Exchanges of views

Over the past week or so I have been having exchanges of views with a variety of male friends about the state of our different relationships and what is or isn’t wrong.

You may or may not recall that in the spring I met a man who I called Lotto. He was single had not lived in the area for very long and wanted some fun but not a relationship. We met in March, he had an interview to go to later and I was in pain from a severe headache. (we just had one drink in a town centre pub).Our date had gone fairly well but I wasn’t convinced that he was very keen until a few weeks later we were chatting online and he mentioned how much he fancied me. Over the months since then I have been getting sporadic messages from him. Each one saying how much he likes me and wants to chat again and hopefully meet again. I did tell him that I was giving up casual sex but was happy to remain friends. He agreed to this. Shortly before Christmas we discussed meeting again over the Christmas holidays.

I sent him an email saying that I am still single and would be happy to see him again.

His reply…..

Nice one,

I'm still attached but I'd still like to meet - thats if its ok with you - not sure when maybe after xmas and before new year - let me know

Now this stopped me in my tracks

I think I must have missed something .......... ‘I'm still attached but I'd still like to meet’ I didn't know you were attached.........I thought you were single you told me you were.

Hi,

I'm not married and I do live alone but I have a girlfriend. It did say that in my AFF profile and I was under the impression we had discussed this.

I'm sorry if I've offended you and I can understand if you didn't want to meet.

Good luck with the new job and have a good Christmas
Now if he had ever told me that he had a girlfriend I would have remembered that but in all the time we have been chatting I have never thought of him as having a girlfriend. In fact he always said things like this……
I've not had any meets since we met (shame we couldn't get to know each other more)
At the time when we met I was being less choosy so it would have been less important that there was a girlfriend somewhere around although I would still have cared about it. Anyway the point is that to me a girlfriend is no different to a wife. Not something you forget about. Now I did think it was strange that Lotto had not met anyone else in all this time as he is an intelligent and sexy man. However I assumed this was because he had not come across anyone he wanted to meet. Now I still like him and feel he is sexy but it does alter my feelings towards him in that I feel he has betrayed his girlfriend and also me to a degree in that he let me think he was unattached (I quite clearly remember him saying that he wasn’t ready for a relationship following his divorce). I thought he was a sweet shy man, now I know he is capable of wanting to play away behind his partner’s back even if he hasn’t actually done it. He has tainted the way I felt about him.

I was discussing this online with another friend who didn’t see anything wrong. Now this other friend told me that he himself was unattached which I disagree with. He has recently left a long term relationship for another woman. To me this makes him attached. To him he has never been tied to anyone. I cannot comprehend this way of thinking. Surely if you are in a committed relationship with someone then you are tied to them. I cannot understand how anyone can live with the same partner, love and care about that partner and not believe that they are doing anything wrong by sleeping with other women so long as the partner doesn’t know.
To me and to the majority of people to sleep with others when you are in a relationship is cheating. How can it not be described as cheating. Ok I am guilty of sleeping with some married men. I didn’t choose to find married men they came looking for me. I am single and can sleep with whom ever I like but these men should not be looking for satisfaction outside their relationship. The only time I would say that it is not cheating is if they have the blessing of their partner ie in a polyamorous relationship. If the partner does not know then they cannot give their consent, therefore all other relations are a betrayal of that primary relationship. I do feel guilt about the women whose husbands I have been with and it doesn’t make me feel good. But I don’t see many of these men feeling the same guilt, if they did then why do they do it. The only one who was overcome by guilt the very first time we had sex was GB. He was so consumed by the guilt that as much as we both wanted it we agreed not to continue.

I have also been exchanging messages with another friend about the lack of having someone to share with. He told me that he hated not having anyone to wake up with over the Christmas break. He is the first man I have ever heard express that exact sentiment. Many men say they want someone to go to bed with. That’s the easy part finding someone to go to bed with. The hard part is finding someone to wake up with. This is what I have been looking for. I can find men to take to bed fairly easily but that is not what I want. I want to not wake up alone every morning. I want someone who will be there in the morning. Not every day as I don’t think I could cope with a full time relationship again just yet. But to be able to wake up in the arms of my lover regularly that’s what I want.

I feel kind of honoured that one single man I met late last year, was so happy waking up with me that he decided to give up casual sex. He wanted a relationship so that he wouldn’t be waking up alone all the time anymore. He told me that it was all down to me (ah how nice it is to be flattered). Within weeks he met someone, I forget how they met but it wasn’t online. They recently bought a house together and in a few months will be getting married in the Caribbean. Every few months he chats but we have never talked about meeting again.

I have been thinking about all the conversations I have had with various men over the last 2 years nearly and all the blogs I have been reading. I think all this has helped me to have a much better understanding of how married men feel about the lack of sex in their lives and how frustrated they get when they are rejected by their wives. Maybe this post has sounded as though I am being judgemental of my friends (even those I have benefited sexually from). I always try to keep an open mind and not judge others by their actions but there are actions that I couldn’t do. I am sure it is hypocritical of me to say that you shouldn’t cheat on your partner but if you are going to then you can do it with me. Just don’t expect me to cheat on my partner when I have one. Because basically that’s what it boils down to.

I suppose it is down to each of us to work out for ourselves where the boundaries between what’s right and what’s wrong are. Obviously the boundaries are not the same for all of us. I was trying to explain to Skipper when we met that although I have been quite happy to play the field, once I found the right person I would be very happy to be faithful to that person. If I was in a relationship with someone I cared about I would not stray. However I am not closing the door to swinging if I was with the right person and our relationship was strong if we both equally wanted to swing together.