back saying they'd gotten home till after I was already asleep, so I think I made the wise choice.

When we got back to his place, we ate a bowl of ice cream in bed. We were going to go straight to sleep, but of course that's not what happened. He started touching me, eventually getting me off with his hand, and then we had sex for a while. He was too tired to reach orgasm, but we had fun trying. I think we were asleep by 2:00ish, which isn't so bad.

I'm waaaaaay more tired today than I was yesterday, though, despite having gotten more sleep. Dustin likes to joke that I "take his energy" when he finishes inside of me, and it's funny when I consider exactly how bright-eyed and energetic I was yesterday morning after only four hours of sleep and two Dustin loads, whereas this morning I am an ass-dragging zombie, and he was like "you need extra coffee because you didn't get my energy!" I dunno, I thought it was funny anyway. I'm fucking sleepy, y'all.

Tonight I finally get to go to that concert with Rider and Aurora, the one I've wanted to since 2014. There has been no word about whether Rider is actually going to try to meet up with that chick after all—in fact, he hasn't mentioned her at all in a minute, so maybe she ghosted. Last night was one of the possible nights he could have gone on a date with her if she'd been free, and he'd chosen to hang with Aurora instead even though she said she would be fine adventuring on her own. So I don't really know what is going on there. Maybe I'll ask him in a bit.

Today is Aurora's actual birthday. It's also Mel's birthday! I'll be seeing Mel at Oona's party on Saturday. Their birthdays are close enough together (18th and 25th) that they often celebrate together.

Hmm. I just got a message from Rider saying that he's unhappy about how things panned out last night. He would have preferred that I slept at home and been there when he got back late. He's sad that he didn't get to cuddle me during our sleeptime.

I feel bad that he's feeling bad . . . but like . . . I feel like I did the right thing for me? Like, I had only a few-hours' window of waking time yesterday not spent at work, and Rider and Aurora were in a completely other part of the city with the car until later than I was even awake. Dustin's Plan B offered me food, drinks, a ride (multiple actually, if you count the one to work this morning and the one to feed my pets), and hangout time. If I'd gone with Plan A, I would have paid for a ride then been home alone, already asleep when Rider and Aurora came home—an entire day spent doing nothing but work and sleep. Those always make me feel like a dejected wage slave. At least with Plan B, I got a little leisure/hangout time in.

I do totally get Rider's point, though. He was looking forward to something (5–6 hours of sleep cuddles), and I took it away from him without hearing how he felt about it in advance. If I had it to do over, I would make sure to actually get him on the phone or something. I'd still do what was right for me, but I would make sure to keep him in the loop. It's a delicate balance trying to make sure everyone's needs get met while still meeting my own to the best of my ability.

Hinging: still hard.
 
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I would like to take this time and space to devote to just squeeing about Dustin for a moment. There are always a lot of squees in my mind, but I feel like it's been a while since I enumerated them, and I feel like it would be fun exercise. This blog is really the only logical place for it. So, without further ado, here is a list of things I love about Dustin:

1. His perfect size. He's exactly tall enough, solid enough, and proportioned just right so that we can put our arms around each other and walk in step, and no one's hand is dangling when we hold hands, and all the sex positions work (including face to face standing up), and all the cuddling positions work, and we fit well together in tons of locations (showering together, napping in car backseats, etc.), and I can sit on his lap without feeling like I'm crushing him, and I can wear his clothes that are a little small for him, and he can wear mine that are a little big for me. Additionally, his cock, while no size queen's prize, fits me amazingly well as long as I'm not having frequent PIV with larger partners—it's the perfect length and angle for good G-spot stimulation, never batters my cervix, remains pleasurable instead of painful for me during sexathons, and is teaching me how to actually like anal.

2. His brilliant mind. I think a lot of people discount his intelligence because he is not good with spelling, grammar, or math. But he is a musical phenom, has an impressive vocabulary and command of using language to evoke image and emotion, has good mechanical skills, and . . . it's hard to explain. He has this way of seeing into things that I can almost barely even catch sometimes, much less do it myself. Like I'll wonder why he did a thing a particular way, or why he said a particular thing, and I'll turn my gears really hard and then realize that it was actually a really clever thing to do or say, predicated on a bunch of factors that not everyone would spin together. It's subtle! And when I do catch on to it and acknowledge it in some way, he'll toss me a little wink like "hey, you get me!"

3. His attentiveness, consideration, and willingness to do emotional labor. I'll wrap all of these together because they are all related. I've talked about the emotional labor in detail in a recent post, so I won't get too much into it here. But this is a person who not only asks if I mind if he smokes while in the car, but then turns on the seat heater for me when he rolls the window down because he knows I run cold. He recognizes every cloud that crosses my face. He hangs up any jacket I leave at his place.

He bought me a cat family (cat and kittens) tchotchke to keep on the "my side" nightstand because he knows I miss my kitties when I sleep at his place. He remembers all my favorites and surprises me with them. If I'm meeting him at a bar, he has my drink ordered and being handed over the bar as I'm walking through the door. He fixes a to-go iced coffee for me every morning while I get ready for work, and pours me a glass of water to keep on the nightstand every night before we go to sleep. The list could go on—he is a total master of figuring out and anticipating my wants and needs, and of devising sweet and clever surprises.

4. His everything to do with music. Watching him play music is almost like porn to me. He's so deft and talented, and his little mini-dance moves while he plays are just the absolute cutest. Listening to the album of the band he fronted a few years ago, I'm just melted by the little flourishes he adds to his vocal styling. And when he grabs my hand to dance with him . . . I can suddenly dance! It's amazing!

5. His sense of humor. We have enough humor style in common that we are often both howling with laughter. He can appreciate a wider variety of humor than I can, but even in those places that we differ, I enjoy watching him enjoy things. If he's watching a terrible movie while I'm working on my laptop, and he's busting up laughing at it, I find myself grinning right along with him because he looks so happy and it's cute.

6. How much of a true romantic and sentimental person he is. He thoroughly enjoys all the trappings of romance: flowers, candles, sunsets, good food and wine, love songs, lingerie, walks on the beach, weekend getaways, handwritten cards, kissing over cocktails in dimly lit bars, spinning dreams of the happily-ever-after future, massages, cooking together, cheesy pet names, gushing declarations of love, and so on. I totally eat that stuff up.

And he's the only guy I know who keeps family photos crammed into all the edges of his mirrors and frames in his room along with his friend and band mementos—pictures of him with his sister, pictures of his nieces and nephews . . . there's even a framed picture of his mom in his apartment. I feel like most guys might have a little shoebox of that stuff crammed under their bed or something, but Dustin is literally the only non-parent I know who dotes enough on family that there are kid and baby pics openly visible in his bedroom. He just LOVES so hard and so much. He said he wants to see pics of me when I was little, too. No guy has ever asked me about that, though I've asked almost every guy.

7. His sex skills. OMG. Right off the bat, he showed me a variety of very pleasureable positions that I did not yet know about. He learned relatively quickly how to get me off orally (and is now completely amazing at it), and got me off with his hand the first time he tried. He's able to pound harder than most guys (because it doesn't ram my cervix) and also he has, like, what I call "turbo mode" where he can go and go and go super fast for a really long time without breaking rhythm, running out of energy, or coming too soon. Though I never see him work out, he's got a ton of upper body strength in those solid arms and shoulders and can just kind of pick me up and move me around, or hold me in crazy positions. (Maybe he does body-weight exercises when home alone, or maybe it's all just from lugging gear around to gigs.)

Adding to just the pure "skillz" end of things, our sexual compatibility is off the charts. We just like soooo much of the exact same thing, and our chemistry is insane. And he is super, super, super enthusiastic about loving my body exactly the way it is, so I never feel weird or self-conscious.

8. His high level of social aptitude. This covers everything from his having really good general manners (being the only person to say "bless you" in a crowded waiting room; helping old ladies; holding doors) to putting Rider at ease instantly the first time they interacted extensively to how he can find something in common to talk about with anyone, and even how he can use eye contact and body language to convince people to cede the right of way in bad traffic situations. To someone like me who has struggled with social things for much of my life, it seems like wizardry. Surprisingly, he said he was not always like this—he, too, was an outcast and bullied for much of his early school days—but rather it is a learned skill for him too. He's just really, really good at it now.

9. His cool interests. He's into outdoorsy stuff like hiking, camping, fishing, backpacking, and even just walking around on the beach. He loves plants and knows a ton about them. He likes a lot of really good music—indeed, there are only a couple of things I've ever heard him put on that were not to my liking. He knows quite a bit about food, wine, and other drinks and has a well-developed palate.

He's read a bunch of really interesting books; his bookshelves are full of books I've already read and would love to read again, books that I've heard of and wanted to read but haven't had a chance yet, and books I've never heard of that look neat. He's into going on cool educational adventures, like the observatory, museums, etc. If we're someplace historical, he wants to pause and read the panels. He likes watching nature and cooking shows and documentaries.

And he is also fascinated by some "typical dude" stuff that I don't really care about but think it's interesting to watch him get excited about. He mildly follows football and baseball, is rather into cars (and is actually restoring an old car), and likes to pause and watch construction happening. It's cool to watch the wheels turning in his head as he takes that stuff in.

10. His natural tidiness. He makes his bed each morning. He washes his brother's dishes rather than letting them moulder in the sink, even though it's not his fault. Often when I come over, I get the sense that he has recently vacuumed. The vast majority of the time, unless he's running out the door, he insists on helping me clean up after I cook dinner. Seriously, his apartment is generally a little cleaner than mine.

(continued . . .)
 
( . . . continued from previous)

11. His goofy playfulness. I don't think I've ever met anyone else who had such a playful spirit that they applied at just the right times. He'll do a little dance when walking over to me, or lift his sunglasses revealing crossed eyes, or fold his hands next to his face in a little ham move when I go to take a picture. He'll pick me up and carry me around for no reason. He'll mew in my ear randomly. He likes to shorten words to make his own weird, cute slang. He swings our arms sometimes when we're holding hands, or gets me to jump in a pool with him hand-in-hand. He makes sound effects when doing things.

But, importantly, he is never, ever obnoxious about it. So many people who are silly and playful don't know how to properly apply it. They joke or play when things are serious, to try to jolly people out of bad moods. They take physical playfulness too far, doing annoying stuff like mussing my hair, putting cold things on me, or tickling my ribs after I've said no. They can't read that I don't like certain kinds of mean-ish, practical joke, or making-people-feel-awkward types of humor. Or they get compulsively silly when they are nervous and don't stop even after it gets tedious. Dustin doesn't do any of that. His playfulness is always perfectly suited to the moment, and if I'm ever not enjoying something, he notices and stops.

12. His quiet strength, protectiveness, confidence, and dominance. These all go together too. He never calls direct attention to his strengths or talents, though he has many—there is not a whiff of puffed-up ego about him. At the same time, his certainty and confidence in his areas of competence shine through with a muted glow. And, on the flipside of that, he's never afraid to ask questions and learn and admit when he doesn't know. If I use a word he doesn't understand, he just asks. If I ask him something he doesn't know, he just admits it and possibly hypothesizes something, rather than speaking out of his ass with faux confidence.

He's naturally physically forward and assertive without ever coming off as overly aggressive or desperate. He'll put a hand on my waist or my thigh, or pull me to him and reposition me with an air of almost ownership—not in a creepy way, but in a "this belongs here" way. When I'm in public with him in mildly sketchy situations, I can feel and see him tuning in with alertness and cunning to any potential threats in the vicinity. I can sense his willingness to protect me at any cost, if it came down to it.

He also drops little bits of verbal dominance into flirting sometimes too. Like I'll tell him how much I love him, and he'll look me dead in the eye and say "You'd better." Or he'll tell me to do something (like send a naughty pic, or go get undressed and in the bed). Once, when I told him "I couldn't tell you no" to something like that, he said, "Sure you can," and then, more sternly, "But I wouldn't like it." Hottttt.

13. The way he's completely unfazed by so many (especially bodily) things many people are squeamish about. He is so very matter-of-fact about stuff that is considered "gross." There's not one iota of squick in him about period things, for example. He was intensely curious to see how my Diva Cup worked, and, when I had to use an emergency tampon before getting back to my cup one time, he wanted to pull the tampon out for me and inspect it. He even sniffed it and touched his tongue to it out of curiosity.

He'll pick my nose for me. He's obsessed with my sweat and likes it when my pits get a little stinky. He took it as a matter of course when I developed BV and an accompanying odor. He thinks my belly is "cute" when it's a little roundly bloated from something, and cups it in his hands, rubbing it.

Kind of tangentially related, he also likes to groom me—to wash me in the shower, to shave my bits (now that I need another round of laser), and to brush my hair. He even once tried to gnaw a callus off my foot! Odd as that may be, there's something very sexy to me about someone being so open to intimacy that they inspect, accept, and care for my body similarly to how I do for myself. It feels like . . . right somehow. Like we are animals in a pack, or family members or something. Maybe it's because I came from a family that was like that. My mom did not think it weird to pluck a stray ankle hair I'd missed with her fingernails or lick a smear of chocolate directly off my face well into my teenage years.

14. His expressive face. The range of emotions he can convey with the tiniest twitch of an eyelid could put world-class actors to shame. During a conversation, telling a story, every play-by-play moment is echoed in his micro-expressions. His face clearly carries his joy, love, suspicion, pleas, doubt, lust, regret, and excitement. When he laughs really hard, his entire face changes, looking suddenly as carefree and delighted as a child. When he really has all his walls down, I can see other child-like expressions in there too—ones of vulnerability and hope.

But his "default face" is something like . . . someone has asked him a question and he is deep in thought—his brows slightly knitted together, his adorably fat mouth lightly pursed, and his eyes either peeled and scanning with a visible alertness, or crinkled at the corners in skeptical consideration. He also has what I think of as "the flat face" which is when something has angered, annoyed, or saddened him and all the walls are up—all expressiveness temporarily vanishes, eyes go cold, and mouth tightens at the corners. When he makes that face, he looks like a hit man in a thriller movie.

15. His scent. Whatever those pheromone-perception structures are that are responsible for finding some people's scent delicious and other people's repugnant—mine think he is just the bee's knees. I just want to gobble him up every time I'm around him, and walking into his bedroom, where every square inch is permeated with that scent from nearly 10 years of him living there—sometimes I feel like I've walked into heaven. I've read that it has something to do with genetic compatibility, which I guess makes sense. I wonder if one day they'll have a "23 and Me" version of OKC? All I know is that I was viscerally attracted to his scent from day one—undeniable magnetism.

Man, I feel like I could keep going with this, but I've already spent enough time. I have really wanted to write this essay (?) for a while though. I feel like I mostly do just daily stuff-updates when something is good, and do the deep-dive into details when something is bad, and it felt like a good exercise in appreciation and gratitude for what I have to instead devote an entire post to the minuscule details of the good stuff. :)
 
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LOL, so I am accidentally still high from last night . . .

I went to the concert with Rider and Aurora last night. Aurora gave me a 10 mg gummi worm, and I ate only half, explaining to her (as I have been all week) that I am a super lightweight. Then at the concert, she said I should have a hit off her vape pen because "what is a psych rock show without drugs?" So I did.

She instructed me to breathe in until it started blinking. Just as I was doing that, Rider came back from getting a beer and said, "Uh-oh, what are you doing? She's going to be destroyed!" I asked what he meant, and he said that pen was really strong. Aurora had already forgotten what a lightweight I said I am! I was trusting her to steer me out of harm's way, knowing that information, but she'd forgotten.

I got so high that I literally fell asleep sitting up during the concert, and I kept hallucinating/dreaming that I was asleep in a bed and someone was playing music on a stereo in the next room. Or that my alarm was going off and it was an old-school radio alarm. And then I'd wake up for a minute, open my eyes and see the band, and be really confused for a second.

Thank fuck for Rider and Aurora, without whom I would have probably not been able to find my way out of the venue. I'd probably have been passed out on a bench or something.

We went to a diner to try to get Aurora a birthday cupcake, but they were out of cupcakes, so we got some savory snacks and then a brownie ice cream thing. Then we went home and I passed out on the edge of the futon where Aurora has been sleeping. I woke up at like 4:30, apologized for hogging some of her space, and crawled into bed with Rider.

I was still so high in the shower that I tried to shave my legs twice, forgetting that I'd already done it. And I did NOT trust myself on a bicycle, so I Lyfted to work.

And here I am, drinking coffee and trying to work even though I'm still high. My lungs hurt, too. I keep coughing up like cottonmouth spit that feels like it's gummed on to my bronchial pipes. I wonder if I'm like allergic to pot or something. I don't believe it's normal to still be like this 12 hours later.

This, coupled with how the brownie I ate at the last concert we went to amped my existential crisis up to 11, makes me feel like I really should just stay away from the stuff. Rider's getting more and more into it, but I've always had a hard time with it. Occasionally a very low-dose edible feels good and OK, but it seems just way too easy to accidentally go overboard, and being high at work is not lifestyle compatible for me . . .
 
One thing that I keep thinking about that didn't make it onto the Dustin list but should have is this . . .

16. The way he loves me. He swears that it happened at first sight, from across the room while he was playing his set that night both our bands played. He said he came up to me when he did because he'd been watching me and trying to figure out something to say to me, but suddenly I was by the door and he was afraid I was leaving so he had to talk to me before I left. But actually I was just grabbing my gear to set up.

I don't tend to believe in love at first sight, but he's been remarkably consistent in his assertion, and who am I to doubt someone else's inner reality? From the very first time I went to hang out with him, when I was talking about a casual hookup thing and he looked into my eyes and said "what if I fall in love with you?" to the brunch we had after testing when he buried his face in my neck and mumbled something about love at first sight, and every step of the way since, he's been talking seriously about love.

And for the first couple of months, it really surprised me, since everyone had told me he's not someone who's into serious. But he's been super serious every step of the way. I've heard him doubt whether being with me is a good idea, and I've heard him doubt whether he can keep going in the situation, but he has never even once cast a doubt on how he feels about me. It's never been about whether he wants me—only about whether he wants me too much.

He's definitely the first guy I've ever been with who has been consistently vocal about actively wanting to chase the escalator stuff. Even from early on, he's been dropping hints about wanting kids with me and saying stuff like he wishes it was him I was married to, and he wishes that we could live together someday. At first I thought it was maybe the sort of stuff suggested here that time he sent me flowers: he feels safe saying that stuff since he knows there's no danger of it happening. But as time has passed, it sounds more to me like he finds it a pain and a hindrance that it can't happen.

I'm not really sure what to make of that. In all my other relationships, I was the pursuer, especially of escalator stuff.

I brought up kids early on in all my earlier serious-leaning relationships, not 100% sure I wanted them myself, but making sure there was at least the option on the table if I did end up wanting them. Even with Rider, before I let things get serious with him, I extracted the information from him that, being poly, he'd be OK with my doing that with someone else (this has changed, which is also OK, but the conversation did happen).

And I am the one who proposed to Rider, having had marriage on my mind early on. I was totally one of those "likes to flip through bridal magazines" early 20-somethings, which is how I ended up married to Moss younger than I should have. I was engaged to two partners before that, even, and all because I made it known loud and clear that that was what I wanted from guys (even in situations where it was a terrible idea). I feel like in a lot of cases, when I was younger, I sort of dragged guys onto the escalator, to their grumbles, because I wanted the whole Disney happily-ever-after thing.

But in this case, with Dustin, I wasn't looking for that. It was me who tried to put the brakes on the escalation—me who balked at the word "girlfriend" at first, me who said to him "you don't have to pour it on that thick to get in my pants," where "it" was all the talk about love and romance and various steps of escalation, me who flattened my lips and said "I don't even want kids." I was definitely not the pursuer for once, or not of that stuff, at least. I was the pursuer of "let's just hang out a lot and have sex."

And somehow, I have now ended up in a situation where I am being pursued—wooed and wowed and seduced into wanting the escalator almost against my will because, well, he just loves me so damned much.

It's bringing up odd feelings, being pursued. It makes me feel like I was being silly for most of my life, chasing things with people who wanted them less than I did. It makes me feel, looking back, like I was more in love with ideas or situations than with people who were actually right for me. Like, "I want this Thing—here is a person who might not be a terrible candidate for Thing. So I will convince them to want me, and therefore also Thing." And then the NRE would wear off and I'd realize all the ways the person wasn't right for me or not the correct candidate for Thing, and I'd bail. It has not been a good life strategy. So some of the odd feelings it's bringing up are not good—serious questioning myself type stuff. I don't know if that makes any sense to anyone else, or if I'm spouting sleep-deprived, possibly-still-a-little-high gibberish.

However, most of the odd feelings are good odd. Someone wanting me just as much as I want him, if not more, from the get-go is a pleasant new sensation. There's something warming and gratifying about someone setting their eyes on me, being like "I want that one," and immediately beginning to figure out how to make that happen.

And it's not been in a creepy way—he has never once been too aggressive or coercive. It's more been a quiet, determined campaign to figure out in which ways we match up and highlight those, and to find out what I like and want and make it plain that he has the ability to give that to me. And he's so good at figuring that stuff out that he susses it out even when I've hidden it from myself. It's less that he's changing my mind about things and more that he's blowing dust off of what's been underneath all along.

Additionally, and importantly, as I've mentioned here before, he loves me for the exact trait of mine that has ended most of my relationships. For most of my life, I've been drawn to people who are creatures of habit. My "issues" with needing control and fearing change outside of my control led me to be drawn to people who were predictable and whose trajectory I could see clearly. But I, myself, am fickle and changeable and restless. So these creatures of habit, after a time, would come to seem more stagnant than stable from my perspective, once I'd gotten to know all their nooks and crannies and realized little was changing. He loves that I'm like this, because he is the same way, and he seems confidently convinced that our mutual desire for semi-constant change will stop us from ever being bored together—restlessness as a way of life rather than as a life-destroyer. I had literally never thought of this as a possible solution until he pointed it out to me, but it makes all the sense in the world.

Even if I had thought about it before, though, I'd probably have been terrified by it. Up until a few months ago when I had a massive sea change and let go of my control issues, unpredictability in a partner would not have been something I could handle. Indeed, it was the exact thing that threatened to end my infatuation with Dustin early on, if I hadn't instead managed to use the infatuation as a tool to dismantle my issues. I thought that stable, predictable partner + revolving cast of new blood was the only way to overcome the restlessness. As it turns out, it hasn't done much to quell it. So I'm glad there is at least another option to explore, and I'm glad that someone at least loves me for it.

And the last facet of "the way he loves me" is how he expresses it externally. There's the consideration, attentiveness, romance, and sexual stuff I listed, of course—that's all part of it. But there is more.

The way he is so honest with me about stuff, even when it's hard stuff. The way he always pauses for a moment after dropping me off at work, to see if I'll look back at him. The way he never lets me carry my backpack myself if he has a free hand. The way he looks at me. The way he worships my body, kissing each part: "I love this arm. I love this hand. I love this shoulder. I love this cheek," and on and on. The way he teaches me things, patiently, sometimes without even explicit instruction, saying a string of things about a concept or demonstrating the steps in a process and letting me put two and two together myself and then nodding when he sees I've figured it out. The way he wishes he could give me everything, and how, at the same time, he appreciates that I don't demand anything. The way he especially loves things about myself that I think are flaws, like my crooked bottom teeth and my tiny, useless pinky toenails. The way that he says I make him want to be the best person possible.

I have been loved before, and am currently loved by other people. This I know. But I don't think I've ever been loved with this laser-focus intensity. It feels good.
 
The past couple of evenings have not gone as expected. Thursday night, while Rider and Ayuki went to a concert, I ended up working on my laptop from Dustin's couch instead of getting real quality time with him. We did still get the ice cream made, as well as had some phenomenal sex, but my working for hours was a bummer.

Then last night was supposed to be my quality time evening with Rider. I had a conference till 8:00 p.m., and then I was going to go home and make Oona's cake while I hung out with Rider, and then I was going to bring him back to my conference hotel for lazy hotel bonding night.

But when I got home from my conference setup at 9:15, Ayuki was still at my apartment. She and Rider had just been hanging out all day smoking pot. I had to make Oona's cake, so I guessed it wasn't a big deal if she hung out while I did that, since I couldn't be Rider-focused anyway. Well, the cake ended up taking longer than I'd hoped—I'm not sure if the instructions were wrong or if my oven is slightly off or what. But Ayuki came and sat in the kitchen with me, chatting merrily away.

It was actually really good to see her, so I couldn't complain. She and I got to talking about Dustin, of course, because she's the person who originally gave me the intel on Dustin when I was first interested in him, and she's known him for many years. And then, coincidentally, Dustin was at Pete's at the same time, and Pete was texting Ayuki trying to get her to hang out, and I was texting Dustin because he'd wanted cake-process pics, and Ayuki and I were laughing about how circular it all was.

Rider was in the next room, the living room. I assumed he was in there because he wanted to choose the music, and that he wasn't conversing with me and Ayuki because he couldn't hear well at a distance while he did that.

Ayuki was also getting texts from a sometime bandmate of Pete and Dustin. This guy has a reputation for being kind of a creeper. I've only had a couple of conversations with him. He was in a relationship up until kind of recently, but it was a tumultuous on-and-off one, and it had recently gone off-again. He was trying to get Ayuki to come over, and he apparently lives right down the street from me. She wanted to reconnect with him as friends. Pete and Dustin were advising against it. (Dustin thinks she was trying to make Pete jealous.) But she asked me for a ride since it was on my way, and I agreed to drop her off.

Finally the cake was done. Rider slouched into the kitchen and plopped down, looking kind of surly and dejected. I asked him if he was OK, and he said he was just very drunk—he said he and Ayuki were three or four ahead of me, plus all the pot they'd smoked. It took a conscious effort for me not to judge him. After all, this was supposed to be our bonding night. And he'd let a friend stay till after I was home and gotten so drunk and high that he was a little surly and out of it? But I'd been having fun with Ayuki, after all, and there was still time for us to hang out, so I made myself push the butt-hurt off.

The moment we dropped Ayuki off, Rider started telling me how upset he was that she and I had been talking so much about Dustin. That's why he'd stayed in the other room. That's why he'd been surly and dejected. He'd just not wanted to say anything in front of her, so he'd suffered through it. (He didn't consider that there was a third option: find some way to get me alone and just say so.)

I felt bad that he'd been upset, but I didn't feel like I'd been wrong to be having a conversation with Ayuki about Dustin. I kinda felt like . . . it was my my fault she was there, but since she was there, I should be able to discuss with her in my kitchen anything we felt like. And I wasn't entirely singing Dustin's praises, either. Part of the time, I'd been talking about how he's asked me to stop seeing other people besides Rider because he feels jealous, etc. I was doing this, in part, to let Ayuki know that I wasn't interested in anything with her, since she and I have made out a couple times.

Still, I apologized to Rider for making him feel weird. He went so far as to say he'd had a fantastic evening, day, and then another evening with Ayuki, and then I'd come home and spoiled his mood and ruined it by talking about Dustin with her. He said he didn't realize that the minute I came home it would turn into "Dustin hour." I had to explain that the only reason that happened was because it was Ayuki. She and I always talk about Dustin, because he's a major thing we have in common. It's not like if it had been Rider alone, or some other friend, it would have been the same way. That seemed to get through to him. It did hurt my feelings, though, that he felt like my arrival—on what was supposed to be our hangout night—spoiled his mood. Things had been all peachy with Ayuki till I showed up . . . grumble.

I totally get if he were to become pissed if I'm just doing NRE-ramble with everyone about Dustin, or were like "Oh, how wonderful Dustin is!" for hours. But that's totally not what this was. So I don't know. I guess I could have been more sensitive to the situation and could have kept my mouth shut, but it didn't seem to me like that would be necessary. Rider generally doesn't mind if I talk to him about Dustin. Why would he mind if I talked to Ayuki? But he did.

So basically we fought/processed/apologized/etc. for the whole 45-minute car ride back to the hotel. By the time we got there, we were both starving, and nothing was open but fast food. We went to a taco place and pigged out. Then I was soooo tired—it had been a really long, eventful day for me, and Rider had gotten to relax all day—so I was nodding off while he was in the shower. I tried to rally for some sexytime, but Rider saw how tired I was and we agreed to make up for it in the morning. He did express disappointment, though.

I set my alarm early enough to make time for it, and I did come through this morning. Rider was happy for a while.

(continued . . . )
 
(. . . continued from previous)

Then I noticed on Facebook that Dustin had changed his profile pic only an hour previous. I thought it odd that a) he was changing it at 8 a.m., and b) he changed it to one that featured the creepy bandmate I'd dropped Ayuki off with. My NRE-brain suddenly started spinning all kinds of paranoia. The last time he'd changed it, it was one I'd taken, and it was because he'd loved how happy he'd been with me on the day it I took it. Did he change it because he was mad at me? Why that bandmate? Did he and Pete end up meeting up with Ayuki and him? Had they been up all night on coke? Were they talking about me and Rider? Is that why he was mad?

I got suddenly and thoroughly freaked out. It was totally my own brain doing it to me. I texted Dustin a good morning text, to try to gauge his temperature. I could see he'd recently been active on Facebook, so I was pretty sure he was still awake. He didn't respond to my texts. My brain started spinning even faster. Was he upset that I'd brought Rider back to my hotel, when he, himself had expressed wishing he could go with me? WHAT WAS HAPPENING???

Rider saw me getting more and more upset and asked me what was wrong. I gave him the bare bones—I was highly stressed with NRE paranoia—and I continued to rush around getting ready to leave for work. Rider offered me a hug, and I said "no thanks" because I was rushing and because I knew it wouldn't help. When I'm upset about Dustin things, only Dustin can help.

Suddenly, Rider was upset too. He was soooo unhappy that I'd turned down his offer of a hug. And here I thought he was doing it to comfort me, but suddenly it was all about him and his feelings. So I asked him: "Is it actually YOU who wants a hug? Because I'll give you one if you need one." And he did want one, so I hugged him. But I was NOT happy.

I was already under enough stress without Rider interpreting my lack of desire to be physically comforted as personal rejection, and then having to comfort him. "EVERYTHING IS WRONG!" I whined, suddenly childish and petulant.

I gave Rider a quick kiss goodbye and rushed to the conference area. It was still pretty empty when I got there, and I got a notification on Facebook that Dustin had replied to a comment under one of mine, so I tried to just call him. I knew I was going to be a wreck till I knew whether or not he was mad. He didn't answer, and I further agonized.

A couple minutes later, he called me back. He sounded drunk, but he said he was just really tired. (He often interprets being really drunk as being tired.) He said he was just waking up and hadn't slept for very long, so he was so exhausted as to be brain-dead. I . . . think that the sleeping part might have been a lie? I'm not sure why he would lie about that, but the fact that I got his last text at 2:21, and then he changed his picture at 8:03, and then was active on FB around 9:30, like 15 minutes before he called me back . . . it doesn't seem like he was really asleep. The math for it being true just doesn't work out. Which is really odd, because, to my knowledge, if it's a lie, that's the first time he's lied to me. And usually he is not afraid to tell me of his benders or drugs or misadventures or whatever.

I was worried at the drunken-sounding voice and at the possible lie, and I started bracing myself for angry-drunk-Dustin, but that is not what I got. He was very, very sweet, telling me how much he loves me, and he hopes I know it, and there's nothing to worry about. He said he knows we're on the right path together, and he thinks of our future often. There were a few small other things that suggested drunkenness: the way he laughs with rue and chagrin after he mentions "my husband" and the way he was repeating certain things. Both of those are drunk tells for him. But still, he stayed sweet. He was telling me how much he's looking forward to seeing me, and to our plans coming up. He told me if I wanted him to, he'd pump himself full of coffee and drive the hour out to the conference just to kiss me for ten seconds.

After talking to him for a while, I felt better and relaxed. I still felt weird about the perceived lie, but at least I knew he wasn't mad at me. He sounded like him—drunk him, yes, but he hadn't tipped over into the unrecognizable Mr. Hyde that I'd been fearing. He was the sweet, "I love you, man!" kind of drunk instead. Eventually, he said he wanted to "go back to sleep."

We've been texting all day. He sent me some pics from the night we first kissed, that Pete had taken and never showed him before. (This suggests more evidence to me that he was up all night with Pete on a bender and was still at Pete's—he sent those pics around noon, and I just don't quite believe that he would JUST be sending them to me if he weren't JUST getting them from Pete.)

I was struck by the first photo. In it, I am hanging on Dustin like a koala, both of us looking very happy and already in love. The time stamp on it was 12:43 a.m., and I know I'd gotten to the gig just after 11:00 p.m. . . . I really hadn't wasted any time! Within the space of two hours, we'd obviously been all over each other. We looked so blissfully together and happy, though it was probably less than an hour after our very first kiss, and we hadn't had any conversation about what we could possibly be to each other. When I pointed all of that out to him, he said, "You were my baby from the start."

I thought back on it, thought of how perfect and right and wonderful it had felt when he'd put his arm around my waist after I arrived, and I realized he was right. I didn't know at the time what that feeling was, but I had felt it from the start. Now, of course, I am well familiar with it. I feel it every time I'm with him. It's that feeling of every cell in my body singing "YES!" when we touch, the feeling that flung me headfirst into love against my will, and which has solidified into . . . whatever this is. Some towering monument crafted of NRE, love, obsession, upheaval, and magic.

I do wonder about the maybe-lie, though.

On the Rider end of things, we talked it out. We're cool now. I'm still not thrilled about the way he handled that hug thing, offering to "comfort" me but it really being about himself. I think he gets my point though. He says that I've never declined a hug from him before, but that is absolutely untrue. Once in a while, when I know physical affection will not help and I'm feeling too harried to pause, I do turn down the affection. His usual (and better) response is "OK, love. I'm here if you need me" or something along those lines. He doesn't remember because it's usually such a non-event.

He's kicking around the conference town somewhere, drinking beer and watching football in a dive bar. When I get done with work, we'll drive back and go to Oona's party.

The events of last night and this morning are really making me question how tenable this entire situation is. I think all three of us are wearing thin, with fraught nerves and deteriorating communication. But at the same time, there's no backing out now. There is only moving forward and seeing where "forward" takes us.

Rider is feeling keenly and terribly the huge shift in my time and attention. He thinks he'll feel better when there is balance, and maybe it's true, but there's no guarantee that's on the horizon. Dustin is feeling keenly and terribly the half-time nature of a non-exclusive relationship. I am feeling keenly and terribly the fact that each of them always wants me around, and I'm only one person who cannot be in two places at once. It's making me constantly fearful that I'm constantly hurting one of them, because I usually am.

All of this stress is wreaking havoc on all the connections. I still have very good moments with Dustin because of NRE—the brain chemicals make our time together seem magic—but we have our intense dark moments and that relationship always seems like it could be thisclose to ending, hence my easy paranoia. I barely have long stretches of good moments with Rider anymore; even when I try to make time for them, we end up processing and fighting. I'm hoping we turn the corner on that soon, but I don't know.

Just gonna keep putting one foot in front of the other, breathing and living. It's gotten me this far.
 
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Have you and Rider reviewed the poly hell article that's frequently shared here? It sounds to me like this may be what's going on with Rider and why you're spending so much time processing instead of connecting. There's probably some feelings of demotion or even replacement. Especially if he reads your blog..... I know he's had years of experience being poly but Dustin seems to be a game changer and thats a new experience for Rider in the Rider + Reverie playbook. Just a thought....
 
Have you and Rider reviewed the poly hell article that's frequently shared here? It sounds to me like this may be what's going on with Rider and why you're spending so much time processing instead of connecting. There's probably some feelings of demotion or even replacement. Especially if he reads your blog..... I know he's had years of experience being poly but Dustin seems to be a game changer and thats a new experience for Rider in the Rider + Reverie playbook. Just a thought....

I'll take a look at it. I definitely read it some time ago, but maybe a review would be good. We're having a date night tonight that we hope to be free of processing. :)

And he doesn't read my blog here. He told me long ago that he would give me this as a space to vent or squee if I need to in ways that might be inappropriate for his eyes/ears. I sometimes share excerpts with him, if I've worked something out here in a clear enough way that it seems the best way to express it. I definitely don't think I'd be able to share and process as freely if I thought that people close to me were reading here.

So much of this is just journaling for me, albeit journaling with the option of asking for feedback if I'm stuck on something.
 
All of this stress is wreaking havoc on all the connections. I still have very good moments with Dustin because of NRE—the brain chemicals make our time together seem magic—but we have our intense dark moments and that relationship always seems like it could be thisclose to ending, hence my easy paranoia. I barely have long stretches of good moments with Rider anymore; even when I try to make time for them, we end up processing and fighting. I'm hoping we turn the corner on that soon, but I don't know.

The relationship that's always thisclose to ending also has a side effect of intensifying the NRE, if you've never had that happen before. Something about the insecurity makes your brain throw out extra bonding chemicals... been there, done that, got the heartbreak...
 
So, Dustin fooled around with someone for the first time since we've been together. It happened on the night that he lied to me about being asleep the next morning, or at least, I think he was lying. He was definitely awake at 8:30, which was about an hour before I talked to him, because Pete posted photographic evidence on Facebook that he was hanging on a chick, and the chick posted something about how it was 8:30 in the morning and they'd all been up all night. I suppose it's technically possible he went to sleep for a few mins before talking to me. Seems unlikely, though.

He didn't do much—just kissed a girl and fingered her—and I'm not even jealous about it. But I am perturbed by both the possible lie, and by the fact that he waited till after dark to tell me about it, even though I got to his place at noon. I'm also a little weirded out by what he gave as his reason: he did it to make her happy, but also to make himself feel better about our situation.

This is a chick who he plays for sometimes while she sings, and he's always told me he thinks of her as a younger sister. Apparently, she was coming on to him super hard, and after a while, he was just like "What the hell, why not? Reverie is probably off fucking her husband. I might as well mess around too."

He said he regretted it and felt guilty about it, and even telling me put him into a bad mood because it made him feel so terrible, like he cheated on me. I told him that I didn't care that it had happened, but I found his reasons alarming.

Also, it chafes me that Pete was probably thrilled about it. He is not a fan of my relationship with Dustin, and I'm fairly certain that seeing Dustin being like that with someone else just tickled him to no end. Hence the photo documentation and putting it on Facebook.

I told Oona about it, and she said that she is also sure that Pete was thrilled, and she said she didn't blame him. That, as Dustin's bestie, it's not surprising that he is anti Dustin being with a married woman. And then she got into this whole thing with me and basically made me feel like utter shit.

She said that "it's clear to everyone" that I'm pulling away from Rider in favor of Dustin and that no one respects me or my choices, including her, because I got married too fast and I've never had any time alone. She said that everyone in our friends group will be pissed and look down upon me if I end up leaving Rider, because everyone loves him. She said that everyone will also look down upon me and cast me as the bad guy if I keep Dustin around until it explodes spectacularly—that the only ethical option is for me to break up with Dustin now, while we still have affection for each other and before he's in too deep.

She said that if he's as sweet and loving as I say he is, and he is willing to give 100% to someone and wants that in return, then he needs and deserves to be free to find that with someone else, because all I have to give him is, at best, 50%. She said it's selfish and succubus-like for me to keep taking his 100% just because it makes me feel good, when I know I can't give him as much as he's giving me. She said that it's doomed, so I might as well end it now before it gets worse. That all of his friends will say "I told you so" to him, and he'll suck it up and move on, the better for everyone.

She said that breaking up with Dustin is the only way to spare Dustin the pain of it ending when it's worse, and to save my marriage, and to show her and everyone else that I'm not beholden to my lifelong pattern of being swept away by a dude and having that make all my decisions for me.

But the thing is . . . and I explained this to her . . .

See, I have this thing that I do, where, when I'm hung over, a lot of times, I'll say to whoever I'm with, "Wanna go lay a blanket under a tree and nap and read books? Maybe with some sangria or a mimosa?"

And everyone always has said no. Not even once has a partner taken me up on this, out of all the years I've been suggesting it.

Yesterday, when I arrived at Dustin's at noon, I came bearing breakfast and mimosa supplies. As I was cooking, and we were sipping, Dustin suddenly said to me, "What do you want to do today?" and when I told him I didn't have a preference, he said, "I was thinking we could go to that tree we like, in that park, and lay out a blanket, and just enjoy the afternoon."

My eyes turned into cartoon hearts.

"Can we bring the mimosas?" I asked.

"Well, DUH!" he said.

"And can we bring your Shakespeare book? I've been wanting to read Othello," I said. "I'll read it to you!"

"That sounds amazing," he said. And so we did. And it was everything I'd dreamed it would be.

So. That thing. The thing I always try to get people to do. (That I'd kind of given up on and had never tried it on him.) HE suggested it to ME. And every day with him is full of things like that—things that I always wanted but had never found. He's by no means perfect, but in so many ways, he feels so perfect for me. It's completely uncanny.

And, yes, I get that's what NRE does—it makes the other person seem perfect for you, and it causes you to focus in on only the similarities and compatibilities. But, my god, there are so many, and they are so precise. It seems completely insane to me to break up with him "for his own good." He's an adult, making his own choices.

(continued . . . )
 
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( . . . continued from previous)

But it's true that we are all somewhat miserable. I've been having thoughts of suicide today, even, which is incredibly out of character for me. But I just feel so STUCK. I'm either going to hurt one of them or both of them, eventually. It seems inevitable. So why not, as Oona says, just do it now? Because I cannot—because I'm still clinging to this thread of "maybe it will work out somehow" and "maybe next year, I'll be able to see more clearly what I should do."

Sometimes it feels like the answer would better be "not exist." Sure, I'd still be hurting them both that way, but at least I wouldn't have to see the aftermath. Now THAT'S selfish. No, better to just ride this out till its natural conclusion.

I had no idea the kind of fire I was playing with when I flirted with a cute boy at a party one night. I didn't know I'd feel compelled to get his number. I didn't know it'd seem impossible not to be more than FWB with him. I didn't know I'd fall madly in love. I didn't know his pretty words would awaken roaring desires in me that I didn't know I had. I didn't realize that anyone other than Rider could feel so perfect. And I didn't know how absolutely shredding it would be to not be able to give him everything that he wants from me.

I'm not able to give either of them what they want from me. I can't give Rider the passion that he wants. I can't give Dustin the exclusivity he wants. I find myself tempted to break up with them both and go live completely by myself for a year (hey, it's better than suicide!) but I wouldn't do that while in a lease with Rider.

Oona wants me to break up with Dustin, in part, to "save" my relationship with Rider, but . . . I couldn't do that. I feel like I'd end up highly resenting whatever thing benefited from that particular sacrifice. If I broke up with Dustin, it'd have to be because the relationship wasn't working for its own reasons—maybe we just get so miserable it isn't working anymore.

Oona also thinks it's absurd that I'm questioning my reproductive choices. To her, this is unacceptable at this juncture. I should have figured it out before marrying Rider (which is true, but I can't exactly reach back into the past and tell past self "hey, there's this thing you might want to reconsider"). She makes it sound like I don't have any options left. She makes it sound like I don't have enough time left to find a new partner and vet them, and she is vehemently opposed to it being either of the two guys (Dustin and Moss) who have already volunteered.

She also thinks it's stupid that I would ever consider being a single mother, despite my having been raised by one, when I told her that, if it's something I do end up wanting, I'm OK with the relationship not being forever, if it turns out not to be right—of course it's not IDEAL, but it's not the end of the world. I think that, if I do decide I want to do it, I'd regret more not doing it at all, than I would regret choosing a guy who I didn't stay with forever.

And Oona says she is tired of "answering for me" because friends go behind my back and ask her things about me, and she both does not want to break my confidence but also does not want to have to play a fool like she doesn't know anything. It's all enough to make me want to break up with EVERYONE—my friends included.

There are also a couple of new issues I've identified that SUCK about hinging, in addition to the "always hurting someone" aspect and the "fuck I always feel torn" aspect:

1. I have literally no time alone anymore. I had to cancel a concert plan on Weds that I was supposed to go to with Rider and Perry because the idea of going to an optional thing made me want to vomit. I also refused to agree to go to the annual Day of the Dead celebration on Saturday or to the Halloween street party Halloween night. Just no. I am too burnt out. I want to start going to some plant-related things, to explore my possible new career path I am thinking about, but it's like there is no time. It's hard to take time for myself without upsetting the boys.

2. I hate-hate-hate having to filter the thoughts that are in my head when speaking to the people I'm closest to. I have to be very careful to not spray NRE-chatter about Dustin all over Rider. And I have to be very careful not to talk about Rider much to Dustin either, because he gets jealous. Seeing as how each of them is taking up roughly half of my time, and whatever I'm doing when I'm not with one is with the other, that doesn't leave me a lot to talk about with a natural and easy flow.

Here I thought that being the person without another partner was the shitty place to be in with poly, but the loneliness and jealousy were NOTHING compared to this feeling torn, social exhaustion, and self-censorship. I was so excited when I got with Dustin that I finally wasn't suffering from anymore of my jealousy or control issues, so I could finally "do poly right," but, goddamn, I suck at this hinging shit. I'm just downright terrible at it.

I'm too busy; I'm not extraverted enough; my NRE is all-consuming; my libido for my established partner has gone even further into the toilet than before; I feel boxed in and inhibited in my communication; and I feel like I don't even have the time or space in my life to figure out what I want or to get my shit together. I'm kinda going insane over here.

But what can I do? To "un-hinge" myself would be to break up with someone(s). And I really don't want to do that. Because I love them, and they love me.

Ugh, everything is stupid. And it's not even hormonal week yet.
 
I think you need to put this in perspective

1) you've turned a picnic on the grass, something that loads of couples do all the time, into an amazing unique gift that few people will be into. Go to any college campus on a sunny day and you'll see lots of couples doing what you just described. Maybe it's that you haven't met many people with shared interests. Either way, it's actually sad that you see something so basic as this sign that you are meant to be. I'd read a book with you under the trees if you want and I can assure you that we aren't meant to be.

2) You can't only be okay with polyamory when it benefits you. It's not okay that your husband was seeing someone and they were enjoying a relationship that moved at a seemingly appropriate pace. A reasonable pace. And you gave him an ultimatum of either changing the boundaries of that relationship so she is disposable or ending his pending/new marriage with you. Then you met a guy who liked you and sprinted full speed into this thing where you're reconsidering MAJOR life decisions.

If I was Rider, and this is *all* projection, your actions would make me feel really low. I'd start to think that I don't deserve better than this. The fact you're now having suicidal thoughts says something about the health of these relationships. And honestly, from reading them, sometimes you sound like an infatuated teenager and not a thirty something married woman with responsibilities and goals. I think at the very least you need to pause before you really hurt a lot of people. Including yourself.
 
I'm sorry, Reverie. I hope it gets better soon. Fwiw, I agree with you. Dustin is a grown ass man. He can choose who he wants to be with. I do think his jealousy and monogamy may not be compatible long term with a poly relationship...but that's for him and you to decide, not Oona, Pete, or either of your friend groups. And anything can happen....he may work through his jealousies and come out better for it!

It sounds like they your friends are behaving like teenagers....gossiping about you and your relationships. Not cool. I don't blame you for wanting to live alone on an island. I hope things settle down for you. ((Hugs))
 
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