I'm tired of this heat, for one thing. Started researching northern communities yesterday—I doubt I want to move out to the boondocks lock, stock, and barrel*, but I could see renting a place up somewhere for the hottest part of the summer. Seems I really can't abide sustained temps above 25ºC.
The lack of central air in all the places I live doesn't help. This city had a different climate when I moved here; most of it ain't designed for the heat. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
But what I'm really tired of is fixating on relationships. I would like to get comfy just being single for a while, but I keep feeling my attention drawn to dating, of one kind of another. I would like to put my energy into myself. Exercise. Hobbies. Writing. Taking up the guitar again. Hell, watching movies and writing letterboxd reviews of them; any sort of creative expression!
Feels like dating and intimacy and sex and kink and etc.—whether I have those things or not—have been the main focus of my life for years, and I'm just tired of it.
Of course I want all that stuff, and sure I'll have it again eventually, just want to spend less mental bandwidth on it for a while.
I feel like you could write an article on dating. You seem to find lots of available and interested poly folks. Definitely not my experience.
I keep meaning to get you that poly discord group, I admit, I have a bit of hesitation since this space is my private dwelling where my group doesn't know it exists. It lets me express my thoughts safely since there isn't overlap. I have a lot of travel coming up, might see an invite link shortly.
I wrote a post about this yesterday and deleted it because I didn't actually want to share, but fuck it: I stopped being friends with Maple, because I finally reached the point where I could admit to myself that "being friends" was not just being friends, but also clinging to a relationship I did not want to end in the first place.
*I don't know where I come up with these cliches, but those words remind me of The Boondock Saints and Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, two movies I loved when I was a young adult. Boondock Saints is basically un-fucking-watchable to me now; I wonder how Guy Ritchie's caper flick holds up?
I don't think that's quite true; I'm just getting started dating polyamorously. I have pretty good luck with dating in general, so maybe I have things to share about getting good at the skills of dating?
What I am trying to come to terms with is just how small my actual dating pool is, if I am really gonna be my authentic self. But accepting that lets me focus on the right people.
To that end, right now I'm flipping it: instead of trying to date in vanilla spaces and hoping I meet people who turn out to be kinky (let alone poly), I've started connecting with local people on FetLife; find people who are kink-compatible first, and see what relationships develop later.
I had my first date from FL last night, and it was nice. Like any first date, just took a casual walk and got to know each other. What feels a little different is we're sizing each other up not to develop a romantic relationship but to do kinky stuff with each other — I think this is as close to a "casual sex" situation as I've gotten. I like it, but it's also interesting to navigate.
Last time I talked with my therapist, we were considering how I can slow my roll when it comes to attachment. On the one hand, I seem to fall head over heels real easily once sex (and especially kink) get involved; on the other hand, I wish I hadn't gotten as attached as I did to Maple, because the facts behind her breaking up with me were present from Date 1.
And if I want to have one or more in-person relationships whose status is "kink playmates" as opposed to "romantic partners" — and I do — then I need to be able to enjoy intimacy while maintaining some degree of emotional distance.
That, I think, is the biggest work in progress.
...Aside from turning my focus to anything other than relationships. I miss being a writer, tbh.
I don't think that's quite true; I'm just getting started dating polyamorously. I have pretty good luck with dating in general, so maybe I have things to share about getting good at the skills of dating?
What I am trying to come to terms with is just how small my actual dating pool is, if I am really gonna be my authentic self. But accepting that lets me focus on the right people.
Living in Langley, and visiting vancouver to see my gf. I hope on feeld and the pool size is RIDONCULOUS. No joke, I have 25 people in langley total within 25km (so new west to abby)
I was in vancouver east side and I had 100 options. Most kinky and poly.
To that end, right now I'm flipping it: instead of trying to date in vanilla spaces and hoping I meet people who turn out to be kinky (let alone poly), I've started connecting with local people on FetLife; find people who are kink-compatible first, and see what relationships develop later.
I find, and my experience with my partners aligns with this, is most folks have a few vanilla and a few kinky partners. Even so far as they split the diff.
Of the 3 men dating A actively.
1 - raw vanilla
2 - Primal kinkster hates protocol (me)
3 - Dom (she is collared
I think there is a tonne of options. Have you tried hitting up the fet events too, lots of munches and play times in van.
I had my first date from FL last night, and it was nice. Like any first date, just took a casual walk and got to know each other. What feels a little different is we're sizing each other up not to develop a romantic relationship but to do kinky stuff with each other — I think this is as close to a "casual sex" situation as I've gotten. I like it, but it's also interesting to navigate.
And if I want to have one or more in-person relationships whose status is "kink playmates" as opposed to "romantic partners" — and I do — then I need to be able to enjoy intimacy while maintaining some degree of emotional distance.
My goal would be another gf, not quite a comet but low time commit and hot damn would I love someone active and who can ride bikes or something with me. If they also happened to be a morning person I would be super stoked. hahah
I've always been fascinated by the fact that when you double a number repeatedly it gets very very big very very quickly.
The way this was first introduced to me, as a child, was with a hypothetical like this:
"Would you rather be given a million dollars every day for 30 days... or one dollar today, and then two tomorrow, and then double that amount every day for 30 days?"
When you're a kid you can barely imagine a million dollars in the first place — like, that's enough to buy ALL video games, right? — and it just seems intuitive that starting with one dollar, then two, then four, etc. can never catch up with a MILLION dollars every day.
Quick, off the top of your head: What do you think you'll get if you pick the one dollar doubled every day for 30 days?
Congrats: it's over half a billion dollars. The part that fools us is, you won't get your first million until Day 22... but on Day 27 you'll be handed more money all at once than you'd make with the million-per-day scheme!
Networks of human relationships work this way, too; it's why the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game exists. Most people know (for some definition of "know") a fairly large number of people, let's say at least several dozen. Even with overlap, given the example of exponential growth above, it's easy to see that after six "hops" that graph is going to contain an impressive proportion of humanity.
I think this is why the recent interest in "polycule" size doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
When people use the word "polycule" it looks to me like they mean one of two things:
Some people use it to describe a network of closely mingled sexual/romantic relationships, where all or most of the people are closely intertwined (like close friends, if not sexual/romantic) with all the other people.
Some (most? depends who's talking?) use it to describe the network formed by sexual/romantic relationships in particular (as opposed to the network formed by friendships or other sorts of relationships). This concept is trivial in monogamy, where by definition any given network can only consist of two leaf nodes (yes, I'm surrendering completely to the language of graph theory, eat it). In polyamory, the network is at least a little more interesting, since any given node may join multiple others into the graph.
But that's the thing: Kevin Bacon association notwithstanding, I don't know too many people who are interested in trying to graph the network of someone's friends — perhaps because we all intuitively understand those networks are too large to readily define.
Why is it more interesting to graph the network of someone's sexual/romantic relationships?
Is it because polyamory — being able to do this exercise at all — is fairly novel?
Is it because people's sexual/romantic relationships are inherently more interesting to us than their other relationships?
Is it because such relationships feel more personal (even when we aren't part of them); in other words, I may simply feel like I am more interested / have more invested in my partner's other sexual/romantic relationships than I do in my friends' other friendships?
All of the above seem like reasonable explanations for the curiosity.
I wonder if that curiosity changes for people who do / try to / claim to practice "relationship anarchy", in which sexual/romantic relationships are intentionally given no more importance than any other form of relationship.
So for me. Outside of that survey if you ask me who my polycule is. It's 6 people. It's the familial portion of my direct relationships. We have tangents that spread into other cules, so they adjacently belong to multiple cules but do not expand our cule. ..
You know those games where you try to accomplish a thing in the minimum possible number of moves?
I wonder what's the minimum number of posts I'd have to make to turn this thread into another discussion of cishet gender norms and their consequences.
Been out of town; heading home tomorrow. Nice trip, but looking forward to being back in my own space.
Been setting up a couple dates with new people via FetLife, instead of the vanilla apps I've been using. That's interesting, because even though the premise of kink play is built into the reason we're meeting up, I'm not looking for one night stands or immediate sexy times; so it feels like the right way to proceed is just the same way as any sort of dating: meet up, get to know each other, see if there's a connection, see if there's chemistry.
It's interesting to note that I am inclined to meet up with a more diverse group of people, if I know we share some kinks, than if I were vanilla dating. We'll see how that goes. It would be nice to broaden my horizons, have different sorts of experiences than I've previously wanted—or assumed I could / should have.
D/s-related observation: As someone who is usually a d-type seeking s-types, I find myself becoming sensitive to people who seem like, rather than "I'm enjoying my life and also I have a submissive side to express!" they feel like they're using submission to escape a life they aren't really that happy with. I don't want anything to do with that. Had a couple people I've been messaging with who never really seem to have anything joyful to say when they're not talking about kink, and
I'm sure that pattern shows up for d-types, too, and then the behaviour is probably even more toxic, but for a variety of reasons this is the side of the slash I'm on right now.
D/s-related observation: As someone who is usually a d-type seeking s-types, I find myself becoming sensitive to people who seem like, rather than "I'm enjoying my life and also I have a submissive side to express!" they feel like they're using submission to escape a life they aren't really that happy with. I don't want anything to do with that. Had a couple people I've been messaging with who never really seem to have anything joyful to say when they're not talking about kink, and
I'm sure that pattern shows up for d-types, too, and then the behaviour is probably even more toxic, but for a variety of reasons this is the side of the slash I'm on right now.
You're painting over my point, however, which is: I'm finding it necessary to make the distinction between people seeking an escape through submission as an addition to the life they're enjoying, and people seeking an escape through submission from a life they're unhappy with.
You're painting over my point, however, which is: I'm finding it necessary to make the distinction between people seeking an escape through submission as an addition to the life they're enjoying, and people seeking an escape through submission from a life they're unhappy with.
Been out of town; heading home tomorrow. Nice trip, but looking forward to being back in my own space.
Been setting up a couple dates with new people via FetLife, instead of the vanilla apps I've been using. That's interesting, because even though the premise of kink play is built into the reason we're meeting up, I'm not looking for one night stands or immediate sexy times; so it feels like the right way to proceed is just the same way as any sort of dating: meet up, get to know each other, see if there's a connection, see if there's chemistry.
It's interesting to note that I am inclined to meet up with a more diverse group of people, if I know we share some kinks, than if I were vanilla dating. We'll see how that goes. It would be nice to broaden my horizons, have different sorts of experiences than I've previously wanted—or assumed I could / should have.
I've been on Fetlife for ages, and I met Aries there. We just chatted as friends for two years, in 2019 and 2020, first because he was in a mono relationship and then because pandemic. Turns out we lived in the same town, so as soon as he/we were free, we met and the connection was instant. Kink is part of our relationship and sex is really important to us, but the relationship wouldn't be any good if we didn't connect in other ways.
I think of Fetlife as not necessarily a place for hardcore kink or fetishes, like first and foremost rope, rubber, leather, impact play, pet play, power exchange. I think of it as a place where alternative nerds hang out. (Plus a huge contingent of your typical horny guys who just want to perv on the pix of the prettiest girls who post the most graphic photos. Nowadays I think many of those young women just want to advertise their Only Fans.)
Aries and I are nerds. We have these hobbies we're rather obsessed about. I think nerdy types meet each other on Fet. Maybe that's what I think of as non-vanilla. Artists, historians, herbalists, the tattooed, the stoners, collectors, Marvel Universe lovers, etc., etc. After all, doing shibari is basically just macrame.
Now, it so happens Pixi and Aries and I do enjoy power exchange play. But like you, we don't want to go to that immediately, or specifically. We don't go to "play parties," dungeons and the like. I've taken a class or two in certain skill sets, but I don't like to go "scene" at a club and be watched. Ugh.
I've been on Fetlife for ages, and I met Aries there. We just chatted as friends for two years, in 2019 and 2020, first because he was in a mono relationship and then because pandemic. Turns out we lived in the same town, so as soon as he/we were free, we met and the connection was instant. Kink is part of our relationship and sex is really important to us, but the relationship wouldn't be any good if we didn't connect in other ways.
I've heard you tell this story several times, and it's lovely. That "slow burn", gradually developing relationship sounds really nice. I haven't experienced it, but I think I'd like it as an alternative to the all-or-nothing of typical dating, where I feel we're each trying to assess "Do I like them? Do I like fucking them? Are we compatible?" as quickly as possible.
I still prefer meeting up in person ASAP to ongoing online communication (I recognize why that wasn't applicable in your example), but otherwise I am intending to take things more slowly now than I have in the past (we'll see how my brain actually decides to behave, of course...)
Sure, but there are a lot of places where alternative nerds hang out, nowadays. Yes, Fet is one, but I do value it for being a place where we can be kink-forward, because my kinks are a big part of my life, and my compatibility with someone in an intimate relationship is gonna depend on that.
(To the point about nerds on Fet: I have definitely observed that the overlap between certain categories is very large, e.g. kink, nerdy hobbies, neurodivergence, gender fluidity/noncomformity, etc. It might be as simple as "people who are unconventional in one way are probably also unconventional in other ways, too", but it's always funny to notice. )
Heh, indeed. I think this is a good thing; if men are going to treat a woman like a commodity (and they are), let her be the one who profits from it for a change...
I was friends with a pro domme for a while, and I really admired how good she was at detecting when people were trying to extract value from her and shutting it down. Emotional labour is labour, and/or, as the saying goes, sex work is work—but people are always trying to get or doing it for free when it hasn't been earned, because we think we're obliged to, or, etc.
This is turning into a TED Talk, I'm gonna stop.
Anyway, Magdlyn, I also admire the relationships you've cultivated, and I hear you on power exchange being a very intimate thing that takes time to develop and lives in private.
Not a lot of report over the past couple weeks. Got a trip coming up—it is the equivalent trip to the one I took immediately after my first date with Maple, so we'll see how many "anniversary effect" sad feelings I get. Hey, hopefully not too many, it would be nice to be truly moving on given we'll soon have been broken up as long as we were ever together.
Attachment is a funny and difficult thing! The other day I had lunch with a friend who I met through dating: we went on one date, and then became "just" friends. In this case, it feels just fine, because I never had a chance to develop any romantic attachment.
I continue to gradually date. Been meaning to try Feeld, but just haven't been able to bring myself to download the app and figure out what my profile should be like. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Maybe someday.
Something I have to practice, when dating for relationships that are not based on "But Will We Be Life Partners?" is just how much emotional connection do I need before I see if there's physical chemistry? I don't want to write off people who might be fun to be with because they don't feel just like the sorts of connections I would previously have sought for a monogamous relationship.
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