Hey Everyone! Been a little while since an update.
Casually dating around is still happening while working..
The guy I was unenthused about, that I had to stop him from pressuring me with sex, I will name him,...Jesse. He and I are still texting but I don't feel a huge strong connection there. Physically we don't mesh well in terms of body types. I mean I am his type but he's not mine if that makes sense. Also I think hes cheating, the more I get to know him, the more yellow almost red flags I see with his life being SOOO compartmentalised. The standard never pick up phone when rings, keeping different messaging apps - ie we talk on whatsapp and he has it ticked so people cant see when hes online or sees messages or responds to them. Just weird controlling stuff like that. I think we might go on a 4th date or I might let it fizzle and die.
I found a place to rent on the 1st. And the car hutning continues, as its only a few weeks away until I can buy one! Yay!
The half of the apartment (room and own bathroom) is within budget and would be with a classmate from work who I will name Benson.
All that work I did the past few years working on living with men makes me feel pretty confident about this dude. He works two jobs and a dad so he's going to be busy a lot, and he has no hard and fast rules in his home like looking at with living with couple or people who have lived somewhere a really long time. So he's open to negotiating new boundaries and decorating and settling in stuff.
He also randomly happens to be the other poly person in my training class.
So we've had a lot of surprising friendly conversations. He's active in his BDSM circles, and is a local so knows both the swinging and poly overlap worlds and has practiced ethical non-monogamy for years. So it's refreshing to meet someone close to my age with such similar life experiences and it feels like another "tribe" person in my larger network.
And because of my commitment to not jump into bed with people anymore, I am organically getting to know so many people who I feel safe around, in work, online, friends etc.
The guy I am romantically interested in that I sit next to, (Lets name him Arrow) we have been texting back and forth all week after work. He's a bit younger than me, though so now I'm a little uncertain even though we pretty much hang out all the time at work (on breaks and at lunch). I sit with him and Benson, and a few other. Hes very very intelligent and I often watch him do chess matches during lunch break...or other things like this. He's the horticulturalist who is taking care of his mum. We both are artists and in our down time of both of us being top of class (we get bored) we sit and make pictures in paint. Also weirdly both him and benson have become really tight and I just found out were talking about me...


Benson told me "I just wanted him to know I wasn't making any moves on you if he wanted to get with you." I was like..aww you're such a cool dude.
I am really glad I'll have space with Ariel to be closer friends by not having the overlap of living together. For her it brought us CLOSER, for me it was starting to pull me away. She loves me living her b.t.w. and is sad I am leaving.
But that's because I am genuinely kind to her. Being this close however to her relationship with Landon isn't healthy for me to watch long term. He's fairly kind to me and his GF(95% of the time), but he is very passive aggressive with Ariel and I keep biting my tongue because she wouldn't welcome me interjecting on these situations.
And I am losing a lot of respect for Landon right now because of it. It's a lot of little gaslighting/ passive aggressive digs that kinda make me think they need to go to counselling together. It's not like all the time though and it's incredibly subtle, so it's hard to pick up on unless you know them really well, so instead of making waves because I would eventually stand up to it... (especially once it spilled over to me because it would ...) I am staying with the Benson on a rolling month to month contract that I can get out of very easily if that place doesn't work out too.
But frankly most of my adult choices in people are 100 times healthier than my mother and x hubs, and I am pretty confident in my ability to tell the difference between my own PTSD triggers with men and men who are just has some issues towards women (or one woman).
They (Ariel and Landon) originally entered poly through cheating a few years back, (on his end he cheated and she almost left him) so I think there's some underlying anger that its ok for her to be poly but not ok for him to be? Or something. He's sorta the house-husband and has less drive and ambition to work and is kinda kept by her, so I do see some anger that reminds me of when I was married and dependent on someone financially and not equally but not getting my own needs met and yet was unable to talk about those needs. So it could just be that too.
I am trying to encourage him to be more direct, but we'll see. I can't see how he can't be direct with her because she is SO even tempered. She doesn't have outbursts of anger, and she is kind and patient and logical. But then i've never seen them argue so I have no idea how they argue outside of passive aggressiveness.
Here's a good recent example. He sent out a message on a social network site that was a meme about how you come home to people having done housework and they do it wrong. And her response was -.- emoji's. I don't know if that was directed at me or her, to be honest. I just ignored it. But it's dumb things like that rather than just telling either of us or both of us directly he'd like something cleaned a certain way?
Ok jumping back to Benson and Arrow...
Benson:
He's a part time dad, lives about 10 mins away, near to work, has been giving me lifts in the morning for the past few days, and also works a second job selling homes. He's really funny and he came over last night and hung out with me till 1 am playing cards and talking about life.

I had a really good time. I wanted to get to know him before moving in, so I asked a lot of personal questions and revealed my PTSD/Men triggers so he had time to understand what I can and cannot do in the living in situation. Because of his background as a dom, we basically formed a living situation work sheet checklist and safe word to keep boundaries in the home similar to what you would have for a BDSM contract.
And because of my experience (and his) about living with peopel we both had a lot of similar category concerns and overlaps.
Here's what we came up with:
1) The house is a sacred space to be ourselves, in the poly and bdsm and/or swinging world.
2) By entering into living together we agree we have brought each other into an "inner circle" and separation of work life and private life is the most important rule. Since we work at and live at the same space.
3) He agreed not to put his dick in crazy IN the house...., he also gave me full disclosure on his ex wife and ex gf why the left and if they were likely to cause me grief simply by virtue of being a female poly roommate.
4) We agreed that kids are a sacred time and we give each other space to enjoy our own kids time (obviously mine will be a lot less because mine are out of country).
5) we agree to personal boundaries of space, food, what can be shared what can't. (seperate cubbards, coomunal food, writing up chores rotating lists, and respect of each other bedrooms and personal bathrooms.)
6) We agreed to a hard and fast rule of no drugs, except legal marijuana. (or the occasional vaper who is a friend/playmate/partner)
7) No communal area sex when a person is likely to come home, (exception are pre-agreed upon times when we both clear out for a time, vacay etc.)
8)We respect and openly honestly communicate limitations, agreement violations, and disagreements promptly. E.G., his is OCD and being a dom, and mine is PTSD and my poly relationships. In lieu of being able to directly speak (For example on mothers day for me i might be too emotional) we agree to text message. We both have a background in learning some psychology, he took courses at university, and I took a lot of therapy/ NVC classes.
9) He agreed to not use me for free labour of childcare and pet care, or exploit my natural nurturing past. If he did I would be taking it out rent/bills for my time.
10) Agreed to amount of payment, day of payment, and all the legal work being written down as a sublet agreement for me to sign including not having my address as this place, and access to carport, pool, gym, laundry, wifi, etc.
I feel like I think I've covered everything so far...with what we agreed!
So after spending way late into the night laughing, drinking lemonade playing cards and generally just bonding, and going through ALL these things, it felt a little overwhelming for both of us and he went home.
Then Saturday Arrow is coming over, the romantic interest, and we'll see how that works out. It's probably going to be quite similar to my time with Benson, all three of us are the geeky people in class, and we tend to talk all sorts of weird stuff, testing each others intelligence and making obscure jokes and generally just enjoying life. I told Arrow I am poly, so everything is out there. So far this has been met with curiosity and banter. So it'll be an interesting evening for sure. He said he'd bring some alcohol and I'm really excited.

He's tall and cute and interesting and so kind to me at work with this kinda shy exterior that hides a wicked sense of humour and nurturing background.

He's very very interesting to me.