What I want sits between a boyfriend and one evening, and it has no name
Looking for the middle version of this, described properly for once
Somewhere between a boyfriend and a single evening there is a thing with no good word attached to it, and it is the only thing I have ever wanted out of any of this. A person I see every few weeks for years. Who knows what my job is and asks about it. Who is not part of my life in any structural sense and never will be, and who is also not a stranger I am polite to for three hours.
The difficulty is that the vocabulary here offers two settings. Men arrive expecting either an evening or a romance, and when I describe the middle they hear whichever of the two they already came for.
What the middle actually looks like: a message on a Wednesday about nothing at all. Dinner once or twice a month. Knowing when his father was ill. Not being invited to anything with his friends, and not wanting to be. No expectation of exclusivity in either direction and no interest in discussing anybody else's arrangements.
Thirty five, the inner west, four years, married eleven. My husband is entirely settled and is not looking for anything himself, which people find harder to believe than it deserves.
The one that worked lasted two years and ended when he moved. What made it work was that neither of us ever tried to promote it into something larger or demote it into something smaller. It stayed exactly what it was, which is far harder than it sounds.
Before the first drink Replying goes through the connected platform, so nothing about you is shared until you decide to share it. Take contact slowly and keep identifying details back until trust is earned. Meet somewhere public the first time, with your own way home from it, and if you are a couple then go together. Tell someone outside it where you are going. Never send money to someone you have not met. And if a post or a reply reads wrong, flag it rather than talking yourself out of the feeling.
Before you answer a post like this
She is searching with a partner who agreed to it, so read the label carefully before you read anything else.
- Cuckold, hotwife, stag and vixen: the vocabulary map
- She comes with a partner. Vet both of them
- The first meeting: a drink, all three of you