I believe in fairies.
I’m not talking about Tinker Bell, Fairy Godmothers, Puck, the Tooth Fairy or even the Sugar Plum Fairy.
Fairies in my life could also be called One Hit Wonders. They are typically first dates that don’t lead to a second, but where, in those few hours we are getting to know one another, I learn something helpful or meaningful to me at just the right moment in my life. They sprinkle their fairy dust of knowledge and experience on me and then flutter off.
I’ve talked about fairies here before. If you’ve read deeply into the FUCK section back in 2017 I posted two stories about my first fairy.
Since then I’ve had several more. I will be sure to acknowledge all of them for the wisdom they have imparted if I ever get a book deal for this blog!
In case you haven’t read those posts and/or don’t care to, the short of the story is I had two dates with this guy, Fairy #1. Sex was fun, but the major takeaway was my first opportunity to really talk to someone about ENM and polyamory – someone who was actually living it. His ideas about “negative jealousy” as he termed it and having the capacity to love many people at once were game changers for me.
Negative jealousy was his way of saying what I now know as compersion. I had literally never heard this word when I learned it several years later from someone else. Fuck, WordPress actually thinks it’s misspelled – that’s how uncommon and infrequently it is used. Perhaps that’s a comment on American self-absorbed, me/me/me culture that the idea of compersion – essentially being happy when someone else is happy. It’s talked a lot about in the ENM community because of the jealousy that can arise when your partner is happy in another relationship and you feel left out. Learning and truly practicing compersion dismisses the jealousy you may have for your partner’s partner and your partner’s happiness in that relationship. It teaches humility, acceptance and support for your partner. Instead of feeling threatened, you are happy for your partner.
Compersion does take some work, I’ll admit. I recall early on when Nerdie started dating. He actually did not date anyone else for the first three years of our open dating relationship. I secretly always wanted him to, but never verbalized it because I didn’t want to put any pressure on him or make him feel bad that he wasn’t dating. If he wanted to, he would.
When he did, I remember those first few dates were challenging for me. Someone else was kissing him, laughing with him, getting to experience his fantastic cock and tongue skills. I was at the same time excited to hear the details because it was fucking hot. Maybe the jealousy I felt was more the reason I wanted to know all the details.
Over time, with communication and consistency in our relationship (which is easy to say and harder to practice), I was able to drop the jealousy and just be excited, happy and turned on by his dates.
Fast forward to today and I’m friends with one of his lovers on FB. She’s come over to the house for dinner. She even came to Christmas Dinner one year because, as a nurse, she only had the one day off and didn’t have time to drive up to see her family. We told everyone she was a friend in the neighborhood. It was quite funny that evening that they all probably thought she was really my friend, but Ryan spent the most time talking to her.
Fairy #1 also introduced me to the “Ethical Slut” – a book that totally changed my life, my outlook and my thinking about love and intimate/romantic relationships. I have since fairy dusted the suggestion of that book on many others.
The book brought to life Fairy #1s second sprinkle of fairy dust – the capacity to love many people at the same time. I plan to write a much deeper post about this topic, but essentially I said to myself, “If I can love all sorts of people in non-romantic relationships in all different ways – friends, family, kids if I had them – why can’t romantic relationships be the same way? Why do those relationships have to be black and white?”
On to Fairy #2.
Last year, I met Mr. Retired Fortune 100 Executive – Mr. Executive, for short. And short it was. We went on one date, but I won’t soon forget it.
The week prior I had a particularly challenging break-up with a guy I had dated for nearly a year and a half. I’ve mentioned him before, but not given him a name nor written his story. We fell in love, but it was very unsustainable. His constant pressure and pushing to spend more time with me was putting quite a strain on things at home with Nerdie. He was the one who introduced me to compersion, but ironically he was constantly jealous about Diamonds and my communicating with anyone I had previously dated that I stayed friends with.
I was pissed and upset, so the first thing I did was immediately get back on the dating apps and had a first date with Mr. Executive five days later.
We met closer to the city at a favorite restaurant of his. He was a black man in his 60s, tall and wide with a bald head. With decades in Corporate America, I’m sure it was routine for him to wear a blazer to dinner. I felt underdressed in my usual jeans and cowboy boots.
Three house talking over dinner flew by. We ordered nearly every tapa on the menu, drank beautiful Spanish wines and he talked about his career, his businesses in retirement, his volunteer ethos, his son’s success in publishing a book that was to be turned into a movie (my secret wet dream!), and his missing the company and comfort of a woman in his life.
Right as I was served my first glass of wine, he handed me a gift bag. Inside was a Cartier necklace in the iconic red box with a statement of authenticity. Googling it, I found it was worth about $1,600.
I was fucking floored.
Midway into the first tapas, as I was telling my story from the past 6-7 years – culinary school, break up with PhD, finding my way, rebuilding my life strategically to focus on my health and happiness, and my new career that wasn’t quite as lucrative as I previously experienced, he stopped me and motioned his head down for me to look under the table. He had a wad of blue bills folded up in his hand. I took it and graciously, overwhelmed and gratefully, thanked him. He joked and said count it – “You never know, it could be dollar bills.”
I laughed. It was five crisp hundies.
These were absolutely, over the top, amazing gifts to receive on a first date. Had never happened to me before, and I doubt it will happen again.
But they were not the greatest, most meaningful gift he gave me that night.
When I told him about this blog, LTD, but that I had stopped writing over the past few years because life got in the way, he implored me several times that evening to start writing again. He described my story as if I was a phoenix rising from the ashes after the break up with PhD. I was a little embarrassed by the comparison. It was life changing and difficult, but people go through harder things everyday.
He pointed out that I had rebuilt my life with literally no instruction manual and no support. He impressed upon me how helpful this could be to others in similar circumstances who may need a boost of reassurance, assistance with how to take the next step, or just the knowledge that someone else was like them and did it. He told me that I essentially couldn’t keep this to myself – if I help one person on this planet, it would be worth the time I invested in writing my story.
That was a fairy dust explosion the size of Hiroshima.
Still, I sat on that for months – five to be exact. I started thinking about writing every day, but I thought that LTD was too much of a mess and not very good writing. Started in culinary school as a journal of my experiences over those two years disjointedly followed by a bunch of sex stories when I was newly single after the PhD and rebound Mechanic breakups.
It wasn’t until I met REO (aka Recently Enlightened/Emotional One) those five months later that I got off my arse and actually started writing again. He was so impressed with my story and my writing (and to this day, besides Nerdie, is my biggest LTD fan even mentioning it to his first dates. I was very flattered by him essentially cockblocking himself to share it! LOL).
I committed to myself to write weekly, and even though my readership is quite small today, I find I have no shortage of content and I’m excited to write weekly to improve my writing and continue to document my story. One never knows who will read it, how it might be helpful, and secretly, when that book deal may come along. As they say, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” So here I am!
Fairy #3.
He was even more recent. A one-time date for drinks and apps that ended in a decent make-out sesh, but with too many smarmy red flags for me.
Yet, he did leave some fairy dust. In fact, I told him about fairies during the date and when I declined a second date, and said thank you for treating me on the first date and being a fairy in my life, I think he was pissed because all I got back was a big thumbs up emoji.
At the time, I was struggling to get a loan for some home renovations. I had never applied for a loan other than my home loan, but was declined by my primary bank that I had been banking with for more than 20 years. Despite no debt except the house, a nearly perfect credit score, stellar equity in the home having already shaved five years off the mortgage by overpaying plus the home value increasing about 50% over the six years since I bought it, I was declined because as a self-employed businesswoman I deduct everything leaving by AGI too low.
I was declined by several other no name banks as well and had virtually given up on making the renovation dream a reality.
He said fuck that!
He had come from Ecuador in his late teens with literally nada. Today, about 25-30 years later (depends on if he was telling me his real age), he owned several businesses and several rental properties, sat on county business councils, had nice cars and expensive things and could send his kids to any private school they could get themselves in to.
“You don’t give up. When one bank tells you no, you go to the next one and the next one until someone gives you that loan. Then you build. Invest it in something that will bring you more value than the loan then pay it back, take out more money and repeat, repeat, repeat. I go into my bank now and can virtually get whatever I need for the next project I want to do.”
Fairy dust…
Two months after that date, as I sit here now writing, I can hear the buzz of a saw and smack of a hammer as the workers prepare my garage for the new concrete scheduled to be poured tomorrow.
I went to another bank – a local one – got a loan – not as much as I needed, but it’s a fucking amazing start. When I get done, I intend to use the increased home equity to get a bigger loan and then start buying rental properties.
So yes, I believe in fairies. Thank you, fairies for your magical fairy dust. You’ve made me wiser beyond my years.
Leave a Reply