The Best Life Yet

It was so lovely to meet you, Cherry, Rider and the others! :)

Reverie said:
Likely this will not turn into anything, as he is also very busy, and I am not sure how experienced he is with any kind of non-monogamy, but it seemed worth a mention that I actually sparked with a guy for the first time this year. :p
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He was a really nice guy, so I can't say I blame you for having a crush on him. :D
 
A bit of interesting processing happened over the past day or so.

I'd been lightly texting with party-crush-guy, who I will call Dustin. I mentioned here that on Sunday he'd invited me and Rider out to watch him play (his standing weekly gig) but it was too late. I'd followed up asking if he was playing anywhere Friday or Saturday, when I'd actually be able to make it out late. Rider is going to be out of town visiting Reina and Ramsey from Friday through till Tuesday, so I was thinking if Dustin was around, that might be a good opportunity to get to know him without taking time away from Rider.

But it turned out that Dustin's shows those nights were out of town as well, five hours away. Too bad! So we just flirted a bit back and forth, him saying stuff like he wished I could be there at his out of town show, etc. I mentioned to Rider that the texting and flirting seemed to be going well, and Rider became grumpy, clearly bothered by it.

I was confused because Rider had seemed fine when I'd told him I'd gotten Dustin's number at the party, and though they didn't interact much there, the interactions I did see them have had been friendly. And Rider has told me oodles of times that he thinks it's so much better to look for connections among friends of friends than it is to depend on meeting strangers from the internet. I asked Rider what was wrong and whether I should have done anything differently. I explained that I am only looking for possible FWB with this guy—we're both too busy for anything more, and it probably won't even go that far.

Rider said he'd not been emotionally prepared for me to meet someone. He said that he hadn't realized what was going on at the party and so, though he talked to Dustin for a bit, he didn't take any special note of him to pay attention to what kind of a person he was. He said he wished he would have known sooner. I had told him that I exchanged numbers with Dustin literally at the first chance I got to tell him after it happened, which was in the car on the way home from the party. I suppose I could have tried to tell him of my intention before the exchange happened, but, honestly, I didn't know till that moment that I would choose to be so bold. I asked Rider what I could have done differently to make him more comfortable, and he sighed and said he didn't know—that I'd done everything right, and not stepped out of bounds at all, but he still felt weird about it.

I asked him if there were something I could do to make him feel less weird, and he said he didn't know. He said his first thought was that he'd been hoping that since the Jasper thing wound down and ended over the past six weeks that this would be an opportunity to be "just us" but then he realized that doesn't jibe with how fine he was about me going on girl-dates and starting something with Cherry. It's just the sudden appearance of a dude that is bothering him, and he said he realizes that means it's irrational.

I reassured him that just because it's a dude doesn't mean I want anything more serious. Yes, I get more crushy feelings for dudes than for ladies, but I have no desire to start an actual relationship with anyone else right now, male, female, or anywhere in between. I have zero time for that. He said he gets it but he feels like there is a risk of things falling out of balance again, even though he knows that even when I had Jasper, he never felt like he was getting too little time. I told him that I'm willing to work with him and tweak our boundaries if he needs it, and he said he didn't want to stop me from doing anything I wanted to do, but that he was "not thrilled about this." He sounded pretty grumpy and frustrated, so I let the matter drop for the night.

But then when Dustin texted me again later that evening wanting to try to make actual plans when he gets back, I felt so conflicted. I had an internal struggle where, on the one hand, I left things kind of up in the air with Rider, knowing he was unhappy about stuff and offering to change things, so I felt a bit inhibited about moving forward with any plans.

And on the other hand, everything I'd done so far in my interactions with Dustin was well within the existing boundaries of our "monogamish" negotiated agreements, and I wouldn't have flirted so hard nor been so forward about exchanging numbers if that hadn't been the case. I felt like if I started suddenly hemming and hawing and putting off making plans when I'd largely been the initiator till that point, well, that would be unfair and inauthentic treatment.

So I tentatively set some plans, to make it to his Sunday gig THIS week, when my schedule is a little more forgiving so it won't be too bad to be out a little late. But I felt weird about it, a little like I was almost cheating. I had to remind myself that, no, not only was this within the bounds of our agreement, BUT I'd even offered an opportunity to speak up and renegotiate and it was declined. So ethically I was definitely in the clear.

Today, after we'd slept on it, and when Rider seemed to be in better spirits, I revisited the topic, being very careful to follow the non-violent communication principles. I didn't want to exacerbate his discomfort or make it seem to him like I was pushing anything. I merely wanted to either reaffirm (if that could be done happily) or renegotiate (if that were the better option) our agreements so that I could know where I stood and could move with purpose in my budding connections.

He was a lot clearer and more decisive today, and said this:

"I'll say if you want to explore something or get to know someone better, you should be able to do that. I think my weird feelings about that are from things being out of balance for the last however long and uncertainty at the idea that things might be out of balance again. But that's my internal stuff to deal with. You should be able to explore what you want."

Then we talked about the issue of balance, and he said he just doesn't currently have interest in trying to find people to connect with. I find a little bit of irony there because he is the one who was so gung-ho about wanting to negotiate more openness and flexibility in our agreements when I asked for less openness over the winter. We'd eventually bargained things to FWB, flings, and group stuff being OK, with the FWB and fling stuff being mostly to appease him. But it seems like, in practice, he's wanting something closer to monogamy at the moment than I am. It's all gone topsy-turvy.

He said that he's sure he'll have a prospect for a FWB at some point, and that he still is comforted knowing the option is there. But it sounds to me like he's not very interested in exercising that option, and he kinda wishes I wasn't either.

We ended stuff on a good note, talking about how super rare it is that I find a dude "in the wild" that I'm interested in, and how this particular situation is very likely not even going to lead to anything, but he'd prefer to encourage me to explore rather than get in my way.

Honestly, with as insanely busy as Dustin and I both are, and how our schedules seem kinda opposite, and how we live across town from each other, and how, at this point (since Rider and I are fluid bonded), I'm a total stickler for testing before intercourse, it kind of seems like a long shot that anything will even happen beyond flirting and maybe making out in a bar a couple of times or something. But exploring, yes, that sounds nice. We'll see.
 
I am having the hardest time this year deciding what to get Rider for his birthday, which is in two weeks. I'm leaning toward a sex toy as the main thing. He's expressed interest in a dildo gag. Maybe that and some kind of his and hers lingerie set? I've gotta keep it relatively cheap this year. Luckily, he does not have expensive taste...
 
Aw your cats are sooo cute!

Heehee; I especially like the restraints you have hanging there just in case they don't get along...am I right? ;)
 
I need to rant/vent for a minute somewhere, and it might as well be here. It's not poly-related, per se, but I guess it does touch on things that may eventually be useful to poly.

So. Rider has successfully driven me straight up a wall tonight. He is on a plane to visit Ramsey and Reina, and he will be gone for five days. I really, really, really wanted to go on this trip, as I miss those guys and I've never seen that city. But I could not get the time off of work, and I could not afford the plane ticket anyway, so I sadly had to miss out.

I posted something on Facebook this afternoon right before leaving work, saying that Rider is going to be gone for five days and I feel lucky to have animals to keep me company and plans with good friends. While I was biking home, Perry saw my post and messaged me, offering that I come roll (molly) with him tomorrow night. At the same time, coincidentally, Val messaged me asking if I wanted to get pho with her that night.

I messaged Rider, joking about my awesome dilemma and saying that I was leaning toward Perry, and . . .

He flipped out.

Like, using exclamation points and sarcasm and all kinds of passive aggressive tactics like I have only very rarely seen him do. His issue? He was upset because last Perry had mentioned rolling, Perry had talked about all three of us doing it together, and now Rider felt left out.

Mind you, this was not an either/or thing. Perry didn't have only a little tiny bit that would run out before Rider got some—there is plenty to go around. It won't be for a while just because we're so busy coming up, but if I do it this weekend, it doesn't affect the timing at all.

And this wasn't a jealous-of-Perry thing. Perry and Rider are homies, and Rider knows I don't feel that way about Perry—I'm not into bandcest. It's 100% just Rider's FOMO about wishing he could be there too and not wanting it to happen if he can't be. Oh, the irony of him getting pissed off at my getting to have some fun without him when he is quite literally sitting in the airplane seat that is taking him to his awesome vacation without me.

I could not believe how much of a dick he was being! And then he got up into the air and got on the plane wifi and, having had a few minutes to cool down, apologized for being a dick and told me I should do what makes me happy. But he was still being butthurt and whiny about it and saying stuff like next time he hopes I'll "be mindful of" how he feels about stuff like this. When I asked him what he meant by that, he basically expressed by dancing around it, without being willing to say it outright, that if something similar happens in the future, he'd rather I just vote against my own self interest without even bringing it to him.

I am so pissed at him right now!

The audacity to give me a hard time about partying with my old friend, in order to have some company when Rider himself is out of town partying with his own old friends! Like he would rather me sit home alone with my thumb up my ass just because I was too broke to go with him, lest he prefer what I find to do over what he, himself is doing. Just no!

I swear, this is like the fourth thing this week he has been weird and controlling about!

First it was giving me a hard time Monday night about wanting to get to know Dustin better.

Then there was a whole thing last night about how I was communicating with Jasper just as friends and we'd talked about maybe getting together as friends this weekend (ended up not being able to happen), and I'd told Rider that it is my sincere intention NOT to have sex with Jasper if I hang out with him BUT I also know that there is a possibility it could happen anyway because I am a weakling, and I wanted to let him know, so if it did happen, it didn't totally blindside him. He gave me so much crap, saying he'd prefer if I could tell him decisively that a thing was going to or not going to happen. And all I could tell him, decisively, was that I was aiming no, but I'm a weak human coming off of a breakup of sorts, and I recognize that I am fallible.

And then it was that we again ran into his whole weird issue around not wanting people he doesn't know well in the house when he's not home, even if I am there and not getting a shady vibe off of them. I asked him if it would be OK if, Sunday night, if Dustin happened to give me a ride home after the show, could I invite him in for a beer. And he at first said no because he doesn't know him and got pretty grumpy about it, and I told him that he's in our friends group and I bet any of those guys would vouch for him not being a thief or a creeper, and he finally grudgingly said "yes, but know that I'm not comfortable with it."

And now this.

I feel like suddenly, at every turn, Rider is wanting to control my interactions with people that have nothing to do with him. I can maybe understand the trepidation about my having a crush on Dustin, because if I start seeing someone, then there's scheduling stuff to consider again.

But the stuff I do while he's out of town—of his own volition, taking a vacation, not even due to work or family obligation—that all has little to nothing to do with him. If I get weak and have sex with Jasper once more, it's not a new partner, and it's not taking time away from Rider, and I was trying to make it not even a surprise. If I, a grown adult, want to invite a new friend into my dwelling to have a beer, I should be able to do that without catching hell. It'd be one thing if Rider were here and didn't want to share space with a potential new partner. But he'll be a thousand miles away.

And then this . . . THING . . . about the Perry situation . . . takes the frigging cake. This is about what I do NONSEXUALLY with my own body and my own platonic friend on a night I'd otherwise just be sitting home alone. Why rather I don't do something just because he doesn't get to do it at the exact same time? It feels like the controlling rules my high school boyfriend and I had: no doing drugs with other people without each other there.

But we're not in high school. I'm more than twice the age I was then.

I am suddenly feeling concerned that either marriage or monogamishamy has activated some kind of ownership WORMs in Rider's brain and I have become to him no longer his beloved friend and companion who he would like to see happy on my own terms, but rather his joined-at-the-hip possession who isn't allowed to have any fun when he's gone and has to live under a gaze of disapproval if I interact too closely with anyone else, even known quantities such as Jasper.

He and I are generally super compatible and get along swimmingly like 98% of the time, so four uncharacteristically controlling freakouts in the course of a week—some about very minor shit—is a trend I do NOT want to continue.

I have a feeling we're going to need some long talks when he gets back. I do hope he has fun, though. Even though I'm angry with him, I still want the best for him. I told him I'm not going to talk about any of this stuff with him till his return. I don't wanna muck up his vacation with processing.

Anyone who has any insights or ideas for conversational strategies, your suggestions are welcome. In the meantime, I am going to work on relaxing and not being pissed anymore and enjoying my weekend.
 
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I'm not pissed off anymore. I put my energy into finally hanging the art in the living area, which I'd earmarked last night for, and which had been waiting to get done for over a month. It feels good to have that task behind me.

I do still think I will need to have a serious "crack this nut open" type conversation with Rider when he gets back, though. I'm not upset with him for having feelings—feel your feelings, dude, we all have them!—but I am bothered by the expectations of me that are bundled with them, and how he chose to communicate with me about all of this.

In my viewpoint, there were a couple of really stark ironies here:

1) He's upset about my doing a thing with a friend without him when he has planned a whole vacation around doing things without me, and indeed that is why he cannot do the thing I am doing.

2) He's said this is all "FOMO" when he is not actually missing out on anything. He'll get to do the thing when he gets back, same as was the original plan. What he wants is for me to ACTUALLY miss out on an opportunity that I have, because he has a fear that he is missing out when he is not.

It's especially unnerving to me the way the beginning of our conversation went yesterday. He definitely pulled the card of "I'm your husband and you should have known in advance how this would make me feel because you know me better than anyone." He also used sarcasm to insinuate that Perry and I were purposely excluding him. He said, "Oh, let's wait till Rider leaves town and THEN do it" as though he were mocking some sneering conversation that Perry and I had had.

He also expressed offense that the first he'd heard of this was as he was boarding a plane to leave town. I had to be like, "Dude. The first *I* heard of it was right now, too. Perry literally texted me a few minutes ago in response to my Facebook post." It's not like we were plotting this for weeks and then just strategically dropped it on him.

So, in total, we have sarcasm, expecting me to read his mind, expecting me to tailor my behavior based on this mind-reading, mocking putting words in my mouth (and that of our mutual friend), and insinuating that there was conspiracy against him rather than that I was, in fact, letting him know as soon as I knew.

The thing about being upset that I couldn't read his mind just baffles me. I mean, I generally know him pretty well, but in my experience of him, he doesn't act like this. And when the shoe has been on the other foot, and he's had opportunities to, say, do psychedelics without me, or party with friends when I've been out of town, he's never hesitated to have fun just because I couldn't be there with him. And sometimes in those cases I've been envious, but I've never blown up on him or asked him not to do the thing he wants to do. So, in my mind, there was no precedent by which I could have "known" that he'd react that way. :confused:

I am of the opinion that these communication strategies are counterproductive and unacceptable, and so I am going to have to let him know. They are not usual for him, and if I have to speak up and put my foot down to stop them from creeping into his repertoire, then I will. This is not a conversation that I am looking forward to, but I believe it is necessary. Sigh.

Mostly, I am just kind of mystified. Sure, I *do* feel like I know Rider pretty well. But the Rider I know is easy-going, happy to see me happy, and pro-"me having fun" no matter whether he's involved or not. The Rider I know encourages me to explore new connections and thinks my squeeing over a new crush is adorable, even if it occasionally unnerves him.

The Rider I know almost always communicates politely and thoughtfully, with rare exception when I've accidentally made him feel backed into a corner with too much probing or prodding about something. But this week, and all that's come with it, isn't one of those cases where I'm pushing or prodding him in any way. This week has basically just been me trying to live my life as usual and relay to him how it's unfolding, and getting met with resistance where there was once just . . . regular-ness.

It almost seems like he has somehow lost trust in me. Because, I think, with trust, he would not go to the place where he thinks Perry and I would be plotting behind his back. He would be willing from the start to rely on my judgment about whether or not Dustin is someone who would make a suitable FWB or who should be trusted to have a beer in our apartment, without my having to defend that judgment. With trust, he would believe me the first time when I tell him that the reason I gave him a heads up that I might slip up and have sex with Jasper was not my basically saying it was for-sure going to happen (which he'd said at the time), but, indeed was exactly what I said it was: an admission of awareness of my own weakness.

It feels to me like he's fallen into some sort of "assume the worst" pattern with me, and I'm really not sure why. I can't pinpoint any event that happened in the past couple of weeks that would explain it. I'm not some kind of flawless perfect angel, but usually I know if I've erred against him in some way. Things have actually been really great up until this week. We've just been way more sexually monogamous than usual in the past month since I've stopped sleeping with Jasper. Not sure how related to this any of that might be.

I'm not going to hypothesize or make any assumptions about what is going on with him right now. I'm just going to wait till he gets back, and then we'll talk and hopefully he'll be able to tell me what it is in him that has shifted, and maybe why, if he understands it himself.

In the meantime, I'm going to communicate with him as usual and still be loving and supportive. Whatever he's going through that is stressing him like this, I aim to help him get through it. If there's been some kind of overarching misunderstanding between us, I'm sure we can talk it out and clear it up.
 
I think that there is a human...THING... Where a person has a Feel. And they then construct all of this "I am right and you are wrong" scaffolding to prop up the Feel and nurture it and make it acceptable. Like we have to have logic and reasons to justify our Feels or else it makes us somehow bad people for feeling them.

Does that make any sense? I think it's so prevalent in our culture it's nearly reflexive. And polyfolk are relatively rare in recognizing our emotional states and managing them more responsibly, but we're still human. So sometimes the programming will take the wheel.

Clearly Rider is experiencing some new shades of Feeling over you and your choices, that need some processing, because I think it's clear...this is not so simple as "You did a thing that pushed this button and made me feel a bad emotion, so now you deserve the words that get thrown at you over this specific thing." The thing (your particular choice that pushed his button) is not so much the problem, as it is figuring out what is the wiring and circuitry underneath the button itself. Is it the transition to married life status? Is it stress he is under? Like what is really going on in the bigger picture here?

If an overhaul of behavior and expectations needs to happen simply because you're married now, it can't just happen quietly and automatically in his head with an unspoken belief that you'll comply--it is something you have to talk about and consent to. I'm sure that logically he knows that, but it sounds to me like he's snappish over stuff because there's a bigger underlying personal conflict or discomfort within him. Need to figure out what that is. I hope that when he returns, he will be cooperative in trying to do that. Men usually are not as easy with the whole "we gotta talk about your feelings" stuff, as women are.
 
Hmmmm. After last night, Dustin is definitely a Thing. I'm not expecting this to be a reliable or constant Thing, but there is definitely something there. Here's the story:

Saturday, Cherry canceled on me because she came down with a sore throat and a fever, so I was free to hang out with Perry earlier. I spent most of the day just drinking coffee naked in bed, alone with my cats—such luxury!—and headed out around 6:30 for Perry's.

When I got there, Perry told me we were going to pick up a friend and head to another friend's house. Then he told me that the friend we were picking up is a girl that I'd met at his old place a couple times years and years ago and really, really liked. She and I had become MySpace friends back when that was a thing, but then we'd never hung out again so she didn't make the transition into the Facebook era.

Perry told me that he'd been working on fulfilling my request to find out what Dustin is all about (which I'd thought he'd forgotten about) and that this chick is someone who knows Dustin pretty well and has actually slept with him a few times, so she'd be able to give me a thorough scoop. Perry had conspired to throw the two of us together for this purpose. I was stoked, both because he actually had remembered and been working on this for me, and because I remembered really liking her, so I was excited just to see her again.

When the conversation came up, she told me basically the same thing that Perry had already told me from his own experience when I first made the inquiry: that Dustin is very sweet and a lot of fun, but he's a party boy so I shouldn't expect anything serious out of him because he's never been known to do serious. "He's not," she said, "what one would call 'boyfriend material.'" Which works out well, since I'm not looking for anything serious. All I'm really looking for out of him is someone who is willing to get tested, use condoms, and be willing to actually keep a line of communication going in between instances of sex so that the connection doesn't evaporate if we can't see each other often.

I'd been feeling on the fence about him because I'd texted him the day before and he hadn't responded yet—I have a thing about wanting people to meet me halfway at the beginning. I don't need to be the one pursued, but I also don't like to have to put in ALL the effort. I was supposed to meet up with him at his gig at a nearby bar, with the purpose of getting to know him a little better. Armed with the intel from Perry and friend, I felt a little more certain about actually making it out to that.

So yesterday, after catching the tail end of the impeachment march and going out with Oona for most of the day (such fun!), after Toby picked Oona up, I headed out to the bar where Dustin was to play. He saw me first thing when I came through the door, and he went in for a very nice hug, offering to buy me a drink. The show was running behind schedule. They'd been supposed to go on at 11:00, and I arrived at 11:08. They didn't go on till 11:45ish, which was actually kind of nice because it gave me some time to hang out with Dustin beforehand.

He was quickly very affectionate, putting an arm around me in a strong, almost proprietary way that turned me on hard for some reason. I liked that since we'd already flirted via text, he was not shy about putting out date vibes immediately. There was just something so incredibly hot about how certain and forward he was being.

He asked me if I was misbehaving by being there with him, and I said no, and once again explained my agreements. I know I'd mentioned them at the party where we first hung out, but it was late and everyone had been drinking a lot, so it didn't surprise me that he didn't exactly remember. When I re-explained, he actually pumped is fist and said "yessssss" which got me laughing.

It also came out while we were talking that he hadn't had cell service up in the mountains where their Fri/Sat shows had been, so that explained the lack of response to my last text. When I told him I'd texted him, he asked me what it said, and I told him it said that I'd dreamed about him. (I like telling people when I dream about them, because it happens so rarely that I dream of real people I know.) He looked me in the eyes and asked, "You did?" His face was showing something that looked like a mix of surprise, lust, and something approaching awe. He came in closer and kissed me in the spot where my neck meets my jaw. I melted. This was already going well.

Eventually it was time for him to go up on stage. He was playing lead guitar in a country rock cover band. I was really impressed by the quality of his playing. He would occasionally look down at me, stare me straight in the eyes, and smile. They played till past one, but he occasionally got to come down off the stage when another guitarist would fill in. They were doing kind of a rotating cast of players.

During one of those times when he was not playing, we shared a real kiss for the first time. Oh, man. That was good. Everything about him seemed really, really good. Suddenly, with my barely realizing it was going to happen, we were dancing. I've never, ever been good with partner dancing, but something about the way he led me by the hand made it seem like I always have been good at it. We were whirling around and I barely faltered. I was completely shocked at how easy it suddenly was and had to slightly revise my opinion of myself as a klutz. He was spinning me around and everything. Who knew that this was possible?! Not me!

We kissed a bunch more. The chemistry was insane. I haven't had a set of first kisses like that with anyone but Rider. Usually I am too in my head at first and kind of eager to get the awkward first ones out of the way. But Dustin was intoxicating from the start.

I'm kind of noticing a pattern with guys I've liked over the past couple of years. The ones I've thought were wicked hot right off the bat, like Jasper and Beckett, we end up having good chemistry but it does take a moment for me to translate the visual "like" into actual physical "like." But the guys that don't catch my eye right at first, but who grow on me by having sweet or charming personalities, those are the ones where it's instant fireworks the first time we touch. Very odd. :cool: I don't know if it's just that I'm more nervous about the really hot ones, or if the less conventionally attractive ones have just worked really hard on their "being charming" skills to make up for not sticking out of the crowd visually, or what.

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

Eventually, as I had forecast, he and his bandmate (who is also his bestie) offered me a ride home. So, as I had secured rights to, I invited them in for a beer. It was really nice talking to them and especially getting to know Dustin better. The friend was a bit overly drunk, and I find him a little boorish. But every time he'd get up to pee, Dustin and I would be all over each other.

He started laying on the verbal seduction really thick, complimenting me and saying super romantic things that I couldn't possibly believe yet. It felt nice to be so pursued, but I don't think he realizes that he doesn't need to lay it on that thick to get in my pants, hahaha. :p

After a while, we had a good talk in detail about polyish things: testing (he's willing to do it but wants me to go with him), safer sex practices, and some bare-bones info about how my relationship with Rider functions. He looked intent and curious throughout the whole conversation and asked, "So, do I hang out with you guys BOTH? Or how does that work? Your husband seems like a really nice guy, and I like him, but I've never done something like this before."

I explained to him that it's up to him if he wants to try to create a friendship there, but that Rider almost certainly would prefer it. I think they would get along really, really well. They are both sweet and both musicians. I think they would have a blast jamming together, so that's one avenue they could connect on, if they wanted to.

At some point, Dustin's friend came back into the room from a bathroom break, I think having overheard part of our conversation, and he asked me very bluntly if I like threesomes with two guys. I'm generally an open book, and I started to answer that I have enjoyed such things in the past, but then I realized that he was talking about WITH HIM, and I quickly clammed back up again. He said something along the lines of what are the chances I'd be interested in that, and I said, "Mmmmm, low."

I think I sounded a little snippy probably, because I get annoyed when people find out my relationship is non-monogamous and assume that means I'll have sex with just anyone. And Dustin just lost it laughing at his friend and at my response. It's clear to me that the two friends have a playfully antagonistic friendship and that Dustin got a major kick out of seeing his friend get shut down so hard.

Finally it was time for them to go and the friend went ahead out to the car to give us a moment. Dustin pulled me in close and said, "The first moment I saw you, I was instantly attracted to you. But now I know you're special—not just beautiful but smart and sweet too. Also a great dancer and a damned fine bass player. What if I fall in love with you?" I told him that would be fine; we don't have any rules about "no feelings" but that, as I'd mentioned, I'm not available for more than a friendship with benefits. There's no time in my life or space in my agreements right now for a full-fledged relationship. Plus, I said, our schedules are super different, and, anyway, I'd heard around town that he doesn't do serious.

He laughed and asked where I'd heard that, and I said mutual friends—that I'd asked around about him. He said he'd asked about me too, as well as admitting to stalking through my Facebook. Then he said, "Well, maybe I only do serious for people who are amazing, and that's why it doesn't usually happen." I reiterated that I'm not available for that right now. I stated very plainly that I'm not going to leave my husband—I'm very much in love with Rider—so if he thought he couldn't handle the possibility of developing feelings for someone who is otherwise partnered, we should just cut things off now before anything further happens. But if he was willing to just see how things go with the FWB thing, I'm game. He said that sounded good to him. Then it was after 3:00 am and I needed to go to sleep immediately.

We made plans to hang out tomorrow since I have the day off. I canceled the solo activity I had planned—sold my ticket at face value—and I'm waiting to hear what he wants to do. I'm suppose to get lunch with my friend Val and then meet up with him and his friends in the later afternoon. Rider's not getting back from his trip until pretty late, so I'll plan to dovetail my return home with his.

And now I'm dealing with some pretty serious NRE already—the butterflies and recurrent thoughts and stuff like that. I'm discovering that I'm a lot better about handling it than I used to be though. Practice making perfect, maybe? I have a lot of confidence that it's not going to creep in and be an issue in my relationship with Rider.

But, overall, I am pretty excited about this whole thing. Imagine! A fellow who is actually forward and direct about wanting to get close to me instead of being hesitant and making me draw him out? Someone who is sexy and romantic and seems to think very highly so far of little ol' me. Not to mention being an amazing kisser. I'm very excited about getting into bed with this one.

I do have some decisions to make, though. Dustin was super up front with me when we were having the testing conversation that he may have HPV but doesn't know for sure because his doctor had told him that it was not easy to test for reliably in men. But he for sure has had female partners that have tested positive for it. I know that at my last pap, they'd done a genetic test of some kind for it, and I do not have it (or at least didn't then). He said that in that case it may be worth my while to consider trying to get the vaccine for it if I want to have sex with him, even though I'm above the target range, since it can be spread through skin contact in ways that condoms don't always prevent. So I'm looking into it. If I'm outside the target age range, it may not be covered by insurance, and I don't have a ton of money to throw around right now. But on the other hand, it may just be a good idea in general as a non-monogamous person living in a big city who has tested free of it so far. I suppose the least I can do is contact my primary care doctor and find out. I wonder if medical offices do payment plans on stuff. Anyone here who has dealt with this issue, feel free to weigh in and share your experiences here.

I also really hope beyond hope that this isn't going to be another case of someone being "willing to try" poly-type things but then gets skeeved a few months in when the realization sets in that I'm not going to be able to give him more than I've been blunt about offering. I'm really hoping that this guy's apparently legendary history of not wanting to settle down makes him well suited for purposeful non-monogamy, in terms of having a ton of experience in casual situations and keeping things light.

The ill-fated times I've made forays into dating poly-inexperienced people before, it's been either people who have long histories of committed mono relationships, or, in the case of Jasper, someone who had a traumatic experience with trying poly. I've never attempted a thing with a confirmed bachelor playboy type before. So it'll be a new situation for both of us, I guess.

It's all a lot to think about, but I'm trying to keep my head on straight about it.
 
Also, I thought I should mention that I've applied GalaGirl's advice in this thread to communicating about the HPV thing to Rider.

I've let him know that there is a thing that I need to talk to him about—not a bad thing, but an important thing—when he has a minute, rather than doing what I would normally do and just verbal-diarrhea the entire thing into a message for him to stumble upon the next time he opens his phone. I've asked him to let me know when he has a few minutes to discuss something.

It's important for me to let him know ASAP, because I'm certain that he will be more disturbed if I've already planned a medical visit for a thing like that without talking to him first about it than he will be if I do tell him before taking any action.

So yay for actively working on communication stuff! :cool:
 
Ooooooh, how exciting! :D It is so cool to read about you and Dustin. I hope things go well between the two of you and that Rider is understanding about it! It's always fun to have a bit of a butterflies in the stomach situation. :) And also, way to go with the communication skills!
 
Mya said:
Ooooooh, how exciting! :D It is so cool to read about you and Dustin. I hope things go well between the two of you and that Rider is understanding about it! It's always fun to have a bit of a butterflies in the stomach situation. :) And also, way to go with the communication skills!
Click to expand...

Haha, yeah, it's funny that someone from here (you!) was there literally the moment I met him and as my crush began to develop. Makes for an interesting story!
 
Wow! Rider is being really great about this whole thing now. I am surprised after the recent static we had, but I am so happy and relieved. I should still touch base with him about the previous problems when he's back, but I am definitely not concerned anymore that there are going to be ongoing control issues. He seems totally back to his old compersion-filled self.

He made some time to talk to me when he got my request, and I talked to him about how things had gone last night and about the HPV stuff.

In the early part of the conversation, he was mostly expressing happiness for me that I found someone I like: "I'm glad you had fun. Glad also that Dustin seems like a good one and that you like him a lot." He said that the level of attentiveness I told him about sounds like a welcome change from how hesitant previous prospects have been.

And then he said he wished he had a prospect right now—some kind of freckly goth girl would be perfect, he said. I told him he should go out hunting at the goth club one night when I'm out with Dustin, haha. He hadn't seemed to have thought of that yet and expressed excitement at the idea.

I explained about kinda being in NRE town right now and said that I am going to make every effort to not let it have any kind of negative effect on us, but if he notices any problem cropping up, please bring it up early. He seemed to appreciate this a lot.

And he notably did NOT freak out at all about the fact that there were people in the house who he does not know well. This bodes very well. If I can help him loosen his hangup about that, life will for-sure be a little easier.

Then I got into the HPV stuff. He said something along the lines of "Let's just weigh the options. I think we can figure out a way to be as safe as possible so that you don't catch it or give it to me. For sure it would be a drag to catch it and have to disclose to future partners."

In the time since our talk, I actually did a bunch of reading over on Reddit. People over there were saying that almost everyone has had at least some strains of the virus in their life, especially if they are non-monogamous, and generally the infection clears itself, i.e., is not permanent. (They also linked me to this handy article.) So I may already have had some strains that are no longer active in my body (hence why I'm testing negative for it) and have some immunity. And also that means that even if Dustin DID have while he was dating whoever that was who had it, there's a good likelihood that it's gone by now if some time has passed.

I was told that if you ask a doctor whether a guy MUST disclose this, every doctor would say absolutely not, so I guess Dustin is just being super open in a way that is not necessary—basically meaning that in the off chance I *did* get it, Rider would not have to disclose.

So, general consensus seems to be that I can get the vaccine if I really want to be super duper safe and if I have $600 just lying around, but that if I don’t bother, since I’m already 35 and have been with a bunch of people, I am likely to not catch it anyway, and if I did catch it, Rider wouldn’t have to tell anyone. He might WANT to, if I had an active infection, but that seems highly unlikely. I'm just glad that he wouldn't HAVE TO. The last thing I would want to do is saddle him with a situation that could diminish his desirability to other partners. *I* feel chill about the whole situation, but I know a lot of people are very un-chill about even minor STIs.

With this knowledge, I’m beginning to lean toward “vaccine unnecessary” but I'll do some more talking to Rider about it when he's back in town. I want to make sure we're on the same page, for sure, since it's his health too.

Ye gods, I am so happy that Rider seems chill and happy again. His vacation with his friends must be doing him some good. Also, he just found out that Kitty (for whom he still carries quite the torch) might be in town next week and wants to hang out on Monday of she comes.

Stuff just feels so much better and healthier right now than it did a few days ago!
 
Nothing ever runs 100% smoothly, now, does it? I'm already questioning this Dustin thing. He's activated a Chief Peeve by taking way, way, way too long to return texts. That is always, with time, an eventual dealbreaker of mine.

Yesterday when I woke up, I sold my ticket to the event I was going to attend today, since I tried to get one for him but no one was selling. People were only looking to buy. I texted him early (like 9:00-something) to let him know the deed was done, and asking him what he wanted to get into instead. I suspected he wouldn't respond for a while because it was freaking early and I know he went to bed even later than I did. Still, I figured it didn't hurt to just get my end out of the way and then focus on my work all day while I waited for him t wake up and read what I'd sent. I figured the latest he'd possibly wake up would probably be around 2:00.

Well, 2:00 came and went, and no reply. 3:00. 4:00. Around 4:15, Val texted me to ask what area I'd be heading to to hang out with him, so maybe we could meet for lunch somewhere convenient to there. I told her I didn't have the info yet, so I'd let her know ASAP when I knew.

I didn't want to leave Val hanging for too long, so I texted him a "booster text" around 5:00 as I was leaving work, not bitchy at all, just saying, "Hey, I need to know where we'll be meeting because my friend is asking where nearby I should grab lunch with her." When I didn't hear back from him within half an hour, I told her let's just go somewhere close to my home. I was starting to be a little annoyed. 6:00. I came home and took a nap so I'd be rested for seeing Cherry. 7:30.

I woke up and still no reply. It'd now been nearly 12 hours, and that is a long effing time when you're supposed to me making plans with someone for less than 24 hours away. I can't roll like that. I'm so busy that my plans often abut my other plans, and I need to know what's happening within a reasonable window. I started to reach out to Perry and Oona to explain that I might need a plan B for the day, just in case, and decided to move on from the whole thing unless I heard from him. I headed out to the burlesque show with Cherry.

Cherry and I had a really good time; I was doing a pretty good job of not letting my annoyance at having up-in-the-air plans for the next day affect my time with her. At about 9:30, my phone chirps. It's Dustin, finally replying to the question I'd asked 12 hours earlier: it'll be a BBQ at his bestie's mom's place (I think he's house sitting), come by anytime after 3:00, here's the address, feel free to bring chick friends.

Relieved at finally having my plans solidified, but still annoyed that a) it took so long and b) he didn't say ANYTHING about how long it had taken—no apology, no excuse, no acknowledgment whatsoever, I decided to lightly just let him know that extreme delays are not really how I roll by saying "I'm glad you texted me back. I was beginning to think you'd forgotten." Both of which were true. I really HAD started to wonder if he'd forgotten—if maybe he'd been drunker than I thought he was and utterly spaced out that he'd asked me to hang out.

At that point, he did apologize and explain, saying that he'd been busy all day helping a friend with an odd job. I know he gets by on music gigs and kinda rock-n-roll lifestyle odd jobs, so that was probably technically "working." So that's kiiiiinda a good excuse? I guess? But who are these people who don't look at their phone at any point during the day? It boggles.

Well, now that I had him texting back and had decided to forgive, I decided to take advantage of knowing he was looking at his phone and flirt a bit. One text volley. Two. And then *poof* he was gone again. It was getting late so I waited about 1/2 hour and then messaged him that I was going to bed. I try to treat others how I wish to be treated, and a little status message about why I'm not going to write back for a while is something I always greatly appreciate.

So where I'm at right now, as I wait to Val to come over for our lunch excursion, is that I don't really know if this situation is going to work.

I'm not actively pissed or anything—the way he lives his life and conducts his communication is totally up to him and, even if I'd known him much longer, I don't get to have a say in it. But it's not super compatible with the way I live my life and conduct my communication.

I'm not sure at this point whether I should bother to let him know how I feel or what I like, or just let it be. I am definitely not interested in making demands, but it also seems kinder to at least tell someone what my deal is and let them decide whether or not that's something they're willing to do. But when something is soooooo new and there is so very little invested in it, is it even worth having that convo?

The thing is, I still really like this guy. Maybe the best tack is just to NOT make plans with him that require further updates, because not getting those updates in a timely way clearly drives me a little nuts. Maybe I should still see him but just for, like, stuff that is already definitely happening. And then I can just show up at the previously agreed upon day and time. That's what I did Sunday, and that worked out really well.

But then there is still the question of whether there will be enough communication between meetings for me to want to keep it up. That's definitely a personal preference thing. I tend to mostly keep friends (platonic and otherwise) who are reliable in their communication, and I prefer for FWB, as friends, to also fall into that category. But sexual attraction sometimes clouds my judgment and causes me to keep FWB around who don't meet the same communication standards as my friends do, and then I end up annoyed. It seems like it shouldn't be so impossible to find someone who both meets my friend standards (in terms of communication) and who I'm also attracted to, but UGH, it so is.

We'll see. I'm not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater here. I'll give it a shot, see what happens. I'm just not as hopeful as I was yesterday.
 
Sooo, yesterday…

Lunch with Val was good. We didn’t end up finding anywhere open that we actually wanted to eat, so I cooked at home. I made a curry and we had coffee. It was good to see her. She’s kind of on the outs with her boyfriend right now, so she had some ranting to do and I mostly listened.

Shortly after I finished my last post and before Val arrived, Dustin started texting me a bunch in prep for the get together. I’d asked him what I should bring, and he had some ideas, as well as being MUCH more chit-chatty than usual and going on about how he couldn’t wait to see me. It was hard to stay annoyed with him in the face of that, and by the time I hit the road to the BBQ, I was in good spirits, driving with the windows down and my favorite Pandora station on, with the sun shining on me and feeling like I looked damned good.

I rolled up to the party and the crowd was still quite small, five or six guys, including Dustin, sitting around a patio table in the side yard under an insanely huge and twisted tree. I immediately understood why they’d asked me to try to bring chick friends—this party was clearly going to skew sausage. Dustin gave me a brief tour of the common areas. It was a huge house, and in a fancy neighborhood. His bestie’s mom clearly has a bunch of money. I was right about the house-sitting. They were watching the house and her dog for her while she was out of town.

After I’d seen all of the house that was being shown and had made acquaintance with the other fellows at the party, I sat by Dustin kind of trying to catch the vibe. It was an odd vibe. This group of guys seemed to be a little immature—lots of scatological and penis humor, lots of teasing each other. I kind of felt like I was hanging out in the group of boys I’d been friends with in the 8th grade.

It was nice to be next to Dustin, though. He put his arm around me and was being very affectionate. Just being close to him was turning me on. Freaking NRE—I swear it is the only time I reliably have a libido. He smelled amazing, but it wasn’t a combination of smells one would normally think of as amazing. It was something like gum, beer, some kind of woody essential oil smelling scent that I think was his deodorant, natural hair being beaten on by the sun, and sweat-soaked bandanna. As weird as that sounds, it was delicious. It made me want to wrap all my limbs around all his limbs and hang there like a sloth. So I kinda did.

There was a palpable envy radiating from the other half-dozen dudes (another had arrived at this point) that there was only one woman present and she was clearly all about a particular dude already. One of the guys spent most of the entire party trying to peel me off Dustin and attach me to himself. And he is not a bad-looking dude—also in a non-monogamous marriage, Dustin told me a bit later—but I was really not interested in anyone there but Dustin.

Eventually the crowd started to get more diverse. Some couples showed up. A couple of solo chicks. Some dogs. More dudes.

Dustin and I wandered into the area of the yard (out of sight from the patio table) that contained the pool. We started making out on a pool chair, but not for long. I didn’t want to keep him from his friends for long, but I really, really had wanted to kiss him. As we stood up, he joked that we should fall backward into the pool. I said sure, but that I’d want to strip down to my swimsuit first. So I did, and he stripped down to his underwear, and he grabbed my hand like we were doing some kind of odd self-sacrifice together and fell backward. The water was cold! And, unexpectedly, SALTY! I’d never been in a salty pool before. The buoyancy was different.

For a while we clung together trying to stay warm, floating and chatting. Dustin started telling me about another girl he was interested in—a recently disavowed Muslim who has decided she wants to be a hippie and lose her virginity, and seems to have chosen him as the target. “Weird how sometimes everything happens at once,” he said. I told him that, obviously, I didn’t mind if he wanted to have sex with whomever. And he looked at me for a long while and said, “So if you were my girlfriend I wouldn’t have to cheat on you.” Not like a question, like a statement.

“Well, I’m not really available to be your girlfriend, but we can be together like this, at least. You can see me and still see other people.”

“I bet she wouldn’t be that OK with it,” he said. I shrugged.

“Do what you want,” I said. “Just know that I’m unlikely to lie for you."

We got too cold and climbed out of the pool, and then I noticed that there was an attached area that looked like it might have been a hot tub, and I went over and poked it. It was! It was also salty. So we moved over to there and that was a lot better. We ended up cuddling in the hot tub and making out for a long while. Eventually the one friend who was trying to steal my attention came over and stood there talking to us. We started joking that he was creeping on us.

Somehow the conversation turned to politics. Creeper Friend got me started on something, and Dustin said something like, “Eh, I don’t go in for politics. I’m not a Republican or a liberal or anything. I just live my life.” Now, over time, I’ve known lots of people who have felt that way, but with the latest political upheaval, that attitude has become immensely unattractive to me. I started to conversationally push him a little bit, taking a strategy of trying to explain why people who aren’t part of the solution are part of the problem. It was like talking to a . . . I don’t even know . . . a tree, maybe? He listened and was polite and completely peaceful—nothing I said seemed to bug him—but it was very clear that I wasn’t going to change his mind.

He expressed positivity that *I* am trying to do good and change the world, but he refused to be lured into agreeing that it would be good if everyone did. “Not everything is for everyone,” he said. “I’m a lover, not a fighter.” And then he cast an eye up at Creeper Friend, and said mildly, “Good work, dude, starting a political discussion when I’m trying to be peaceful over here.”

Suddenly, I felt like I’d been played. This had all been another one of Creeper Friend’s tactics to pry Dustin and me apart and refocus my energy. He’d noticed my interest in his passing political comment, doubtless knew of Dustin’s political ambivalence, and figured that engaging me on that front was his best bet.

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

In writing this, I suddenly remembered the female friend I’d rolled with the other night, with Perry. She’d been in a relationship with Dustin’s bestie, but she’d also slept with Dustin himself. She had mentioned at the time how odd she’d found it that Dustin was very up front with his attraction to her even though she was with his best friend—he didn’t even hide it from his friend. And then there was the remark from the bestie at my house the other night about a threesome. And there was Dustin telling me that Creeper Friend was in a non-monogamous marriage later, after the guy had mentioned his wife—almost like he was letting me know on purpose that dude was available too, not illicitly creeping.

A light bulb just popped on. Clearly there is something about this culture of dude friends where they all view each other’s partners as fair game, and none of them seem to mind each other’s attempts at poaching. I have never seen anything like it, but reflecting on the rest of the evening with that hypothesis in mind, it seems to be confirmed.

This seems very . . . poly of them all. But none of them mentioned actually BEING poly. There were no poly discussions, no processing—none of the trappings I’ve come to associate with poly people. This was way more just kind of . . . free love almost? Like everyone seems totally fine with sharing everyone, but it was almost like that was just normal and accepted and why would it ever be otherwise? Almost like there really isn’t much of a difference between sharing a partner and sharing a t-shirt, just so long as the shirt gets returned to you when you want to wear it. And, like, I've always felt that way about Oona—delight if she's interested in someone I'm with, and desire to share—but I recognize that I'm really rare in that regard. Even most poly people want best friends to be off limits. I've been the weirdo.

I’m still kind of wrapping my mind around it all. Like, with the mention of cheating, it became clear to me that they are, or Dustin at least is, not beholden to purely ethical non-monogamy. It sounds like he does what he wants, and if I am someone he can be honest with and still get to be with me, great, but if I were otherwise, there might be a lot of stuff he just didn’t tell me. But at the same time, he was completely up-front with me about the HPV risk even when that might have driven me off. I’ll have to observe him more to figure out the intricacies of his moral fiber.

Anyway, to finish my story, the party continued. There was grilling and drinking and dancing. One of the prettiest girls there, one of the bestie’s very old exes, ended up dancing for a long time with Creeper Friend and keeping him out of my hair for a while. Drugs started to surface as the sun went down. I, myself, couldn’t get too crazy, having to work the next day. I cursed the landing of the 4th on a weeknight.

“You can stay here with me tonight, if you want,” Dustin said. “I have a room upstairs that I’ve been using.” I reminded him that I had to work, and he said I could leave for work from there. “In this?!” I asked, gesturing at my skimpy party outfit. We had a good laugh.

“But if you have a room,” I said, “we could go up there a while.” And so we did. There was a comical moment where Creeper Friend burst in, clucking about “disappearing with the drugs” and rifled through Dustin’s pants. It was funnier than it was anything. I feel like some people might have been scandalized, but I was just amused. I’m not very shy about nudity. I’m not an exhibitionist either—just neutral.

Dustin and I rolled around in bed for a long time, doing a great many things that were not intercourse (since the testing still hasn’t happened yet). I couldn’t manage to get him off, but he said that’s because of all the substances he’d been taking—nothing to do with me or our chemistry. He was a total gentleman in that he made it understood that there were condoms, but didn’t say so much as “if you change your mind” or anything that could have been construed as a push. I felt really respected in my decisions the whole time.

Eventually, when it became clear that neither of us was going to get off, we decided to dress and return to the party. I had no idea of the time. I hadn’t looked at my phone in forever. It was almost time to go and, since I had to drive, I declined the offer of more alcohol, switching to sparkling water. Someone offered me mushroom tea, and I had to decline that too.

We joined a group sitting around the hot tub. It felt decadent, swirling the water with my feet and leaning against Dustin, while the people around us sipped sparkling rosé and mushroom tea and laughed and I could tell the party was going to go probably till daylight. I had a pang of envy that, for these people, the party clearly never really has to end—the life of people who mostly get by on their art, using the space between performances to guzzle life in huge, intoxicating gulps, inspiring them for the next time.

I don’t remember at what point during the day/night it happened, but at some point, I’d lightly touched on the conversation about how I am the kind of person who gets anxious if too long goes between texts, and Dustin was very gentle with me but let me know that he is such an in-the-moment person that there are often long periods of time when he doesn’t even look at his phone. “After all,” he said, laughing, “it looks like THIS!” He held it up, showing a crazy mosaic of cracks all over the screen. “But don’t you worry. I’ve been thinking about you all the time.” And he kissed me like he meant it.

When it was time to leave and I was sure I was finally sober, we went out to my car, lightly perching on the hood as we made out a bunch. Finally it was getting late enough that I really had to leave, so I got in the car. He ducked in through the window to give me one last kiss.

“Text me when you get home, so I know you made it,” he said. “I’ll even text you back right away.” He shot me a wink, poking light fun at my text-stress-issue, and we both laughed.

And he did write back right away, too!

“Glad you’re safe. Sleep well, Angel.”

Rider was home from his trip soon thereafter. I stayed up long enough to greet him with a kiss but fell asleep while he was in the shower. I would have loved to have some better reconnect time with him, but the ticket he’d bought was for a plane that didn’t land until midnight, and that isn’t my fault.

We were supposed to have a serious convo today, but we both agreed that we’re too tired to discuss serious stuff, so we’ve postponed it until not sure when. Tonight we’ll likely just curl up in front of the TV together and have some loving bonding time.

All day today, I’ve been super tired. But my NRE brain has been going nuts. I sent Dustin a couple of little texts, not expecting a reply, and I haven’t received one.

I feel, in a way, like I stumbled into some looking-glass world, where the only transgression is to be too uptight, but even that won’t get you banned or looked askance at, it will only mean you limit your own access to the fun. I’ve always considered myself a bit of a free spirit, but meeting this crew, I begin to wonder if I ever even knew the meaning of the word! I guess I’ll fly along with these free little birds for a while and see what it’s like and what I can learn.
 
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