American Girl

More specifically, my own experiences with open relationships and why it fucked me up.

I've been having a lot of fun drawing threesomes lately, and I admit I'm extremely curious about actually being in one -- but I also will fully admit I'm not sure I'm emotionally prepared. Actually, "not sure" is inaccurate: I know I'm not. And I'm gonna expand on why, because I think talking about it will help me...not necessarily get over it, but perhaps get my feelings more in line to a place where I can be physically comfortable with them and my desire to be more intimate with close friends.

Oh, also, going to note: my husband knows this already -- maybe not every single tiny detail which I'm going to go into here, but my curiosity and reasons I'm hesitant. This isn't some weird thing I've been keeping private from him.

So, as the title states, let's talk about sex.

My ex-boyfriend, who for the sake of this post I'm just going to refer to as X, and I were together for 7 years, and lived together for half of that (varying "in town but dating" and "long distance relationship" happened before moving in together). 7 years is a long time - we weren't ever married or even engaged, but I think that's about as close as you can get to that.

He didn't want to get married, which is one of the many reasons I eventually left, but that's not the point I'm trying to make here. But relatedly: priorities change and if you can't grow with your partner you stagnate, and one or both of you ends up unhappy.

To be honest, I am fully aware we should have ended the relationship well before it did end. I was getting bored and frustrated, and losing my full-time job just added to that frustration. But X needed me as support, as a life raft -- not just economically (living where we lived was definitely a "roommate needed" situation), but emotionally too. I didn't realize what a drain this was on me until after everything ended, but again, not what this post is about.

So one of us suggested a more open relationship. I honestly don't remember who, and I can't exactly blame either of us - we were young and curious and bored, and I had a number of men who openly expressed attraction to me.

And, being young and curious and bored, I gave it a shot. X fully admitted he wasn't going to fool around - his self-esteem level was rock bottom and I'm pretty sure he didn't want to put any effort into being socially active/available (again, another one of those "eventually broke us up" things) - which was probably a "it's over, isn't it" sign I should have taken sooner.

Side note: open relationships are NOT always a sign of a relationship that should be ending, but it totally was in my case.

So, I met up with a guy at a convention, we fooled around...but we didn't go all the way because I felt super weird about it. And I truly do feel bad for the guy -- he was a sweetheart, and I think he was hoping he'd get more physically out of the night than just a girl who let him jerk off onto her -- but there was an element of guilt that I couldn't let go. It was entirely on me, and probably years of societal conditioning that Monogamy Is The Way. It left me feeling weird and guilty for two reasons (stepping out on X and disappointing the poor man who wanted to bone me), but I figured it was all me, and maybe I'd try again and try to get over myself.

Enter the D.

(See what I did there.)

D was a person I'd been friends with for a bit. As with all my friends, I was extremely open and not necessarily flirty -- but also not censoring myself, which often gets confused for flirting.

Me and X we're still living together, still dating, but more or less roommates with benefits. Emotional life raft, etc etc. So I bring up D, and his interest in me, and maybe I can spend a weekend in the city with him and see where it goes? X is happy I'm happy, and enthused by my chance to get laid.

X might've had a bit of a cuckolding thing, if the enthusiastic sex we had after I got back from being with other men was any indication. I didn't realize this at the time though.

So I go to the city (New York, if you're curious), and D and I have a date weekend. See a show, grab lunch, I show him a few places I know. We split a bottle of wine, Netflix and chill is happening, and...once again, I get nervous and guilty. He also couldn't keep it up in a condom, which definitely contributed to awkwardness. It wasn't not fun, it was just kinda odd.

D was also much more publicly affectionate than X was, which, after 6 or so years of being with X, was totally alien to me. There was a lot going on and my poor mid-20s emotional wreck of a brain.

ANYWAY.

D fell in love with me, I was still with X, and no one needs to be in that situation ever.

(There's a fair bit more that happened between me and those two after X and I broke up, because I was young and dumb, but you can get me drunk and ask me about it sometime. It's not what this post is about.)

So: my relationship with X was on tenuous ground for a variety of reasons, and I was trying to build other relationships -- and yes, friends-with-benefits IS a relationship, don't let anyone tell you otherwise -- on a shaky foundation.

Congratulations, self, this post has probably figured out why you're so stressed out about the idea of being physically intimate with people outside your immediate partner.

So: I'm still iffy about that. I'm open about myself in art, and extremely open verbally (and in text online), but I haven't been able to get past my shaky starting experiences on a physically intimate level.

But Spot and I have an extremely strong foundation, completely unlike me and X. I'm still terrified that I'll hurt his feelings and he won't tell me (again, probably something I picked up in my last relationship), but...well, we tell each other everything, so I don't see why he wouldn't.

Maybe one day we'll have friends over and Netflix & Chill will happen. Who knows! But for now: that's why I'm kinda hesitant about being physically intimate with folks other than my partner. Self-conscious emotional guilt and past experiences have caused a bit of a PTSD-like reaction. I'm working it through art and stories and posts like this, though :)

I still have crushes on a number of my friends, though. I can be emotionally & physically attracted and also totally self-cockblocked, apparently =p I'm weird.

But we knew that.

Updating from work because this is ridiculous and I need to rant somewhere.

So I got a call to schedule my ultrasound & mammogram on Friday. All well and good, scheduled it for Monday. Great, I only have to wait a weekend, I won't kill myself with stress.

Then they call back in 20 minutes and had to reschedule it to Wednesday afternoon. Okay, well...2 more days of worrying I have cancer. It's only 2 days. That'll be fine. Right?

So I get the automated reminder call this morning. "Your appointment at [hospital] radiology is scheduled for 2:30 in the morning. Please have--" This obviously can't be right, so I call them back. Surely the automated reminder is wrong, right?

...someone scheduled my appointment for 2:30am. Which is not a time they take appointments.

I'm now waiting to see if they can squish me in to when my original appointment was supposed to be, or possibly sooner. But oh my god, it's not enough that I might have cancer (yes, I know the odds are EXTREMELY low, that does not change the looming hugeness of my anxiety about it), but I've had to deal with this.

Spec-fucking-tacular.

I hope they call soon. If they don't by lunch I'll be calling them back because this is kind of a big fucking deal.