When we are not able to freely and easily say “no” to a proposal, if we say “yes” then that yes is not a full yes, a full yes as in a yes in every cell of our bodies YES. It’s a yes with some resentment, or fear, or obligation. It’s a “yes” with an “I’ll get you back for this” underneath. A “yes” that you’ll be discussing for years afterwards, and not in a good way.

Is that what you really want? If not, then you better get good at saying “no”.

It was when my primary girlfriend and I got good at saying and hearing “no” that things got much easier for us. Communication got easier, less charged. More information would come out more easily. Negotiating alternatives became simpler. In general, “no” doesn’t end a conversation, it really starts one, as long as you don’t get stopped or shut down by the dreaded “no”.

Another good thing that came of it was that when I found that she could easily and pleasantly hear and accept when I was a “no” to something, it made it much easier for me to change my no into a yes. Somehow knowing that I could say no and have her respect it, even enjoy it(!) made me want to reconsider my no. Many times my initial no became a yes after just 10 or 20 minutes. After some years of this, I can say that there used to be times that I regretted saying yes, but the times when I said no and then changed it to a yes never came back to haunt me.

When I had attended a safe sex party a number of years ago, I was single. A single man is not often welcome at sex parties and I wanted to attend again, so I just asked all of my female friends if they would be interested in attending a sex party, even as a “watcher” with no pressure to get naked or have any contact with anyone, 100% of them said yes! No lie! Every woman that I knew socially was at the very least curious, and none of them ruled out the possibility of playing at the party if they felt comfortable and found themselves turned on to somebody.

I was very surprised. No, really! It turns out that all you have to do is ask, and a pretty high percentage of women will totally shock you at what they’re willing to explore.

As a lecturer I often get into discussions about what percentage of people in the U.S. are involved in some form of open relationships. Most people seem to think the number is about 2-5%. My own opinion is around 20%, depending on the demographic, but that most of them do not share it openly.

So when I read this article about this online poll I was a bit surprised at the numbers they posted. Excerpt: “What was really interesting is that 51% of the people polled were either active in the swinging lifestyle or willing to try it while only 36% were strongly against it”

Now that’s what I like to hear!

I was very fortunate last week and had a wonderful dinner with a woman who was re-learning how to date after being widowed a little over a year ago. She and her husband of twenty-five years had what many would call a “swingers lifestyle”. In their day they had frequented Plato’s Retreat as well as partied with other like minded adults in private. This was initiated by her husband, who enjoyed having sex with other women and got turned on by his wife having sex with other men and women. She says that she wouldn’t have done it by herself, but that since he was into it she was going get into it and enjoy it. She found that when she really had a good time, and let her husband know it (verbally or by her behaviour) that he would get angry with her. She decided that she wouldn’t show, so he wouldn’t know, how much she enjoyed herself. While I understand her fear, and his jealousy, I think there are risks in not fully expressing yourself to your partner and would rather find ways to make it safe to be fully expressed. (Soon I’ll post some playful suggestions.)

Now a couple of months ago my girlfriend asked me how I felt about her feelings for another couple that she’s involved with. (While I’m friendly with this couple, I’m not sexy with them.) I told her that I’m happy with her loving them as much as she wants. As soon as I returned home from last weeks trip, she brought up (in one of those all-too-frequent coincidences of life) that after we had talked about the other couple that she found herself having much more fun with them and feeling much more love with me. She realized that she had been holding back. Holding back her feelings for the couple and holding back from me how much she enjoyed them. Once she felt that I was really okay with her loving them she felt better in both relationships.

I wonder how common it is to hide your feelings when in more than one sexual or romantic relationship. I know that I have “been careful” when talking about another lover or a new flirtation with my primary partner. This has backfired more than once when it became obvious to my primary that my feelings for the other person had advanced more than I had expressed. While I didn’t at first trust her when she told me that it wasn’t the feelings that bothered her as much as my holding back, I have found over time that it’s true. The more I express to her, and the more “transparent” I make my thoughts and feelings to her, the more secure she feels about us and the more willing she is to have me enjoy others.

Of course this is all linked to “New Relationship Energy” (NRE), the honeymoon period people have when dating or falling in love with a new partner. We feel that something special is happening and want to spend all our time with our new lover. This is wonderful when we’re in a one-on-one relationship, but when we have a pre-existing relationship this can be a bumpy ride for the “old” partner, who gets to watch as the love of their life falls in love with someone else and gushes about how wonderful it all feels. More on this subject soon.

just because he’s gay.
This happens to me a lot these days.

I have a friendly encounter with an adorable gay guy. I keep finding new ones in my office, on the bus… everywhere.

And if they’re adorable enough, fun enough, I think…

…who can I fix them up with?

And then suddenly I am that girl—the one who thinks, well, just because they’re both gay, they’ll hit it off.

Well, what am I supposed to go with?

He’s cute. A little fun. You guys work out the rest.

Let me be very clear. I am looking to meet a great guy. A straight one. For me. And there is no one particular type that I am restricted to.

So yeah, if you find yourself talking to a cute, fun straight guy,

offer me up to him.

Just because we’re both straight.

That’s the criteria to start things off, and he and I can figure out the rest. Make sense?

Even though I have thought that it wasn’t necessary and perhaps confronting at times, this blog entry helped me realize that *any* expression of this type from anyone, perhaps especially from the most “traditional” monogamous heterosexual person can be perceived as opressive by someone who doesn’t share the same point of view.

This reminds me of hanging out with gay friends in college days who were so upset by the “relentless heterosexuality” of some people. They were greatly upset by the repetitious expressions of the heterosexual majority, as they perceived it as intolerance and marginalization of their “minority” lifestyle.

Having written all that, it is in the world of business that many of us pretend that we’re “normal”, that is to say in the monogamous heterosexual majority. This is where there is much progress to be made. Many lifestyles are legislated to be “legally equal” for the purposes of discrimination, so once we’ve “won” the battle to achive equal legal status, it’s up to us to show ourselves as “normal” contributing members of society and eventually become perceived as truely equal in the hearts and minds of “the common folk”. The more places we’re visible the faster we’ll progress. In our professions we have the opportunity to be evaluated based on our skills and contributions, not just on our social or sexual lifestyles, so there are more chances to be liked, understood, and valued by people who might otherwise never give “us” a chance.

That was a mouthful!

I don’t know about you, but in my relationship one of us gets stressed out if we’re not on time, and the other seems to be late often. This creates a lot of stress between us just at the point when we’re trying to go out and have fun. Since I am the one who gets stressed out at tardiness, I have become the “official timekeeper” when I’m trying to get somewhere on time. I do not recommend this job to anyone!

So Sunday night we had plans to join friends for dinner, and were going to take the train. I started my customary timekeeping and asked Carin several times as we were getting ready if she was doing what she needed to, to catch the train we had chosen. As always, her answers were “yes”.
We missed the train.

That’s not the story. I handled it by being upset for a little while, then chilling out. In amost every situation, my intention is to have the best time possible and stay focused on the miracles and pleasures in life, rather than get upset (or stay upset) about whatever isn’t showing up the way I’d like it to at the moment.

The story is, the next day Carin and I are talking on the phone and she jokes that we’ve been getting good at missing the train. At that moment I did not find it funny and said “we are not getting good at that”, she countered with a comment that I took to mean “if you had been a better timekeeper then we wouldn’t have missed the train”. I got mad and blew up at her. She told me that she didn’t want to fight and that she was going to hang up, and did.

I wasn’t upset at her for hanging up. In fact I wasn’t upset at all. I had a flash of understanding about the roles we had been playing in this situation for years, and how I can be different in this situation in the future.

The roles we had been playing (more later)