Q: How do partnered-but-monogamish people identify each other and get things going?
I have a crush on my neighbor, who is 10 years my senior. She is married to a man, and I’m pretty sure she’s bisexual. However, I’m not really friends with her, and I don’t know how I would go about approaching this.
I don’t want to make her feel uncomfortable in any way. Would it be wise to test the waters for potential by asking a third party to feel her out in some way?
— Need Expert Insight Getting
Hot Babe Over Regularly
A: Even if your neighbor is in an open marriage — and even if she’s bisexual and even if she’s into you (and that’s a lot of ifs) — sending someone to ask her if she might wanna mess around doesn’t say, “Your neighbor is a mature adult woman that you might enjoy fucking.” It screams, “Your neighbor has the emotional maturity of a second grader and people like that are risky fucks.”
Unless the sexual tension is off the charts and the signals are unmistakable, NEIGHBOR, sensible people don’t hit on their next-door neighbors. Because if it turns out that person isn’t interested in you — or if they are interested but things end badly — your backyard will become almost unbearably awkward.
Here’s how sensible partnered and monogamish people find each other: They go places — online and off, separately and together — where partnered-and-monogamish people gather. They get on a dating apps and hookup apps like Feeld and #Open, they go to local swingers’ clubs and sex parties. And if they run into their neighbor in one of those places — Yahtzee!
Q: I’m a 45-year-old cis woman. I’ve been married to a cis man for almost 20 years. About a year and a half ago, I made out with a woman at a party, and everything clicked. I started exploring my attraction to women with my husband’s blessing.
I met a wonderful woman, and we dated for over a year. While I was with her, I realized I’m gay.
I love my husband dearly, but our relationship is platonic, and we’ve stopped being intimate. We have three amazing young children, and our lives are deeply intertwined emotionally, financially and where our families are concerned.
While I feel I need to live authentically as a lesbian, I’m terrified of the fallout — hurting my husband, my family, blowing up my life, etc. My husband has a girlfriend now, and I’m happy for him. He wants to stay married. What should I do?
— Wanting To Live Authentically
A: It’s totally fine that it took you decades to realize you’re a lesbian: Lots of queer people don’t figure themselves out until later in life. And it’s totally fine that you wanna stay married. Companionate marriages are valid marriages!
If you end your marriage, you’re staring down some very real fears: fear of judgment, fear of rejection, fear of losing people you care about. Your family might not understand at first — mine sure didn’t — but if all the gays and lesbians who came before you waited for our families to somehow magically “get it” before we started coming out, no one would’ve come out at all, ever.
If you want to be who you are — if you want to live authentically — you have to be willing to make some people uncomfortable, WTLA, and that includes your husband.
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