Category Archive

On the evening of July 7 a year ago, the following incident happened with a woman I had been dating for almost four months.  (The post reprinted below is lifted from my LiveJournal account and was posted at 10:19 that night):

A few days ago, I made a comment to another person’s post about my polyamorous situation with my friend, Millie.  I said something to the effect that the past three months have been wonderful with her, but lurking in the shadows is the fear that she’s involved with so many people that I’m just going to drop off the bottom of the list someday.I think that it might have happened this evening.

I dropped my husband off at the airport for his weeklong trip to Wales at 5:30 this afternoon and then proceeded on to Millie’s house.  We had made plans to go out to dinner….and then……  (???)  I threw some overnight necessities in a bag, just in case I got an invitation to spend the night and decided to accept it!

First of all, she told me on the way to dinner that she had a recent one-night stand to confess, something that she needed to tell to all her partners.  She had been flirting with her kid’s karate instructor for the past six weeks or so and “got carried away” last week.  She didn’t think that this was a good situation to be in with this man since she feels he doesn’t understand polyamory, and he has a girlfriend who would be jealous if she knew about this affair.  She doesn’t want to be in that situation, but they had sex.  Hence, the one-night stand.

Okay.  Thanks for sharing, Millie.

Then over supper, she said that she’s been in a confused place about all these relationships she’s got going on, and there are a few.  There’s me.  There’s the guy in San Francisco.  There is the guy in Beloit, Wisconsin.  There are a couple of local men she’s having sex with.  She just got out of a messy menage a trois with a local couple that went on for quite awhile, although she is still in contact with the former participants and I think she’d like to return to it if they could work things out.   She mentioned something to that effect this evening.

She’s still cruising the Fast Cupid website, reading profiles and making contact with people.

She said that there is something missing in her life.  She wants to be in love.  She said that hanging out with me is nice but…..  She was out to our house for supper last with her 3-year-old and that was nice, too, but…..  She enjoyed being at the park after supper with my husband and me and watching her son play, but….

But there is something missing for her.

I don’t know what’s missing.  Therefore, I don’t know if I can provide it for her or not!  

I know that I’m uneasy about all the “activity” going on in her social life.  I’m technically polyamorous but I’ve never had more than two relationships going on at a time: that with my husband and that with a female lover.  I honestly don’t know what to make of all these various relationships she’s got going on, all in various stages and levels of frequency.  I’m having a hard time finding common definition with the term polyamory as it pertains to my life compared to how she chooses to conduct her polyamorous life.  I have found myself frequently pondering that term polyamory lately and wondering what it really means.  My recent observations would lead me to believe that for some people, it is a lifestyle of numerous sexual affairs going on concurrently, sometimes spontaneously and impulsively because HEY!  I’m poly, and it’s okay!  The only thing that separates that behavior from your basic ”affairs” and general sexual promiscuity is the level of honesty and self-acceptance about what’s going on.  

But that’s not how I’m comfortable conducting my sexual relationships and therein lies the problem.  

So, I’m home tonight.   We had supper together.  (She clarified that she wasn’t breaking up with me, although it sure felt like it!)  We shopped for a bit at the shopping mall by the restaurant.  I took her home.  We hugged goodnight.  I declined to go in.

I think it’s over and I’m sad tonight.

Sad but not surprised.

For those of you who have followed this blog (which may just be my husband and me, but that’s fine), you’ll know that running into Millie again at the BECAUSE conference kick-off evening the end of March was the incentive for the birth of this blog.  I had not seen or spoken to her since the night of July 7, with the exception of the note I put in her package which contained the repaired necklaces she had given me to fix and a paperback book I had borrowed from her.  It was done.  Over.

Over except for my remaining anger and confusion about what had gone on between us, something that hit me full in the face the evening our paths crossed at the BECAUSE conference and I left that evening, not to return for the full day of the conference on Saturday because she was giving one of the sessions the next day.

To end this year since my last dinner with her, an interesting thing happened.  As I’ve mentioned, I am a member of a dating site since the end of March.  I think it was on Wednesday that I noticed a local couple had looked at my profile.  The names they gave in their profile were Michael and Diane.  Common enough, All-American names, but it gave me pause because the couple in the menage a trois that Millie was involved with was Mike and Diane.  I read through their profile and picked out the fact that they were both from another state and had relocated here within the last couple of years.  Millie talked about them a lot with me and this rang a bell.  The ages seemed right.

I let this all simmer for a day and then decided, what the hell?  I shot them a message and asked if they had been involved with a local woman last year, that we may have a mutual acquaintance!  They gave me a honest reply back.  Yes, they were involved with a woman, a relationship that ended in early 2007.  They supposed that it could have been her.

I answered with the probable mutual acquaintance’s initials and said that I was just curious so I’d know who to stay away from in case she was still involved with them!

Michael replied that, yes, this was the woman and that if I were in proximity to them, I’d be about as far away from HER as I could get!

This resulted in a number of messages going back and forth over the next couple of days, some written by Michael, who had known Millie for a long time, and some written by Diane who had only met Millie through MIchael’s preexisting relationship with her.  The take-home message for me in all that was that Millie was/is an emotionally unpredictable woman.  I knew about her being treated for a long time for depression (for that matter, so have I), but MIchael postulated that she may be bipolar as well.    He went on to say after knowing her for more than a decade, “She has contradictory needs.  Sometimes she needs someone emotionally strong when she is feeling frail and needs someone to carry her and other times she needs them to be emotionally weak so that she can feel more control in her own life.   The people that seem to be best for her are either physically or emotionally distant from her…”

Diane said in a letter she wrote to me, “I would guess that she has quickly moved on to many other new conquests. It has been my observation that she flirts until she catches the person, takes what she wants and then moves on…”

Both of them agreed that it was good for me that I only experienced four months of this and decided to end it!

Have I had doubts about this?  Perhaps in some ways.  I know that I carry my own amount of baggage due to my growing-up years in a dysfunctional family and I know I tend to be hypersensitive to certain things.  Sometimes I have to pause and ask myself if I’m responding to some stimulus in an appropriate way or reacting from a need to protect an Inner Child from hurt and abuse.  This was one of those cases.

To “celebrate” the first anniversary of giving Millie the boot, I think that I can lay those doubts to rest, thanks to the input from MIchael and Diane, two people whom I never, ever expected to talk to!  They obviously didn’t have an easy time of it, either, and MIchael said that he let it go on for far too long.  This chance encounter with them reassured me that I was not out of line in making the decision I did, and I thank them for the words that they shared with me.

And now, let us return to our originally scheduled programming! 

Over the weekend, my friend and brief lover, Randi Sue, a trans woman who has her first anniversary of her SRS coming up next month, confided in me that she was no longer a virgin in any sense of the word.  “The bi pendulum continues to swing,” she said.  She told me that it would cost me a dinner to get the details.  She was kidding about me springing for dinner, but I did anyway, and we had supper together last evening at The Glockenspiel, a quaint German restaurant on the edge of downtown St. Paul.

I must admit that ever since she told me in that email that she had lost her “virginity” to a man recently, I’ve been concerned about it.  I suspected that it was probably with this older “gentleman” she’s been corresponding with on the dating site we all three belong to.  I read his profile and I know that he’s married.  Now, keep in mind that this is the woman who told me six weeks ago that she didn’t think she could have a sexual relationship without being in love, which is why I’m not having sex with her.  I’m not in love with her, and I don’t want to have someone emotionally involved with me on an entirely different level than I’m involved with them.  It seems more ethical on my part to keep it platonic under those circumstances.

She shared some details with me last night for the price of dinner!  Yes, it is the local man who is 21 years her senior that she had previously mentioned from the dating site.  She said, “He’s married and fools around.  He and his wife agreed years ago not to talk about it, so I don’t know what she knows and what she doesn’t.  I didn’t press him for the details.”

The knot tightened up in my stomach that had been there for a few days, and I wanted to kick the guy in his aging (but apparently immature) nuts, but then I thought, well, maybe she was in it for the exploration with no strings attached, too, just as he probably was.  I asked her how she was doing with the situation.  I didn’t voice this concern to Randi Sue but inwardly I was very worried that he had just used her to satisfy some curiosity about sex with a trans woman, something I find simply unconscionable unless both partners know about that motive upfront and are willing to entertain it.  The sexual use of another human being to satisfy a curiosity is a thought that makes me nauseated.

It actually was a huge relief to hear her say that she was using him as much as he was using her, that he seemed like a nice enough guy to lose her virginity to.  He was ”experienced but not ‘grabby,’ not like a lot of guys would be.”  She seems to know what the score is with his compulsion for “fooling around.”  (Perhaps “fool” is the imperative root of that particular phrase — both as a noun and a verb!)  He’s the kind of guy to have sex with — and apparently that part was pretty good because he reportedly didn’t leave her house until 3:30 in the morning! — but not the kind of guy to have a relationship with.  Okay, well, if that’s what they’re both looking for (or will settle for), more power to them!  At least, it’s a mutual “I use you and you use me” situation.  Nominally, something to be said for the mutuality of that arrangement!

As Bob Seger said in one of my favorite songs, the 1976 hit, “Night Moves:”

I used her, she used me
But neither one cared
We were gettin our share
Workin on our night moves…

I refrained from going into my women’s health care nurse mode and asking her about safe sex practices with the fooling-around married man who is hanging out on dating sites.  Who knows who or what he’s been sticking it to while his wife is out-of-town?  Sometimes I just need to be a friend and not a health care professional, although it’s hard to separate the two.  Now I’m feeling a bit guilty that I didn’t at least mention it rather than just letting it slide, but I hope that she is responsible enough and concerned enough about her own health and well-being to know that condom use is advisable with someone who is clandestinely fooling around on the side.

As for myself, I’d like a relationship as part of my sexual intimacy.  I can pass on the fly-by-night stuff if a sexual tryst is all it’s going to be.    But to each his (or her) own!

A great start to a Saturday morning – a Saturday morning that is a work morning, alas.  I got up to a message in my mailbox at the dating site I frequent.  It said, “You’re a very young looking older gal… how do you feel about younger women? I see that we have a fair amount in common. Would you care to explore our points of connection over coffee?” 

I read her profile, looked at her photos, and  yes, she seems like a highly articulate, very intelligent, and very attractive “younger woman.”  She’s 34 – 18 years younger than I am.  But if no one is in a vulnerable position due to an inexperience and maturity gap, there is no harm in that.  I answered that I would be quite agreeable to meeting if there was good coffee and good conversation involved!

Very nice to get a compliment like that early in the morning…

Edit: No response to my email as of Monday morning June 2.  Perhaps she has reconsidered dating an “older gal!”  Maybe just as well…

All is quiet on the Western Front right now.

Andrew has not answered that long letter I wrote a week ago in “Changing, Aging Perspectives.” 

Randi Sue has attempted no further email or phone communication since I answered her last email reprinted in “The Saga Continues.”  We were so not on the same page with that attempted relationship!  I just don’t fall in love in the span of seven days, and it’s uncomfortable for me to be with someone who is oozing that kind of agenda from her pores when we’re together.

I’ve been hanging out on a dating site (where I met Randi Sue)  and discovered a woman I knew years ago.  I met her in the fall of 2002 and we had a casual, platonic relationship for about seven months.  I started seeing another woman in May 2003, began a sexual affair with her,  and my friendship with Rhyanna slid into obscurity.  I recognized her photos on the dating site and contacted her.  We’re having supper or something this evening.  I need to call her later today to firm up our plans.  I’m looking forward to it.

That’s about all for now!  Pretty quiet in comparison to the last few weeks!

In my previous post, Transcending Trans, I published a letter that I sent six days ago to not one but two trans women in my life.

Anne (not her real name) was the woman who had contacted me via a dating site, and I wrote about that contact and meeting in the post, Caffeine Hangover.  Even before we met that first evening to go to the Bisexual Organizing Project’s women’s-only evening at Wilde Roast Cafe called Chic Chat, she had sent me a brief email that said, “This makes me really glad that you are willing to go to Chic Chat with me.  Don’t give up on BOP just because of Millie.  You know, the irony of our situation has not escaped me.  You and I first met on a dating service when you had given up on dating services, and I was the one who made that original posting for the BECAUSE conference you found.  And yes, when Lynn was talking about who had helped make the conference possible, my name was in the list.  Please, take it as a sign that I was fated to be here for you…”

I responded to that email by saying that I had taken it as a sign, and I had.  Fate had given me a second chance to get involved in the bisexual community here in the Twin Cities.  Fate had snagged me by the back of the jacket as I was running from Millie again and all those attendant emotions and said, “Hey, come back here!  Here is a supportive friend who is willing to go with you and introduce you to some people.  Go!”  I had not gone down the path, though, of thinking that this woman was slated to be a romantic partner because of the means of our introduction and some common events in our background.  I approached it from the standpoint of making a friend and building some connections, an important thing in and of itself.

She said nothing in her profile on the dating site that suggested her status as a trans woman, and that’s okay.  However, my experience with that situation in the past was that individuals have been upfront about these circumstances, even if it’s in a rather oblique, subtle way at first, not wanting to surprise or discomfit their dates in any way.   It just puts that set of circumstances out there right away and prevents any misunderstanding or embarrassment later should this be an unsettling situation for the date.  I figured it out on my own in three seconds when I picked her up at her house that Saturday evening, visually took in her stature and bone structure and the male timbre of her voice.  I knew what her basic circumstances were without knowing any of the specific details.

We had a pleasant-enough evening going to Chic Chat that Saturday, but I was relieved that it wasn’t a one-on-one date.  She was difficult to engage socially.  She had split with her spouse of close to thirty years within recent months and was seriously depressed.  It was readily apparent that there were many stressors in her life, and she was just hanging on day to day emotionally.  And then there was her status in an “extended, polyamorous family,” a situation I approach with a great deal of reservation as a potential participant until I know the details of that configuration.   My conclusion by the end of that evening due to multiple factors in her life was that this was a person I had no interest in getting romantically involved with.  I was interested in being her friend.

However, that Saturday night, I had no sooner dropped her off at her house and returned home when I had an email waiting for me that said what a nice evening she had had and she wondered if she should have kissed me goodnight or invited me in.  I replied, no, I was in no hurry to take things in that direction.  I was interested in developing a friendship.

In that spirit, and knowing that she was depressed, bereft, and struggling, I had suggested during that evening that we make some plans to go out for an Indian meal, something I knew she’d enjoy.   We went out for this meal at Taste of India, a restaurant that I love to visit for its wonderful cuisine.  We had a nice evening.  We talked about many things over supper: her life, my life, all kinds of things.  She actually seemed more at ease with me on that one-on-one level, and after a two-hour dinner, I left feeling the bonds of a friendship.  I also found out that evening that she was in the process of putting together the details for her surgical transition that had yet to happen, and I wanted to be there as a source of support and friendship as she entered that phase of her life.  We shared a quick goodnight peck on the lips in the car when I dropped her off.

The next morning, I had both a brief email, thanking me for a wonderful evening and stating that she wanted to see me again soon, and a link to a web page depicting a medevial, romantic scene.  The verse on the card was:  

Can you imagine my surprise
When I looked into your eyes
Because after all
It was just a meeting of the lips,
Not so very much at all.
A soft caress, a fleeting touch,
Just a whisper of a kiss.
But it set my blood afire,
Singed my soul with desire.

She added the message, “What is in a first kiss? Hope and longing for what may come.”

Okay, well, I knew we were on two different paths with this thing at that point and I was mildly freaked, although I am generally such a calm, together person that I don’t display too much outward emotional demonstration when I am only “mildly freaked!”  I spent a lot of time that Sunday talking to my spouse at various times throughout the day about my recent social developments.

There were even some musings during that day with him as to what it would be like to be married to a person for many years, then to find out somewhere down the road that the partner is transgendered and wants to transition to living as the other sex, complete with the surgical reassignment.  That’s a nearly impossible situation for a straight spouse to adjust to.  I went on to say, however, that I, as a bisexual woman with a fully-developed sexual appreciation for both sexes, could probably make that adjustment, given that the relationship had many other redeeming qualities.  I could emotionally and sexually transition along with the partner, and even continue with a sexual relationship while my partner was in various stages of the transition, including living outwardly as a woman while still having the genitalia of a man.

I think at this point, my husband was mildly freaked.  He didn’t say anything during the course of the day, but that Sunday night, under the influence of a bottle of wine, he said what he did, that he was uncomfortable with my relationships with trans women.  As I mentioned in the letter I wrote to Anne, he didn’t elaborate further, and I didn’t press that night, just kind of quietly digesting that disconcerting bit of sharing and wondering what to do with it from there.

Anne’s response was, “I understand, Kinsey.  You have your primary relationship to worry about.  I hope you and Dave are able to work through any issues you have.  I have to confess that I cried a little, but I expect I will heal.  I only wish that what I am didn’t keep having to be an obstacle to people.  I want nothing but the best for you.  I will miss you.”

So, no consideration of my offer of friendship there.  I get the impression that she wanted a romantic relationship with me or nothing at all.  I’m undecided as to whether I should try to clarify the situation with her and again extend that friendship or write this one off as two people who are clearly on different pages.  (Any thoughts, Readers?) 

Dave read the letters I had sent to both Anne and Randi Sue, and he read Anne’s response.  He initiated a conversation about this on Tuesday morning this week and clarified that he did not mean his statement about his discomfort with my relationships with trans women as an across-the-board, blanket statement.  He said that he meant it with regard to the situation of me having a sexual relationship with a pre-op trans woman, that he was having trouble getting his head around that.   He didn’t mean it in a general way that he was uncomfortable with my transgendered friends or even that he would be necessarily uncomfortable with a sexual relationship between me and a trans woman who had been through the surgical reassignment.  He just couldn’t wrap his head around the situation of me being sexually involved with a person who physically was still in an incomplete state of transition.

“That wasn’t specifically what you said Sunday night!” I pointed out.

“No, that wasn’t what I said,” he countered.  “Consider the state I was in by the time I said what I said!”

Over the course of the next day or so, I thought about who my husband is a person, what has gone into shaping him into who he is.  He is a soon-to-be 58-year-old man who was born and raised in a town in northern Minnesota.  Although it is an ethnically-diverse region, those cultures are of the European variety, and he did not grow up with any contact with racial diversity.  He didn’t know his first African American person until he moved to Ohio when he was 20-years-old.  He did not have any contact with sexual orientation diversity as a child or young man.  Sex wasn’t even something that was talked about in his conservative and inhibited household.  He may have had some acquaintance with a couple of gay men during his college days on the Iron Range, particularly during his involvement with the Theatre Arts folks at the community college (yes, I’m being stereotypical here, but there is some truth in the stereotypes, I’ve observed!), but nothing on a personal basis.  I’m sure that I’m the first woman he had ever known who loves being sexually with women, and lo and behold, he found himself engaged to her!

Having a bisexual woman as his best friend, lover, and wife since his early 20s has been a culturally “enlightening” experience for the heterosexual guy from northern Minnesota!  He has been a very open and accepting individual to the range of orientation and gender diversity that I’ve introduced him to as part of my own orientation and involvement with the LGBT community.  He has embraced his expanded horizons and has been a loving partner to me and a welcoming individual to my friends and lovers over the years.

He ran up against a “sticking point” last weekend with the idea of me getting sexually involved with a pre-surgical trans woman.  He even said that it was his problem, a potential growth experience for him, and at no time did he deliver any ultimatums or demands regarding my behavior.  I chose to respect those feelings, even in their rather incomplete description initially, and shared with my trans acquaintances what was going on here.

I publically give the man a hell of a lot of credit for all that he is and all the acceptance, kindness, and openness he has given to me and to my many LGBT friends over the years.  He is a remarkable man, still growing, still learning, and I love and appreciate him for it.  He has grown in many ways that so many people wouldn’t even consider!

Anne has apparently written me off as a friend, and I’m sorry for that.  I’m also sorry for any pain my husband’s words of that Sunday night caused her.  I can appreciate her feelings in the matter.,

Randi Sue (not her real name), on the other hand, a woman I met face-to-face for the first time nine days ago, said that she’d rather have me as a friend than not at all, a response that seemed a bit more appropriate to the circumstances.

To be continued…..

A strange turn of events this week.

A week ago, I signed up for a new dating site recommended by one of the women on my Yahoo Group, Coming Out as a Married Lesbian or Bisexual.   As I mentioned in a previous post, the Personals have ceased over this past year to be a productive means of meeting other bisexual women, and I’ve blamed that on my “over-the-hill” age of 52.  I’m sure that it puts me out of the age demographics of the folks who are cruising the sites.  50 is about the maximum age you’ll see listed as a search parameter unless the person doing the looking is 50 or older herself, and there are few of those in relation to the 18-40 year olds on these dating sites.

Anyhow, if it’s free to post a profile on a site, what’s the harm in trying?  You never know when someone interesting might come along and strike up a conversation!

Probably within 24 hours of posting my profile, I received a response from a local woman.  During the course of exchanging a few emails over the next several days, it came to light that she was at that BECAUSE conference last weekend.   Due to that commonality, I shared with her what had happened at the conference that Friday evening which resulted in my not returning for the full day of the conference on Saturday.  I gave her the link to this blog so she could read what I had written about it.

Along with having a traumatic time dealing with the conference, I also had misgivings about getting involved with activities that the Bisexual Organizing Project (BOP) here in the BiCities hosts for fear of who I would end up in the same room with.   My new acquaintance suggested that we go together to ”Chic Chat,” the girls-only night of food, beverage and conversation held at a coffee cafe close to the University of Minnesota campus on the first Saturday of the month.  With a companion for the evening, I felt comfortable giving it a whirl and agreed to go.

I had a very nice evening at the cafe.  There were 10-12 women there for Chic Chat.  The young woman sitting at the next table was also attending her first Chic Chat after being at the BECAUSE conference last weekend and we found we had our professional background in common.  Suddenly, acronyms such as BSL3, DNA, HIV, FDA, PCR and other phrases unique to our laboratory professions were flying back and forth.  I stopped at one point and laughed.  “You know, we’re talking a foreign language to the other guests here tonight!” I said. 

And I found out that BOP has a beading morning coming up on a Saturday morning a couple of weeks from now.  Yes, indeed, I’m thinking about going to that!  What could be better than a fellowship of bisexual women who like beads?  Not much, I’m thinking!  I’m on it!

My downfall of the evening, however, was not sticking to decaf coffee like I told myself I was going to before I left.  I don’t typically drink any caffeinated beverages after 9:30 in the morning on weekdays; a little later in the morning on weekends.  I’ve never been a coffee, tea or soft drink imbiber later in the day unless it’s decaffeinated.  I know what it does to me: I’ll be up all night!

I did not heed that advice and had a tall raspberry mocha latte or something like that last evening.  I got home about 10:30, completely wide awake.  At 1:30 when I went to bed, I was still completely wide awake.  Dave woke up when I came to bed and we talked.  He was awake and I was awake, and it was 2:30 at least before I managed to fall into a fitful sleep.  I slept off and on until about 9:00 this morning and then got up.  I am still tired and have a vague headache.  I can hold my liquor but I can’t hold my caffeine!

I’m pleased that the supportive circumstances came together for me to give BOP another try.  Fate has been kind to me this week!

The previous post, Happiness from Within, was optimistic and upbeat, and I was feeling that way in spite of the trauma of losing a relationship, a relationship that had encouraged a wholeness and integration that I hadn’t really experienced before.  I took that lesson away from it, though, that it was possible to have that as a part of my life.  It wasn’t just a fantasy.

I jumped back into the dating scene right away and posted my profile on some new websites.  I shelled out $60 for a 3-month membership on the website BiCupid, liking the looks of that site quite a bit and wanting to search profiles and write emails to my heart’s content for my 60 bucks. 

What has happened since July?  Well, hardly anything.  I let my Silver membership on FastCupid lapse, although my profile is still there, and I am getting zero responses to my profile there.  My attempts to initiate some conversation with a couple of interesting, albeit long-distance, women there was met with no response.  In one case, I was actually blocked from further correspondence, and I thought, WTF??

BiCupid is an interesting website, and I’ve taken advantage of my “Preferred” status (meaning I’ve paid a lot of money to send some emails!) and have written to anyone who sounds interesting, no matter how far away they live.  I’m open to long-distance communication via email, and I’m willing to hop on a plane and make some visits should the interest be there to develop a real life friendship.  In July, I immediately connected with a 60-year-old woman in New York City, a psychotherapist in part-time private practice who was married and had a personal and professional handle on the subjects of bisexuality and polyamory.  We exchanged daily emails for a couple of months until it became glaringly apparent that we didn’t really have that much in common except for our generation and our experience with bisexuality and polyamory.  In fact, we probably really didn’t like each other all that much!  We just let it go by tacit agreement.

I made the acquaintance of one lovely woman in Texas, and we keep in touch rather sporadically.  As far as I can foresee, it’s a long-distance friendship.

Other than that….. nothing.  I forked out another $100 in October to extent my BiCupid Preferred status another six months.  I’ve exchanged a couple of emails, sometimes on a one-time-only basis.  More often than not, the emails I send out are met with no response.  All of these fellow BiCupiders I send emails to are long-distance.  There are no profiles in my age range on BiCupid that I’m interested in here in Minnesota.  I go through the whole list periodically.

Granted, I’m looking in an ”older” demographic.  35 years old is my bottom range for considering an intimate relationship with a woman unless she is truly an exceptionally intelligent and mature woman.  (I can think of one such woman on LiveJournal who is only 33 right now, a woman I’ve known since I started blogging there in 2004.  With her, yeah, I’d consider it, but Montana is a long ways away from the BiCities!  And besides, I don’t think she’s interested.)  I’m 52 years old, and I feel uncomfortable even considering sticking my toe into the demographic pool of 20-some year olds — not that any of them would be remotely interested in a 52-year-old woman who is maybe older than their moms! 

So, this narrows my options.  Nor am I exactly choice online dating material due to my own age.  I’m out of the usual dating demographics now.  When even a thirty-something year old woman plugs in an age range into the site’s search parameters, it is typically something like “28 to 45.”  A forty-something year old woman might typically plug in ”35-50.”  It seems like 50 is about the cut-off for what people are typically searching for when they fill in the blank.  That leaves my profile out of contention from the get-go.  I’m generally “over the hill” for online dating now.

I have never, EVER been in a “dry spell” like this of such duration, not when I’ve been actively trying!

It has led me to moments of despondency that this relationship with a woman, the relationship that will complete my range of emotional and sexual needs, will never happen, not beyond the fleeting glimmers of possibility it’s already seen in my life.  I’m certainly a long way from dead and/or decrepit at 52, but I feel that sand slipping through the proverbial hourglass.  It hasn’t been a comfortable, reassuring feeling.  It fact, I’ve hated it.  I’ve had moments of regretting that 17-year period of monogamy in my marriage.  I was prime dating material then when I was 25 to 42 years old, and I wasn’t pursuing it then.  (Of course, these were the years of 1981-1998.  There were no internet opportunities in the ’80s then for meeting people.  There wasn’t for me until we upgraded our computer and signed up for Internet access in December 1997.  It’s no coincidence that that 17-year period of monogamy ended soon after the Internet became part of our household!) 

Part of that 17-year period of monogamy during the years 1981-1997 (and pre-Internet) was due to the fact that bisexual individuals are invisible in our society.  This was true when I was a young woman back in the 1970s and ’80s and it’s true today.  Heterosexually-partnered bisexuals are even more invisible because the assumption is immediately made that the partners are straight.  We don’t generally walk around wearing a prominent lavender lapel pin with BISEXUAL stamped in its center.

No, in order for bisexually-oriented individuals to meet others that share that orientation, there needs to be an explicit venue for that introduction to happen.  Social groups spring up and then disband.  There really are no bisexual bars or coffeehouses, etc.  The gay and lesbian community in general would prefer that we’d just go away.  We’re a thorn in their side.  The attitude is out there in both the straight and the gay/lesbian world that bisexuals are just a fucked-up branch of the gay/lesbian community, probably really gay or lesbian but unwilling or afraid to commit to their “true identity.” We’re the the chronic “fence-sitters.”  We’re viewed with skepticism and mistrust.  We’re dismissed, not considered a positive, viable entity in the community.   In fact, I’ve heard it said that we “don’t really exist!”

The Internet has helped to bring some folks together, but what happens when that ceases to be a productive option?  I seem to be experiencing that phenomenon during these past eight months, and it has led me to the conclusion — being the intelligent individual that I am! — that I need a new plan!

From 1981 to 1998, I was in a 17-year period of no romantic/sexual relationships with women, although I still acknowledged and considered myself bisexual. I just wasn’t actively pursuing a relationship and none were dropping into my lap. Bisexual relationships don’t tend to drop into a married woman’s lap. (Prior to 1981, I had had a number of experiences with women but nothing very fruitful in terms of relationships. Hence, the weariness and the “semi-retirement” from pursuing it.)

From 1998 to 2001, I was in a relationship with a woman where I was more or less “officially” considered her girlfriend. We were partnered in that sense. However, it was a lopsided affair with the world revolving around Maura.  [Note: at no time are real names used in this blog, with the exception of noted personalities, authors, etc.]  She was very self-absorbed and high maintenance. The fact that she got married a year-and-a-half after we met, got pregnant a month after the wedding, and delivered a child nine months after her wedding to Ryan did not smooth our relationship any. It just demanded more of her than what she was able to give, and it’s not hard to imagine that I was relegated to the bottom of the priority list. I am NOT high maintenance and am a centered, giving woman who can deal with a certain amount of that kind of relationship, but I reached my limit with it, especially when they decided to relocate to a town in Wisconsin which was a six-hour drive from the Twin Cities. That was the last straw for me. We weren’t doing well with her living a 20-minute drive from me at that point. We probably weren’t going to be doing any WORSE with her living six hours away from me, but it wasn’t going to improve the relationship, either. It was time to end it and move on.

In the spring of 2003, I corresponded with a 45-year-old male-to-female (MTF) transgendered woman who lived only a few miles from me. (Yes, I am comfortable with transgendered individuals.  I feel that the transgendered and bisexual members of the GLBT acronym have something in common from the “blending” standpoint.)  This was through the FastCupid website where I’ve had a profile posted since shortly before this time.  We wrote a couple of times and decided to meet. On the evening that we went out to dinner that first time, she was only about a week home from her major surgical sex reassignment operation in Neenah, Wisconsin. She was sitting on an inflatable “doughnut” to cushion her sore, reconstructed bottom while we dined that evening! Interestingly enough, though, a sexual relationship blossomed between us, beginning that evening, even though I was the only one who had breasts and genitals that could be touched and stimulated. But, hey! It worked well for me!

This was not a heavy-duty romantic relationship for either one of us. She had a need to experience her new female body sexually, and that was the basis for her making the sexual overtures on that first date.  I knew that, and I enjoyed being a part of that experience for her.   However, it was only a few weeks later when she said to me that she wanted emotional closeness, wanted to be in love, and she couldn’t do that with a married woman.  Still, the sexual relationship went on regularly for four months! I was the one who finally let the relationship go without any declarations or announcements of termination.  I just didn’t answer an email, and she never wrote back and asked me what was up.  It was just over, and I assume she moved on to something more suited to her needs.

In November of that year (2003), I went out with a woman I had known for a number of years. We had met when we were both members of a bisexual women’s support group at Chrysalis Women’s Center in Minneapolis in 1997. She and I had gotten together for some dinner dates over the years, very sporadically. We never really “clicked” for some reason but never lost touch with each other, either. Personally, I found her quite attractive and entertained thoughts of having a relationship with her. I told her this during one of our sporadic dinner dates in the spring of that year, news that she appeared to be fairly receptive to. Then we didn’t see each other for some months again!

Well, we went out that evening in November 2003, her husband of 28 years gone on a hunting trip and mine out-of-town on business. We went back to my house after supper and had sex for the first time. It was a brief tryst that evening because she had to get home to greet her husband when he arrived from his hunting trip. We saw each other once for dinner around the holidays.

Her 50th birthday was in late February 2004, and I purchased an amethyst (Feb.’s birthstone) and diamond necklace for her, wanting to give a woman I cared about something special for that milestone birthday.  When she put off seeing me after my suggestions to get together to celebrate her birthday, I let it go, and I let it go for good that time. Her situation was being married to a man who did not support her bisexuality. He knew of it but was uncomfortable with it. One-night stands he could handle, but an ongoing relationship between his wife and another woman was something he could not handle, and I think she knew she was potentially getting into a more serious relationship if she continued seeing me. This is quite different from the dynamics of my marriage, and I really don’t want to get romantically involved with someone who has that situation going on.  I occasionally wear that amethyst and diamond necklace that I did not give her, and I remember why I bought it and why the intended recipient did not get it.  I like the necklace, anyway. 

A year went by. I corresponded with another woman on FastCupid, a divorced woman my age, and we met for dinner in October 2004. Dated a few times. My husband was gone over Thanksgiving weekend that year, and Rosalind and I “played” (her term, not mine) that Saturday night at her house and I spent the night, something that I rarely have done. It was very, very nice. She was very attractive and very sexual, and I felt my sex drive re-energizing and coming to life in a way I hadn’t felt in a long time.  We saw each other a few times after that, with no further sexual encounters between us. It quickly became apparent through our conversations and e-mails that she was interested in a “friend with bennies” from a woman partner. It didn’t mean anything beyond that. She was emphatic that she wasn’t a lesbian and told me this several times.  That’s fine because I don’t consider myself a lesbian, either, but her emphasis on this suggested the unlikelihood that she would get emotionally involved with another woman.  In fact, she could go for several weeks at a time and not touch base with me if she was busy with a male friend or what-not.  Well, I want to mean something to a woman, not just be a “friend with bennies” when it’s convenient. I ended that one on the basis of emotional incompatibility.

Fast-forward another 20 months — Fall of 2006. Another FastCupid correspondent. Another MTF transgendered woman. A very interesting woman: a former high school teacher whose story was written up in the Star Tribune newspaper years ago when she made her very public transition from male to female at the high school she worked at in 1998. Since retiring, she has been self-employed as a motivational speaker in the area of transgendered life and receives numerous engagements to speak nationwide. Yes, I found her very interesting! She found me very interesting as well, to the extent of wanting a serious thing with me on the basis of the first date in November.  (Okay, so I didn’t go home until the next day. Not the thing to do on the “first date,” and I’d do well to remember that!)  She called me a “married lesbian” on that first date.  Even when I objected that I wasn’t a “married lesbian” but a bisexual woman, she insisted that I was a married lesbian until she saw I was getting seriously irritated.  For the second date, she wanted me to spend the weekend with her to see how we viewed the relationship in that light.  (As opposed to the porch light that my husband leaves on for me at home?)  I saw a lot of red flags flying with this relationship.  Dee wasn’t experienced with bisexuality and polyamory and I sensed I was getting into something with her that was not compatable with my life.  I backed off on that relationship in a hurry! 

Millie, a woman almost 16 years younger than me, responded to my FastCupid profile in March 2007. I found our interests and lifestyles to be compatible, found her attractive, and enjoyed exchanging e-mail with a woman who could intelligently string some sentences together — unfortunately, a quality that seems to be hard to find! We didn’t waste a lot of time chatting each other up but decided to meet soon after our online introduction.

We dated and corresponded for about six weeks before sexually pleasing each other one Saturday night at her apartment. She cried and said how good it felt to be in my arms. I stroked her hair, and she cuddled against me and said, “You know how badly you want something to happen sometimes but you’re not sure it will?  I wasn’t sure this would.  I’m so happy it did!”  Being with me like that really seemed to mean something to her!

We saw each other regularly after that. She was always eager to hug me, kiss me, hold hands with me. She didn’t care who saw us displaying these affections towards each other. She introduced me to her kids. She told me that her youngest son, three-and-a-half, wanted to know if he could call Kinsey ”Mommy,” too, since I was Mommy’s girlfriend. We had a wonderful day at the Pride Festival, completely “out and proud,” our arms around each other, our affection there for everyone to see.

Then……