Something Special or Friend-Zoned? Dating with Mania and Mixed Signals

Late May 2021 

I was thirty-nine and I’d finally experienced the lesbian-style loving that I’d been dreaming of for the better part of the past two years, but I reacted to this entire experience more like some psychotic teenage version of me. 

It was a hormonal shitshow, alternating between overinflated self-confidence and shame. I was feeling validated — totally queer, just as I suspected! — but also freaking out about my numbers — had I seriously just hooked up on three different occasions with five new people, and this last one on the first night? You know, as if waiting until date two with Andrew and Laine was so much more respectable-like.

Jack and Veronica listened to me whine about all of this, but they wouldn’t let me wallow in my shame. Jack shook his head and gave the male perspective, “It sounds hot.” 

Veronica was more reasonable. “Well, did you want to do it? Did you enjoy it?” When I admitted yes on both counts, she said “then I don’t know what you’re worrying about” so matter-of-factly that I found myself coming back around. 

In fact, I was feeling beyond lucky. Sure, I had moved a little quickly these past few months, but we were emerging from a year of lockdowns and isolation. I was ecstatic that I’d finally met friends who wanted the same things as me. Carpe diem and all that.

Hannah and I had so much in common, from our shared interests in philosophy to our packed spring schedules with family obligations. But was this something? I was afraid to be too clingy, too invested, too head-over-heels. I didn’t want to get my hopes up or assume too much, like I had already done with Ned.

It was as if I knew I was going to get my heart broken.

And yet, I couldn’t stop replaying our night in my head. It wasn’t just Hannah’s body, Hannah’s gender. It was her. 

It was the way we were able to talk, for hours, both before and after being physical. It was the way that she texted me after she got home safe, complete with details on exactly what she had liked most about our rendezvous in the moonlight (my hair was high on the list, in case you’re wondering). 

It was the direct, honest, genuine words she texted in the weeks that followed, things I needed to be reassured of, like please understand that even if I don’t have the time to get together, the desire is still there. And another day, I smile just thinking about us together in your van and I am in disbelief at how lucky I am to hit it off like this with the first woman I’ve dated. Yes, we were each other’s firsts, and yes, it was sickeningly sweet.

I probably tried a little too hard to be pragmatic about her. Maybe I should’ve let my heart swell and gone all Sound of Music, spinning around on a mountain, or at least on my back deck, celebrating my good fortune in finding her. 

But I suppose I didn’t want to get myself in any more of a tizzy than I already was. I suppose that going slow with her is, in part, precisely why things went so well for so long. I could feel that it was going to be the start of something, and fine, yes, I was scared, because this was big. This was what I had wanted, and perhaps this could have been a lovely spring of rejoicing in my newly-confirmed queer status… 

Instead, I got distracted by Ned.

Tarah was right; working together was a big deal, but back then I was in the midst of a manic phase that blinded me from reason. I was downright pompous thinking I could juggle multiple new relationships on top of my family of six and still keep my sanity.

The proximity to Ned was the problem, really. If he had been someone that we’d just met through the apps, I would’ve likely ghosted him after Andrew and Laine, and definitely after falling for Hannah. Tarah was cool, but Ned? Ned was an asshole.

Problem was, I didn’t quite see it back then. For some reason, I was cautious with Hannah, but I put my blinders on with Ned and focused only on the good. I saw a new friendship with secrets being shared. I saw new inside jokes being formed. I saw a series of plans being laid for the future. 

Plus, he saw me, and I liked it. I told him things I couldn’t tell anyone else, things that I thought not even Veronica would truly understand. All of this, plus flirting with the possibilities of “next time.” It felt like the beginning of my relationship with Jack.

But, actually, it was nothing like that.

One day Ned would be telling me that he wanted to take me on a picnic and ravage me, and the next he’d avoid me altogether. Later on, his excuse was flippant, callous — he’d been too busy messaging with his Kentucky girl about their future plans. I tried to take this in stride. I tempered my hurt ego with rationales — after all, we weren’t committed and we were both dating other people. 

Ned made me feel as if I didn’t understand the rules…or were they just nonsensical and constantly changing? He still didn’t want to talk about Andrew and Laine, but he wanted every detail I would divulge about Hannah. He was eager to talk alone at lunch every day in his room, but he refused to let me ride with him to get takeout because he “couldn’t be alone with me off campus.” He sent suggestive Snaps, but then suddenly he’d go days without opening up my reply. 

If he wasn’t there every damn workday, becoming what I thought was a true friend, I for sure would have given up on him after the time he told me he was meeting a new woman one-on-one for drinks after work. “Should I take her to the Lazy Bird?” he’d asked me nonchalantly. 

I flushed, but mustered up the courage to ask, “Why is it okay for you to go out with her alone…but I can’t ride along to get lunch with you?” 

He shrugged and told me, “It’s just different.” He assumed an air of authority as I sat there, wondering what was wrong with me. Why didn’t I get it? Why didn’t he pursue me, especially now that he’s gotten to know me? I felt shaky; meanwhile, he looked pleased with himself.

Instead of scoffing at his double standards, I put it on me and assumed the best of him. After all, he was the one with experience in non-monogamy. I would have to try harder to make this work. I’d have to figure out my shit so that I could continue to be friends with him, and maybe only then could we be more…

I was driving Jack nuts. I was overthinking every damn thing I said to Ned, every little thing I felt about anything. 

I was also horny beyond measure, which normally wouldn’t have been an issue. But I was stupid horny, always looking for more, including the time when I stopped mid-sex to check a Snap from Ned. See, we’d flirted about sending clips to each other of our spousal sex sessions, with everyone consenting, of course, and I thought this was that moment. It wasn’t, but it rightly pissed Jack off that I had let us be interrupted by others in the midst of our time. 

I was too manic to understand Jack’s feelings at that moment, though. In fact, I was so damn manic that I thought I was doing a good job at hiding my feelings, whatever they were. Confusion, love, vulnerability, heartache, jealousy, desire, insecurity, overwhelmed, overjoyed, anxious…it was like the Russian Roulette of emotions.

In truth, Jack was well aware of my feelings. He could see me getting tangled up in a mess, and he urged me to slow down. 

So what did I do? I freaked. I yelled at him, telling him there was no way that I could slow down now. I told him that I was invested and perfectly fine and nothing was wrong and maybe I was just smoking too much weed. 

Jack didn’t buy any of this. He told me that I wasn’t listening to him, and instead of hearing him out, I assumed that by “listening,” he meant that I wasn’t obeying him. 

Nuh uh, bitch. He wanted me to hear his words, take them to heart, consider his advice, and work with him. He saw me going through all of this shit and shutting him out without giving him any of the respect and consideration that he deserved. 

I hadn’t kept anything from Jack in years; we had always told each other everything.  But I couldn’t tell Jack everything I was thinking about Ned. I worried that I was a clingy hot mess with Ned, and therefore Ned was pushing me away. I figured I was the problem, and if I got my heart broken — well, it would be my own fault, but perhaps I could fix everything before it got there.

But if I told all that to Jack, would I be admitting feelings? Fuck, I couldn’t have feelings for someone who treated me like Ned did. What an awful betrayal of Jack, a man who treated me like a princess.

So I said nothing. I left work with mere headaches on the best of days, but on the worst days I went home jittery, like I’d had too much coffee to drink. I started to lose weight from not eating, hitting my lowest weight ever, but in a sick way I was proud of it, as if seeing my skeleton through my skin was somehow more attractive than womanly curves. He couldn’t dismiss me for being fat.

All of this mania was not helped by finding my sister’s husband on Feeld. No, they were not in an open relationship, so the news came as a shock. “But I’m pregnant,” she’d said. She believed him when he told her it was an old account, or maybe a fake account, because he couldn’t possibly be sleeping around, because he’d been diagnosed with HIV when their firstborn was just a baby. “It can take years to appear,” she said, but I could see her hesitation. 

After visiting my sister, I came home, lay down on our bed, and cried big ugly tears. I couldn’t think straight about relationships anymore. Jack held me while I cried, and then he booked an appointment with the therapist who’d given him perspective on his OCD issues years before. She gave us great reassurance and even better advice — “be picky.” 

Another piece of phenomenal advice that I didn’t take that year.

Just after Memorial Day, Ned suggested that we come over “one night” after the kids were in bed for a foursome. I felt validated at his suggestion — he did like me! But then, getting him to commit to a date? Impossible. 

So imagine my surprise when Jack invited Tarah and the family to the pool with us that weekend, and she texted back immediately, ready to pin down a time. 

I’m sure that Ned was just as surprised as I was. 

At the pool, I noted that Tarah still felt sisterly; our initial bond hadn’t weakened in the two months that we’d only communicated via texts. They came back to our house for a sunset dinner on the deck. Ned would text me the next day about that evening, calling it “perfect.” He would later say, “I want so many more evenings like that.” We chatted easily; when we had pauses in our conversation, they weren’t awkward. No, they were intimate. 

I really thought we had something special.

We smoked weed in our master bathroom so that the kids wouldn’t catch us. Jack and Tarah flirted against the sink, making a silly show of vacuuming after Tarah broke the glass bong mouthpiece on the tile. Ned stretched out in our empty Jacuzzi, me perched at its edge. We talked about summer break, only a week away.

Ned locked his eyes on mine. He spoke slowly. “I’m going to miss certain people much more than others,” he said, and I wondered how much I should read into that.

Later, in the hot tub, the conversation turned to sex. Ned suddenly stiffened, even as Tarah giggled what I now know is her enthusiastic consent. Ned expressed his disinterest for playtime that night in his poetry. “We should wait until summer,” Ned said, staring directly into my eyes. He didn’t explain further. 

I sat there, stuck, wondering if this was a dig at me. I wondered what summer would bring that was lacking that very night. Was he trying to quell my emotions? Was he annoyed with me? Did he want to put distance between our playtime and work, and hoped that summer, when hours were reduced, would be a better place to explore this dynamic between us?

Tarah saved me from having to come up with a response. “It’s almost summer.” She fluttered her hand through the air. “I say if we go to the pool, that’s summer.” She smiled.

Ned shook his head, still looking at me, smiling sadly, as if he were remorseful. “It’s not summer yet.”

Jack and I had discussed boundaries before this visit. He knew I wanted something with Ned, and he supported that. He was also game for some Tarah-Time. A foursome wasn’t going to happen, not with the kids around, but we agreed that a swap could be fun, and possibly beneficial. Perhaps we’d work some things out — after all, Jack and I are good at figuring relationship things out through our physical play.

In hindsight, it’s obvious that Ned and Tarah hadn’t clearly communicated their boundaries to each other prior to this hot tub soak. I might have given this more thought if I hadn’t been focused on tampering down my disappointment at Ned’s rejection. 

Instead, I powered through like the gracious hostess I am. I reveled in the real talk, pushing aside my confusion to focus on the simple pleasure of deep conversation with true friends.

After another hour or so had gone by, Tarah declared that she was done with the hot tub and wanted to rinse off. “I think Jack should help me,” she said. 

Jack perked up. The four of us exchanged looks. 

“That’s fine with me,” I consented. 

Ned nodded. “Have fun,” he said. “We’ll follow you up there in a little bit.”

I’ll admit I hoped Ned had changed his mind from earlier. We’d just given our consent for Tarah and Jack to fool around in the shower together, so maybe we could kiss and do a little touching. Or maybe we could talk openly about what was going on here. 

After Tarah and Jack scuttled away, Ned sat on the edge of the hot tub with his legs in the water. I was still submerged to my shoulders, my head inches from his knee. There was some small talk, then silence. I looked up at him and smiled, raising my eyebrows.

He shook his head. “It’s not summer yet,” he repeated, wistfully. I nodded and looked away, feeling rejected again. Stupid. The silence turned awkward. He suggested that we get out now, too.

As we dried off on the deck under a crisp, clear night sky, our bodies steaming, I attempted to ask about feelings. “Am I friend-zoned?” I asked him.

He burst out in a laugh. “No!” he sputtered, shaking his head. He calmed himself quickly and looked me in the eyes. His voice was soft when he said, “Definitely not.” 

At that, I felt good. I trusted him. I didn’t understand his reasons, but for some reason I trusted that he had spoken honest words to me. I trusted that summer, just a week away, would prove something. 

I trusted him enough to allow myself to switch my mood back to flirty, despite no sex and plenty of ambiguous statements to decode. He followed me upstairs to my bathroom, but just before we entered the bedroom, standing where the hallway dead ends at my door, I turned to him. I looked into his eyes and reached out to touch his bare, hairy chest with the tip of my index finger. We stood like that for a moment, frozen.

Then he smirked, and I turned and opened the door. 

I headed right, into my closet. Ned headed left, towards the bathroom, and Jack filled me in on this next part. Ned saw Tarah sitting on the bathroom counter, making out with Jack, and I think this might be where something snapped in him.

I thought Ned knew what Jack and Tarah would be doing. I expected it; I consented both in the hot tub and in my talks with Jack previous to their visit. 

I wasn’t jealous of Jack’s attraction to Tarah. Jack is constantly attracted to other women, and now that he was acting on his attractions, it didn’t feel any more threatening than before. He told me everything he was thinking, and he talked through his ideas before implementing them. I trusted that he would be safe and only do what everyone was consenting to do. I trusted that he would still be my same Jack after his playdate with another woman. Maybe even better — more affirmed, more confident, more of all that I love about him.

I was also okay with this because, I suppose, I wanted all of this with Ned. I wanted more nights like these, with the kids happy and playing, and us playing with our friends, too. If Jack and Tarah were getting along, that was perfect. That was the beauty of this four way connection — playtime with trusted friends. How fun, how special. 

I know now that Ned didn’t share in my sentiment. Jack said that he came around the corner, saw them making out, and bristled. He scuttled away from the bathroom as I walked in, naked, heading for the shower. He didn’t even cast a glance in my direction. 

There was flirting between me, Tarah, and Jack while I showered, but Ned kept busy in the bedroom. When Jack stepped out, Ned and Tarah started to bicker in the bathroom doorway. I quickly made my exit; clearly they needed a moment. 

Jack filled me in on the next bit. He’d returned to the bathroom after I’d left, and then Ned turned to Tarah and Jack, near growling one short sentence at them. “You have twenty minutes.” Then Ned joined me downstairs.

Jack admits he was a little shocked at Ned’s tone and the time limit, but not so shocked that he didn’t relax into another one of Tarah’s handjobs. He’d already made her cum while fingering her in the shower; now she wanted to return the favor.

In the kitchen, Ned was quiet, but he also flirted with me. He asked for a hug, and it was a long one — a hold. Then we nestled together against the counter, whispering to each other. 

I didn’t know about the twenty minute comment at that point, but I knew that something was off. And yet, the quiet compliments and his gentle touch made me feel like he cared about me, really me, not just for sex but as a person, a friend. 

But I wasn’t entirely sure, so I reached out the next day for clarification. 

Ned assured me that we were “special.” He said “the kids see it, too.” And in two more sequential texts he praised the shape of my ass and suggested (jokingly, I’m sure, but still), that we should really just move to a commune in Utah so that we could all be together, all of the time. 

I asked what had put him off last night, and he told me that it was hard to get into the mood with all the kids around — plus “there was a lot of pressure.” I wondered if that meant he couldn’t get it up, but I didn’t dare ask for clarification here. Penises were tricky terrain.

I felt reassured. Maybe it wasn’t all on me; maybe I was reading too much into the awkward moments. New relationships weren’t easy, right? Especially poly ones. I would slow down, I promised myself. I would let all of this settle.

For a hot minute, I thought I understood. I thought I was better.

Stupid mania. I knew nothing.