I quit

I feel like I’m getting a little desperate. Something inside me hurts. I thought being open to loving a woman again would help me heal, but so far it’s just brought confusion and hurt. The problem is, that as soon as I opened myself up to it, I realized how much I wanted it.

Is there a way for me to go back to just being open to it, while stifling that really strong desire? It kind of feels like a tease. To be so close to something so sweet with someone I thought genuinely liked me as much as I liked her, and then have it basically fall apart just weeks later?

I get it. It happens all the time. I have single friends for whom this happens over and over and over, for years on end. And I’m not single–some would say I have no right to even complain. I have TWO partners while some people don’t have any.

If I give up on finding a girlfriend right now, I can focus on just figuring out my life and raising my kids, and once they’re grown up I really won’t have many barriers to finding a woman to love. Not the way I have barriers now. By then I may even be living on my own.

But ten years seems like quite a long time to go without that. Then again, I’ve waited longer than that to embrace who I am.

The not knowing sucks. She insists she wants to keep seeing me, but that she’s confused and needs time to figure things out. “Things” being the monogamous guy she is seeing, who doesn’t know she’s seeing me, who has a dick the size of a beer can according to her.

I can’t compete with that. I shouldn’t even try. It’s just that, she was SO SURE she needed polyamory and that she needed both a boyfriend and a girlfriend. And now, it seems, she’s not.

I quit.

Jesus Fuck (dating girls sucks)

Jesus fuck, is dating women perilous. I don’t even know what to do. Astrid, who I really liked, has major communication issues. To the point where she’ll say nothing for two weeks, then pop up like a groundhog and say she’s been out of town. WTF? How about TELL me when you’re going out of town, then also communicate with me while you’re away?

I just gave up on her, though now I’m considering talking to her again, since my dating life has been a shitshow.

The first woman I went out with, finally came back to town. She’s the one I didn’t kiss because she’d never been with a woman before and I wanted to respect her boundaries. She had a hotel room, she’d been sending me nudes, I was sure we’d have sex. But she acted weird. As soon as we sat on the bed (after having drinks and talking in the bar), she blurted out “Wanna watch a movie?” We kissed twice, but in between she wouldn’t look at me. Gauged by her body language, I concluded rightly or wrongly, that she didn’t want to take things further. I let it go. We ended things with an awkward kiss on the cheek. Honestly I wonder if she’s even into women—she’s never been with one, and doesn’t know if she’s bisexual. Or maybe she’s just not ready—or maybe, even after a prior date and months of talking, she just isn’t that into me. Whatever.

Then came N. (may get a better name if she sticks around). Papa Bear introduced us. We’d met years ago and been attracted to each other but she was in a mono relationship. She’s always known she’s poly and bi, and said she wanted to experience that now that she’s separated. We went out a few times, she asked me to be her girlfriend, we didn’t sleep together. Then she told me, despite prior wishes to not have sex until she and future partners were tested, she slept with this guy. And it was “so good.”

We continued to not sleep together. We both had appointments to get tested. Then she didn’t know when she would have time to see me. While still finding time to have sex with this other guy again. Then I started to freak a little bit.

Was it okay that my “girlfriend” had sex with another guy before her actual girlfriend? Why did it suddenly seem like we’d rushed into this whole thing? Why was she, once again, prioritizing a guy who was monogamous, and didn’t know she was also seeing me?  Why had Papa Bear introduced us in the first place?

I cried a little bit. I am just so discouraged. How can I keep looking for Ms. Right when I just keep getting screwed over?

I Kissed A Girl

…and I liked it.

So, Project Girlfriend seems to be making progress. My last post was about a date with an awesome girl that I couldn’t gather enough courage to kiss. We’ll call her Astrid, as I hope I’ll be seeing more of her.

For our second date, she invited me to go to Pride with her and her friends. Of course I went, even though I’m not big on traffic and crowds.

This morning she texted to let me know her son was desperate to attend Pride but had been before and wasn’t shocked by much, so she was bringing him along.

I thought, okay, no problem, but I wondered if she was okay with PDA in front of him. I met them at her studio, and we got ready together. She brought a lot of loud, tarty clothes that we tried on (yes, we got undressed together before we even kissed, ha). I painted a rainbow on my shoulder, and she did her eyeshadow in the bisexual flag colours–blue, pink and purple.

I chatted easily with her and her son who has special needs, and then we went down to the parade and met up with her friends.

As the floats went by, we stood close to each other. It was kind of hard not to with so many people crammed into one space. I put my arm around her waist at one point, and she put hers around mine, and we stood like that for awhile until she leaned over and said, “Do you wanna learn how to dance?” We’d talked about dancing in our first conversation, because she enjoys going dancing and I said I had zero skills.

So we got even closer and she taught me the simple steps, which we danced holding hands on one side and with our hands on each other’s hips on the other side.

After that she shuffled me in front of her so I could see better (she’s taller than I am), and put her arms around me. We pointed out cool outfits and floats and laughed and talked.

It started to rain, so everyone brought out their umbrellas, and it formed a rainbow roof above our heads with just a few drops coming through here and there.

A kiss cam float came by with a portable jumbotron. The big sign said Kiss Who You Want, and a screen showed live footage of the crowd as it passed. Astrid turned me towards her and kissed me. I kissed her back, then pulled her in again for more.

We giggled as I told her she had my lipstick on her face and tried to wipe it off. It was pretty freaking perfect.

How many same sex couples can say they had their first kiss at Pride, in the rain, under a canopy of rainbow umbrellas, on a jumbotron?

Not that I’d say we’re a couple yet, but given the chance, I could definitely fall for her. Her life is pretty chaotic (she’s not a mess though–she’s Wonder Woman), so we’ll see where it goes.

Either way, walking around holding her hand, kissing her in public, being OUT and queer at Pride was exactly what I needed.

Girls like Girls

Omg. Why is it so hard to date girls? You’d think I’d never been on a date before!

I get all nervous. Who is supposed to pay? Can I touch her? Can I kiss her?

WTF is going on? Why is it so hard?

I had a great date with a beautiful, fascinating woman. We talked for hours, no awkward silences, we could have talked for days if we didn’t need sleep.

She is AMAZING. I’m smitten. Did I grab her hand when we were walking around? Did I kiss her? Did we end up in bed?

No! Why!?

I’ve come to the conclusion that I let men have all the control. I follow their lead. Of COURSE they kiss me, and WHEN is their problem to figure out!

But now, dating girls, I don’t know wtf I’m doing. Straight up. It’s like I’m a virgin or something.

Still…she wants to see me again. Must be doing something right!

Project Girlfriend

I just went on my first Tinder date with a woman. I was so nervous that I left the house wayyy early to make sure I wasn’t late. There was shopping near the Starbucks where we met, so I bought a new shirt, then wandered around, hands numb, heart thundering in my chest.

When she walked in to the coffee shop, my nerves jangled. We ordered, and she offered to pay, which was something I’d wondered about. Who the hell pays on a first date with two women!?

I let her buy my Frappuccino. I’ll get the next one. We sat and talked. She had a bunch of questions about polyamory, since she’s fairly new to it.

She rambled a lot, which I found adorable, while I mostly sat and listened and giggled at how awkward she got whenever there was a stretch of silence.

She showed me her tattoo, and I ran my fingers over the flower design. That was as much as I touched her.

I kept thinking about the fact that she’s never been with a woman before, besides a bar makeout session. I didn’t want to cross any lines in case, now that we’d met, she didn’t feel anything.

Her boyfriend came to pick her up, and she told me after that we’d seemed so into each other he hadn’t wanted to come in and interrupt. That’s why he said he was going to go do some more work in the truck, rather than join us.

I wanted to kiss her, but I couldn’t find the right moment. I needed a clear “yes” signal. Before she left, she told me she’d be in town again in about a month.

I smiled and said we should definitely hang out again. We parted with a hug, and I grinned the whole way home.

Later, we texted about how neither of us had known exactly what to do, and wanting to kiss but not being sure.

I’ll kiss her next time.

Tomorrow, I’m going to a poly meet up with a woman I’ve been chatting with.

Project Girlfriend is officially underway—stay tuned!

I will love you

I’m losing my grip. I am honestly starting to scare myself. This thing, this traumatic loss of love, is breaking me.

My therapist says that when I stopped believing in god, I put all of my energy into figuring out how to live. I completely re-ordered my world. I stopped feeling like every single thing I did mattered. The Husband and I opened our relationship. I stopped going to church and started raising my kids secular, and moved away from my religious abusive family.

Now that I have a safe life, she says its finally safe for me to process all the traumas I endured at the hands of Christianity.

I guess that’s why I have been crying every day over losing a relationship that ended well over a decade ago. I went through the grieving process when we broke up, but it was different, because I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I was breaking up with her so I could live the life God wanted me to live–because I couldn’t be a lesbian. I just couldn’t.

Now I am processing that breakup all over again, through non-religious eyes. It was one thing to feel like I ended it to avoid hell-fire. It’s another thing entirely to realize that the reasons I ended our relationship were completely fictional. I believed in made-up worlds, made up people, made up truths. And because my life was based on delusions, I lost the first person I ever loved.

My therapist says that once we’re adults, we can’t love the way that we did when we were young. Young love is so pure, so emotional. At that age, we feel everything so strongly. Loving as a teenager, with a teenagers overwhelming emotions and underdeveloped brain, is something we can’t experience later in life.

So that’s how I loved her, and that’s how I remember it. Like a fucking tidal wave that I didn’t want to be rescued from. We didn’t have a chance to stop loving each other, or grow apart, or bicker and fight and shriek that the other had changed. We didn’t have a chance for someone to cheat on someone else, to get bored, or to have ultimatums thrown down.

It would be easier if we had. If we broke up for any reason at all. And maybe those things would have happened eventually. But they didn’t, because I didn’t let them. Instead, I have a memory of a perfect, unmarred love that I threw away because I believed that loving another woman would break God’s heart.

I just hate myself. But it’s not my fault. It wasn’t. I had a gun to my head. I was told, on no uncertain terms, “If you do this, you will physically burn for all of eternity. Your skin will melt off your body, your flesh will sizzle, your bones will disintegrate, and even then, you will not be permitted to die.”

“Your life will have no purpose.”

“You will never be happy without god.”

“You will lose your family, your friends, your school, your home, everything–everything!”

And so, even though I hate myself, I know I shouldn’t. I acted under duress. Even my ex told me I need to forgive myself. Right before she told me she never wants to talk to me again.

I really hope that working through these feelings now, will mean that I will come out the other side. I’m terrified that it will never stop hurting. That I will miss her forever, and never be able to accept the fact that I will never see or talk to her again.

I want to beg her to be my friend. To at least tell me about her life. To let me know her again, in some small way–any way at all. But she doesn’t want to wrestle with the past, and that’s where she needs to leave me. I never really thought that it was over. I knew our romantic relationship was done, but I always wished, hoped, prayed that we would cross paths again.

I even used to pray that she would become a Christian and I would see her in heaven. That’s how brainwashed I was.

Now, all I have are the words of Lemony Snicket pounding through my head:

“I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday.

I will love you as the starfish loves the coral reef, and as kudzu loves trees, even if the ocean turns to sawdust and all the trees fall in the forest without anyone around to hear them. . .

I will love you as the pepperoni loves the pizza, and as the pesto loves the fettuccine. . .

I will love you as we move farther and farther from one another, where once we were so close. . .

I will love you as the chances of us running into each other slip from slim to zero. . .

I will love you until your face is fogged by distant memory. . .

That is how I will love you, as the world goes on it’s wicked way.”

-The Beatrice Letters

Her name on my lips

I miss her so much–my very first girlfriend. I knew I would never get over her, but I simply cannot express what it’s like to feel like I’m fine, and everything’s fine, and then to remember her and her face and her voice and how much I loved her and how much I hurt her, and feel–like I am 17 again. Gasping for breath. Like I am literally going to collapse from the weight of my mistakes.

My therapist says I can’t be mad at young me–that I would have lost everything if I’d allowed myself to really be with her in an adult way. I would have lost my family, my Christian college, my church (only) friends, everything and everyone–but. But.

Oh god, did I expect it to hurt so much? I talk about the mistakes I made, and the fact that I will never forgive myself, but have we talked about how much it hurt?

How I cried until I thought I would simply dissolve into a pile of salt? How I went to the doctor, convinced I was dying, wanting to die, for it to just be over, because I couldn’t let myself have her and I couldn’t figure out how to live without her love? I literally thought it was going to kill me. I was angry when it didn’t.

But I was a kid. This was so long ago. Why am I weeping for a love that’s been lost for well over a decade? Probably because she won’t speak to me–and I still feel like a part of me is missing. I may well lay on my death bed with her name on my lips.

I Kiss Girls

I’m feeling the need to fall in love with a woman again. I think I need that.

More to come.