I'm not gonna lie....

 

I'll not be a gentle man. 

The Toadies - Possum Kingdom (Official Music Video) (youtube.com)

At a party a couple weeks ago, I got talking to this young lady. She was doing her best to have a good time but was clearly in a funk. Sometimes Mom-mode just switches on no matter where I am, I found myself asking why she was upset and trying to coax a smile from her. She shared that she's dating someone who falls short of her standards, and her friends were relentlessly encouraging her to be done with him. It was clear in the language she used to convey her story it was her friends that was causing her the greater upset. I channeled the sort of advice my top often gives me. Are they in relationships that you wish you had? Are they who you try to emulate in your relationships? No? Then thank them for their concern, then disregard their advice. I skipped the part about picking up rocks, but added enjoy happiness wherever you find it and trust yourself to know what's best for you. 

Perhaps that's awful advice. Her friends know her better than me. She started smiling though. Her guy might be an asshole, I certainly don't know. She might in fact be 100% better off without him. She had that just right balance of snarky and sweet. Quick, and clever retorts but good natured, you know the type.  If her partner is an ass, I am confident she'll be finished with him soon enough. She'll choose better the next time. Then again, maybe this less than perfect partner isn't so very terrible, maybe he's just human. 

I read another post belaboring how awful unicorn hunters are. My metamour found us via a snarky post I wrote the last time anti-unicorn hunters twisted my panties. This one also rehashed all the points you've heard before, well if you've considered polyamory before. Opening a failing relationship won't fix it. Couples looking for a woman to join their relationship are inherently predatory. If you like kissing pretty girls, you're the worst of the worst. If you don't agree with these and other assorted moral judgments, if your ethics don't match this model, you suck and you don't deserve super sexy time. 

I may be paraphrasing a little. 

I don't actually fully disagree. Opening a failing relationship won't fix it. I 100% agree. However, not opening it won't fix it either. Most often when an "expert" makes this observation they follow it with, if your relationship is in trouble find a therapist. Maybe that's good advice. Therapy may not save your relationship either.  If one person feels ganged up on, resents that the other is forcing them into therapy, I'm no expert but that strategy may not end in happily ever after either.

Your relationship will or won't fail if you do or don't seek out another partner. I'm pretty sure Fate just tosses a coin to determine these things. In my not so humble opinion, maybe you'd be best off turning your attention to whatever brings you joy. If it happens that someone is nearby, share your happiness with them. 

My last relationship of note ended about 6 months after I declared that I was done with monogamy. We had visited the idea of an open relationship dozens of times in the 17 years we were together. Each time I either lead with or agreed, that we have a lot of stuff as a couple. Perhaps we were not in a place to invite another person into our toxic, co-dependent, mess. Yet in that same time frame, we each had full lives including many friends who were well meshed in our toxic, co-dependent, mess. We were well meshed in the messy journeys of our friends too. Births, deaths, marriages, divorces, affairs, rehabs, illnesses, accidents, fuck there were even a couple of incarcerations; my friends have held space for me through my many and sometimes messy milestones and I have held space for theirs. Aside from orgasms, I shared everything with my friends. I love them deeply, with all our flaws. How is that different from exploring an intimate relationship while flawed? 

I am absolutely pro-therapy. Like myself, most of the people I know who are non-monogamous have also rejected other conventionalities. The other day in a moment of sincere desperation while doing my taxes and deeply missing my mom and my accountant who also passed last year, I posted on Fet: Looking for a queer, poly, kink, sex-worker friendly therapist, masseuse and accountant. I got leads for a masseuse and a therapist, they were both in other parts of the country. 

At the end of the day, I am sadistic, masochistic, queer, kinky, rather crunchy, a parent, and wicked opinionated. I've worked in the adult industry for 30 years and I am poly. We can go to therapy for our first date, I'm still going to be problematic AF.  My partners have different quirks, but they're just as tricky to navigate. 

If you find yourself drawn to us, to me, to Him, or her, or her, (forgive me it can be challenging ID'ing whom my partners even are) you're probably just as quirky. If I find you attractive, you're probably a beautiful, vivacious walking red flag, I have a type.  Let's get lunch, let's have fun, and let's fall in love anyway. 

I saw a quote the other day, forgive me for not noting who to credit for it, no love however brief is ever wasted. 

 

God Sometimes You Just Don't Come Through

Do you need a woman to look after you? 

Tori Amos - God (Official Music Video) (youtube.com)

There's a post on Fet where I refer to myself as positively awful. It's in relation to my top, that I have been positively awful to him and yet he's allowing me to do this special thing I wished to do.  

I wonder how terrifying it is to be involved with to own an extraverted, exhibitionist who doesn't quite understand how to filter, while being a person who requires a high level of privacy? 

It is humbling how much trust others place in me.  

A few weeks ago, I caught a TikTok of a creator I follow talking about Kiwi birds. It was specifically how the Kiwi, who's roughly the size of a chicken, pushes out an egg as big as an ostrich's egg. Now, in quiet moments especially behind the wheel, I can't stop wondering if Kiwi Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge too. I wonder if she regrets her choices.  For the record this descendant of Eve does not.  If the price for knowledge is laboring as one does in the fields, check my receipts I paid for the unlimited and unabridged edition.   

I also find myself returning to, mental health experts will tell us we recreate our experiences, particularly traumatic ones. That we find ourselves in similar relationships over and over again, because if we haven't done the work, our subconscious finds comfort in them. New age gurus, manifestation experts, your mom's woohoo hippie bullsh*t, tell us that we can only attract what we are a vibrational match to. 

Aren't both just a more palatable way of saying, she was asking for it? 

Positively awful was shorthand for wicked human, totes lame and mundane. It turns out, stay with me, this is going to be shocking. When your partner/top/whatever-you-call-your-person is involved with another who you recognize as every bit as beautiful as yourself, wicked bright, clever and perhaps way more humble than you, long sleeping insecurities will wake right the fuck up. 

Who knew? 

Guess what else comes with them? Coping strategies that haven't been used in just as long, even the awful ones. It will spark a chain reaction. 100% probability you'll be met with equally human, totes lame, and not terribly healthy responses. 

Sometimes there is such comfort in the familiar.  

Of course, eventually, familiarity breeds contempt. 

Dahlia and I once penned our own version of if you give a Mouse a Cookie. Someday we'll collab again and put it in ink.