Heartbreak and a realization.

 It occurred to me this morning around 5:00 a.m that while I haven't been heartbreak-proof in my affairs I haven't had it nearly as bad as most other people I know. I've heard some horror stories that might scare you into becoming a hermit out of fear.

There was a friend of mine who came home to find his girlfriend having sex with his best friend and brother at the same damn time. Needless to say, violence ensued. Another time a young lady I was kind of mentoring told me about her abusive boyfriend. We let her stay with us for a bit. Well one day I'm at work and get a call to come home immediately. I get there and Elouise, my wife, has the boyfriend in a wrist lock, on the ground with her knee on the back of his neck (yes I was proud of her that day) and he's begging for mercy. He apparently followed us and tried to attack them while I was gone not knowing I've taught my wife quite a bit of grappling. There's another friend of ours who was so in love with the person causing her so much pain. Eventually it erupted into violence (I'm noticing a theme here) and their separation. We weren't as involved this time being in another city but, we at least talked to her about it.

My own parents, though I love them dearly, have a relationship I could never live with. They barely talk to each other now. They don't sleep in the same bed, they don't watch TV together, they don't even go out I don't think. They still love each other, or say they do, but it's so...cold between them. The only thing they are happy about is my marriage and how well it's going.

That's just a few stories, I could tell you a lot more but, I'm not after shock and awe here. By comparison, my love life has been pretty mundane as far as drama but quite fulfilling in it's own right. No stories of cheaters or abuse. I have felt my share of heartbreak and pain but nothing life shattering like some others. Yeah, it can get very hard, very trying but, all in all I've had relatively good experiences.

You recall I shut down my Facebook profile a while back? That was probably the worst heartbreak I've ever felt but, I had Elouise to help me through it. There was, of course, when the woman we were dating had to leave the country. My heart ached but, I knew she still loved us and didn't want to leave us so I was able to handle it a bit better. Before that there was my high school heartbreak which later turned out to be a dodged bullet, her being a superchristian and me being a femsexual, polyamorous atheist. Would not have meshed well.

That's it. That's the worst that has ever happened to me. I know how fortunate I am to be able to say that. Love and relationships for me have been easy relatively, and I hope my good fortune holds. The way things have been going for me it won't be long until I finally meet that other special woman and welcome her into my life.

Live and Love Freely, Everyone.

Ego boost and stuff.

I'm getting some shirts of this made. Think it'll help?

Me and Elouise are at the local Hooters I used to work at years ago. We have a couple of drinks and I catch up with some old co-workers. I spot a Hooters girl I was really tight with before I became a free lover. Instantly I remembered why I liked her so much. She was attractive, funny, friendly and we laughed a lot together. On a whim I say to my wife, "I should ask her out," knowing full well I was too timid in that respect to actually do it. Elouise, being who she is, puts me on full blast! She drags the girl over to me and says, "He has something to ask you." I actually managed to not choke on my tongue and ask her out to dinner. At first she accepted (YES!) and wondered why I hadn't asked her out before but, then she remembered her boyfriend (FUCK!) would not be cool with "sharing." She made it a point to give me her number and to ask me to keep in touch. I know some people are thinking cop-out or she let me down easy but this is someone I know very well. She's not the dishonest type. I've seen her turn down men cold, friends and strangers alike, so I know she was being genuine.

If nothing else the quick visit to an old haunt showed me something I don't always realize: women like me. Not every woman obviously but enough that I think dating is doable. Elouise pointed out to me all the women who were checking me out that night. More than I expected to be honest. A boost to my ego no doubt. I'm still kind of a big chicken when it comes to approaching women but, at least now I'll know it's possible.

I wish meeting someone in real life was a easy as online. I guess it's easy because I don't really feel the other person's energy next to me through a screen. When you try to spark a romance online you can take your time and form thoughts in your head before you hit the send key. That takes a lot of the stress off. Funny enough, meeting someone you have instant chemistry with, like me and Elouise, is even better than online. It's alive and evolving as you converse and make subtle body gestures conveying your interest.
That one instant, when this pretty little blonde girl I've liked for a long time let's me know that there was a shot if I had just not waited so long, made me realize that my procrastination may be costing me more than just time. I'm feeling quite confident now. Hopefully my next post will be about an actual date.
On my wife's side of things, her "girlfriend" Tiffany may be moving away soon. I'm only slightly upset about as I don't like how Elouise is being regulated to a side chick. It just feels like she doesn't really want to be with Elouise and I have to say, Tiffany is missing out. I've voiced my opinion to my dear wife and she's taken the advice, though she still sees her "girlfriend." I want her to find someone who cares about her the way Candy and I do, though I know I'm being unfair to Tiffany by demanding that. I just feel Elouise deserves it.

Well anyway, it seems things will be changing for us sooner rather than later. Maybe the rest of this year will go better. Spring has finally decided to show up and Spring is the season of new life. Let's see where it goes, shall we?

Live and Love Freely

Does skin color matter? pt 2 Confession

Originally I was going to write about what kind of woman I hope to meet or my pentient for romance but, I felt the need to elaborate on this video I posted yesterday on YouTube I'm not going to dwell on this topic and I wanted to go into something I missed in my video.

I made it a point to say that I would date a woman of any skin color and I meant that but, I'm not perfect. In fact, confession time. For years, before my own personal set of epiphanies happened, I could not stand to see a black woman with a white man. My parents, as awesome as they are, were brought up to believe that anyone white was our enemy and they projected that onto me and my siblings. Let me be clear I am NOT blaming my great and wonderful parents for my shortcoming before I conquered it, I'm listing all the factors that helped form it. For a while it stuck. It didn't help that I was listening to overly militant black leaders spouting how black women were trained to love white men over us and how black men were leaving their families to be with white women. Sounds harsh, right? Imagine having that drilled into your head for 16 years then being thrown into the world. Of course I questioned the logic in it, even as a kid, but Mom and Dad were always right before and it wasn't just them. All of my older relatives said the same thing. Combine that with being exposed to Rosewood, Malcolm X and all of the pro-black, anti-white movies of the 80's and 90's and that was a recipe for a very angry person.

I was taught that either of these was wrong.

Then came reality.

When I started making friends of all colors and of all genders I was thrown for a loop. They never cared about my race. The white people I had been taught to fear and hate loved my company. More importantly they didn't hate ANY black person. How could this be? They're my enemies...right? That's not to say I haven't experienced racism from caucasians (I do live in Virginia after all) but it wasn't as bad as I was lead to believe.

The thing is I felt the most hate about my very dark skin color from other black people, black girls especially. You can imagine my inner conflict when I was told "You're too black for me to date," by a girl even darker than me but in the same conversation told that I'm "...not black enough," because of my demeanor and mannerisms. Throughout my teenage years this cycle repeated endlessly. "You're too black" "You ain't black enough." Not to mention I started seeing those same girls getting picked up by white guys. This is where the complex started to develop.

Fast forward a few years and some important firsts happen to me. My first kiss, my very first date, my first time having sex and my first real feelings of affection from a girl. All white women. When I told cousin Rochelle she was happy for me but, other black women I knew called me a traitor. Some of them were the same ones who told me I wasn't "black enough" or "too black." How dare you fix your lips to call me a traitor when you never gave me a shot? I lie to you not this was an honest answer I received. "It's okay if we fuck wit white men but, you can't fuck wit white women. Errbody know that." That was the spark. After that I couldn't stand to see any black woman with a white man. The very sight of it made me furious.

Fast forward to three years ago, having been a Free Lover (aka poly person) for about a year. I notice a lot of what I thought was wrong. Having dated women of all colors except Asian (yet), I found that most times interracial relationships happen, not because of some racial agenda, but out of genuine love. I'm still wary of white men at this time though.

Then my Angel, Elouise says those magic words. "Sweety, you sound like a racist when you say things like that." I replayed some of the things I said in my head and she was right.

I was a racist.

I'm glad I realized this lesson in time.

From that day on I made it my mission to never be that young fool again. It took a long time and a lot of self-discipline but eventually I was free of that curse. As it happens two of my new friends are a mixed couple, a white male and black female, and they are two of the coolest people ever. My parents also gave up their racist views when I told them I was a poly person. They welcomed my lifestyle with open arms and all that came with it.

This was harder to type that I anticipated. I'm confessing this to you, Poly Family, because as long as we've been together you've always been straight with me and I felt you deserved the same courtesy. I'm always open to comments and questions here or on my YouTube channel.

And that's all. Live and love freely, everyone.

The Dilemma.

Dating is hard when you're married. I know that sounds like a "No, really?" statement but it's true for most free lovers and doubly true for me. It's not that I'm hard to get along with or that women don't find me attractive or interesting. I'm a big masculine guy and women who are interested in me love that but, it's usually my mind that attracts women to me. I think differently about everything and I'm not shy about sharing it. I don't have any racist, sexist or elitist tendencies and I always try to do what's right. So if my character and appearance are fine, what's the problem? Well I'm rather shy for one but that's not the biggest obstacle. It's that I'm already attached to my Angel, Elouise.

Now to be clear, I don't consider Elouise to be an obstacle to me dating other women. Quite the contrary actually as she actively encourages me to meet someone. It's that I'm often unsure of how other women in my town will react to a free loving couple. What happens often is I meet a woman I click with, usually at a bookstore or game store, we end up talking about nothing for hours and just enjoying each others time. I feel like things are going good so...I back off. The reason? There's a very good chance this awesome lady is monogamous or at the very least poly-intolerant. Sometimes if I'm unsure I'll ask directly "Have you ever heard of Polyamory?" and 7 times out of 10 I'll hear "Yea and it's disgusting. Having sex with all those people." The other three times they'll simply say "No." I'm not going to keep my Angel a secret like someone suggested once and I'm not going to lie to anyone (I have enough bad karma). If things get to a point where we are making plans to spend the day together I think she deserves to know I'm not single but not a cheater either. I mean when exactly is a good time to say "Oh and, little thing, I've been with someone for 12 years straight. Want to catch a movie?" That whole thing is awkward beyond words.

Please?

I've heard some advice that was equal parts brilliant and silly. "Don't date monos." Great. Problem solved! Let's have all poly people date other polys and that's that! Now what do monos look like so we can not approach them...? See the issue? Monogamous people don't wear a sign that says "I'm looking for my one and only," and even though free lovers (from now on I'll use that term. Poly sounds funny to me.) have a symbol of our status we seldom wear it. Identifying other free lovers just isn’t that easy, as much as I would like it to be. 

Maybe I should wear one of these.

Also in my town (Hampton, VA is part of the bible belt) anything that isn't related to religion on some level is vilified to hell. This town will literally beat you over the head with "Gawd's wurd." There are churches all over the place. In fact I've mapped it. There is absolutely no way to get from my home to my job without passing a Christian church. I make this point because as many free lovers will tell you, church going folk, who apparently have Jesus' power of attorney, will condemn you for not being monogamous and heterosexual. Obviously not every religious person is like this but enough to make one nervous when coming out to a religious family member.

There's also one more big red flag for me and Elouise personally. Being African American. I don't want to elaborate on this particular issue to much (I might in a later post) but suffice it to say that in the black community it's generally frowned on to do anything considered "White" despite the ignorance of that statement.

So all of those factors combined with me being a big chicken have led me to be very reserved and taciturn when I'm out. Of course my Angel notices me checking out other women and has even gone so far as to ask them to come over and meet me. Which of course leads to this other woman to ask if she's my sister to which I reply "No. She's my wife." This leads to a whole dialogue tree ala Mass Effect with all roads ending in her walking away, her level of disgust the only variable.

All hope is not lost though. I plan on trying to actively date now that I have a forum to talk about it (thank you for reading this far by the way). Any advice or ideas would be very welcome. Maybe my next post will bring good news. Until then, Live and Love Freely.