At Sysiphus, a Berlin open-air club, I recognized a striking dark-haired guy in the crowd with a nose ring. Someone I knew I’d at least seen before, but couldn’t place.
So when I saw him moving across the dance floor, I intercepted him.
“We met before right?”
He explained that we met in a park about a year ago. I remembered the occasion but I couldn’t remember actually speaking to him there.
In any case, we chatted for a while and danced side by side. He was from Santandar in the North of Spain. “Do you want a drink,” I asked, eventually. “Sure,” he said as we made our way to the bar with the two friends I had come with.
When he noticed me speaking to my friends in German, he started speaking German too, which impressed me. See foreigners in Berlin who speak English, most often don’t speak German, so I respected that a lot.
We had a nice time chilling on and off together over the next few hours. So sometime before I knew I had to go, I found him again, told him I thought he was fun to hang out with, and asked him for his number.
“Sure, we should get a beer sometime,” he said.
I agreed, but since that sounded very much like a proper date, I added, “There’s something I also wanted to tell you. I have a partner and we are in an open relationship.”
“Okay,” he said, leaning his head back with his eyes fixed on me suspiciously. “So what does that mean? You can have sex with other people?”
“Well, yeah,” I said.
“But why did you tell me that then? Are you afraid I was going to fall in love with you or something? We just met.”
“No, I’m not afraid of anything.”
“You must think I’m going to fall in love with you,” he repeated again in half-laughter.
I didn’t know how to answer. This conversation didn’t seem to be going well.
But the last hours had been so nice, I wasn’t ready to just let this go.
“Are you saying that I shouldn’t have told you I have a boyfriend?” I asked “I didn’t mean to be presumptuous.”
He thought about that.
“Because I don’t really know what I’m doing” I continued. “Nobody knows how to do this right. So I’d like some feedback. Did you not want to know I had a partner?”
Finally, he said, “Yeah I guess it makes sense you told me.”
We had some more awkward back and forth and then he suddenly kissed me… and I kissed back, but I was bewildered. The energy between us was weird, and I wasn’t ready for it. So I pulled away.
“But you’re in an open relationship, right?” he said again with his eyes turned down at me.
“Yes,” I said, and then he went in for another kiss.
And again, I let him do it even though I didn’t really want to. But that time, I more quickly pulled away and told him I was going back to my friends. It didn’t feel good. That’s all I knew.
And I didn’t realize it until later on. But when I’d pulled away and he asked again if I was in an open relationship, it had felt like he was asking me to prove it by kissing him.
In the moment, I felt like, shit, if I don’t give him the attention he wants, if I don’t prove I’m open, no one will want to date me again.
Which in hindsight, is obviously something I didn’t need to do. Of course not.
You never have to prove your non-monogamy to anyone. If it doesn’t feel right, just say no. And if someone isn’t cool with it, then good, you’ve filtered out an asshole and you can move on quickly.
And part of all of that is being able to realize when something’s wrong. When it just doesn’t feel right inside of you. And putting a stop to it at that point in time.
If I could go back, I would have never kissed him, but alas, it’s hard to figure that out in a split second. So all in all, I think actually I did pretty well handling myself in the heat of the moment.
Kudos to me.
<3
But Women Don’t Orgasm Like That
TV execs, stop portraying women’s sexuality so ignorantly.
On my balcony, before a friend’s party last Friday evening :)
You don't have to prove anything to anyone. My words of wisdom as a middle-aged woman. And NEVER ignore your "spidey sense" around men. Trust your gut. It is telling you when something isn't right.