Monthly Archives: August 2025

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TikTok

I woke up on Tuesday morning having slept really well to a TikTok by James Sexton regarding lesbian divorces characterized by knock down drag out fighting and prior Domestic Violence experiences. My initial reaction was “WTF?”

Then I realized that my GF had sent it for a reason, so I obtained a white paper and found out that due to intersectionality–being female and having less financial power and sometimes more impact on ability to achieve stability alongside being a sexual minority causes pain. Pain has to go somewhere. Researchers assumed that this intersectionality puts pressure in the female couple dyad.

It made me feel awful.

My divorce wasn’t amiable. She always told me that we had no foundation, and that was true.

I loved her for years and my love wasn’t enough. We got married when my son was in 3rd grade.

My Mom shattered her shoulder weeks after we had wed and my parents were both already declining. My son went off the deep end in 6th grade after his father had a breakdown and moved states at the end of 5th grade. Everyone was crumbling around me and I had no way to be enough or help significantly anyone who needed me. Nothing could become proactive or stable. Decline was all around us.

My ex-wife and I both have tendencies toward being reactive. It was a recipe for contention, but not physical violence. I’m glad that our marriage is over. I had filed once in 2019 and she had me reverse the filing. She filed in 2022 and became biromantic with men and is now married to a man and is living out of the country.

My GF and I went back and forth DMing in TikTok because she has it was “interesting” and “seemed to support” why my divorce was difficult from my ex-wife and not really from my ex-husband.

The whole thing was grossly oversimplified.

And I found it hurtful.

Last night we talked about it and she told me that she found it hurtful that I didn’t see how interesting it was and applied to my divorce. She said that we sometimes arrive at an impasse.

My GF is one of those women who is kind, caring and tends toward helping everyone out. I think that sometimes because she assumes positive intent, she doesn’t know how some of her assertions land.

I felt judged. I was hurt. I told her last night on our date that I want to feel safe, seen and secure. She said that she wanted that too. She was upset with me for not seeing why she sent me that particular TikTok.

I got up really early today. I didn’t sleep well because my new love interest who I was supposed to meet tomorrow had to fly abroad for work and will be gone two weeks. I misunderstood when her flight would get in and thought that it would be this morning in my time zone, but it will be late afternoon today. I shouldn’t have slept with my cell phone near me!

Because my GF and I had a date last night and were still talking about this difference of opinion, I went ahead and thought about the situation again. I still find it odd that she sent it to me and thought it would be helpful to me. Having conflict about TikTok is really weird.

I DM’ed:

“So, I watched it again and even through afterglow [dosage of psilocybin on Thursday night] it seems to say that lesbians have knock down drag out endings and high DV rates. Sorry, I don’t understand why you sent it to me. I’m just trying to be a good person and GF. I am also willing to slow down, monitor reactions that I have, and ask more questions for information. Making assumptions or jumping to conclusions [something that I have to continuously work on] doesn’t seem to result in abusive fights or domestic violence in my experience.”

So, she’s upset. And I’m less upset, but don’t see why that was the one that she chose to send to me.

Except for some animal videos, I don’t particularly like TikTok. If I can get my book designed, I will probably use it for my content, and it doesn’t seem to matter now because she hasn’t sent me anything on it since Tuesday at 1:06 am.

How can I reframe this problem? I don’t see my individual therapist for 12-days and would love feedback. It helps me to write and it also helps for people who read my entry to comment.

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Limit

I’m Solo Poly. There have been many times that we have discussed in groups that I belong to a rule, a limit and a boundary. People confuse them.

Rules are societal standards. You can’t yell “Fire” at the movies.

Rules in relationships are things like, “I cooked,” so you’ll clean the kitchen and start the dishwasher. They don’t typically apply to things that can’t be easily understood. Rules are almost perfectly black and white.

Boundaries are a lot more confusing. It’s like pushing on something that has been discussed and agreed to prior. It’s like saying, “I’ve asked you not to talk about money when we’re in social situations, and you did last night. I don’t want you to go back on the boundary that I’ve set for that topic.”

I’m setting a limit with _____. I haven’t done it yet, because she and I actively had some conflict.

We’d DM’ed most of the evening before when she and I rescheduled a video date and exchanged a few in the afternoon and then she went silent around 2:00 pm.

I sent a message that said, “5:00. Don’t fall asleep. Or go out to dinner. I can’t wait to see you on video.”

“I’ll try, darling.”

I video called at 5, 6, and 7.

In the morning, I sent an old school text. “I tried you 3x. I am not into a lack of specific communication. Feel free to come to _______ on 8/31 if you’d like to meet in person.”

Then I didn’t send anything.

And she freaked out.

Work was trying and busy the following day. We are missing two folks in assistant positions. It’s like a day treatment position for me. I also had to assess a threat that day. I had not a second and was teaching in person that night. I had to drive to campus. I left her a voice to text in the app when I noticed that she’d called and saw a couple of DMs.

_____ called 7 times in Teams. I just counted the number this morning while I am writing.

And we actively had conflict about it.

Saying that things come up is bullshit.

I have three full jobs. I also assess for a practice on occasion.

And she’s purportedly a “J” on Myers-Briggs!

I’ve told a colleague and my GF that she is either in witness protection or she has escaped an abusive ex-husband.

Regardless, that’s my limit. No more setting up video calls.

I always say that no one is born knowing how to treat you.

I have set a limit–mostly for myself–that I will call in the morning on 8/31 at a time that we come up with and won’t get in my car until she’s in hers. Then we can both drive three-hours into the mountains to meet in person.

Otherwise the limit, which I will voice, is that I don’t like avoidant behavior. See me in person on August 31st come hell or high water. Or that’s it for me hustling. I don’t chase.

If it doesn’t happen, “When you’re ready to come to the city that I live in, let me know ahead of time, and I’ll take you out to dinner.”

Of course I am hoping that I see her IRL on Sunday, August 31st. I am holding out this time. My GF said that I have some kind of thing for women who look like librarians.

Regardless, I’ve set a limit for myself.

What’s a rule? What’s a limit? What’s a boundary? How do you help love interests learn how to treat you?

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Magic

Dating apps are mostly torture. You have people that you see IRL and realize after three dates that they’re not likely friendship material.

The last woman that I had three dates with doesn’t stop talking. Not for a second. You have to interrupt her with simple attending behaviors.

I had a date with a woman who was love bombing to a giant degree and her car smelled of strong marijuana.

Then, I have had those ghosting and cancelling ones that never happen.

The latter are in the category that I shall dub “super fun.”

I started thinking that would be the way with this woman.

I can’t give her a name yet. And we have certainly had to work on our communication. But, it’s getting there and I will be so incredibly sad if we don’t have our video call on Monday. We have plans to be together for the 31st and I want to make those via the video call.

I want some magic. I want more than 3-4 hours in a row spent together in manner in which it can just organically flow. I want us to decide if we venture out of a hotel room when we wake up or if we don’t. I want to snuggle and talk.

First things first.

She had asked me after we had a phone call on the 5th of August and I was making her laugh if I was trying to steal her heart? I texted, “No!” and quoted the author again that it’s much better to walk into love. She told me it was working.

In the meantime, I want a lovely video call, and then a decently long date in person. For the pursuit of magic I am certainly willing to break my no kiss on the first date thing.

That’s been 14-years!

I don’t think that I mentioned that she lives in my state much nearer to to other states than to my city.

Now, I am left wondering if she and I have any potential magic.

Magic, like chemistry, is mutually fed. It has a rhythm and a cadence. I really want it. I’d like it to be with this woman.

What do you do when you’re in the holding pattern? Waiting for the moment is a test of patience.

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PRP

My GF has these super long range baby monitors. Last Monday she connected with the accountant on the main floor of her building–she has the only apartment in the building–and gave him the baby monitor, so if there was an emergency, he could get her daughter out of their apartment. We went to the orthopedic surgeon in my car early Monday morning.

I didn’t ask her to come with me. I was grateful that she did.

When we got to the orthopedic surgeon’s practice, we were in the Physical Therapy Clinic instead. We had to go to another building altogether.

It’s so good when you’re anticipating something to have someone there with you.

She and I found the building.

We talked a whole bunch and I was glad because my appointment didn’t begin until 8:35 and I was told to get there at 8:15 and we had arrived at 8.

We went back to an exam room and the nurse took a fat vial of blood out of my arm. My GF loved the color.

She said that she’d centrifuge my blood for 8-minutes.

The orthopedic surgeon came in after 5-minutes and I introduced him to ________. He went over my MRI mostly with her. I thought that was cool. She has nothing to do with my DNR and isn’t my emergency contact (ex. baby monitor in the first paragraph), but I liked the way it wasn’t a thing for him.

I just introduced her by saying, “This is ________.” That’s always what I say. I don’t think saying, “This is my girlfriend,” make sense. She is a person with her name. Regardless, I liked him just going with it and he didn’t know if she was my sister, spouse, intimate partner or friend.

The orthopedic surgeon measured my crummy range of motion (It’s been bad since I was 13.). Then he explained the process to both of us. The nurse came back in with a new vial and it looked like urine now.

He started talking to me about mountains. I told him why my favorite one was my favorite one. He said that he was going to numb the area and that was the worse part. It wasn’t though.

Then he said he was going to inject my knee. That felt so weird. It was really gross. The process lasted probably a minute or two for the injection part. I didn’t watch, but ________ did.

He asked me to extend and flex my knee a few times and we were done. We could go back to the apartment and pick up the baby monitor from the Accountant. She had a client so I had to leave quickly. I felt numb emotionally. I was glad that she was there to support.

That night we went to a community showing of a movie with her daughter and best friend. Her best friend said that my GF told her that I didn’t even flinch.

I still have quite a lot of pain. I don’t know if I can hike downhill. I did makeup cardio on Friday night.

I was so sore afterward and yesterday too. I’m not sure how much it’s worked to cushion the fact that I don’t have cartilage behind my left knee cap anymore after April 3rd. I’ll have to see.

Google Protein Rich Plasma (PRP) if you’ve never heard of it.

The experience has been emotionally triggering as it’s a reminder of my initial injury in 1988, and the fact that my knee is living on borrowed time. I don’t know how long it will be before I have to have partial knee replacement. In the meantime, I just want to see if I can hike downhill.

I weigh 142.6. It’s funny because women always guess me at 130 and then when I tell them what I weigh they always say the same thing. “Muscle weighs more than fat.”

I think that I want my first hike to be with a new love interest that I have. She and I have been exchanging lots of messages on Teams and talked briefly on the phone recently. Our next step is a video call on Teams. She’s 3-inches taller than me, so if I can’t get down when we hike, I can lean on her.

I have never been able to bend my left knee very much since I was 13