Um, It's Complicated.

This was not a post I originally planned on writing. It is not directly about my weird life. This post is because of the conversation I had with Camel, when I realized that most people don’t actually know how to respond to someone when they are suicidal. Let me share my knowledge, with the caveat that this advice may not apply to everyone. This is general advice, not specific to any unique situations. I am a licensed therapist, so some of this advice comes from that training. Because I know that most people are not licensed therapists, a lot of the advice actually comes from a Question, Persuade, Refer suicide prevention program that I was trained in during undergraduate... which is something that anyone can be trained in, not just people in the mental health field. 

I sent some dirty snaps this morning while I was showering, including to Falcon. We were teasing each other, and talking about our date tonight. He said the teasing made him want to come over at lunch. I said I wouldn’t be opposed to that. So he did. We attacked each other as soon as he got here. 

I stayed home Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. At first I was waiting to see if Falcon would be free, so was putting off making plans for at least until Thursday afternoon. I was also exhausted from getting to sleep at 2am and starting work at 8, and was planning to at least take a nap after work. Then I had several strange things happen that day. 

Ferret texted me. He had been taking like 3 days to respond to me. The last interaction was I had sent him something while I was drunk Saturday night, woke up the next morning and deleted it before he saw it, then he replied saying something about “missing a lot”. I said “yeah ignore that, moment of weakness” and he said “I like that”. I was like um, that’s confusing, “Like me having a moment of weakness?” and he goes, “Yeah, if it gets you texting me”. Excuse me sir, but I believe you are the one holding up these interactions. So I yelled a bit. I told him, “Dude. I’m easy. Literally just give me attention.” and gave him a speech about how I don’t work this hard for sex, literally ever. Sex is easy. If he wanted me to talk to him, then he could try harder. I’m done. He can chase me. And he said, “Yes ma’am 😈”. And then did??? He spent the next couple of days texting and snapping me like pretty often, including dirty snaps, and completely being the one chasing me. He hasn’t yet asked to actually meet, so we’ll see how that goes, but for now it’s fun to have the power back. 

Then I sent a dirty picture to Scorpion and asked if he wanted to play. He asked what that entailed, and I said, “Flirting and pictures?” He said “I would love to flirt with you”. Then later, he says that he really should give me more attention. I agree with him. THEN he says that he is now willing to come over???? He still wants Raven to be gone which is totally fair, I do too, but like omg. What. What changed?? He says I should let him know the next time I’m home alone.

Tuesday night I went to the gym, then stayed home. I had some blogging to get caught up on, so I worked on that. 

Wednesday night is normally date night with Falcon. This Wednesday, I canceled on him. To hang out with Jaguar instead. To be fair, it was Jaguar’s birthday, and he wasn’t going to celebrate in any way. His family basically forgot about his birthday too, because his dad got married over the weekend. He said the wedding was fun, but he was planning to just spend the week getting caught up on work. I said that it was really shitty that his family forgot, and really important for him to celebrate his birthday this year, because of all the shitty things he’s been through in the last year. I said that if he decided he could spare the time away from work, I would love to do something with him. 

So that’s how on this particular Wednesday, I ended up at an arcade bar with Jaguar instead of at my house with Falcon. I did let Falcon know I was free any other day between Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday - but of course those are all his other date nights, and he didn’t say that any of those nights would work. It’ll just be two weeks until I see him again then. I did let him know why I was canceling, and he said it was fine, but also texted me saying he hoped the “party” was fun. This was very much a date and not a party, so maybe I didn’t explain it that well. 

Anyways, Jaguar. This makes date #3 with him. We meet at the bar, get drinks, chat, and play games. I’m not that great at arcade games, but I did decently well at the shooting games. He wanted to play in the air hockey tournament, so I watched that while he was playing. We sat outside by the fire and played some cornhole. I also slayed it in skeeball - no idea where that came from. After spending several hours at the bar, it’s time to leave. He kind of half asked if I wanted to go back to his house, but said he didn’t want to stay up super late, and didn’t want to ask me to come back just for sex. I said, “Why not?” So he invited me back to his place. 

Saturday night, Coyote invited me to a disco party at her friend’s apartment. We spent the afternoon on the phone getting ready together. Then I picked her up, and we went out to dinner on the way to the party. Coyote had said she only knew a couple of people who would be at this party, and one of them she really wanted to be better friends with. She also said she wanted to hook up with someone in the bathroom, and that she was going to tell the party host that was her plan. She’s just as wild as I am, I think that’s why we get along. 

The party was a couple of towns over, but I knew we would be there super late, so my plan was to just drink hard and fast, then be sober by the time we had to leave. So I was just drinking straight fireball, right out of one of those flask-sized bottles. I did end up being pretty trashed, for a fairly brief period of time. Coyote was in the back room dancing. I personally hate 70s music, so I was flitting around the party just introducing myself and making friends. Everyone looked so fabulous. I tried to make sure I spoke to pretty much everyone, since the only person I knew at the whole party was Coyote. There’s a very blurry middle section to this party, where I remember talking to several people and remember most names. I started having clearer memories when I was sitting down on the couch, having a very intense conversation with someone. She and I talked for a long time, and I asked if she wanted to hold hands. So we were just sitting there having this deep conversation and holding hands. Then someone else walks up, and I asked her if she wanted to hold hands too. So she joined our conversation, standing next to us, and everyone holding hands. Then another girl comes and sits on the other side of me. I have a moment of drunken perplexity, because I couldn’t figure out how to hold hands with her too. The girl who was standing says it’s okay, she could have that hand, she did not need to hold hands. So I switch to holding hands with the girl on my other side. We end up talking a bit - my drunk brain does not remember what about. 

We had spoken a bit earlier in the evening, and connected on a few points. She’s a nurse, from Florida, and hispanic. I was talking to her about my accident and showing her some of my scars, as well as talking about my recovery. We talked about part of my family being hispanic too. 

I think what happened is I asked for her phone number, because I was definitely putting my number in her phone. I said we had to take a picture for her contact photo, so I held up my phone to take a picture, and she kissed me. So that’s totally her contact photo now. 

Now up until this point, I have not been having good dates with women. I was genuinely starting to wonder if I’m bisexual but heteroromantic, or less bisexual than I think that I am. It turns out I just wasn’t connecting with the right people. It’s the same thing that happened to me before I met Falcon - wondering if I was dead inside because I just wasn’t feeling anything for anyone. 

There was an instant click. We ended up making out on the couch, at some point with me fully straddling her. I suggest that we venture into the spare room. There were two bedrooms, but only one bathroom, so I thought going to the spare room was more appropriate than the one bathroom. We sneak off into the room and fool around. And it was great. At some point, her friends interrupt us, because they are getting ready to go. So we try our best to gather up all our clothes and accessories and get put back together. I lost an earring and a bracelet, but she ended up leaving basically everything there - including her phone. She had to get it all back later. 

I came out of the room, and Coyote is furious. She’s also piss drunk. She’s mad that she had to hear from other people that I was in there hooking up with someone, and says that it was disrespectful. I pointed out that she said she was going to hook up with someone in the bathroom. She’s just drunk and unreasonable at this point, so I decided to just sit on the couch and let her cool off, and wait to leave. I’m pretty sober at that point, and it’s getting late. People are starting to trickle out. Eventually, it's just the two of us, the host of the party, and one other person. Coyote is not getting the hint that they are ready for her to leave, so we have some small talk and I work on gently leading her towards the door. There's some minor resistance, and we finally leave. 

We are in the elevator when she asks if she can kiss me. I said yes, and she does. It was actually a really good kiss. We've had some drunken arguments before because she's wanted to make out, and I told her no because she's not a good kisser. It's been a long time since we kissed, and I did not expect it to be that good. 

We get out to the car, and she's still mad at me. I ask if she's actually mad, or if she's jealous. And, if she's jealous, is she jealous because I hooked up with someone and she didn't, or because she wanted to be the one hooking up with me. She denies being jealous, but also basically says she wants to have sex with me because I'm hot and skinny again. But then she doesn't remember kissing me literally 5 minutes ago, and accuses me of gaslighting her about that. So we get into this huge blow up in the car on the way back. It's 3:30 in the morning, she's trashed, and I'm driving us the half hour back to her house with music blasting so loud that neither of us could hear the other talk. Luckily my car has all kinds of automated driving features, so this wasn't as scary as it sounds (another reason I drove was to take my car). 

Thursday night, I went to a line dancing class with my work bestie.  It was hard, but fun. I definitely have some physical limitations with things like jumping, or being on one leg for too long. I remember like half of two of the three dances that we learned. We planned to go dancing Friday night to either the same place, where we can hopefully practice our new line dancing skills, or to the club I was at last weekend. 

Date night with Falcon tonight. Well…I fucking told him everything. I’ve been obsessing again. This time, what’s the word for someone that’s more than a partner but less than a comet? And what’s the threshold for each? Obviously I do not have the same threshold for considering someone a partner as he does, because at least two people he’s dating, I wouldn’t call partners. I asked him about it. The word for an in between person, btw, is satellite. He asked me if it would make me feel better if he referred to me as a satellite instead of a partner. I said no, Falcon, you’re missing the point. I don’t want to BE a satellite. I want more. He said he thought he was practicing egalitarian poly, where everyone is on equal ground. He said he hadn’t thought about how he wasn’t, until I pointed it out. He said that no one is less important than anyone else, to him. I said I feel less important. Just because we are equal to him doesn’t negate how we feel. He also said I’m the only one who’s asking for more. Not exactly like that, but close enough. I’m the only one who feels like I’m not getting enough of him, or who isn’t happy with what they are getting, I guess. 

I also told him what the last few weeks have been like for me. How when we are together, everything is perfect, and there’s literally nothing that I would change. Then I have to go a week without seeing him, and across that week I slowly start questioning things more and more, until by the next week I’m ready to break up with him. Then he walks in, sticks his tongue down my throat, and everything is good again; and I can’t imagine how I was ever thinking of ending it. He doesn’t like the idea of upsetting me to that extent, but also isn’t willing to do anything to change it. He asked what he could do, and I said he wasn’t willing, because he’d already said no to the things I’d suggested - actually texting me during the week, or giving me more time. 

He’s still hearing me, and I’m still making him think. Both of those are good things. But so far he isn’t making any changes either. I’m not prepared to make a decision yet. I have lingering questions that I’m trying very hard not to ask. I can’t help but wonder if #5 is there at his house when he gets home from my date nights. I don’t think I want to know. I think if it’s a yes that I absolutely will break up with him. I don’t know why he can go home to #1 but not #5, I guess because #1 was there first, and they were living together already? Where #5 it feels like she took my place? Last time I really, really wondered if that was why he left earlier than usual. I also want to know why #5 gets so much extra time, gets to be at his house most nights, and why she gets Saturday as date night, when the rest of us have to deal with a week day. Saturday would have always worked better for me, but I never would have asked for it because it seems unfair to everyone else. 

Monday night I had a date with a new boy. He’s also younger, another 25 year old. We had been talking for a few days, and had good banter around board game challenges. I invited him over to my house to play board games. Raven was going to be home, but he would be in his room playing d&d with his friends online, so I figured that would be fine. 

Saturday night, I had a date with a new girl. What’s super interesting, is that Falcon actually dated her about two years ago. I was trying to show him messages from somebody else, when he saw her on my list of matches. He told me what happened with her, and that it didn’t end well. He said that she was in a really toxic relationship at the time, and he opened up to her, and then she ghosted him. I told her that I am currently dating Falcon, and she basically said, “Oh no, I can explain…” She said basically the same story as what he did, and added that she’s no longer in that toxic relationship, and her current relationship is the healthiest she’s ever had. She also reached out to Falcon and apologized. He was surprised by that. Both of them never expected to hear of each other ever again. 

So I went out with her. I knew from her pictures that, again, there was a chance I wouldn’t be attracted to her in person. And I knew immediately that I wasn’t. We had been texting for weeks, so that’s always disappointing. I figured we could at least chat and get to know each other, and see if there was anything there. Maybe we could be friends too. We met at this weird bar downtown. It has a sort of 80s video games theme to it, and from the outside it seemed cool. There was loud but fun music. Once inside, the vibes were SUPER weird. It was mostly older people, many of them drunkenly dancing on the dance floor - which is in front of the window to the street. We had one drink there and decided it was weird, we were moving on. I told her that I had the goal of going UP. There was a rooftop bar at a hotel about two blocks away, so we head over there. I had driven down that road looking for parking, and saw some kind of light tunnel on the way, and I wanted to do that too. The light tunnel had music synced to the lights, and it was fun to walk through it. We went to the rooftop bar and got drinks there, and sat outside in the cold. The view was great. You could see a lot of downtown, and we could see that on the lawn of some important building below us, there was a giant ornament made out of lights that you could step inside. We went down there next, and took some pictures. Then we went to the queer bar, which we had walked past as we were going through the light tunnel. They were having a drag show that night, so we did shots and watched the show. The show was okay, and they had some dancing afterwards, but the music was a little bit low vibes. So we decided to leave there too. There was a hidden speakeasy within another bar a few blocks away that I wanted to try, so we headed there instead. Since it was a Saturday night, they had a doorman in front of the speakeasy, so it wasn’t exactly hidden. They also didn’t have any room for anyone else. But the bar outside the speakeasy? Had a DJ playing classic millennial dance songs. So we stayed out there and joined the dance party. We stayed at that bar for quite a while. Then we went to one more bar to wind down before calling it a night. 

I've been trying to figure out why I was so emotional the last two days, so I looked up the moon phase. Tonight is a full moon. It's about letting go and moving on, moving forward without baggage, cleansing. I have an irresistibly strong urge to get naked and get in water under the moonlight. I text a few people asking if they know of anywhere I can go do that. Coyote was the person I thought would know, but she doesn't. I can't think of anyone I know with a pool or hot tub. On a whim, I text Jaguar. I thought he might just say no and think I was a little out there. Instead he says, “Best question I have heard in a long time! I'd love to go if you find somewhere". Then about 20 minutes later, he texts back with an idea. There’s a lake nearby that has a campground. Yes, perfect. We make plans to go together. 

Honestly I just completely lost my fucking mind with this full moon. I am a very outdoorsy person. I’m from the north and have real winter gear. I was nowhere near as prepared as I should have been, because all I could think was naked-water-moonlight. So that’s how, a few hours later, I ended up at a campsite in the woods with a boy I’ve met exactly once. And it was literally the most magical evening.

He brought way too much stuff given we had to hike into this campsite, so we had to take a few trips back and forth to the cars. But on the other hand, I brought exactly as much as I could carry in one trip, and I maybe should have been better prepared. It was a low of 34F that night. I had some warm clothes, extra layers, and two sleeping bags. He brought an extra hat, socks, and jacket for me - which was just so sweet and thoughtful.

The campsite wasn’t right on the water, so we had to walk down a hill through the woods a bit to get to the water. Jaguar was so cute and found a sturdy branch I could use as a walking stick, to help me down the hill. We got down to the water, and it was pretty obvious there was no way for us to get into the water. We would need to either wade through about 20 feet of sticks, leaves, and muck; or walk down further and hop off about a 5 foot drop off into the shallow water. Neither of us was confident that I would be able to get out of either situation, so instead we just stood next to the water under the moonlight. None of the trees had any leaves on them, and the sky was almost perfectly clear. The moonlight was so bright, the water still, and everything was mystical. You could taste the magic in the air. We stood near the water and talked for over an hour, until we got cold and decided to go build a fire. 

He built the fire, and made some sausages. We stood around the fire and talked some more. We both just kept looking up at the moon through the trees. It was so surreal. Occasionally a plane would fly overhead, and break the spell for a minute. We talked about how that moon was about letting go and moving on. I had several things I needed to process still - the situations with Deer and Scorpion primarily. We talked about that and he said essentially the exact same things as what Dick Pics said, which was comforting to get the same perspective again. We talked about what he wanted to let go of, and he said he still has feelings for his ex. We also had just random conversation, like if we were any other mammal, what would we be? I said I would want to be a big jungle cat, like a jaguar, because I wanted to go to places humans never go, and to tear and shred my food with my teeth. He said that was a great answer, and told me about how he worked at a wildlife rehab in the jungle for a while, and they had jaguars. He said they were terrifying and so cool. We talked about how tonight was exactly what we both needed. It felt right. Like I was exactly where I was supposed to be. The right place, at the right time, with the right person. It felt peaceful. I felt present. It’s the strongest and clearest I’ve ever felt that I was right where I was supposed to be. It felt really good, to follow this crazy instinct, and to end up there.

We got into the tent at around 1 or 2 in the morning. It was cold, so we each put on several extra layers. Then we ended up taking a few of them off each other, and playing around in the cold. He made kind of a roaring noise while kissing my neck, and I laughed and asked him what that was. He said, “A jaguar”. 

I had this summer job back in college. It was full time, decent pay, and relatively easy work - it was great. There was a consistent group of people that I would work with each summer, too. One of these was a boy. We’ll call him Dick Pics - because that’s what all my friends know him as. 

It is wild to me that when you’re totally open, show all your cards, lay everything out on the table - men think you’re being manipulative. 

Emotions. Are. Not. A. Bad. Thing.

Feel Recklessly.

Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about manipulation, playing games, and communication. I’ve looked into books like How to Win Friends and Influence People, Why Men Love Bitches, and things like that. All the reviews say exactly what I expected - that these are just books on how to learn tactics to manipulate people into doing what you want. I could read them, learn the skills, and probably have people give me what I want from them. But I don’t want to do that. I want to be me, and have people like that. I like who I am.

I was flirting with Scorpion, and something got twisted. He got mad and called me manipulative. After what happened with Deer, it really hit me kind of hard. I did some self reflection to see if I really was being manipulative. I got some feedback from friends. My work bestie said she sees how what I said could have been taken as being manipulative, but she doesn’t think I was intending it that way. 

What happened is that I’ve been trying to meet up with Scorpion since basically the day we started talking. He has roommates, so I can’t go there, and isn’t comfortable coming to my house if Raven is home - all fair. But even if I can orchestrate time alone in my house, it turns out he is too anxious to come over. I was asking about his anxiety and trying to understand it more, trying to see what I could do to help him work through it. He went from saying that I couldn’t do anything and saying I’m “literally perfect” to calling me manipulative. We didn’t talk for a few days, then I reached out and apologized. Work bestie helped me figure out how to handle that, and what exactly to say to him. We didn’t talk for a few more days, but then I wanted attention and reached out again. We are on good terms again, he responds to my messages or snaps, but we haven’t scheduled any time to meet.

Falcon came over tonight. He walked in, said a brief hello to the dogs, then grabbed me and stuck his tongue down my throat. 

Everything is literally perfect when we are together. We have all the chemistry. We have good, deep conversations. We connect on so many levels - mentally, physically, emotionally. Our love languages align. We challenge each other, and we can do that because we are so comfortable with each other. I don't want to give that up.