Saturday pt 2- Flooding the Bathroom

After the trip to Ikea with the Dreamer, I had to rush to get ready for a date with the Blues Man. I was already an hour late because of how long shopping took, but the Blues Man insisted it wasn't a problem. Then I managed to get lost twice on the way there, and when I did finally find the restaurant, the parking lot was completely full. I was on the verge of collapsing from frustration when I saw the Blues Man and gave him a giant hug.

“Don't worry,” I told him. “I just need to decompress and I'll be fine.”

We sat outside on the restaurant deck, where our poor waitress was running around trying to serve way too many tables. So when she forgot our appetizer and offered to buy it for us, we both insisted that she not worry about it. You can tell a lot about a guy based on how he treats two people- his mom and his waitress. Based on how often the Blues Man is going over to his mom's house to help her with chores and errands, I'd say he's doing good on both counts.

We were almost the last table to leave after dinner, so the waitress came over to chat for a minute while the Blues Man borrowed his lighter. That led us to joke that we should ask her to come back to his place with us, and I will admit, it was a tempting idea. Since he and I aren't allowed to have sex, though, I think it may have just ended in frustration all the way around.

After dinner we went back to the Blues Man's apartment to drink wine and watch a movie. We strategically picked a movie that didn't require too much attention, so we were free to fool around the whole time. The one benefit of not being able to have sex is the crazy amounts of oral sex. Yoga comes in handy for more reasons than just weight loss, let me tell you. By the end of the movie we both needed a shower. And I think he had a bit of rugburn.

Rather than getting clean in the shower, we proceeded to get dirtier, just this time there was soap involved. Instead of being sticky and sweaty, we were wet and slippery. At some point, though, I think I accidentally pushed the shower curtain out of the tub. Neither of us noticed until the end of the shower, so there's no telling how long it was out like that. (To be honest, there's no telling how long we were in the shower at all- my mind was on other things than looking at a clock.) The bathroom was completely flooded. The water had even begun to soak the carpet in the hallway.

We went to bed not long after, with all the towels down in the bathroom and hallway in a futile attempt to soak up the water. (The Blues Man just told me yesterday that the carpet finally dried Tuesday night.) The Blues Man is an interesting person to sleep with, to say the least. He talks in his sleep and tosses a lot, but at least he doesn't snore. The other difficulty was his lack of blankets. He sleeps with a fan on him in a freezing cold room, with just one blanket over him. Now, I'm a fan of sleeping in a cold room, but I want the warm blankets over me (to the point where I don't want to get out of bed in the morning because there's such a temperature different.)

I woke up a couple times during the night absolutely freezing. He eventually took pity on me and went into the living room to find another blanket. After that I was finally able to get some sleep.

The next morning before I went home, we sat on his balcony while he smoked his morning cigarette. Just sitting there in the sun chatting was the best part of the date. Truly, I wish I could have that every Sunday morning. Add in a cup of tea and an issue of Newsweek, and it would be perfect.

Friday pt 1.5- Relationship Negotiations

Normally I try to keep events in this blog in chronological order, but I think it's important to resolve the ones left at the end of my last post.

The Blues Man and I kept texting throughout the weekend, mostly back to flirting and discussing random topics. He had promised to tell his girlfriend about what had happened between us, though, and I wasn't going to let him forget it. He texted me Tuesday afternoon saying that he'd done it.

From what I could piece together from his texts, she was understandably not very happy about it. I got the impression that she was feeling betrayed, even though they'd ostensibly agreed before that they were allowed to date other people. But being given theoretical permission and acting upon it are two very different creatures.

In the end she told him that we could date, but not have sex.

A few minutes after that text, I got another one from him asking if he could call. I was in an office full of our classmates, so I had to step out to talk. He said he was still discussing things with his girlfriend, and she wanted to know what “dating” meant. I very eloquently explained that to me, dating is “hanging out and having fun and stuff.” “You know to her that's going to mean sex,” he pointed out.

“If she says we can't have sex, we won't have sex,” I assured him. “But that doesn't mean I'm happy about it.” That's when I got on my polyamory soapbox.

I am all for guidelines of safety (e.g. no sex without a condom, no sex until you've both been tested, etc.). I even understand guidelines of comfort (e.g. I want to meet the other person, if you think things are getting serious between you and your Other Significant Other you have to tell me, if I have serious concerns about your OSO you have to give them honest consideration, etc.). What I don't understand are artificial limitations on what kinds of things can develop between two people. Those things can't be controlled.

So, let's look at examples.

Guy A, who you may recognize as the Linguist, is married and has 2 kids. He and his wife have an agreement that they can both date whoever they like. The only rule is that they are not allowed to date people who wish to break up their original relationship. If I started talking about him leaving his wife, for example, it is his responsibility to end things with me. That is totally fair, if you ask me.

Guy B, obviously the Blues Man, is in a long-term relationship with a woman. She agreed to allow him to date other people, but on the provision that he is not allowed to sleep with them. The reason she doesn't want him to sleep with anyone else is because she feels it would make that relationship as important to Guy B as his relationship with her is.

Now, Guy B's parameters are completely artificial. No rules can control what feelings develop between two people, and the decision to have sex should be made between the two of them as to its appropriateness and timing. I'm not saying the original partner shouldn't have some influence, but to have the complete decision-making power on this is absurd.

If you were an outside partner entering into a relationship with these men, which would you rather be in? The one where you're allowed to have an actual relationship that develops as it will, or the one where you have to constantly worry that you're breaking the rules set by his other partner? Or even worse, that the rules will change without you being able to have any input in them?

Now in this case, I'm really interested in dating the Blues Man. If I wasn't, I'd just say screw it, it's not worth it. I don't want to pretend that I'm fully okay with this, though, and I let him know it. If I have to operate within her rules to date him, I will. But this is definitely the exception for me, not the rule.

Friday pt 1- The Blues Man Falls from Grace

After staying up all night texting with the Blues Man, we decided to go out to breakfast. We live on opposite sites of town, so we met at a diner in the middle. That would have been a great idea, except that somehow we'd both forgotten it was Good Friday. Well actually, it's not surprising we'd forgotten, since neither of us is Catholic. But that's besides the point. The place was busy, but we still got a booth, sat down, and started talking.

Now, the Blues Man is Jewish, and it was during Passover. That meant no leavened bread for him. For those of you who don't know, leavened bread encompasses almost every type of bread there is- anything that's risen instead of being hard and flat like a cracker. So of course, I had to torture him by ordering banana pancakes. Mmm! When the waiter asked for the Blues Man's order, it was almost like a poorly written comedy sketch. “Cheese?” “No cheese.” “What kind of toast?” “No toast.”

Poor guy. Going to a diner during Passover must be like dying of thirst in the middle of the ocean.

We sat at that booth for three hours, talking about nothing and everything. We discussed religion, politics, gossip about our classmates- all those “taboo” topics that you're not supposed to touch. And surprisingly, we got along on almost all of them! It even turns out that we're studying different aspects of the same event!

Breakfast went so amazingly well that I jumped at the chance to continue it by going to his apartment to hang out. We ended up (no surprise) laying on his bed and making out while listening to music. It was a total throwback to high school, except for the part where you had to worry about your parents catching you. Ah, the joys of being an adult- ice cream for breakfast, pizza three times a week, and making out on your bed without fear of being in trouble. We're both huge flirts, though, so conversation quickly moved into doing something more than just making out.

After another couple hours of teasing, touching, and kissing, things started to progress. The Blues Man has a big, bushy, 1970s-style beard, which he had been telling me the night before is great for increasing certain, shall we say, pleasurable activities. I'm not going to insist that every man I date grow one, but I will admit, it added a nice dimension to things. You know how a bit of facial hair makes kissing more fun? Well apparently a lot of facial hair makes other types of kissing more fun, too.

I'm not ashamed to say that by this point, I was practically begging to get to the next step, but the Blues Man kept laughing and saying there was no rush. “True, but I still want it!” I told him. “I can't just give it all up without a fight,” he replied. A master at the teasing, this one.

I did finally get my way. It was great, except for the pillow talk afterwards. You see, he had failed to mention that he has a girlfriend.

I was pissed. Not only did he fail to tell me this before we hooked up, or even before we kissed, or even before he agreed to go on a date with me, when it would have been MOST important, he tried to play it off like it was no big deal. If she was on board with this kind of thing and I wasn't interested in actually dating him, just hooking up, I might not have minded so much. But I'd made it pretty clear from the start that I wasn't looking for just a friend with benefits.

The situation was made even worse by the fact that apparently his “lady-friend” didn't know that he was going to be dating anybody else. He said they'd recently had a conversation about them both being allowed to, but that he hadn't actually done it yet. And they hadn't broached the topic at all of sleeping with other people.

Understandably, the mood was shattered. I didn't stick around too much longer after that, and I started texting him on my way home. First and foremost, I said, he had to tell her what had happened. If she was okay with it, I'd love to keep seeing him, but I couldn't do it in secrecy. I truly believe that the only way to have a good relationship is to be completely upfront with everyone involved. That goes double when there are multiple partners in the picture. He agreed that he would, but I'll be honest, I wasn't sure.

I finally resorted to calling my best girl friend and asking what she thought. She told me that if he wasn't willing to tell his girlfriend what happened and to not do something like that again, he wasn't the kind of guy I want to date. She's absolutely right, of course. There's a fine line between polyamory and cheating, and it's crossed as soon as you enter into secrecy.

Thursday- Text Dates?

As someone who has had her share of long-distance relationships, I often wonder what exactly defines something as a “date.” There is something that has become ubiquitous about dinner and a movie, but that isn't the only thing to do on a date. So, if it isn't the activities that make something a date, is it something about how those activities are done? Isn't a date at its core just two people spending time together in order to get to know each other better? It's an imperfect definition, but I think that's what it is.

A few months ago, I began texting with the Nigerian, who is actually the Anarchist's neighbor. We'd met in passing, and he asked the Anarchist for my phone number. The first day, we sent a couple hundred texts back and forth, spanning the period of the entire day. We talked about everything from our backgrounds to life goals to food likes and dislikes. Not only were all the basic topics from a first date covered, we delved deeper than one probably would. That's the benefit of having an 8 hour date instead of a 2 hour one. At the end of the day when I was going to bed, the Nigerian thanked me for a great “text date.”

Things with the Nigerian didn't work out, but that phrase has stuck with me.

Thursday night after getting home from the terrible date with Ill-Fitting Suit, I was lounging outside with my housemates when the Dreamer texted me asking if I wanted to go to Ikea with him. If you know me, you know that question might as well have been rhetorical. After a trip there and a short stopover at Home Depot to get him some stuff for work, we went back to my place and went to bed.

Around 2am, he woke me up. His toothache was killing him, he couldn't sleep, and he wanted to go home. He couldn't let himself out, though, so I had to get up with him to unlock the door and then lock it back. Right as I was about to climb back into bed, my phone rang- he'd forgotten his glasses. So I had to get back up, bring them down to him, and go back to bed for a second time.

This time, though, I couldn't fall back asleep. I got on Facebook to try and kill some time before trying again. I had a message waiting for me from the Blues Man.

The Blues Man is actually one of my colleagues at school. He's a leftist-leaning Jewish drummer, which seems like a strange combination, but he totally makes it work. I'd been eying him since the first class, but only recently worked up the nerve to ask him out. Over Facebook, of course. It's the new way to pass notes in class. We agreed to go out the following Saturday, but kept messaging back and forth anyway.

I responded to the Blues Man's message and went about doing other internet-type things, when another message from him popped up. After a few more messages and responses, he pointed out that we could move off the internet, and gave me his phone number. So we started texting.

That night, we texted from about 3am until 7am, constant banter back and forth. In the course of it, we talked about work, school, our families, our friends- no topic was off limits. It didn't help that it was the middle of the night, when I get a lot freer with my willingness to share. It was so much fun! Truly, I felt like I could talk to him about anything, and was so comfortable with him it was as though I'd known him for years.

Around 7am, I asked him if he wanted to meet for breakfast. It seemed only appropriate, since we'd spent the entire night building up a delicious romantic and sexual tension. He agreed, and we made plans to meet up a few hours later.

Was this a date? I think so. It was everything you'd hope for in a great first date- witty banter back and forth, opening up about your pasts, playful flirting. The only thing it lacked was a kiss at the end.

Thankfully, that came at breakfast.