Rhetorical and Romantic in Book Seven: Reconstruction 2020

Victoria got a hold of me yesterday. We were talking and she was encouraging me to be more open about “going forward.” COVID restrictions being a bitch; but not letting those prevent me from going on dates, looking for other people, etc. She’s… somewhat correct. Iowa is seriously still getting hit with new cases and I don’t want to contribute to those new cases. Hell, my favorite restaurant that I had been frequenting via to go orders had to 100% close down everything because they had employees with confirmed COVID. Shit is very much still with us. Not to mention my Tinder and Bumble success is still less than abysmal. Even the one or two “58 year old woman with no car” type of matches… I admit, I’ve attempted to start conversations… not like “Hey, we could actually date” but more “Huh, COVID is really keeping people from speaking. Let’s have a conversation.” Even those interactions are abysmal. And if/when I start actually having more online conversations and running into “What’s wrong here” I may have to come back and get help. But again, remember, I’m like… swipe right 30 times, get mutually matched 1 in 3000 times. So, not exactly a lot to work with there.

Anyway, Victoria was talking with me about not just sitting in my grief and everything. Even going so far as to suggest that I need to fake confidence until I make it… maybe even just enough to have a few quickies to prove to myself that I’m not what my marriage made me feel. Potentially good advice. Tough to say really. It is true that I’ve only ever had sex with one woman and she made me feel terribly. And the only woman to give me oral sex wasn’t a positive. And the sexually assaultive girlfriend wasn’t helpful. SO… yeah. As far as sexual interactions for Christopher- I could use a fucking win. That being said.. I’m not exactly sure if trying to get laid is even… my kind of thing. I’m… I’ve always been a romantic. I want to woo and be cared for in return. I mean, that’s probably how I’ve gotten into this position. I pursue someone’s heart and if they relent, I (apparently) mistake that for them returning care? I don’t know. Clearly I need to do different than I have before but… without losing the good things about me in the process.

ANYWAY… Victoria eventually got around to admitting why she might also be encouraging me to be more experimental. She and her boyfriend broke up. Now remember, she is a practicing “ethical non-monogamous kink practitioner” . So she has a husband and kids… and enjoys pain in her sexual experiences. And I’ll be honest… the very idea of this extremely attractive redheaded woman being physically intimate with me? Very quickly rises my interest (sloppy euphemism). But… my brain kicks in and starts asking some tricky questions. Like… considering who I am and how I feel… would being a “boyfriend to a married woman” make me feel worse? Like… my marriage felt a LOT like… no matter what I did, it wasn’t enough for my wife. I could never make her happy, I could never turn her on, I was never enough for her. But isn’t the idea of being “a third wheel in a polyamororous relationship” like going into something already accepting that the same was true? Like… “this woman is married with children and has an entire life completely separate from you; you’re just fulfilling a romantic and sexual need of hers that is already being filled by her husband simply not to her particular level of desire?” I’m not intending to be offensive if that’s how I come across I’m just… a bit curious about the whole thing. Whether it’s worthwhile in any way for me to enter into any poly situation (as there are also a lot of poly seekers on Tinder). Just a curiosity, I suppose.