I will admit, I’ve been procrastinating on writing this because I can’t think of a name for the new guy in my life. I’ve come up with something I think will serve as a good placeholder though: Enigma.
I met Enigma at a friends’ burner camps’ event out in the woods back in late spring or early summer of last year (the last fundraising event before our regional big burner event) – I went there and Diplomat came with me (reluctantly). I drank and did my introvert social thing – go out and talk to people, retreat, come back with backup, retreat, then get caught up in conversation with someone, and, for a bit, the rest of the world becomes fuzzy. Diplomat and I were standing near the campfire, talking to folks, and we ended up talking to this one guy that somehow drew me in. I get swept into conversation and flirting (weird, me flirting…) and Diplomat peels away, leaving me with this guy. Eventually I go to find Diplomat because I wanted to fuck him in the sex tent before we left (there’s a mildly amusing story to do with this, but that may be for another day).
After we leave the sex tent, and both kinda wander off to do our own thing, Enigma and I find ourselves talking again. I mentioned that I was cold (because I dislike completely redressing after undressing) and the man takes off his overshirt and gives it to me. It was big on him, so I was swimming in it, but it really helped. He ends up peeling off and I end up walking around the party in his shirt. After an hour or so, Diplomat and I were both getting tired, so we go to say goodbye to our friends, and I try to find Enigma to give him his shirt back, but only find him busy in the sex tent, so I gesticulate that I’m leaving the shirt right outside the tent. I’m bummed that we didn’t get to exchange info other than names.
I consider trying to track him down through friends on Facebook, then consider that that may be a little too weird, and try to just live with the fact that I may never get to see/talk with someone that I had had a fabulously engaging conversation with at a fun party.
Apparently the universe had other plans, even if it was a bit slow in implementing them. This year, at about the same time, I went by myself to a party held by one of the camps who had thrown the party I went to last year. I mostly just went to get out of the house, socialize with people I like, and to ogle the pretty people in their undies – so sue me, I’m a voyeur. And who was there, but the mysterious man who I thought I’d never see again. We fell back into conversation, first in a group context, then I braided his hair in the sex tent (not a euphemism). This time, this time we exchanged contact info before we left and end up setting up a first date for early in the second week of June.
Holy shit was I nervous when that date came around – when it’s easy for someone who doesn’t know me well to figure out that I’m nervous, that’s quite a thing. But things went well. We got coffee, I got dinner, then we wandered around the downtown talking. I hoped that it would result in a second date, but wasn’t holding my breath. The next week, he ends up accompanying me to get the second part of my most recent tattoo done, and we get dinner afterwards. So, for awhile, he was the only person who had seen my tattoo all finished, and I liked how special that was, so I left it that way.
After this point, we were texting at least semi-regularly, so it didn’t seem out of place for me to mention in the last week of June that I was nervous about a conversation with Moss (that ended up with him breaking up with me). He offered to help/talk with me afterwards and I told him that I would let him know. After Moss left, I ended up messaging Enigma and asking if the offer for help was still out there. He said it was and came over to my place and we cuddled and talked and I processed. A week or so later he asks me where we stand and I say that I don’t know how much I can put into a relationship while I’m still processing the end of that one, but that if that was ok, I might have more certainty in a short while regarding what I could offer.
Things pick back up in July. We end up going to the “local” lavender festival mid-July, which was a ferry ride and a drive away (turns out we both love ferry rides), which gave us plenty of time to talk. We explore the festival together, share an elephant ear, he got lavender plants for culinary purposes, then we went out to one of the farms, where he took pictures of me in the lavender (an expressed desire) and of the lavender itself. We end up having to take the land route back home because the ferry was too busy.
Then we went on the most gloriously empty-trailed hike up north the next week, and we finally end up expressing sexual interest in each other (and end up making out several times, among other things). We talked about mental health stuff (both his and mine) in great detail on the way up to the trail (after a communication confusion got us off to a later start). On the trail we had a lot of great conversation – including about my gender stuff – and a load off my mind (I had been worrying about whether my fledgling interest in pursuing things of a sexual nature with him was just one-sided).
In the following weeks we have a date an average of once per week. In early August we agree that we’re dating and later on we talk about what that means to us and what each of our intentions are with regards to a continuing relationship with each other. At that point in August, we are talking most days of the week, and are definitely in each others’ lives in an involved way.
We’re now in September and the trend of growing involvement in each other’s lives is continuing. This Sunday gave me great potential hopes about how we will spend time and what our future will look like (together). No spoilers about details!
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