but you love me as i leave

I'm married. I also have a long-distance boyfriend. My new bf and I met in the winter time. He was doing a short-ish stint in my city. Idk how it happened but it did. Now that we're apart, we don't talk often like typical bf-gfs do... keeps the heartache at bay, I guess. But we tend to send each other little pings every once in a while.

It's cool, but it's also a very much a source of anxiety. Because what do you do when you get exactly what you want?

What is it that I want, exactly?

There's what I have little pulse-desires for.

The desire to have him stay with me, to show him around the new apartment I just moved to. The desire to spend longer chunks of time together. Because I want to be his girlfriend. I want to be shown off. I want to claim him. I want to be a part of his life. But like, WHY?>?>> I don't think it's strange to have wanted these things when or if he lived in the same city. But now that we're apart, it is hard to not listen to the devil's advocate who says "justttttt goooo find anotherrrrr boyfriend, get over yourself."

As if it were so easy.

When it comes to polyamory... ugh, it's so confusing. It's like I have to hold these two truths which really seem to contradict the other.

I have to hold the truth that I may never find another "relationship", just a string of fuck-boy fuck-toys. I'm supposed to be happy with that, because I already have a husband. I'm supposed to be monk-like in my approach.

But if one were to lean into their monk side... why would anyone ever pursue long-distance polyamorous relationships? It's not like people are moving through the world and people are just falling into polyamorous relationships. That's bullshit. But then again...

It's the common narrative, the one I even used when me and my husband were first transitioning from monogamy to non-monogamy. It was:

"I want to be able to go to a bar and flirt and maybe even go home with someone."

SUCH a common line in the mono-to-non-mono pipeline for couples, right?

So why is it that THAT'S no longer enough? Was it ever going to be? I haven't really gone on any dates since I started dating my new boyfriend. It's bewildering at times. I think it's a fear of the build up and disappointment. The contrast disappointment as well. I don't want to go on dates only to realize I miss my bf.

But yes, it's long-distance. Part-time. Most of the time.

A typical long-distance relationship in the monogamous paradigm often lends to this unspoken pressure and assumption that this relationship "only makes sense" if we end up geographically in the same location someday, full-time.

And then comes the wave of angst when you realize that ending up in similar geographies probably means that either one of you is financially supporting the other (PRESSURE) or you both are riding on the fact that you can be physically employed in said city.

There's the fucking power dynamics of it all. It's so lame.

"I moved for you" starts becoming a line in all future fights you'll have with your future partner when the move starts to seem like it wasn't worth it.

But it can totally be worth it. I moved for my husband and it worked out incredibly well for me. Such a goddamn good decision. I ended up in a city that was made for me.

I don't want to move for a guy. That's not what's happening here.

I guess there's the reality that maybe I'm just trying to build something where That Something can't stand. Foundation is too flimsy.

I want to pick at the foundation though. There's a part of me that's convinced that I could get the thing. The thing of being with someone I love in a really hardcore, polyamorous way. Is it so crazy to be a romance snowbird? Like, seriously, I spend a month with him. I literally could.

Does my husband feel abandoned then? How rough would it be? Or is it the separation trial that we've both been flirting with on-and-off for the past 6 months?

you tell me about the girl at the gas station who keeps blowing you off. you tell me about a new girl who wants you to breed her, but how it's juUuuuSsst not gonna work, because you're childfree. such a bummer, right? you send me POV video of you, where i presume the POV is of a woman who's on a date with you. or maybe, it's not a date? maybe they're just friends of yours that happen to be women. i see you high five a squirrel, and for a few seconds, i can hear her voice. i can hear her laugh. and i wonder.. does she have tattoos? does she have a tiny waist like me? big, expressive eyes?

you act like it's all so totally normal to share these things with the woman who you could make climax with a simple look. a drop of a hat. a small act. the woman who you fucked while in a moving vehicle. the one that's keeping you up at night.

you share and share and share all these things.. and you pretend like it's cool and normal and fine because we're friends.

but you fucking know it's not like that.

i think you know you own me.. and you're twisting the knife for fun. the way you share your world with me is... perverse. it's perverse.

how does it make you feel to know that i squirm with jealousy every time you clue me in with these little brushes against the arm, virtually reminding me how fucking hot you are? and that i'm dying to be the onlyyy one who gets your cock? but i can't?

The now is this. You have a crush on a married man as a married woman. You’ve been here before. But maybe, you’ve never wanted it this badly. You want that fiery passion and spark and to have someone be so obsessed with you. The high. The goddamn, NRE high. 

I don’t know how to get this without blowing up my life. But I also know that I desperately want and would experience this again. It would have to be someone other than my husband, because it couldn’t really ever, truly be him again.

I met someone this year and it’s giving 2015 crush. Stupidly painful but so vivid. He isn’t even that inappropriate with me. It’s not like he comes by my desk at a frequent basis.

Who am I to ruin this happy workplace for him? 

But it could also be, who am I to deny him a year of passion and giddiness and general Feeling Aliveness?

He’s in his late 30s. Prime time for thinking outside of the box. But maybe he’s such a good person, such a good man. And I’m a disgusting whore. But what good man would have been so neurotic around me?

Can I just let this go? Can I just have those 2 weeks of flirting, and start flirting with strangers? Eventually I find someone who ticks all the right boxes? But what if this connection I perceive I have with P is rarer than I think?

I just want to feel those butterflies again. That feeling you get when you’re about to hang out with someone for the first time.

He likes me, he doesn’t. He does like me.

I remember that Friday during the project week, we were the only two people in the room. I casually stuck around for an hour, just pretending like I was too lazy to get up and go back to my desk. 

We didn’t discuss much outside of the project. But then he started an off-topic discussion (still work-related) but it somewhat felt inappropriate for him to go off-tangent. It felt inappropriate because we were alone. And I have no idea if he was thinking the same. But I remember he kind of giggled when I asked him a stupid question. I was playing dumb, and he was playing the Smart Intelligent Man who was teaching me something. It was so hot, to me. I gave him so much eye contact (obviously without making it weird). I was flirting with someone. That’s what I was doing. 

I remember leaving home early that day and listening to all the giddy pop songs.

Truthfully, I got very little done that week. The sexual tension was so distracting.

But it’s so fucking hot to be desperately wanted by someone. J will never feel those feelings for me again. 

It was when I got a call during a workshop and he was paying attention to my person, and asked me who it was.

It was when he asked me to change “N” to “&”, and my mind went blank, as I couldn’t calculate what the fuck “andpersand” meant.

It was when he was uttering to himself that nobody had any idea how hard I was working, saying this aloud, in front of me. Internally I was like “hey, it’s just a project. I’m fine”. Why was he so comfortable sharing his inner monologue? Is/was he like this with everyone? Why hasn’t anyone else done this with me? Am I going crazy?

What I have for J started off so intense and strong. And I absolutely still have affection for him. But we come home. He goes on his phone. He hates the weekends. He plays video games. I feel disconnected. He’s craving for an escape as well. Not from each other, but from the monotony of it all. 

P would put his life at risk for me, he wouldn’t.

I’m 28. Turning the bend on 30. 

I went on a family vacation in March. It was a baptism. I was essentially dreading the trip leading up to it. I just tend to cloak upcoming things that potentially cause me anxiety with shimmer of potential disappoint, so I don’t actually get disappointed. Sometimes it works. This time, for whatever reason, nothing really triggered my anxiety. If anything, it was an absolutely rejuvenating trip. I flew out on a Thursday and came back on a Wednesday, right to work. I felt quite proud of myself, because my anxiety is always sort of lurking in the back of my mind.

From March to mid-May, I felt content. The days drained down the sink and I was just coasting. 

I have had bouts of limerence before. But it’s never been this... present.

I was tasked to work on a 2 week intensive project with people outside of my department. One of them was P. I had met P before in some reoccurring update meetings. Insert thought: It’s not that interesting, but I often think about the time before... before I knew him. How I never thought about him. How a radar for him in my mind didn’t exist. And now it does and I wonder when it will go away.

Anyway, I nominated P to be the lead. In our previous meetings, he had expressed interest in leading one of these projects. I guess, like most of the things in life that tend to rock me in some capacity, it was all of my own devising. I’m a bit of a mastermind.

The first day or two, I simply, hmm, he’s kind of tall. And has a good head of hair. But more importantly, he was smart. There was an air of domineerance to him. Maybe it is all imaginary, but it stuck with me. Maybe it’s how he gave security the hardest time as he was trying to get thru. Maybe it was his mannerisms. I honestly don’t know.

The first meeting was when it really started. We presented our project scope with the stakeholders. I was sort of guiding him and his co-lead, but I vividly remember one of the stakeholders questioning us on something. I started somewhat confidently responding to his question, and I looked at P, the lead, for some reassurance, and he just immediately looked down at his lap. I then further elaborated and answered the question, satisfying the stakeholder. 

I was so stunned. I mean, OK OK, breaking eye contact can mean a million different things. Other men don’t often break eye contact with me, with maybe exception of another coworker... Maybe he was on drugs. Maybe he was tired. He was nervous.. this engineer who clearly knows a thing or two about a thing or two. Why the fuck would he be? 

And then the thought popped into my head.. what if he finds me attractive?

I’m a short, skinny brunette with long hair and doe-eye brown eyes. I guess, of course he would be? 

But more importantly, who cares if he finds me attractive? It’s such an un-interesting thought... 

I just watched the movie Secretary (2002) with James Spader and Maggie Gyllenhaal, and geez, that movie really nailed eroticism. 

I can’t help but have a flashback to the first time I felt eroticism in the flesh. I was freaking fourteen years old (I don’t know how to feel about THAT), and I was at my moving away sleepover. My best friends at the time invited their 2 best guy friends. I remember the whole thing being exhilarating, partly because my friend lived in a mansion, but also because boys were now in our party. 

The first hour was awkward. Or maybe it was just the first 15 min. I remember being drawn to Sebastian the most though. He made a joke, and I was the only one who sincerely laughed at it. 

We moved the party to the den, and I took a seat next to him on the couch. I remember thinking it would be pretty daring to sit right next to him, but I was feeling forward. I didn’t want Kaley to sit next to him. I wanted him for myself.

So we took photos, talked about Ke$ha, talked about movies, and I remember feeling very confident in his presence. I guess I was a bit awkward, but still charming at that age. I was saying words and making people laugh. 

Eventually it was just me and Sebastian on the couch. He was sitting with his two feet planted on the ground to my right. I was curled up on the couch, sort of sitting on my legs and I noticed that my knees were in contact with his sides, perpendicularly. 

He has his hand on his thigh, as one would. Out of nowhere, he moves over his hand closer to my knees, and starts to gently rub my knees repeatedly with his thumb. Tracing a circular pattern on them. He continued conversations with others, but there he kept his hand. We didn’t acknowledge it. 

Completely stunned, I had encountered the rush that all those pop songs euphemized. I didn’t want him to leave. I didn’t want to have sex, then, of course. But he did something that completely floored me. I think he knew it too.

I never saw him in person again. Over the course of 7 years, he’d contact me once out of the year to say hello. Maybe for a 2 week period when I was 16, the flirt-texting was a bit more forceful. He now has a gorgeous girlfriend, lives that THC enlightened life, and I think of him fondly. 

I can only imagine what the boys who were playing Lite Dating Me must have felt like when the only notification they received of me not being so single and actually being in a Official relationship with a Real Person must have felt like. 

I mean, I know I’m not the only fish in the sea. But I’ve been that girl. I’ve been the girl on the other-side, getting the status of her relationship thru a notification of Facebook. It’s just so strange that I did something that I had been done to before, knowing what a sucky feeling it must be. Not only that, but that I’m even being proudly coveted. By a 2 in 1 package. An actual hottie. Chris Pratt’s doppelganger.

Even my bff Wyatt expressed a simpatico feeling in the beginning. I remember Wyatt being like, “OMG. Wait you actually have a boyfriend?? Congrats!! Like I thought this would never happen for you!!!!” kind of deal. And it was true.

No, it wasn’t true that I would never be in a relationship or find someone who was good for me.

It just absolutely terrifies me that I may have found A One within the span of a week. It’s been a literal week, and I already know about his darkest moments. He’s dark. He’s so deliciously dark, but this is the first day in 5 days where I’ve been alone with myself and I’m scatterbrained.  I could go back to a lifestyle of me wishing, wishing, waiting, wishing, and explore more personalities.