Change in all the areas of my life...

@Inaniel So what would you say to someone who did NOT participate in the *legal* part of marriage, but had set up contracts etc to fulfill as many of the relevant financial / end of life / etc items as possible and had had spiritually significant commitment ceremonies with two partners, and called those two partners spouses?

In my state (as far as I can tell) this is *mostly* legal - there's no common law marriage, it's not a marriage unless you get a marriage license and it's not bigamy unless it's a marriage. (The *mostly* legal part comes in because there are still cohabitation laws on the books, though they've been ruled unconstitutional).

I mean, I considered same sex partners who wanted to be considered married, married, before that became a legal possibility... I see no reason I shouldn't extend that to those with multiple partners.
 
icesong, no you are not misremembering. Here's how I process those situations. With threesomes, I am still with my husband during sex. We are both enjoying our third as well as each other. It's still special to me because we are being very intimate with each other, as well as another. I don't feel left out of something so intimate with my spouse.
 
And adding to Ostrich's point...marriage is special because once married, _________ outside of marriage stops*. For him, that fill-in-the-blank is sex. This means that if they are together in the same room with an "extra" sex partner, that can be justified because the sex is not outside the marriage.

So if _________ outside of marriage stops, this is absolutely the embodiment of couple's privilege, because any other partners are immediately banned from experiencing something that the couple freely can. Couple's privilege isn't an issue in the mono world, it's the norm, and we have a lot of mono people arrive here looking to defend that norm (sometimes under the guise of reconsidering that norm^) when their partner wants to reject the norm, or swingers arrive here when their blank was 'love' and now one of them has caught feels and the other then believes their marriage is also no longer special.

But then one question becomes, is it ethical to maintain the marriage if the participants fundamentally disagree that _________ outside the marriage stops? Because one spouse is always getting their core value(s) violated. Not healthy and not loving imo. But most rail against divorce, too, probably because of the high social value they place on marriage and the loss of social standing that divorce, as a dissolution of the institution of marriage, would bring. Because if marriage was about love, for them, then the most loving act would be releasing their partner from the mismatch in core values that is doing violence to both of them, daily, on a deeply emotional level.


*Personal disclaimer, in my marriage, our foundation is courtesy not privilege as nothing stops by default, but if it impacts the other person, we talk about it first.

^remembering the stay at home clergyman here.
 
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Evie!! Every word you typed above is spot on to me! To put my additional two cents in:
But then one question becomes, is it ethical to maintain the marriage if the participants fundamentally disagree that _________ outside the marriage stops? Because one spouse is always getting their core value(s) violated. Not healthy and not loving imo. But most rail against divorce, too, probably because of the high social value they place on marriage and the loss of social standing that divorce, as a dissolution of the institution of marriage, would bring. Because if marriage was about love, for them, then the most loving act would be releasing their partner from the mismatch in core values that is doing violence to both of them, daily, on a deeply emotional level.
I have always thought divorce was an option for me. If, for whatever reason, this marriage does not work out, I would rather be divorced than estranged/separated. I think a marriage is highly unethical if a major issue between both parties is not/won't be resolved.

DAG has made it clear he wants to have sex with those he has a close emotional relationship, both inside and outside the marriage. I really don't want that in my life (yeah, the horse has left the barn). I have been very clear with him about his extra-marital sex encounters with others and for now, he respects that. I am not sure how long that will last.
 
@Inaniel So what would you say to someone who did NOT participate in the *legal* part of marriage, but had set up contracts etc to fulfill as many of the relevant financial / end of life / etc items as possible and had had spiritually significant commitment ceremonies with two partners, and called those two partners spouses?

In my state (as far as I can tell) this is *mostly* legal - there's no common law marriage, it's not a marriage unless you get a marriage license and it's not bigamy unless it's a marriage. (The *mostly* legal part comes in because there are still cohabitation laws on the books, though they've been ruled unconstitutional).

I mean, I considered same sex partners who wanted to be considered married, married, before that became a legal possibility... I see no reason I shouldn't extend that to those with multiple partners.

I think it is the best possible solution for someone like me... I also acknowledge the world could be more fair.. Regardless of whether we call it "marriage"; what you are talking about is subverting the legal institution.

Marriage from conception has always been a legal contract, it has thousands of years of history behind it. In fact; the love based marriage philosophy is a relatively recent concept, and has not even yet been adopted everywhere in the world. It is difficult for me to rationalize someone saying they decided to re-define marriage in their own terms... To me it is like saying I have decided to re-define "gravity" in my own terms. The premise of someone re-defining a legal definition for themselves is a logical problem for me. It is not a right; it must be legally bestowed because marriage is a legal term and it always has been..

I know we all define our own relationships differently, and we all have sweet feelings about our loves. In my mind, I could call my relationships “marriage”; and make savvy justification for it too.. I would then have to ask myself if it were all just a coping mechanism...

I think it is great that you considered same sex partners married before they could legally do so. But that probably didn't qualm the pain some people felt when a loved one was sick and they couldn't legally be added to a spouse's health insurance plan, or retirement benefits... For that reference group, redefining marriage for themselves didn't mean anything tangible... Perhaps it made them feel better about their own disenfranchisement... It is a human condition to desire a sense of normalcy in ones life.

Some of us in this community are faced with the same issues... We could have a conversation about all of the different things we could do to attempt to replicate societies process for legitimizing relationships.. We can create relationship contracts and brainstorm about different ways to celebrate it, and different things to call it... Are we not pacifying ourselves? Are we not finding feel-good solutions in the shadow of an institution of which we have been rejected?

I don't think it is another word I wish for, I think I wish for the right for my family to define marriage for ourselves. Tangibly and philosophically... In leu of that, I am left with the next best thing; which is similar to what you have suggested.
 
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For me, it's both about who is/ has been excluded from the institution of marriage and the rights and legal obligations that marriage confers with no written, legal contract.

How many people fully understand both the rights they're receiving and the obligations they're incurring when they get married? I would say very few. And it's not like you receive a copy of the contract to read before or after you sign! You can't borrow $5k from a bank without a mountain of paper work detailing the terms of the contract, what constitutes default, and what your rights and obligations are if you default. And you have the opportunity to negotiate those terms before you sign (bank may not accept your terms but you do have the right to negotiate.)

Yet with marriage, there is no document detailing terms and no clear idea of what dissolution will involve (since both marriage and divorce terms can vary by state, province, or country.) And while you can negotiate before through a prenup, will, trust, etc, as Inaniel said, there's no guarantee it will hold up in a court of law.
 
For me, it's both about who is/ has been excluded from the institution of marriage and the rights and legal obligations that marriage confers with no written, legal contract.

How many people fully understand both the rights they're receiving and the obligations they're incurring when they get married? I would say very few. And it's not like you receive a copy of the contract to read before or after you sign! You can't borrow $5k from a bank without a mountain of paper work detailing the terms of the contract, what constitutes default, and what your rights and obligations are if you default. And you have the opportunity to negotiate those terms before you sign (bank may not accept your terms but you do have the right to negotiate.)

Yet with marriage, there is no document detailing terms and no clear idea of what dissolution will involve (since both marriage and divorce terms can vary by state, province, or country.) And while you can negotiate before through a prenup, will, trust, etc, as Inaniel said, there's no guarantee it will hold up in a court of law.

It is also a contract that is constantly amended throughout the duration of the marriage without the expressed consent or mandated knowledge of the participants. In a prenup for example, even if the original agreement was considered lawful and fair at the time it was created, it will always be scrutinized against current law at the time of dissolution... You also can't subvert things like marital maintenance laws with prenup contract anyway. It is only applicable to assets owned pre-marriage... In the eyes of the law, financial autonomy ends on your wedding day.

In this regard a relationship contract is advantageous over a marriage contract because the contract remains static unless amended by the participants. That is, if you care about that sort of thing...
 
Perhaps, I have served to somewhat deflate your emotional sail, which you find offensive.


😂😂😂😂😅😅

Dude, you have WAY too high of an opinion of yourself.
 
Pink Pig
Yet with marriage, there is no document detailing terms and no clear idea of what dissolution will involve (since both marriage and divorce terms can vary by state, province, or country.) And while you can negotiate before through a prenup, will, trust, etc, as Inaniel said, there's no guarantee it will hold up in a court of law.
Which is why pre-nups exist 😅
 
I suppose, although I've certainly been (too?) active on the site otherwise, it's been quite a while since I've written anything about my own life. I suppose it seems so weird to have a play-by-play sometimes, when really my life has just been... chill. I mean, I didn't get the fancy job I mentioned, but freelance is still moving along well enough. Knight and I have had a few disagreements lately, but they were the sort of disagreements that felt like they were ones that moved our relationship in an overall positive direction, rather than stalemate - and really that's all I ask of us. And even if we aren't wildly passionate, he really still is my knight in shining armor - I've been smiling all morning because when I mentioned the flowers on my desk had died, he put them in the compost for me (which I had asked for) and brought me the first gardenia off the bushes in our yard so that I would still have flowers (which was a really lovely and random surprise).

And Artist... I continue to be utterly madly in love with him, that is all, LOL. OK, wait, I'll tell a cute story from this morning - I was texting him about my dinner plans for this evening, as I'm going out to dinner with Ginger tonight (more on that later). And I was a little bit wibbly about it because about a week ago, I was playing around with MiniMe and took the back of his head to my face. Did I mention that kid is really hard headed? So I've had this lovely black eye which still is Not Quite Gone at this point, and I'm pretty self conscious about it. Which led to Artist saying lovely and schmoopy things about me while discussing my date with someone else - polyamory is *weird* sometimes but wonderful.

Oh! Right! Ginger texted me randomly yesterday and asked to do lunch/dinner this week to catch up. I have no idea if this is a date, but I'm excited...(we're doing dinner tonight).
 
And the answer to that question turned out to be “could have been a date except totally wasn’t, for Reasons.” In some ways I kind of wish it hadn’t happened, but …

So for recap for those who haven’t been here, Ginger is a woman I went to high school with although we weren’t close. (Although given small boarding school we knew each other more than just happening to have a few classes together.) we matched on OKCupid, had a few very ambiguous dates then made out at a drag show, in fact dinner with her was my last thing “out” before lockdown. Tried to text/video chat a bit during the early part of Plague, but that really didn’t end up working out and so ended. So just based on our texts I was pretty hopeful that last night’s dinner was gonna be a rekindle.

Welp. TL;DR is we totally still have chemistry and it was fun… except the part where her fiancé found Jesus and doesn’t want to do poly anymore, so it was officially Not A Date nor the beginning of anything. I am not even sure how to feel about this, given we didn’t quite ever really have a thing but also knowing that she’d totally still be into trying something except for someone else. I’m kind of worried about her, really - her life was already wildly stressful in a lot of ways before all this and adding “relationship with fiancé changing in ways she didn’t necessarily choose” is a lot to add to it.

I mean, we’re still friends - there are few enough people in the world that I really resonate with for one on one hangouts so it’d be a shame not to be - though I think it’ll be a bit before we really do hang out again just to let me reset my head a bit. And her, too - she kind of kept accidentally flirting with me so I think I need to give her a bit of space to, I don’t know, forget she thinks I’m pretty or whatever.

I’m not sure but what that whole conversation should have just been text - I feel like it was maybe more painful than it should have been to hang out and feel all that potential that wasn’t gonna go anywhere… but. Still. Such is life I suppose.
 
So Artist and I went away for the weekend for the first time in years - he agreed it had been too long, really, but 2020 was obviously what it was and 2018 and 2019 were both really weird summers that didn’t lend themselves to weekends away. This… this was astonishingly worth waiting for.

The funny thing about Artist is that he doesn’t love road trips. So while one *can* go to either the mountains or the beach within a reasonable drive from here, I happened to find a ridiculously cute AirBnB with hot tub access and some fun things to do nearby, like, 45 min out of town, so that’s where we ended up. (And that was totally fine, honestly - I spent all the time we would have spent in the car doing stuff instead, so I sort of see his point, although I think we exhausted the entertainment ideas of that tiny little town.)

So we left earlier than we could actually check into the place on Saturday, and ended up getting brunch at a little German bakery/restaurant here before we even got on the road. We had *thought* about going hiking, but since it was one of those oppressively humid North Carolina days decided to be decadent instead and went and found a little cidery (is that the right word? Like brewery except cider) and split a couple of flights and talked about… well everything really. Honestly, really, just having hours and hours to talk was actually the best part of the weekend, which is surprising given some other bits.

Checked in - the cabin turned out to be even cuter than I expected, which was great - and more or less immediately had astonishingly good sex. Twice. I guess that’s what happens when we’ve been talking for a few hours…

Went and got dinner (disappointing restaurant actually; it I think it used to be far more interesting but kind of dumbed down the menu post-Covid) and came back and curled up on the couch to watch a movie and chill for a bit before the second part of the evening (already planned before we even left town)… kinky vacation sex. I will omit details other than to say it was definitely … well. I am his Toy to play with however he wants and usually what he wants is to make me scream in every way possible.

Woke up to more (exceptional even for us) sex the next morning (ridiculously early for me; the cabin lacked curtains), then eventually went and spent some time In the hot tub. And that… usually we don’t really spend a lot of time talking about the deeper nuances of our lives with our spouses or how we ended up where we are now. But for whatever reason that was where we were, and it was definitely one of those randomly intense conversations made of vulnerability? There are a lot of nuances I get now about why our relationship developed around constraints the way it did, and why those constraints are now basically gone; I think he understands more about the dynamics of Knight and I too (there were bits I didn’t realize I had never told him, though I suppose it doesn’t surprise me in that both of us very much avoid the pattern of “complain about one partner to the other” and some of these things it’s hard to discuss without *sounding* like you’re complaining). Regardless it was definitely one of the most… absolutely emotionally naked conversations we’ve ever had.

Then we went kayaking… more accidentally deep conversation and the utter *peace* of being in a boat on a river with nothing but wildlife around you… (those bits were short lived as it was a really nice day for such things so there were a decent number of other paddlers around; still, it was a bit of river that was apparently too shallow for anything with an engine and wide enough that we could mostly skirt each other.

Lunch, more conversation (omg they were slow bringing our food and it would have been tedious with almost anyone else on the planet), then pick up the makings of a charcuterie board and wine for the evening. A bit more hot tub time as neither of us are used to the level of workout that kayaking is, but also more conversation (including a bit where I explained the weird combination of anger and gratitude that was my reaction to him not wanting to see me during the early part of quarantine …)

And this - it’s going to sound weird but we almost never really spend time together just *being* and not interacting. So he ended up watching a movie while I read a book but we cuddled and randomly interspersed bits of conversation while doing so and it was just… how decadent is it to have one’s feet rubbed while reading? And I think we both needed a little bit of a break from relating just because we had already spent such an intense 24 hours.

But then after the movie we had charcuterie and *really* good wine… but the really fun part was that we had planned to do Δ8 again. (If you’re not familiar with it, it’s a kinda-sorta-mostly-legal thc analogue, all of the fun and almost none of the paranoia) - the last time we did it was astonishing and if anything this was better just because of the really deep connective mode we were already in… he asked me at one point (because he knew I do this occasionally with Knight) whether what we were feeling was just the chemicals, if they were always this much. The thing is they’re *not* - all it does is magnify and time-dilate and intensify, but if it’s not there to start it’s just not. So… the part where I felt like my body *became* poetry, became a physical manifestation of the word yes… that was real. Also the part where chocolate literally became orgasmic, and the part where even my male partner lost track of his own orgasms, let alone mine… (I swear I am not exaggerating, despite the multiple conversations we had about no one would ever believe this experience, LOL. But then I say that fairly often…)

light reflects from your / shadow and it’s more than I / thought could exist /…/ if someone believed me / they would be as in love with you as I am

And this morning was a bit more sex and a really lovely walk along a river and the sort of “did that really happen and was your experience as astonishing as mine” conversation that one HAS after something like that… and I’m in the most delicious state of this-can’t-possibly-be-NRE-after-six-years but HOW is it still so AMAZING?
 
Haven't written for a bit, working too much really. But I still wanted to write about some things...

So first off I'm 40 now. It was in some ways a pretty anticlimactic birthday - I didn't really have a party, just had my standard Sunday night dinner crew and made a cake, though Artist came over for a second night in a row, which I was quite happy about for many reasons. I had spent Friday night with Knight - kiddo was at Nana's so we actually got to go out which was lovely. Even had decent sex when we came back. But Saturday was made of miscommunications and frustrations. Artist had planned to come over, and while we weren't planning on eating dinner out, he did want to take me for a birthday surprise for a bit before dinner (turned out to be a sex toy shopping trip). But when we came back from that with takeout sushi for us and Knight, I found that Knight was rather inebriated and I was *really* embarrassed and upset by that, though it was not as obvious to Artist as it was to me apparently. Still, it kind of put some level of a damper on at least part of our evening, as it took me, like, 3 tv shows worth of time to chill out.

::sigh:: I mean, per usual Knight was pissed at himself the next day even more than I was, apparently he had done the "absentmindedly drunk more than he thought while dehydrated from working outside" thing, but... meh. Not a huge thing, but not something I wanted to deal with on my birthday weekend either.

Still, though, there's something really lovely about hanging out with both Knight and Artist in larger social situations, which I don't get to do terribly often - more in the past few weeks than in ages, as Artist had a birthday party a few weeks ago. Artist is one of those people who's kind of quiet until you get to know him but then he's *really* funny in a quirky kind of way; Knight is actually wildly charismatic so can be *really* entertaining; combine the two and I get to just bask in watching them and knowing they're both "mine" (please note the quotes, ya'll know what I mean...)

(Also it's *very* lovely that Artist fits in so well with my chosen family; other partners of mine have not and that's just awkward for everyone.)

Anyway, all that aside, that wasn't really what I came to muse about. It's actually kind of funny that this post about anxiety about casual sex came up this morning, as it's a thing that Artist wants to explore and I can't figure out what to feel about this, or rather what I *am* feeling. Like, on the one hand I honestly want him to have all the fun - and he has a ridiculously high sex drive even by my standards so I'm not that worried about there being "less" for me. And he's been ridiculously supportive of my other adventures since we met, whether it was MartialArtist or Ginger. And, too, part of the reason for his interest is that he's become more curious about possible experiences with other men, which clearly I'm not, although the person he's talking to a bit at the moment is another woman. And and and...

But at the same time he hasn't slept with anyone new since we met. And in the course of our conversation last night about this I found out (and I'm fine with this, happy even as I understand their relationship more now ) that he and ArtistSpouse had gone back to having a sometimes-sexual relationship after having paused for a while. It's really weird how much they parallel Knight and I, honestly, but I suppose that sort of makes sense, in a lot of ways. So I am a *little* bit afraid of this just because while I do believe utterly in his love now (and how wonderful is that, compared to the daisy-plucking I've done so often in this journal?) I haven't experienced him and someone new, and I don't know what that will do to the intensity of our time together. So there's a little bit more leap of faith to being ok with this, and a little bit more green-eyed monster waiting in that chasm, than I really want there to be. (I mean, I had to do the same thing with Knight, on some level, so I know it _can_ be ok...)

Still, feelings are feelings, and it's what we do about them that matters... and talking about this (combined with me being over caffeinated, under slept, and thus having no filter) led to another really emotionally intimate conversation like the ones we had while on vacation, and from there to the sort of sex that leaves me with bite marks today and plans for more kink tomorrow...so having those feelings can't be *that* bad...
 
IceSong, happy belated birthday!! Also, great post and glad to know I'm not the only one who has some issues to work out regarding a partner's sexual needs and wants. I'll post about a birthday party DAG and I had for Teach and my one-on-one time with Teach.

Thank you for sharing!
 
I’m actuallly feeling _much_ better about Artist potentially dating than I did before - Saturday night was kind of rough, not going to lie, as Artist was out on a coffee date with a new person and Knight was spending time with Joan, and I was subdropping _hard_. (Yes, that was particularly ill-advised timing. I had thought the coffee date was a different day than it turned out to be, and didn’t figure that out until post-scene. )

Weirdly I had a late night conversation with MartialArtist that evening too. I’ve turned into the friend he asks weird emotional questions, so that’s sort of interesting (though awkward that he still occasionally makes comments about wishing he hadn’t fucked up whatever FWB thing we were doing. I actually still am curious what him and rope would have been like…

But I saw Artist last night and if anything he was more memorably passionate than was even expected for a random weeknight date. Like, there are certain images/sensations that are going to be seared into my brain for months. And it wasn’t that the date hadn’t gone well - they apparently talked for four hours, so that’s a good sign for that to happen. But if he’s in NRE mode it wasn’t enough to make him any less in love with me, or at least not enough less for me to even have the slightest bit of doubt. At least right this second - stillllllll not looking forward to his first time having sex with a new date.

I re-read Polysecure over the last week or so, too. A lot to think about there - I may go through and write more about it on a chapter by chapter basis. She talks a lot about “earned secure“ attachment in that, as something you can work your way towards even if, say, early trauma made you fearful-avoidant. I actually am surprised in some ways at how much more healed I feel than I did 10 or 5 or even a year ago, on that front. There was a lot there about how to strengthen attachment bonds though, and I’ve realized how much I’ve let slip myself in my relationship with Knight. I know I talk so much about things he fails to do or be, but there really are a lot of things I’m not really doing enough for him, in any aspect of Jessica Fern’s H.E.A.R.T.S theory. And I think a lot of what I really need to do there is to figure out what our relationship would look like if he really treated me the way I wanted to be treated, and figured out what I’d be doing if he was, and just… do those things. We’ve always had these lead/follow problems where neither of us really is quite the leader enough with the other to really _start_ anything. …and to think I wanted 24/7 D/s with him, although I am actually surprisingly thinking right this second that it might be fun to play a little with kink more, again, than we have in years. I mean, we’d have to have more sex first before adding spice, but maybe that’s even doable.
 
I've been so quiet here lately, I'm not sure why. Maybe I have fallen into the "I only come here when I'm angsty" pattern again and right now I'm just... not, which is kind of lovely.

Artist did end up meeting a few new people, one of whom he did end up going home with. I was pleasantly surprised by being, like, 90% fine with it, and I think whatever angst I still have is more envy than anything. My playing around with dating apps didn't really result in any interesting people, nor do I *really* want to get into a new relationship exactly nor do I even know how to do "casual hookup" , so... yeah. I suspect it'd be somewhat easy to be some couple's unicorn / special guest star but I'm just not here for the drama that is likely there, even if new bodies would be fun to play with.

(If I'm lucky Artist'll find another bi guy to hook up with who wants to have a threesome, as _that_ has some potential for Hotness. Am I objectifying? maybe, but given I'm objectifying a theoretical person I think it'll be ok).

And things with Knight are just very chill right now. I ended up reading another book that aligns with what I said in my last post:
And I think a lot of what I really need to do there is to figure out what our relationship would look like if he really treated me the way I wanted to be treated, and figured out what I’d be doing if he was, and just… do those things.

It's called One to Tango, and the basic premise is that everyone has patterns that they get into with their partner (or in any relationship, I suppose, not just romantic ones) and that it only takes one person to break those patterns, which forces new and (hopefully) healthier ones to take their place. I rather wish I had run across it years ago, as it's in a lot of ways exactly the conclusions I had come to for myself... but that said I'm not sure I as a person would have really been able to process or apply the concepts anyway, at least not consciously.

One of the main points of it is the idea that relationships have developmental stages like people do - set forth in the book as Symbiosis->Differentiation->Exploration->Rapprochement->Synergy. And lots of couples get stuck in "differentiation" - the bit where you figure out who you are as separate people within a relationship rather than the ridiculous merge that is symbiosis (the honeymoon stage). And I *definitely* see where Knight and I were stuck here for a long time - I've talked SO much on this site about how we had to figure out how to be separate people again, and how painful that process was while it was happening. But after that differentiation and exploration comes rapprochement, turning back towards each other as fully realized people who love each other, and... we're not there yet, or at least we're only starting to get there, but I am starting to see what the other side of that process might look like and it's brilliant.

Funnily, I can't actually figure out how those stages would or do apply to Artist and I - maybe they only apply to "on the relationship escalator" relationships? I don't really feel like we ever had a "Symbiosis" stage, which means the disentangling and reentangling of the rest of the stages don't really make sense for us either. Maybe because our lives were already so established and grounded when we met, we just sort of started at rapprochement instead.
 
Getting into that comfortable state is always a great achievement in relationships let alone poly. For me it always felt like my time kayaking first thing in the morning on a glass lake. It also happens to be why I didn't post here for so long hahaha..
 
Huh, that sounds interesting. I'm going to recommend that to Charles since I remember one of his big worries about a serious relationship was losing himself as an individual. He's since seen that isn't going to be an issue, but maybe some conscious thought about it all will be helpful. Thanks for sharing.
 
My playing around with dating apps didn't really result in any interesting people, nor do I *really* want to get into a new relationship exactly nor do I even know how to do "casual hookup" , so... yeah.

So Artist and I were talking about this, as he’s not entirely good at hookups either (the theoretical one off with a dude turned into a once every 2-3 weeks or so thing, lol) - which, I mean, makes a HUGE amount of sense as finding people I vibe with is just _hard_. Especially since I really just can’t deal with swipe-right type apps - you just know so _little_ about a person from a Tinder bio that I don’t know whether I’m interested or not, and even if I’m interested I can’t figure out conversation. Add Covid to that, so just skipping to having a drink seems so _fraught_ and I’ve realized that it’s just silly for me to even try. Continuing my spell slot analogy from @Rooster’s blog, if meeting someone new and sexy was somewhere in the first-level expenditure of energy, I’d probably try a bit harder, but right now manifesting a new interest is more like a 3rd or 4th level slot, and those are just _all_ full.

There are people I’d like to build more friendship with that I already know, and I’m not even really available for that, between kid and home and reenactor stuff and work (lots of work right now). Not that any of these things are bad - I actually really like my life - I just sort of wish I could cram more into it.

Artist’s life is definitely going to be busy for the next few months - he and ArtistSpouse are buying a new house! I’m actually really excited about the whole thing - the new place’s layout is such that I can spend the night over there when Artist and I aren’t the only ones there and it shouldn’t be awkward. (The bedrooms in their current place share a wall so …) And it was actually really cool how included I was in the process - I didn’t get to see this one before they offered on it, but I did tour one of the earlier options with them and proximity to my house was a definite consideration in where they were willing to look. 🥰

‘Course, having a ringside seat to this process confirms that we’re gonna have to either build custom or expand our current place, as there’s no way we’re ever gonna find a house with the type of bedroom arrangement for 4 people that we’d truly want. No, home builders, I do NOT want one giant suite and a bunch of smaller rooms…
 
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