speakingintothedarkness

[speakingintothedarkness]

update

No one reads this, but I feel like I need to make some updates. This stupid blog was such an important part of my development and self realization and it has been... an eventful 2 years. to say the least.

So. I'm out as a trans woman. At least to my family and friends. Friends doing great with it, family... doing their best. Their best sucks, but they're trying.

I've been in gender therapy for a year and on HRT for five months now. Still trying to work up the nerve to really go outside as myself, but I've changed my name on all social media

It only really took a couple of sessions of therapy for me to unravel the whole "I must be genderqueer/nonbinary" and see it for the defense mechanism it was. I'm not saying its that for everyone. Liz her/aerself turned out to be genderfluid nonbinary and I love her and ae are valid. But for me, it was just a way to try to hide my insecurities over how I'd look as a girl

And the truth is... I am not all that bad. I still need to get rid of a lot of facial and body hair (an ongoing process) and my shoulders are a bit on the broad side but.... I have curves now. And. I have always had a talent for manipulating my voice and it turns out, it's not all that hard for me to pitch up and make my voice sound much more feminine.

So yeah a lot of changes. This week has been... rough, which reminded me of this blog's existence but seeing where I left things, I couldn't just start complaining about jury summons or my mom's apparent inability to gender me correctly, without acknowledging that in a lot of really important ways my life has gotten much better. I couldn't even have the problems I have now without the progress I've made. And that is beautiful, to me.

[speakingintothedarkness]

Old Memes and Memories

Hnn.... It’s been a while. 

Still with Liz. Briefly dated a trans girl long distance over teh interwebs but it went downhill. 

Still... grappling with gender, even though I’m way more comfortable with being not-cis than I was last time we talked about this, dear internet. 

I read a thing today. Its keeping me awake, and I have this weird feeling that if I tried to talk to anyone about it, it’d come off as... either inscrutible, offensive, or both.

Ugh it’s embarassing really. Fucking Homestuck. I know, what is this 2015? But seriously I had read that entire trashfire of a webcomic when it was being released and I only just learned about the epilogues so I figured I’d read that. 

It’s a bit weird. Go figure, right? Hussie is a weird dude who leans into his weirdness even harder than Dan Shive does. The entire thing is framed around a dichotemy, a choice that one character makes and all the action that follows comes from that choice. You get to make that choice for that character, but the story only really makes sense if you do it both ways. And, perhaps typically, even though this is the epilogue to a vast spanning story, somehow it’s not even really about tying up the loose ends. In fact, it leaves you with more than you started. The antagonist of the epilogue isn’t even the villain that was built up throughout the run of the comic and then never directly addressed. 

But that’s not what’s bothering me. What’s bothering me is, of course, the trans question. 

In one of the two branching timelines, a character comes out as trans. In that timeline, he is given time to examine his gender with an understanding partner and winds up deciding on a full transition to being male. 

...but in the other timeline, the same character winds up being married to a straight dude and remains a woman, has kids and basically... goes as straight cis as she can. And its really hard to say which version of them is happier in the end. A bunch of shit goes terribly for both versions (either/both ways, this was not a happily ever after for pretty much anyone involved), but both versions wind up soliloquizing about how they struggled with their gender and are happy with where they wound up. 

This... is a thing that as a tran myself I know I’m supposed to be foaming at the mouth over. Implying that trans is a thing you can choose to be, implying that, if things had gone differently you might wish to not be what you are, even if specifically asked about it... these are cardinal sins. 

And certainly for some people, they’ve known on some level who they were their entire life. But... I am not one of them. I can point to the exact moments in time that pushed me towards this self-realization, three sentences that various people have said to me, and two life-decisions that culminated in me being forced to examine what all this meant. So I guess since I can’t sleep and this is a self-indulgent exercise to begin with, it’s mOtHerFuKiNg StOrY tImE hOnK! 

The first moment that led me down this road, the point that planted the first proto-seed of thought about my gender in my mind was, perhaps predictably, about a game. In this case a long-standing DnD game I’d played with my OC friends in the early days of my relationship with C before she decided she hated them and didn’t want me to spend time with them and that’s own fucking rabbit hole. 

In our game, our characters had become so intrinsically involved in the politics of the nation our game was set in, that we realized that going on adventures was irresponsible and might cause irreparable harm to the world. So rather than end the game, we statted up our characters’ children. To make things interesting, we randomized who got who. To my (at the time) mild dismay, I drew a girl, When I showed the others my slip of paper with the name “Tamora” written on it, one of my friends snorted “God, it’ll be hard to imagine you playing a princess.” And it.... stung. It hurt in a  way I’d never before experienced. My first brush with a now all-too-familiar sense of dysphoria. As if there were a part of me I’d never before examined that had its ego crushed. I don’t remember how I responded. 

Thing is, I played Tamora like a fucking champ. And no one ever made another comment about me playing a girl. I think I’d proven that I could convincingly play any role I wanted to. 

Which brings us to the second sentence. I’ve talked about this here before, a friend on an online game admitting to me that the gender of her character did not align with the one she was assigned at birth. It was both shocking and enticing. In a way its laughable now (we’ll probably get around to why) but at the time, I just sorta assumed that... I’d be able to tell? And S was...  she was as female and feminine as anyone I’d ever met. I’d never wondered for an instant. 

And those two things... those two moments. The pang of hurt, the desire to be perceived as a girl; and the sudden realization that there was a venue where that might be possible. That lead me to make the first of those life choices: creating a female character, deliberately this time, and dive into her so thoroughly that there were times where I was’t sure where she ended and I began. 

Things got a bit weird in all this. I mean, people asked me questions about myself ooc and I would answer as if I were a girl. Hell  I even gave myself a name in all that. Karen, if you can believe it. Its not the name I’m currently using. Who the fuck would name themselves Karen in 2018-19 right? 

But ultimately none of that really mattered, I’d so thoroughly compartmentalized my brain throughout all this that barely anything of my character in the Game leaked into my real life or vice versa. For all intents and purposes, “Karen” who played the game and the me who did everything else were two entirely separate people. 

And yet some of it must have seeped through because C noticed. Or at least, I’m pretty sure she did. She knew I was playing the Game, but I never talked about my character or her gender. She knew that that rp involved romantic and sexual subplots, but I never discussed them with her, nor she her own sex-rp’s with me. It was a sorta tacit polyamory with very specific confines that we’d agreed to in a purely theoretical sense some years back and then adhered to rigidly in practice while determiniedly never talking about it. 

But for all the fucked up shit, she knew me well, maybe better than anyone other than Liz has. I mean, we were a couple of woke 20-somethings in the Obama era, so lgbt issues were pretty forefront at the time. Guess they still are, we were just a lot more... hopeful about it. But she kept sending me articles about trans people. Like, human interest articles. 

There was one in specific that she got really... enthusiastic about, about this one trans-woman’s journey to self-discovery through WoW. C read part of the article to me out loud, culminating when the person in the article was confronted by her wife: “You can be a girl if you want to be”. She kinda repeated that a couple times, looking at me hard. And in retrospect, yeah, it wasn’t fucking subtle. But at the time... it was not a thing I was willing to examine. Like fuck, honestly I think there was a part of me that knew. I mean there had to be at that point, right? But I didn’t want to pursue it irl. I think I made up my mind that it would be something I’d approach the same time that I approached the poly question that was inevitably hanging over C and I at that same time: after we were married. So I just nodded and went “Huh, interesting” with a straight face as my at-the-time girlfriend all but told me that if I wanted to come out to her, she’d be okay with it. 

Never got a chance to see if she really would have been.

After we broke up, all this shit got put so far back on the back burner that... well hell, go back and read my first few posts if you have the fortitude to stand a lot of bitching. Like way more than I’m doing now. 

And I mean the funny thing was I was still playing the Game I just sorta figured that once... I got another girlfriend, that’d have to stop? That who and what I was in the game would stop mattering. Because I was monogamous right? Just like I was male and straight, and the fact that my character was none of those things meant that I’d have to put her out to pasture. So it didn’t matter that I’d been playing a lesbian ethical slut for the past five, six years, because once I was in another sanctioned cishet relationship, I’d have to put all this foolishness behind me and never speak of it to anyone ever again. 

Goddess alone knows if I even could have but I would have tried. I suspect it would have gone badly.

Instead... by almost comicallly random happenstance, I wound up with a poly girl. And after some initial winging about whether or not I wanted that, a part of my brain I’d been ignoring went, “Hey dumbfuck! You never cared when A--- slept around or when E--- was in another relationship, why should it matter to you that CR has a boyfriend?” 

And the rest of my brain took a second to process that and was like “E--- and A--- weren’t involved with me irl, only my character in the game.” 

And the first part was like “Oh yeah, smart girl, if that wasn’t a thing you wanted on some level than how come you fucking jumped into it with both feet in the game?”

And the rest of me rejoined rejoined, “I suppose you have a p--wait! smart girl?”

“Oh yeah, that’s a thing too. You probably better process that because this whole fucking thing is tied together like a goddamn giftbasket of deviancy. Good luck having anything resembling a normal life once you’re done untangling it”

And at that point there was no turning back. I’ve dragged my feet certainly, not... as much out of a sense of general reluctance as a bunch of worries about how my family (who I’m still reliant upon) will take it. But once that realization had occured there was no putting that bunny back in the box. 

Which I guess brings me to my point, if one can even say I have one. 

In a lot of ways this whole misadventure seems less like something that was always there and more like... a memetic virus that somehow burrowed into my brain, incubated for a few years and then burst forth from my skull like some horrifying amalgam of Athena and a chestburster. Like, if I had pulled a dude’s name from that hat... would literally any of this happened? If my friend hadn’t admitted that she was experimenting with gender herself would it have occurred to me to try? If I hadn’t created that first female online character, would I still think I was a man? Would I still be a man? I mean that’s the crux of all this. In the fucking Homestuck epilogue, is candyverse Roxy still a man like they are in the meatverse? Sorry, spoilers I guess. To them, the only real difference is an opportunity to prioritize their own self expression and gender identity. But Candyverse Roxy still has put thought into those things, just because of how and when they had the time to do so, she arrived at a different conclusion than he did in the other timeline. 

And yes, I know that the Meatverse is considered more cannon than the candyverse, and yes, Roxy is the only character  in the meatverse who isn’t being manipulated by Dirk’s mind meddling and therefore we can safely say that his epiphanies regarding his gender are genuine, more truthful and relevant to the character than the weirdness going on in the Candyverse. 

But... where does that leave me. Obviously we’re playing the  “what if” game on a weird scale here but, what if that series of events hadn’t occured? Would I still wind up roughly where I am, genderwise, by a different rout? Or would I have continued to labor under the false assumption that I was a dude... and would that assumption in this case even be false by any empirical standard? That’s the question that’s kept me up tonight. 

I think I can safely say that by the time I had constructed this Karen figment that it was a foregone conclusion. But.... if either of those two inciting incidents had gone differently... Ugh... I don’t know. I feel like some people would want to take my trans card away from me for even suggesting that there’s a universe out there where I’m happily continuing to think I’m a dude. Maybe there is... but ultimately it’s not relevent or true for me, because its not a thing that I can go back to now. In short: it’s simply not cannon. 

[speakingintothedarkness]

Can my gender identity be “cat?”

[speakingintothedarkness]

Early Experiments

I’ve been thinking a lot about my gender recently. 

Maybe its because Liz has a trans girlfriend. Or maybe because its slowly been simmering this last year.

Weirdly this particular bout has been triggered by reading a piece of trashy erotica about a man who, through circumstances that are a little too stupid to repeat, is forced to take on the role and identity of a woman for several years. 

Far from being the horror story this would probably be in real life if it were to happen to almost any cis male, the protagonist feels freedom and at this transition...

...and I have never envied a character in a story so much as I have envied him/her.

One of the reasons I never thought of myself as fully trans despite my adventures in the Game has to do with an old trope you see about trans people. I must have seen a hundred versions of it since I started paying attention to such things: A male presenting person stands in front of a mirror and their reflection is a female version of the same person,

It’s so common it might as well be a stereotype, the perfect depiction of how the first stage of self-discovery is supposed to go: envisioning yourself as your true gender for the first time.

Problem is: when I look in the mirror... I have trouble picturing myself as a woman. In fact, try as I might, and I have tried, I can’t picture how I’d look as one.

But... there was that story, lurking behind my eyelids, egging me on. I can’t just ignore my gender like I’ve been doing. Identifying as “Noncommittal shrug,” in the immortal words of the great Dan Shive. So I... need, to experiment a little, get some ideas, do some research... and figure this out once and for all.

The protagonist in this story, of course, is a seamless transition. No one can tell he/she isn’t cis. What’s more, the protagonist goes from alright looking dude to hot as fuck chick. I’d never expect that... but being able to look at myself in the mirror and think “I’m beautiful” would be nice. Because, lets be perfectly honest here, if I can’t do that, if I can’t feel comfortable in the new identity what’s the point of assuming it in the first place. 

So I tried. I stuffed some clothes up my shirt to approximate breasts (roughly), and pinched the shirt in the back to accentuate my waist like a baby doll. Results being inconclusive, I turned to a more potent form of brainstorming: sketching

So I drew myself.

I’m not a great artist, but I have a certain degree of proficiency taught to myself a long time ago when I still used to spend my school lunches drawing superheroes I’d made up. 

I drew myself. In a dress. With breasts (comfortable D cup it looked like), and heeled shoes. My hair changed a little (its already long). And I looked at it and thought to myself “Damn! That’s not half bad. If I looked like that I might even pass most of the time.” And I was happy, because despite my odd asymmetries and stuff, I could look at that woman and say “you are beautiful” even if that woman was me. 

But then...

But then I looked again. More critically. “My shoulders are wider than that” I noted. “And I flaired the hips here subtly even though I wasn’t trying to. And I’m also not that petite in general...”

So... I tried again. Flipped the page and sat back down looking hard into the mirror. I spent ten minutes on the outline. Getting the proportion of the head to the body correct, adjusting the width and slope of the shoulders. Trying to find the “true” line of my armpit to my hips (One that doesn’t currently include the weight I’m trying to lose. Hey, a girl can dream right?) 

I drew myself again. With breasts and a dress this time proportional to what I had drawn this time.

And this time...

Well, it was somewhat rather past “amazonian” in proportions. Maybe someone else could look at that woman and tell her she’s beautiful... but I don’t know that I could. Not if she were me. Which she was. The first picture was a fantasy no different from my avatar on the Game. 

I don’t know. Perhaps I went too far the other direction. Maybe the truth lies somewhere between and I can find a way to make myself look... if not passible or stealth but good? 

I don’t know guys. What do you think? Am worrying over nothing? 

[speakingintothedarkness]

So.

It finally happened. Kitty and I are done. Still friends, I guess, though if I’m completely honest I don’t really feel it. Especially when it looks like I’m going to be helping her move out of the apartment she was just evicted from rather than spend some much needed r&r with Liz this weekend. Which, let me tell you, is... something.

Christ. 

You’d think that breaking up would mean that I no longer have to be strung from catastrophe to catastrophe with her. I can’t.... deal with it. Especially not with finals looming and me behind on homework and not nearly confident enough in my classes... 

[speakingintothedarkness]

I no longer know where my introversion stops and my social anxiety begins.

[speakingintothedarkness]

The Woes of a Polyamorous Introvert

So. 

I made a terrible mistake.

Lets start by saying that I woke up this morning (or technically yesterday morning now) feeling great. I’ve been working on some life changes. Diet, exercise, that sort of thing. I finally started to feel the results today. Lighter, more energetic, more focused. Happier. I really felt like, for the first time in longer than I can remember, I was actually unaffected by my depression.

Then... I did something that has caused me to plummet into a hate spiral. 

About a month ago, Kitty went to a poly event in LA and came back with stories of how great it was. “You have to go, you’ll love it.” she said. I was sceptical. While I’d been to some kink events that I enjoyed, the way she described this made it sound like there was a lot of drinking involved and as someone who doesn’t drink, that usually is an earmark of something I’d rather pass on. Add to that the idea of a bunch of strangers in a room and I... well it was enough to make me nervous going in. 

But Kitty would have none of that. “No its fine, trust me, you’ll be okay. I know you and you’ll come out of your shell.” 

Month rolls by and its happening again. Kitty and I managed to not break up (topic for another post). I was nervous. Figured I’d probably be awkward. I am after all an introvert and a sober introvert at that, and... well. Most poly folk aren’t. So I’d be awkward in a corner unless someone picked me out of the crowd and decided to talk to me. And I was okay with that but it wasn’t what Kitty was hoping for and I knew it. 

Except that when I got there, I was confronted with a far worse reality than one I envisioned. There, in a room perhaps 16 by 25, were over 75 people. Packed to capacity. The noise was stifling. 

One look. That was all it took to realize this was a nightmare. And somewhere in that crowd was Kitty, who I’d promised to meet here... 

I texted her and she found me. Dragged me back to introduce me to the girl she’s been crushing on. And then... went on with her conversations. I found a chair and sat down, keenly aware of the fact that the only other person who even recognized that I was even there was Kitty. 

I lasted maybe 20 minutes. I snapped at her when she told me I should mingle. I’m not even sure what “mingle” means. I don’t understand how people talk to people they don’t know. Apologized immediately afterwards then... just stood up and said that I couldn’t, and left. 

And I kind of hate myself for it.

See, I wish I could at least fake it. I wish I could manage to be sociable when it was necessary. But I can’t. And its a social disability. A serious one. I’ll never fit in. Not anywhere. Not really. 

So. 20 minutes in a crowded room is apparently all it takes to take me from feeling generally good about myself to feeling so awful that I can’t sleep. 

[speakingintothedarkness]

“I feel like you’ve given up”

[speakingintothedarkness]

Endings and Continuations

...More than once I’ve marveled about how much this blog changed since I started it. 

In the beginning, it was a journey of recovery, trying to pull myself together after C broke me to fragments. 

Then a space to talk about the deep pit of depression that opened up in front of me thereafter. 

Then about my relationship with CR and opening up to myself as Poly and as Genderqueer. 

Then, briefly, about trying to get my life on track, about being single, poly and looking. 

...Then the good times with Kitty, and then with Liz...

And most recently, its been about complaining about Kitty.

And... that should be telling. 

I’m moved to write here by strong emotions. And there have been times in the not-too-distant past where things have been good enough to make me want to write good things. 

Things aren’t all bad with her, but... I look back and I see the scars that have been left trying to reconcile a situation that...

Three weeks ago, soon after my last post on the subject, she informed me she no longer considered me a Primary partner. Which hurt, but fuck it, I don’t... it was a better resolution than I was expecting from her. 

But since that point, I promised myself that I was done sacrificing my time with Liz in order to appease Kitty. I’d keep a schedule and whoever reserved a date first, well that was who I’d be with on that date. No more Primary/Secondary preference. 

...and of course things have only managed to get worse from there. Kitty keeps trying to schedule things in timeslots that I set asside for Liz. Never mind that I still wind up spending way more time with Kitty than Liz. 

And... I’m tired of it. I’m tired of being made to feel like a jerk for wanting to spend time with one of my girlfriends. I’m tired of not being able to do one fucking thing right with her. I’m tired of every time we seem to reconcile, a new fight breaking out. 

Our relationship is turning toxic. And I’m done. I’m going to break it off with her. The timing could not possibly be worse (we’re both committed to work a goddamn stall together at the local Ren Faire for the next two weekends), but I don’t know if this conversation can wait until May. 

I think she might be done too. She wants to talk to me. Sooner the better. She wanted me to cancel a date tonight to do it (which I of course said no to, see above) but of course that means we won’t get to talk probably until Thursday which was a rather pre-programmed day for us. Not sure when we’ll have time for conversation...

Kinda... I don’t know. Fuck everything. I’m tired of this bullshit. I just hope that the bad habits I picked up in this relationship trying to walk around the goddamn minefield that is me seeing other women doesn’t wind up polluting future relationships with future primaries.  

[speakingintothedarkness]

And it came to a head.

I... don’t know guys. I don’t know. 

I told Kitty that I was planning on staying over at Liz’s house and she kinda fell apart on me. We had a talk and somehow that made things worse. At least we’re both being honest with each other about what we’re feeling.

She asked me what I intended to do about it. I’m not sure if she was expecting me to cave to her unspoken desire, to go asymetric and let her have her fun. I don’t know whether she expected me to break up with her. But instead I told her, and I feel truthfully, that there was nothing I could do here that wasn’t unfair. If she wants to leave me because she can’t manage her jealousy that’s her call, but as far as I’m concerned we’re all square.

However she then more or less let on that her coping mechanism was going to be to self destruct with booze and anonymous sex and... 

I’m not sure if I can deal with that. I don’t mind her having fun but there’s something really... bad about the way she’s carrying this out. 

I’m not sure how long I can watch this. 

[speakingintothedarkness]

So Kitty and I didn’t break up but I’m not her Dom anymore. I don’t know. Still kinda feels like I threw something away. And we haven’t addressed the whole Liz issue. Sooner or later it will come to a head.

I’m considering... 

Ugh, I hate to even say it here. But I’m considering breaking it off anyway. 

See, thing is, Kitty is Trouble. And that was fun for a while. But now its kinda exhausting. I love her. But its like “Okay, dear. Time to have a week where there isn’t a huge crisis.” And I know its not all her fault but seriously, I have lost a lot of sleep over this girl and not in a fun way. From her calling me at 3 in the morning because her so-called best friend and room mate kicked her out of the house, to holding her most of the night while she has a sobbing panic attack because her phone isn’t working.... its like she’s eternally sitting on the precipice of catastrophe and I’m the only one keeping her from falling over. 

...and I’m the only one that’s keeping her from falling over. Unfortunately, like it or not, if I do break up with her I’m leaving her in the lurch in a bad way. She’s relying on me in more ways than I’m comfortable right now. That’s part of the problem and I don’t have anyone but myself to blame for it. She didn’t ask me to become her crutch, I just stepped in because no one else was going to and I love her. 

And if I break up with her, leaving her in a bad way and severing ties to keep myself from being tempted to come back and make it all better, how is that any better than what C did to me two years ago, the thing that made me start this blog in the first place...

I don’t know guys. I’m not sure how much longer I can deal with this. But I feel like I have to try. 

I can’t save her. I know I can’t. But maybe, just maybe, I can hang in there long enough for her to save herself. 

And all the while I hear the words of wisdom spoken to me earlier in life “Always take ‘I love them but’ out of the equation. If you love them but they make you miserable, treat it like they make you miserable.” 

I love her. 

but. 

she’s the biggest source of stress in my life. She’s killing me by inches and she doesn’t even know it. 

I love her. 

but. 

I don’t know if we’re going to make it. 

[speakingintothedarkness]

Bleak

I don’t know guys. 

There have been a lot of ups and downs with Kitty lately but this last one has a weird air of finality to it that I don’t know how to get out of. 

Kitty has trouble with the fact that I’m seeing Liz. Kitty has trouble with the fact that I’m seeing anyone other than Kitty. I touched on this last post but it bares restating. Despite the fact that she’s got her own secondary boyfriend, she feels threatened by what I have with my secondary. 

There’s been some back and forth. I fucked up once and I’ll cop to it though I still feel like she overreacted...

But we still were together and the good times were good. Until this last weekend...

*************

She and I were hanging out with B and M and the whole OC crew and wound up at dinner (M’s treat). B claims to have been pretty active in the BDSM scene back in the day (a claim I’m not entirely sure I believe) and has wound up talking to Kitty about her own experience both as a sub and a dom (since she’s a hard switch) 

...And Kitty wound up taking the opportunity to start disparaging my own abilities as a Dom. “Oh I’m great with rope, but this one can’t tie for shit” or “I’ve tried to convince him to be more proactive but I still wind up topping from the bottom half the time.” 

...to my friends. Oh its not news to me. We’ve talked about this before and I thought that we’d been making some progress but not only did she wind up airing intimate, embarrassing details of our relationship in public she did so to my friends in a way that elevated her social standing with them at my expense.

I was furious, but I held it in until we were in the car. 

Furious for me, of course, is different from furious for other people. I don’t ever raise my voice. I keep myself in check and I explain why this upsets me.

But then, I cut to the heart of the issue: “Are you happy as my submissive?” I asked her. 

“I love being yours,” she replied, “but you know that I need more from you than I’m getting.”

When I pressed her for details, she told me how she mostly needs to be given tasks on a daily basis, to be ordered around and be judged based on the results, punished or rewarded accordingly.

...and I don’t think I can do that. Even putting aside the time, energy and creativity that I simply don’t have with school and everything else closing in, I’m not sure that that sort of relationship is something I -want- to have. It’s a lot of responsibility and I don’t really think I’d get much out of it, as weird as it sounds, I don’t really get off on having my orders followed.

I told her I needed time to think about it. 

And I did but for different reasons than she probably assumed. I knew right away that what she was asking for was probably outside my ability to provide. But it raised a difficult question: isn’t “gets off on having his orders followed” kinda the definition of what makes a Dom? Or as she put it, “what’s the point of having a sub if you don’t boss her around?”

I’ve always labled myself as sexually dominant. Hell I did even before I was even interested in BDSM. Now... I don’t think that label applies to me. 

Sure, I’m a sadist. Sure I’m Primal Pred. Sure as hell, I’m not a sub. 

But I’m not an alpha either. But I have little interest in bending other people to my will. 

Soon, I’m going to have to talk to her about this. I’m going to have to sit down with her and say. “I’m sorry, I can’t be your Dominant anymore. I can’t be Sir, if that’s what Sir means to you.” 

Our relationship was built on this dynamic. It’s overgrown that foundation, I think, but I’m still not sure what will happen if I remove it like that. 

With the difficulties she and I still seem to have surrounding Liz... I fear that we won’t survive this. 

[speakingintothedarkness]

Trouble in Paradise

alright, so things have been going well except...

...except for a small problem that Kitty seems to have over the fact that I’m dating Liz.

See, Kitty’s ex was an abusive douche-nozzle who liked to do things like set all of his girlfriends against one another in a contest as to who got to be “the favorite”. Apparently this has trained her to feel like every time there’s a new girl involved and it becomes anything more than a casual fling that she’s about to start being ignored in favor of the new model.

I can grok that. I appreciate that that could mess a person up. I can understand her struggle and her attempt to overcome it.

...what I’m having more trouble with is the fact that she’s found an excuse to call me and interrupt the last two dates I’ve had with Liz. And the fact that if I so much as answer a text message from Liz while I’m spending time with her she immediately gets distant and sullen. Nevermind the fact that she text’s her boy all the time while we’re together.

...and I’m not sure what to do about it.

Thing is she’s aware of her behavior. She know’s its unacceptable. She understands its hypocritical. But she can’t control the feeling of hurt.

If it were a problem she had with this specific girl... I don’t know. I’d hate it but maybe I’d be willing to break things off, to preserve the peace.

But its not Liz.

Its the concept of Liz. Its the idea that there’s someone else who holds my affections. She’s flat-out jealous. Not of my body but of my heart.

And I... can’t do casual. Its just not who I am as a person.

I’m actually starting to resent her a little bit over this, but I don’t know how to approach her about it. Like I said, she’s aware of how messed up her behavior is. If I call her on it I’ll have self-loathing theater to look forward to.

I signed up for an open relationship... and it doesn’t quite feel like that’s what I’m getting here.

[speakingintothedarkness]

Yesterday, I spent most of the day tormenting a willing Kitty in a variety of lewd and unspeakable ways. 

Today, talking to Liz: “I want you to hurt me.” Which is, for a Dom, possibly the sexiest six words in the English language. I’m starting to really like this girl.

I kinda wish I could go back in time and tell me from a year ago that everything was going to be okay, that soon my cup would run over. That things I didn’t even dare acknowledge that I wished for would soon be available to me in abundances I never even thought to look for.

[speakingintothedarkness]

Things proceed apace. Kitty and her boy are getting closer, but after that initial shock of jealousy it hasn’t bothered me. By all reports the dude is a bigger dork than me, which is kind of amusing and makes it difficult to feel threatened. 

Meanwhile, I met a girl... well. I used to do initials, but lets start making this more personal. We’ll call her Liz since she has a pet lizard.

I... am growing to really like her. She’s cute and quirky and pretty much everything I once thought I wanted in a girlfriend. If I’d met her a year ago, I’d have been head over heels. 

I still might be, someday.

Liz is poly but is demisexual. She likes to take things slow and get to know the people she’s dating. She seems to be endlessly fascinated by the tiny intricacies of someone’s personality.

If she and Kitty were any more different I’d probably not be able to date one of them. 

In a traditional romance this would be the classic love triangle, Liz’s Betty to Kitty’s Veronica (even though the hair colors are switched)... but such is the advantage of polyamory. I don’t have to choose. 

I feel truly blessed.

[speakingintothedarkness]

Welp. 

Today Kitty has a date with someone other than me. She’s had sex with others in the course of our relationship. She’s maintained a long distance relationship with a guy in New York. But this is the first time she’s gone out with someone in a romantic setting since we’ve been together.

And... I don’t know. I honestly don’t know how I feel.

Am I worried?

No, I trust her. I know that she’ll still want to be with me. I know that I’m still her primary. I know that’s not likely to change any time soon. 

But I’m used to being the center of her attention. And today, I’m not. Well. This is what you signed up for, isn’t it? And in the end, I’m okay with it. Just a little lonely. 

[speakingintothedarkness]

May it be a happy 2016

Its strange to go back and look at my life this last year and a half.

I’ve been through hell and back. My situation right now might not be the best but god when compared to even just a few months ago...

I no longer feel like my life is ending. I no longer wonder if living is worth it the cost. I have hope for a future and even though I’m anticipating more than a couple bumps in the road...

Things are looking up.