who the bleep. it's all in the nature of a hook up and how they tend to pattern out from the moment of matching.
it goes somethign like this: on my profile i roundabout say that is all i want. i match wtih say 10 girls a weekend. 7 of them don't want that so they unmatch or usually say "oh, i didn't read your profile, but good luck!". but one is bored and it does fit her needs at that moment in time. so i normally message nad they will say something like "i am in a similar situation. recently divorced. can't be arsed with men at the moment." or "hi, similar situation, i am seperated, going through divorce, but could use some company now and then". so we meet. we go to a bar. or they invite me round after more chatting either on the phone or on text. and if there is a connection, sex will follow. so there's a lead in. it's not just turn up and screw. i couldn't do that! ever! no matter how nice the woman. so it's like a date but because you have both seen what each other are after, sex becomes a very real outcome.not always, but often. simple as that. so you can have incredibly flirty, connected, meaningful nights. it's not just a shallow exchange of bodily fluid. but neither of you are in a position to start a relationship so you're kinda of "having a relationship for one night".
Thanks Dee! We definitely should hook up :D lol pmsl
Here’s the thing. I got betrayed horrifically. Horrifically. Largely remorseless. He was taller, bigger (the male equivalent of the leggy blonde with big boobs). I pictured her wrapped up in his stronger, bigger arms – I am saying this because this was at the root of the sexual trauma that came with betrayel. The reducing of my own sexuality to a laughing stock. For a year I couldn’t even think about women. I could barely even think straight.
But after a year, after a year of meditation, journaling, therapy. I returned to baseline, roughly, in a roundabout way – I thought of it less and less. I felt I had a handle on what went wrong in the marriage, what I did wrong, what she did wrong. I had largely forgiven her – but only in a sense that I wished her no harm, that I wished her in fact happiness, I am not sure if that is true forgiveness, but it feels enough, for now. This was largely because she respected my boundaries after DD and gave me space, no small talk, we are coparents, no more no less. We have barely spoke a word other than kids and finance in two years. I asked for this, a week after leaving. She respected it. And it has helped me incredibly.
So after a year I started to get the hots for people again. A couple of times a day I would have the usual being spell bound by a woman’s beauty, could be a girl on the train, could be someone I pass at work. The usual pang of the heart and whispers of lust. Seeing the way their hair fell, the shape of the hips, lol – that tunnel vision that is part of the male mind etc.
But I was only a year out. And I knew deep deep within that not giving myself at least another year of having only myself to think about, and to still deal with the very real fragments of trauma I carried would be cutting myself short – simply put, I would be miserable in a relationship and it wouldn’t be fair to the other, at all.
So, there I was, on one hand wanting to be single, on the other getting my “mojo” back.
A trap!
So I talked it through with my therapist and mainly women friends at work (not sure why, but I have found it easier talking to them about this stuff, at least initially. I think they were more open to it, would ask more questions about it, would actually pull up a chair and listen). And all agreed, therapist, friends, that I needed to “keep things casual” if I was to enter the dating world again. I didn’t have a fucking clue. Didn’t know where to start with that. But I remembered how a lot of Zen Buddhists (a practice I am very familiar) say to go with desire, to run with it as much as possible, to have no OPPOSITION to it. To allow it into awareness, not necessarily act on it of course, but to bring it fully into consciousness and explore it. The idea in the end is integration. The shadow has light cast over it. You accept a part of yourself that is normally cut off, denied, argued with, or felt shame about.
So that’s what I did, and I think this was what my therapist meant when she initially advised on my profile. She saw, i think looking back, though didn't say it outright, that a few years of celibacy and “self control” was perhaps the last thing someone who had been so horrifically betrayed needed.
So I decided after signing up on the apps to be absolutely honest. My first message was ALWAYS “free tonight?” nothing else. Not even hi! I wanted to follow my own sexuality, and for it not to be tied up in the idea of second dates, or texting “how was your day” the next day, but to just allow the sexual energy that had been so brutally belittled to find its way into concviousness with no opposition. No “nice guy” veneer.
so the implicit dynamic was Lets met up, if we connect, lets have sex. And to my amazement, like some weird law of attraction, I was meeting women who just wanted the same. I treated the dates as a play of sexual energy, instead of a play of “this could be my next girlfriend”. Profound and some of the hottest experiences of my life. i mean really totally and utterly awash with sexual hotness, from start to finish, wiht the sex itself only being a small part of it.
Sorry for ranting about this. It has felt like a dirty little secret for a while, a 40 year old man with 2 kids (i have them half hte week) driving across London at 2am to fulfil his needs. I don’t talk about it to anyone other than a few mates. So SI has been a nice space for me to explore what happened. And I do feel far better integrated sexually. There is nothing quite like desiring and being desired, especially after what I have been through. Nothing quite like getting to know a stranger you fancy the pants off , have connected with, and knowing there's a very real change that you’re both there to let yourselves go in a few hours time. Even for just one night.
I am actually taking a break from “dating” and hookups for a while because I just want to be man about town for a while. If I meet a nice gal along the way and fall madly in love, so be it. There’s no rush after 9 years of marriage and the brutality of betrayal.
certainly not for everyone. certainly a mindfield of boundaries and being safe (even for a man - catfishing, crazy folk, robbery etc), but i certainly feel it's been overall positive and if i am between relationships again, it's something i would be open too.
i sound obsessed. i am not. it's been nice. its been nice writing about it. good luck everyone.
[This message edited by puffstuff at 1:22 PM, July 7th (Wednesday)]
