Romeo and I went to a friend's birthday party last night. The friend I kissed the other night was there, so there were a few little flirty moments throughout the night.
There was also another guy there, a friend of a friend, who I've always found fascinating. I'd talked to him recently about Romeo and I and our newly open relationship. He tended to mingle closer to Romeo during the first few hours of the party, only moving towards me later on. He actually had gotten into a conversation with Romeo about the whole relationship thing, and later on talked to both of us about it, just in general terms, trying to see where we are with it, I guess.
After the three of us talked for a few minutes, Romeo wandered off for something, leaving the friend and I standing alone together. He told me that he was getting a distinct impression that Romeo is really not OK with this whole poly thing on some level, and described the way Romeo had broached the subject, explaining that he thought it was somewhat odd. He seemed genuinely concerned, and said that he thinks we should definitely make sure to focus on our communication if we're going to do this thing. I appreciated his concern. I was amused and flattered, though, because the entire time he was talking to me, even with the clear concern written on his face, he kept on dropping comments like "God, you're incredibly sexy, if you weren't already involved, I'd be hitting on you right now".
It was like he kept on getting distracted from the point of his conversation by my feminine power or something.
Very flattering, very attractive.
It's too bad he was clearly sensing red flags from Romeo and I, because I could easily see myself pursuing something with him or encouraging him to pursue something with me. He's always struck me as a very down-to-earth, yet very sensual person.
What was odd about the whole thing later on, though, was that Romeo went out of his way at the end of the night to tell me not to listen to anybody who tried to tell me that he wasn't happy with the situation.
OK, well. I could listen to Romeo, or I could listen to the now two people who have indicated their concern at his feelings about the situation. I do know that Romeo has GREAT difficulty expressing to me any potentially negative feelings, or any feelings that might be received negatively.
I guess the most important thing to do as far as that goes is to keep on trying to communicate with him, and to encourage him to go ahead and go to therapy for himself, because he's been talking about wanting to do that anyway. I think it would help him to sort of find his voice, in a way.
Anyway, about the rest of the evening - Romeo had a brief attraction to a woman there, and went pretty much over-the-top flirting with her. We had talked before the party about what kinds of PDA would be acceptable during the party between the two of us; pretty much we decided that we'd mingle separately, for the most part, but that we would come together every so often for a brief contact. I came up beside him and pressed up close to him at one point, and he whispered to me that he needed some space because he was trying to pursue an attraction to the woman I previously mentioned. I gave him space, and he proceeded with his flirtation, and I with mine. The thing is, he was utterly aghast at the end of the evening when it turned out he'd been flirting with a psychologist. He was appalled and embarrassed, and wished he hadn't said some of the things he'd said, and felt like she'd been psychoanalyzing him the entire time. I think he has a deep-seated fear of being truly seen, I mean seen inside - seen for who he truly is. That's got a lot to do with why he has trouble opening up to me with discomfort or objections to this poly thing, I think...
I don't know, just something to ponder. I hope he gets counseling soon. I think it would help him a lot, regardless of what happens between us.
What else... oh, the guy I kissed. We kept up a mild flirtation through the night. We also shared a concern for a mutual friend in trouble... I hope she's OK, actually. She didn't want either of our company, but she reached out to both of us via text message. Whole 'nother story. Anyway, slight hitch in the attraction to this guy - we were texting each other every now and then during the party, and at some point, totally out of the blue (I guess it was the alcohol...??) he said he was going to send a naked photo of himself. I thought he was talking about sending it to our friend, and I text him back with "dumbass, lol." He sent it anyway, and turned out he meant me. Er... What? Why do I need to see you nekkid on my phone? I didn't open it, and deleted it today. Just seems a little crass, y'know? If I'm going to see a guy naked, I'd rather see it in person, and after things naturally progress to an intimate level. So... Eh. I'm still attracted to him, just cautious. I'm pretty sure I'm just a potential lay to him. On the other hand, he's usually very respectful and charming, and we do have really great, interesting conversations. Maybe it was just the alcohol, combined with the fact that we'd made out the night before. Hmm.
Ah, well. More things to ponder.
One thing's for sure, the attention of two attractive and interesting men over the course of the evening definitely helped to take my mind off the Knight thing. I'm not really interested in talking to Knight right now, maybe sometime in the future, but I'm not hurting over what happened.