Girl, same. It’s how I’ve responded my whole life to such things. This was my attempt at adapting to modern dating norms—at least the ones I’ve experienced up here in Seattle—where “ethical” non monogamy and its various derivation are the new normal. Also, in hindsight I see it’s me, being manipulated but the way the info was rolled out.

This happened 6-7 months ago so the story is no longer so raw for me. Since it wasn’t boosted, I sold it (to YourTango), who allow you to repost to Medium after 90 days. Hence the delay. But here’s an amazing thing. This encounter/man in February was the catalyst to go “Mansober” for March, which I wrote about, and it ended up getting me my first non-Medium byline (on TODAY.com). https://www.today.com/life/essay-life/boysober-dating-celibacy-trend-rcna144631

Dude did end contacting me—a week later. When I was there that night, I’d asked him if he wanted to go to opening night of HUMP with me; it’s an annual amateur porn film festival put on by Dan Savage and I love it (and I’m not even into porn; it’s just a weirdo artsy thing that happened to be sexy/gross/awesome). He bought us tickets, for one week later. So that morning—after I’d already written this—he texted and asked if I still wanted to go.

One day I should publish my text response to that, and his pathetic response. Some of my finest work. 😊

And I ended up seeing closing night of HUMP instead with a dear friend. No idea what he did with those opening night tickets but I’ll assume he had plenty of options for who to take.