Dear Ruth,

You are hilarious. I am loving your forever alone update. Your Onesie is amazing and your new glasses make you gayer than gay. Keep taking yourself out to dates, even if taking yourself home it’s not as fun as seducing a hot lady. It seems like the lack of sex is your biggest challenge right now. STAY STRONG GIRL!!! I hope you made your three solid months without sex, but I’d understand if you didn’t, it really is not the end of the world. I think is a great process to learn how much sex means to you and the reasons you need it. I wonder what part it plays in you choosing a partner, or keeping a partner. Like, in past relationships, did you stay for the sex? Was the sex a big part of your decision making? I feel like this is a great time to explore those questions and get to know your sexual self, differentiating it from your emotional self. Those two can be so entangled.

Now, Fuck buddies. Uhmmm I say you go on a dating site, make it clear you are looking for sex, have the STD convo, and BAM, sex. Or you can go on a sex site. I have met people from craigslist (when I first started dating girls, I didn’t know how else to meet them) and is not the same experience. The exchange takes longer and there’s more flakes. Dating apps are different, you have to post pictures, and is easier to spot scammers. Ruth, if  NSA sex is what you need, go and get it!

I am happy you are making friendship progress with your exes. I friendly want to remind you that you don’t HAVE to. Like if it ever gets too hard to be friends with either of them, you can take a step back or make a pause. I just don’t want their friendship to burden you. If Lily is not ready, she’s not ready.

Hannah. My eyes are rolling all the way to Barraquilla and back. Girl, you is playing with fire. You CLEARLY, C-L-E-A-R-L-Y, like this girl. She was on top on your list last summer until Lily came around. You are attracted to her and you want to be around her. Danger zone!!!

You want to know why you find yourself in this situation? Because you put yourself in this situation.

If you are trying to remain single, should you really be sipping wine with cute, smart, sensitive, oh so perfect Hannah? That’s like trying to quit Alcohol and walking into a bar. Listen to your own absurdity “I’m praying that somehow her feelings for me just go away and we stop being attracted to each other.” girl, are you fucking kidding me? Shit dont work like dat. You know this part. Feelings don’t go away on command, they also don’t grow on command. The wolf you feed is the wolf that wins. If you keep feeding this connection with someone, it’ll grow, it’ll never go away.

For example, things with Cory have been improving in that they are dying away. Understanding that she does not feel the way I do, and internalizing that, making it a reality, accepting it as true, has helped me not feed that wolf. I told her I loved her the other day, she said it back but ran away from the conversation. I don’t think she would ever take the steps I want from a partner, whatever has happened between us has been facilitated by me. So I am working on leaving her alone, because once I let her move on, I can move on too. And oh am I ready!!!

I am so ready to find a partner that I was actually considering :::gasps::: monogamy.

It’s just all my (very heteronormative) friends are getting married, I got like three weddings this year and goddamn I want a partner to do romantic corny things with. Ugh. 30 is approaching and it has brought in a huge shift of focus. Prior to this I would have not even thought about “settling down” but I have actually  been flirting with the idea. I think is perfect timing, my witchy side says I am going from maiden to mother, my emotional self knows exactly what she wants. Before this I would always say I only know what I DONT want. But now I can speak in affirmative. I know exactly what I want, and I know she exists.

Let me tangent a little bit on this: I have been in enough relationships to know which trades are a must, which are optional and which are rotundus no. I feel certain that I will know when I meet her, that she’s a good candidate for a long term relationship. Being in this mindset is a great sign that I am actually moving on from Cory. It started as an exercise on resistance, to distract my mind from her I created an imaginary girlfriend. I got the idea from this poem about an imaginary man heartbroken about an imaginary love. The only real thing is the pain. That’s how I feel with Cory lately. So I made up military chick, who I am mutually in love with, she’s Brunette and half Hispanic because I need them to speak the language. She looks a little bit like Anita Blake. From imaginary girlfriend, I moved into very real dating profile.

So to give you an update, I am moving to NYC mid may and from there, at some point in the summer, I am moving to Philadelphia. I am waiting to hear from another program in the same university but I am officially a Drexel Dragon!!! Abby and Cory are aware I am moving, that I am stopping in NYC, and that’ll be less than a mile from Abby but never as far away. I am not sure if I am going to try to see them. I have not explored that enough. I have too much other shit going on. 

 

So I went back on dating site and I change my location to Philadelphia and holy shit the queer poly scene is popping!!! I am slightly ashamed of myself for even considering monogamy, giving up parts of myself because I am lonely. SMH Nora. I am making friends primarily, connecting with other witchy, crafty, natury queers out there. Checking a couple poly people too. It feels good to have prospects of new friendships and connections. It feels good to dream of possibilities. It feels hopeful.

Back to resistance, something that has helped release my feelings for Cory is letting them be. I am going to love this girl for a while, I stopped resisting that. But I no longer feel like I HAVE to be with her. I think I can be happy with someone else. I have allowed both realities to coexist: I love her AND I can be happy with someone else. These are both true.

In your case of resistance with relationships, I think that it’s worth exploring why you decided to not date in the first place. Internal resistance could be healthy if your brain is protecting you from heartbreak. Do you need these six months? Revisit the moment when you made that decision. I disagree with Penny that if Hannah was the one you’d know because, let me remind you, you said you were gonna stay single until 30 and then you broke that commitment to yourself for Lily. And that did not work out. There’s definitely something inside of you resisting aloneness, what is it?

I say stop resisting internally, but don’t give up externally. Accept that you want a relationship and that you want a partner, while also accepting that you won’t have that until _____ (insert month). Don’t resist growth, make more friends, hang out with NEW people instead of old flames, hang out with straight girls, put yourself in situations that won’t make you scream in your car.

End unsolicited advice. Wait, no you did ask.

Keep working on it girl, time is going to pass and soon you would have reached your goal. Think about it his way: if you make it to six months you will be so damn proud of yourself, no relationship would ever give you that kind of feeling. Focus on making yourself (and me) proud.

If it makes you feel any better, I stopped sexcapading and I am parched for sex too. I miss women, oh I miss women. I miss the softness and the hair, the smell of their body.

The struggle is real my love.

Te quiero

Nora

P.S. I finally build up courage to get a tarot deck, and of course it is a fairy deck. I can do a reading for you, any time now.