#Confession: I had sex with a married man (and btw, I don’t regret it)
This was one of my favorite songs growing up. I only knew the 10,000 Maniacs version (that I played on my cassette player that didn’t even have a rewind so when I wanted to hear the song again I had to fast forward on the other side). Patti Smith crushes it, and loved hearing the story behind the song on the Defiant Ones on HBO.
Maestro …
Picture it. Tinder. July 31, 2016. Scene: Friel is seen zipped inside inside her onesie lounging on an oversized sofa chair snuggled next to her dog, Buster Brown. She sips her wine as she begins swiping …
Last summer while swiping on Tinder, I came across a profile featuring a man in a suit with his face deliberately hidden. Wondering what he had to hide, I clicked on his profile.
I’m not sure what kept my interest in that exact moment – the radical honesty? the marketing of intelligence? I’m not the kind of person that would ever want a guy because he was “someone else’s,” in fact quite the opposite … I’m more likely to ask for a threesome.
Surprising myself, I swiped right.
It was an instant match. Oh shit, I thought.
<tangent> Talk Nerdy v.1.0 was all about welcoming situations that I wanted to explore while concurrently learning about myself. I’m solid on who I am at age 32, and I don’t need to do that anymore. With each stroke (pun intended) I question if I am even going to publish this … </tangent>
Within seconds he messaged saying he couldn’t stay on Tinder long (for obvious reasons).
Not needing long (that’s what he said), my questions were Vin Diesel style fast and furious …
Gray text (him): Hi
Blue text (me): Hi. (the period was deliberate)
Gray text: Have you read my profile?
Blue text: Yes. Why cheat? Why even get married? It’s so cowardly.
Gray text: There’s more to it than that.
Blue text: OH I’M SURE (capitalization was also deliberate)
He asked me to email him. (For obvious reasons he didn’t want to keep talking through Tinder.) I waited a full 24 hours before sending this …
I wasn’t sure what to say next. I wasn’t sure I cared since I was more focused on getting ahead than receiving it …
(“more pictures” references more than what he had posted on Tinder, which again, omitted his face)
The “horny” part was a test, I wanted to see what he would lead with.
Would he flat out show me his little Richard? Does he take a photo of his face? I was curious to find out.
He sends me a photo of his chest which was congruent with the athleticism he advertised.
The pose was neutral and confident. He didn’t do one of these elbows out, hands clasped behind the head “come hither” style. Independent of the circumstances he was looking to place himself in (quite literally), I felt like I could learn from this guy. What? I wasn’t sure, but he didn’t operate in the “predictably index” I’ve known previously of “cheaters.”
<tangent> After over 7,500 blog posts, and an equal amount of zip codes I’ve taken “residence” in – people operate on a spectrum in my brain based upon the behavior I learned from people I’ve previously met. If it walks like a duck, acts like a duck, quacks like a duck, I got a duck, and I can’t be mad at a duck for not being a giraffe. I’m very rarely surprised in life in terms of people. This guy was genuine, this guy knew what he wanted, that equated to a power I was attracted to know more about. </tangent>
Attraction aside, sex wasn’t even entering into my brain at this point. The predictably index acts as a “chastity belt” of sorts. It takes me a really really really long time to finally have sex with someone based upon the fact that I’ve more likely than not had sex with this type of personality before! In four years I can count on less than two hands how many people I’ve slept with.NOT because I’m proud of that fact, quite the opposite actually. I find myself more often than not in a state of frustration and take said frustration out by using …
Porn is only .5% LESS frustrating than going to bed with a guy only wanting to dip out two seconds after he was done dipping in.
(I do however enjoy feeling another body on top of my body, like a sexual Thunder Shirt of sorts. It calms and soothes, but then I’m all YUP! Good – get off of me).
I confidently used self control as a sexual shield. I genuinely didn’t give a fuck about getting fucked. I’m not surprised by personality types. I’ve seen it been there. Done that. And they’re making a TV show.
<tangent> Can we talk for a sec about how god awful porn is? The story lines, I mean, I want to write a porno just to give quality storytelling and proper narrative. OH, and then you watch the 10 second thumbnail and think YES! THIS IS GREAT …
… only to discover the tongue that you thought you were going to experience is not in fact native …
Maria, please tell me you made him work for it and didn’t just give up your …
</tangent>
Anywho, back to my own hooha … he then sent me his KIK, and the convo continued over the course of a few days …
I don’t like meeting people anymore. I’ve met a lot of them. I will 100% til the day I fucking die meet a reader of this site and say THANK YOU, but other than that – no. I’m good. I like my home, my dog, my wine, onesie, and Netflix.
The convo then went to what we were each studying. I had just discovered Revisionist History from Malcolm Gladwell, so I told him, and then he shared this …
Then came time for the photo exchange.
He referenced grooming preferences before sending his first photo.
BTW, we are talking about his face and not his …
You can’t tell in the screenshot, but I did SLIGHTLY unzip the onesie …
Over the next couple of weeks, we became each other’s night night buddies. We’d talk about our days (our experiences in them, never the parties involved), and eventually once respect was earned from an intellectual perspective – things got sexualish.
I wasn’t about to let him know that I was following his command. I really was typing that before I read what he had written.
I didn’t see his last message, my fingers quickly closed out KIK and opened up the google …
Per Kinkly (appropriately named):
There’s a typo in this. It should read “does not make an effort to reciprocate.”
I had never heard that term before August, but apparently let it seep into my subconscious when a boy I found attractive texted around my birthday (I won’t date him because he’s vegan, and I’m a massive. massive. carnivore. I did go on a #BJDiet afterall … ) …
We never ended up meeting that day because I wound up going to a last minute work holiday party. I never viewed what I do as a “sacrifice” because I enjoy it so much, but in writing this post I am realizing how much sex I am missing out on. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, FRIEL?!?!!??!
Anywho, back to the sex offered by something other than my own hand …
Our messages continued for two straight weeks before I finally agreed to meet up. He had already checked off the intelligent box, checked off the kinky box, would I actually let check off my own box? I wasn’t sure, but invested enough in my night night buddy to find out.
We agreed to meet during the day at a bar that is shockingly popular during the weekday.
I can’t remember who sat down first, I just remember we arrived around the same time (such nerds for being on time). For as open as I know I am sexually, when you share aspects about yourself before meeting someone IRL, there is like a weird disconnect. That’s one of the reasons why I won’t say more than two or three words to a guy on Tinder before/ if I know I want to meet him.
I know what I want, I want what I want, and I don’t need to talk about it.
I’ve found that when I talk to someone too much online before meeting them I place a projection on who I think they are vs who I can figure out they are. We are shockingly transparent, and the older I get the easier it all is to see.
We both ordered a bottle of cold beer (I ordered bud light, I can’t remember what he ordered), and as he started talking – I tuned out the words that were coming out of his mouth. I can imagine he was narrating the steps it took for him to be able to arrive at this random bar that I picked on a weekday, but I didn’t care. I just wanted/ needed to know what his motives were and if he was genuine. Everything I could tell about this guy was that he was honest, and yet here he was about to commit (from my perspective) the most dishonest act a person can do.
Cheating in general is no bueno in my eyes, cheating on your wife? Even worse.
I started talking somewhere where it was logistically acceptable. I brought up the one thing we had yet to talk about, his wife.
“Why cheat?” I asked point blank.
“It’s not what you think,” he said quiet while leaning closer.
I paused, not saying anything verbally or physically.
“We’ve tried counselling, she is going through something. I don’t know what, but I’m also a man and have needs.”
“How do you know she’s not cheating?” I asked honest and not judgy.
“It’s more physical on her end, I just know she’s not.”
I still wasn’t entirely sure, but I quickly asked another question … “why not just get a divorce?”
“Because of our family. She’s an amazing mother, and great wife except for this one thing.”
My eyes said they understood, but it was hard to understand not having walked in those shoes. From my perspective, I wouldn’t ever want to teach my children that a sexless marriage is okay. Sex is a HUGE part of intimacy, it’s in fact one of the greatest parts. Here is this ONE THING that you share with this ONE OTHER human being. If that’s not the definition of closeness, I don’t know what is. Again, not being in that position I knew I couldn’t relate, I could only listen.
He continued to tell me about his experience in marriage, and all I could do was respect the guy. Here he was in this brief moment being “seen” not as a father or as a husband (particularly one that can be viewed as “failing” to a certain degree), he was just a guy that I thought was smart and easy to talk to. The intelligence factor is what I need to find someone attractive, so the fact that he had that AND he was (by any definition) commercially attractive AND I could tell he wasn’t bullshitting me meant that I still wanted to know more. I still wasn’t sold on sex, but I was more certain than ever that he more likely than not could change my mind.
After we departed, he emailed.
Alrite, much like dudes after sex, that’s all you get for now. It was so FANTASTICALLY dirty, and now that I’ve come this far, it would be a shame to stop …
