May 31, 2009
Rough Weekend
My husband and I spent the weekend on Rae and Rob’s couches. We didn’t actually get to spend a lot of time with both of them, but we were up in that area and they have told us that their house is always open to guests, so we gratefully accepted.
Friday afternoon was spent, in large part, dealing with some problems that Rae was having. It left me feeling really drained, but I think I helped her out a lot, and it also made me feel good. I was a little concerned that my interference had annoyed or upset her, but it was worth being there for her even if she didn’t want to accept it, if that makes sense.
I packed up and left as soon as we signed off so that I could pick Michael up and head out of town for dinner with my family, then off to the couches! Rae had a friend over, and she was using her to hide behind, so we didn’t really speak at all. I spent some time talking to Rob, who was very encouraging, but I felt kind of emotionally drained and I felt like I needed some aftercare of some kind or at least some attention from Rae, who was trying to pretend that I wasn’t there. I respected her need to be away from me for a while, but it made me sad. We had breakfast as a group the next morning (well, sort of), and Michael and I had fun with other friends all day and well, well into the night (not THAT kind of fun, you dirty monkeys!)
We crashed at about 1 am on Rae and Rob’s couches again (thanks guys), and the next morning was like a total reversal. Rae and Rob had processed a lot together, and she had written me a sweet apology email the night before, which she encouraged me to read in the morning. We hugged and sat together and had a really nice chat, and I felt so relieved and so much better. I am feeling really good today, and it is in part because this was resolved some before we came back home. It’s sad to leave people who you know are in some way not happy with you. We didn’t get pie or coffee together, but she has promised to make up for it later.
I’m thinking of inviting Rob to help me plan another ambush. I mean play date. 🙂
Blessings,
Kathleen
May 29, 2009
Drama, but not in a Bad Way
I like to joke that I am allergic to drama. I usually avoid gossip, I don’t start things behind people’s backs, and I am upfront and frank rather than scheming and manipulative. It makes like easier and happier, I have found.
Some drama is not about scheming crazy people, though. This week has been a lot of drama with Rae, but it isn’t contrived crap, it is real and emotional, and there is something deeply fulfilling for me when I can provide real advice or do good for her. Having been there, right where she is now, I understand. I had the self esteem issues, the anxiety, the depression… It sucks. A lot. But there is a lot of good that can be done by people who care, and who aren’t afraid to push the real issues to the fore.
She kept apologizing to me last night for dumping on me in a way that, she told me, she does not do with anyone else except Rob. I don’t think she could have possibly known that she was dumping on me because I was intentionally triggering her to do so. She was very upset, and she needed a vent. I have a really unusually good understanding of the human mind and especially of the mind-emotion balance, and I really, really love playing with that knowledge. (I used to go to therapists who would ask me what they thought were probing questions, and I would be confused because I had already considered those questions and more. It frustrated both of us.)
Anyway, I think I made her feel a little better. And then I contacted Rob and told him to do something that made her feel much better. It is really hard to figure out when you are butting in too far, especially when you know you can help. I asked him not to tattle on me, but she asked me specifically this morning if I was behind the conversation they had, and I try very hard not to lie to people. I was relived that she was not angry, but even if she was I think it would be worth it to have made her life easier in that way. It took a lot of stress off of her, and while I know that it is not a cure for her anxiety issues, it will at least mean that she will have to trigger on something less painful and destructive for now. I’m a little worried, but mostly I just want to make sure she’s ok. And I think she will be. Besides, she’s got Rob, and he’s a great dude.
Blessings,
Kathleen
May 28, 2009
And your name again?
Lordy save me from the new-to-poly men.
Allow me to explain. I am a member of at least one poly forum, and one day responded to someone who was asking if his ideal situation, a MFM vee (that means that there are two men in a relationship with the same woman, but not with each other) was “normal”. I assured him that everyone else has their own version of poly and that his is perfectly acceptable. He emailed me later on the site, detailing how he thinks that a woman deserves to be spoiled rotten by her men, and how a woman should have two men just so that they can dance attendance on her at all times, more or less. I shrugged it off, and more or less replied with a “how nice for you”.
I have a standing offer to provide my IM info to people on that site because, as you can see, I enjoy to talk poly, both with the new and the well initiated. He asked, and I gave it to him. We had a few nice chats, but nothing too deep, and since he lives on the wrong coast, I didn’t give it any further thought.
He IMed me last night after a silence of a few weeks (I may have “appeared offline” most of that time). After a moment, I asked him very politely if he could remind me where he lives. I have trouble connecting some usernames to personalities without extra information, and location is a good fixer for me. He named a city in my state, but spelled it wrong. I was confused, but figured it was just a typo. He started getting creepy from there, asking me to be his girlfriend and making suggestive comments that I thought were out of character. I searched for his profile on the poly site, and sure enough, he was not from my state, nor anywhere near it. I confronted him, and he announced that he was both hurt and offended that I really didn’t remember him.
First, I told him that I had no especial reason to remember him since we had only had a few casual chats several weeks before, and since plenty of people, including random males, often contact me and chat. Then I deleted his name from my messenger list. Next time he messages me, I will use the block button. That was just too creepy for me.
Oh, and in other news: Rae is, I think, a little freaked out by herself right now. She is understandably concerned about her mental health issues, and is trying to push me away. I recognize all of the signs, and I mean ALL of them from when I was pushing friends and loved ones away in my own depression. I don’t know if she has feelings for me that scare her, or if she is scared of developing feelings for me, or if there is another motivation, but I plan to stick by her as a friend if as nothing else. She’s good people, and she deserves the shoulders of others who’ve been there. Rob has. So have I. I’m plotting to kidnap her and take her for a walk on Saturday. Maybe there will be pie! I won’t say “chin up”, because that used to just piss me off… but hang on. It gets better.
Blessings,
Kathleen
May 25, 2009
OMG A Date that went WELL! (And Lots of Firsts!)
This weekend I discovered through first hand, personal experience that:
a) I am definitely bi-sexual
b) I am definitely a switch
c) Sex with other women is indeed both desirable AND fun in an entirely different way than sex with Michael is
d) By extension of item c, I have also confirmed that I am definitely poly.
I had a lovely play date with Rae and Robert, and fun was had all around. The first half was mostly kinky play and not very sexual (I mean, there was kissing and caressing, but it was not “having sex”, it was just play). Afterward we all piled up for a group snuggle, and… well, someone got frisky… I’m not even sure WHO got frisky at first, but we quickly devolved into a writhing mass of limbs. It was very sexual and not very play-y, and more fun was had.
I didn’t actually have sex with Rob, especially since neither of us had talked about the possibility, but I did have sex with Rae and Rob and Rae also had sex while I petted, played, kissed, and eventually flogged. Oh, flogging Rae while she was having sex with Rob… HOT. Rae, thank him again for the flogging lesson for me, would ya? 🙂
I am really comforted that it seemed like all three of us had a really good time. Rae was also really excited, since it was her first poly experience and her first bi experience as well. We went for food afterward, and she was expressing how nice and how surprising it was to her that she just had “casual sex with a casual acquaintance” and that nothing was strange or uncomfortable. There was, as she put it, no loss of possibility. We could still be friends, fuck buddies, or play partners, or lovers, and nothing was off limits or totally crazy just because we had sex. And best of all, there were three very happy people in the car, and no one was angry about any of it. Whee!
Fun note: The first and only time Michael had sex with Becky, it was on our couch, and I was upstairs in bed. This weekend, while we were playing and having sex, it was in their bed, and Michael was asleep on the couch. Symmetry makes me smile.
Blessings,
Kathleen
May 21, 2009
Online Dating…
Many of my readers have heard me say that I have profiles on several dating sites. I may or may not have mentioned that I have put “looking for friendship” as the setting on all of them, and that I state in each profile that I am not actually looking for a partner, but feel free to message me if you want to make friends. I don’t get a lot of messages, and the ones that do contact me tend to do so after seeing my photo and stopping there. For the record, I have average facial features, I think, curly blonde hair, color changing eyes that mostly show up blue or green in photos, a decent figure, and a C cup.
Early this morning I logged onto PolyMatchMaker.com, which has an interesting message board forum and a decent community of people. I noticed with some surprise that I had an email, and went to read it. It said “Hey there wanna chat?” (bad grammar his)
I clicked on his profile, already pretty sure due to the generic nature of the message that he had not bothered to look beyond my photo in the profile. When I read his, I discovered that he lives on the opposite coast, is a single, divorced male, and is looking for a single female or, if he’s really lucky, a pair of women to eventually become a MFF triad (that means two women and one man). He puts somewhere on there that married is acceptable but not preferred. Oh, and he is just old enough to have fathered me. My own profile CLEARLY states that I am not interested in men old enough to have fathered me, and actually draw the line at 15 years older at the most. He is 19 years older than I am.
I sent him back a polite, short note that said “I am not what you are looking for, but I wish you luck.” His reply (unnecessary after a rejection in my humble opinion), was “So what I think you are say is that you are not interested?” I take this as an implication that my refusal to chat with him and really get to know the real him before I made up my mind is incredibly rude. That may be, but only I can know what I need in my life, and another extra man doesn’t really fit the bill, especially not one across the country. I already have a few potential lovers across the country if I really want them, but it is too much effort for me where I am at in my life.
This, then, is my response to his silly “question” about my interest. “What I am saying is that you didn’t bother to read my profile. I am not looking for a boyfriend, I am not interested in older men, I live nowhere near Ohio, and honestly, based on YOUR profile (which I read) I don’t think you would find me very interesting either. Except perhaps my chest, which I assume is what prompted you to message me. I was being polite. We are not compatible.”
Ok, maybe I am a bitch. Or maybe I am just tired of people not reading my profile. 🙂
Blessings, and thanks for reading!
~Kathleen
May 17, 2009
Getting Excited
I’m not sure if this might be considered more swinging, or poly, or even just a play date, but I am heading up to visit with Rae and her boyfriend, and a week from today, the beatings will commence. I think that I mentioned that Rae is a submissive. I am a switch, and her boyfriend is dominant, so the three of us plan on having a play day/night to help her get used to the idea of poly, and to have a lot of fun at the same time. Robert, her boyfriend, is going to teach me to throw a flogger (no, not pitch it at her, throwing is the term for hitting a person with the tails), among other things.
We’ve spent the last week talking about limits, rules, and comfort zones, and I am very happy to say that Rae’s hard limits are dropping like flies. *grin* I would not push a person to do something that they didn’t really want to or couldn’t handle, but I have already started experimenting with topping her over the computer chats, and she responds really well. I felt chemistry with her when we spent time together, and I think the three of us will have a good time.
I also may be getting closer to Robert than I had expected. I’m not exactly attracted to him physically, but he is a great guy, and a really interesting one, so I can see him growing on me. I may be making out with him over the course of the weekend, too, as a sort of experiment so that Rae can see how she feels about him interacting with another woman like that. All in all it should prove to be a pretty exciting and action-packed weekend.
Blessings,
Kathleen
May 15, 2009
Slow Learner
I really don’t learn. Honest. There are some mistakes that I am, apparently, destined to make about 50,000 times before I actually figure out that I am screwing up. 🙂
Here’s the problem: I think of my blog FIRST as an educational tool, and SECOND as a place to dish on my love life. Cool. But because I think of it as educational, I tend to point people toward it when they have questions about poly. You know, like people that I am interested in dating. Enter Rae (hi hon!) Rae is a very gorgeous, very sweet, very submissive girl who is dating a friend of mine. He is poly, and she is… open minded. We’re slowly wearing her down (that’s a joke, people).
So, welcome, Rae, and I will try not to say anything bad about you. 🙂 At least not as long as I know you’re reading… hehe.
Blessings,
Kathleen
Polyamory from the Inside Out 