Clueless

Things About Dating I Figured Out Embarrassingly Late

Most of my posts are insights I’ve had or experiences I’ve lived through. Lately I’ve been thinking that I actually have no idea how to date. There are things other people seem to have figured out way sooner than me, and my “insights” on them might just be obvious to you.

But just in case you’re like me, here’s the list.

You Can Just Choose Not to Feed a Crush

A crush is like a fire. You can feed it oxygen or you can starve it. It’s actually pretty easy to not fall into my long-term pattern of intensely falling for people before checking that they’re available and we’re compatible.

I figured this out from being on the receiving end of it, though it took me ten years to realize.

When I was an undergrad, I dated a physics grad student. I had pretty intense romantic feelings for him, and he seemed pretty into me too. He was the first guy to cook me dinner (baked Hungarian eggplant for my birthday) and to consistently give me great orgasms. I have really happy memories of spending time with him at his apartment talking about biophysics, about “what is life,” about living the life of the mind. I also vividly remember a great 69 session where we were each trying to outcompete the other and overwhelm them with pleasure until they had to stop what they were doing. I won. ;)

I’d told him I was poly from the start, but the reality of it didn’t actually hit him until I had a girlfriend and another boyfriend. He slowly distanced himself, said he was just depressed, and we ebbed naturally into a friendship. Ten years later I still care about him. We chat occasionally. He’s monogamously married now, and we are very clearly just friends.

At one point a few years after we’d stopped dating, I was heartbroken over some other guy, and he said to me: “Why are you spending so much time obsessing over this ex? When I realize that a relationship isn’t going in the direction I want, I stop thinking about it and just move on.”

He was describing, almost verbatim, what he had done to me ten years before, and somehow I’d never connected the dots until then.

We didn’t communicate well about it at the time (probably typical for young people). And at the time, I was so scared of seeming clingy or needy that I didn’t just ask him what was going on. I wish I had. He’d realized that poly wasn’t for him and slow-faded on me, leaving me with a broken heart that took some time to heal, and a lack of complete understanding of what had actually happened until much later.

But he was right. If you’re disciplined with your thinking, you can just choose to set it aside. If you accept that something is done, you can stop torturing yourself, put it on a shelf mentally, and move on with your life.

I’ve been developing a few new dating strategies based on this approach.

The easiest one is to sleep with people you can’t actually picture yourself dating long-term. Try to imagine doing something with them that you’d do with a serious partner. A friend of mine said, “An example would be helpful here; I imagine for many people, sex would be such a thing”, so here are some examples: cooking dinner together or watching a movie before going to bed, or booking flights for a trip and handling annoying logistics. If you can’t quite see it, accept that. I don’t know how I didn’t think of this sooner. You can just fuck people you would never date, and then it’s easy to not date them. They often make great friends, and sex is a great shortcut to intimacy.

The other strategy is more stressful. You do something casual, but stay disciplined about how often you let yourself think about them and what kinds of fantasies you allow.

Honestly, I am not sure this one is working. I think I’m falling for someone right now despite actively trying not to.

You Can Take Your Time

I used to worry that if I didn’t meet up in person fast enough with someone I matched with on a dating app, they’d give up. To be fair, this has happened a few times.

But the last two really great flings I’ve had were 8 years and 2 years of communication, respectively, before we first met in person.

To be clear, the first 6 months of a new relationship are very fun and limerence is addictive. But delaying the first meeting has never actually been a problem for me.

I’m worth the wait. And honestly, I prefer people who aren’t in a rush, at least for the more intense kind of dating. There are only so many great loves I’ll have in my life, and I’m completely fine with a slow burn for them.

(One night stands are obviously different. I try to meet those within days of the first message.)

Communication Boundaries Matter as Much as Physical Ones

In decades of dating and 35+ people I’ve slept with, exactly one person has ever brought up communication boundaries on a first date. One!

“How much will you discuss our private conversations or what we do physically with your primary partner?” is a totally reasonable thing to ask. People are used to negotiating physical boundaries. We’re terrible at the verbal ones.

Speaking of physical boundaries: someone recently asked me “what kinds of touch do you like?” as an opening into that conversation. It eased me in so much more gently than being grilled on “what are your hard limits” from the jump. I can answer the hard limits question, but it makes me tense. The softer entry point worked way better.

Some other things worth bringing up early:

Outness. Some people aren’t out as poly for very valid reasons (professional, custody, etc). I’m probably not a great person to date if you care about staying private, given that I literally write a poly sex blog. But I do ask people before quoting them and before writing about them at all. I’ve forgotten once or twice and felt awful about it, but I really do try.

Digital privacy. You may never tell a soul about your sex life, but if you’re not using Signal, you should be prepared for any sexy texts between you to eventually be made public. This one’s easy for me. I just say “if you want to chat more, I’m XXXXX on Signal. Signal only.” If you won’t use Signal, I won’t meet up.

Bonus signal: How someone texts and sexts is a really good predictor of whether the sex will be good for me. I like people who write well. This is probably more personal to me than universal, but it’s worth knowing what your own predictors are.

Communicating Sooner Is Almost Always Better

Note: I’ve never regretted asking people what they want, even when they didn’t fully know yet. I’ve never regretted being honest about what I’m going through, good or bad.

A Love Letter to the 26-Year-Olds of San Francisco

I’m going through an intense period of transitions and growth, so I’m experimenting with new ways of dating.

I recently had a wonderful one night stand with an extremely sweet guy I met on Glosso. (Message me if you want an invite to Glosso! Happy to help folks out.) I’d happily set him up with a friend or run into him at a party. He’s the youngest guy I’ve ever slept with. (I started hooking up with men when I was 19 and dated mostly much older guys for a long time.)

Turns out younger guys are just delightful in a lot of ways. Having now tested my thesis that I can have a one night stand and feel genuinely good about it after, I’m opening up my messages to the mid-to-late-20s founders of SF who are curious about the slutcloud and the wider community of folks adjacent to it.

Please message me. :) DM me here on Substack or find me on Glosso as vortex_goddess. I’ll also be at Less Online and am looking forward to meeting people there.