Finally, I am pretty sure that I'm not sufficiently over Maple to be friends with her, no matter how much I want to be.
You know,
this hasn't turned out to be true. She and I are still friends, we both get a lot of value out of our friendship, and while I still pine now and then for more, I wouldn't give up the good for the occasional discomfort.
I put the dating apps away, and think I'll keep it that way for a while. I'm looking into my local kink scene, instead; I'd rather pursue connections there that might turn into relationships where I know from day one that we're compatible in
that way, as opposed to what I've been doing for years, which is assuming I need to find "vanilla" people to date and then just
hope they're amenable to my kinky side.
They mostly have been! Yay! But it's still not quite the same.
Anyway, the biggest shift isn't about kink, but about I'm tired of
pursuing relationships, specifically. I want to get back in touch with myself. There's a lot there — frequent therapy calls! Therapy is awesome. In particular, working with the same person for over a year now starts to pay dividends, because they make connections between things that I, already living in my own head 24/7, just don't see.
Last pieces of dating-related news: I mentioned
"There's a second person I may go out with again in a couple weeks..." — I did, but she told me before we met up that she had decided to escalate things with someone else she was seeing, so if we hung out it would only be as friends; was I still interested?
I was. I expected this outcome, because we knew from our very first chat that she was pursuing casual dating after ending a long-term relationship, but would ultimately want to be monogamous. I told her straight up: "It sounds like we're not compatible for the long term, but could have fun in the short term. Want to get a drink?" and we proceeded accordingly!
So we got together as planned, as friends, and it was great! We enjoy each other's company, and she ended up taking me to the hardware store (we were both planning to go for different reasons) and advising me what sort of paint I should get.
It is nice to have more friends — in particular, frankly, friends who are women, because I haven't done a great job of maintaining platonic relationships with women in my life, and that's unfortunate. But it's shifting, and that makes me happy.
Finally, I did re-download Hinge yesterday just to see if I had any messages; I've had a couple people who don't seem
uninterested, but just take days and days to reply, which doesn't work great for me (ADHD object permanence and all that
) but isn't the end of the world. Well, one person did reply, and suggested we make plans. This is someone who says right on her profile she takes a long time to get comfortable with someone, and is apparently very busy with work. It takes her literally weeks to reply to messages, yet she seems genuinely interested when she does. It's so weird, but I guess this is dating on apps in 2024?
Anyway, I'm not in a hurry, and I am not attached to any outcome: I'll meet this person if they want to meet and can actually make and keep a date, and we'll see what happens.
...I had something else I was going to say here, but I've forgotten it. That's enough of an update! I wanted to get some day-job work done this afternoon, and I'm procrastinating.
Have a nice weekend, poly people.
I'd rather have the mental bandwidth for more creative pursuits.
... I am dealing with loneliness during those times my two folks are busy. Also a bit of loneliness because I dont see a path to finding another. 