play partners?

I just had a lovely evening with friends, two friends.

I notice that I use that word a lot. "Lovely." What does it even mean to me anymore? Generic goodness? I can't think of a better word to say but the overall sentiment is positive, if not exactly worthy of a better descriptor?

But really, when I stop to think about it, it was fun. More than lovely?

I think I feel connected to people, feel their approval and support, through being sexually desired. This is, pretty clearly, not the best thing. I know this logically. And yet.

I have these two friends. I met them in the kink scene. I liked getting to know them because they play together, go on dates, have sex, function socially as a couple. But she's married, to someone else, who also has a similar arrangement with another woman. And yet this all works well for them. They navigate disagreements about what is and isn't ok. And that fascinated me (still does), especially when I was struggling so much in my own relationship with just such things.

For a while when she was interested in me I was flattered but not interested in that way beyond friendship and maybe as a rope partner. It bugged me that her boyfriend was doing the suggesting, the negotiating, instead of her. I used my girlfriend as an excuse - sorry, I can't, my GF isn't down with me playing with other people like that. Sometimes there were things I wanted to do and felt that I couldn't, which sucked, and it still felt like they were testing those limits which made me nervous.

Then we broke up. And there was still the testing of those limits, but I dodged and sidestepped and generally managed to stay where I wanted things to be. And I got involved with my school fwb, which has been less than a stress-free ride. And I got involved with J from Memphis - both as a play partner and as a sexually intimate partner. As time goes on and I see more and more that I've ended up in a place I don't want to be, I become more and more stressed about it. The setting in of expectations, responsibilities. The ability to hurt someone. The ability to be hurt, or rather the emotional walling off that I do to avoid that, which hurts in itself. This armor is so. so. so. heavy.

But there's always the lure of that initial contact. When everything is new and shiny and exciting! When you're just feeling out someone's interests, what gets them going, what makes them make the happy noises and faces. It's a drug, it makes the sad and the stress and the anxiety stop, for just a moment. Self-medicating through dopamine and adrenaline.

We had a lovely evening. There was kissing and hair pulling, scratching, some biting, finger sucking. All things I enjoy, and things I enjoyed with them. But I can't feel them the way I remember feeling them. The hair pulling actually let me out of my own head for a minute, asking him to be tender after would have made me cry if I'd let myself shed more than a tear. I want so badly to be vulnerable. To open up. But I can't, not with these people. I opened up inappropriately with J, told her about emotional things that really aren't her business, things that force a false sense of intimacy in a way that I'm not willing to truly give. If I'm going to have walls they need to be solid, not a two way mirror - it's unfair to put out my emotional pain but then refuse to let her share hers back, so now she holds both of them.

And it's unfair of me to ask for intimacy from these two with the clear understanding that I think they want more than I really want to give.

I'm thinking more and more that I need to abstain from sex for a while. And flirting. And eroticism. I'm going to miss it, I already do. But I need to learn how to have platonic friends. Friends I can be playful with in a way that isn't contingent on feeling sexual approval. I don't know if I even remember what that feels like.

And what do I do about J? Why does this feel like letting her down, hurting her deeply, making her feel somehow unworthy? How do I convey that this is my emotional state, not a reflection on her? Every little thing I say or do makes her cry, and I still need to preserve my self-image as a good person.