Vol. 2, Post #55 Dickmatized

There, that got your attention. My ongoing sex tips for girls* (*girls who are holding on to mid-life by a thread). A dating odyssey for Young Olds, AKA, people with readers.

Fellas, we’re talking about you and your dicks today. You wanna stick around for the convo, I’m all for it. Your balls starting to sweat? Totally fine to sit this one out. Ladies, gather ‘round.

Actually, let’s build up to that. I know, I know…what a cocktease…

In my follow up to last week’s Dear Reader-led question about getting ghosted and what she should “do” about it, I want to dive deeper into the power dynamics around dating with a couple of “do’s and don’t’s” that will hopefully keep you connected to your sweetie in a healthy way, leaving room for intrigue and romance. Ready?

Say you’ve met someone and now you’re navigating a relationship. By default, the give-and-take of dating includes some groan-worthy but real back-and-forth scenarios that we all need to manage with determination and grace. Here are two different “seemingly great problems” that pop up for lots of women during dating and mating, regardless of age.

The first is the perpetual hang out date. When all roads lead to a sofa and a night of “chilling” together. Beware.

The second is the getting dickmatized. And that is, when the dick is so good, it leaves you not just speechless but senseless. Beware again.

Let’s start with this great piece that ran years ago, which is not only still relevant today, but in a post-Pandemic world, some of these practices/challenges have gotten even more widespread. Entitled, “6 Power Moves Girls Need To Pull If They Want A Real Relationship,” the author hypothesizes that if you allow your dates, in the early days, to get comfy in your home by way of “chilling out,” you’ll find that you only get more of the same. Big thumbs down, in terms of romance, effort, and ability to hold attention (at least, my attention) in the long-run.

“But Abbe,” you might be saying, “This article was written by a twentysomething-year-old woman. What the hell does SHE know about dating in midlife or later?”

She knows plenty — hear me out.

In my last relationship, I made two mistakes early on with regard to this.

1. While we went on some very nice dates, my ex-boyfriend got super comfortable hanging out at my house because I AM SUPER COMFORTABLE hanging out at my house. By date 4 or 5, I was cooking us dinner and we were sitting on my porch, reading books, pulling tarot cards, chatting with my son if he was passing through town. Nothing is terribly “wrong” with this, except that this sort of hanging out should be reserved for when you know someone better, and because we were so at ease and comfortable with each other, I just glided into that place with him. Example: the ex-boyfriend was going to the local farmer’s market so he surprised me with some of the fancy radishes that I like and a bouquet of flowers (very sweet) and then plopped himself on my sofa for a multi-hour chat, me barefoot and in pajamas, him in a bathing suit and a hoodie as he had taken a dip in the creek before he stopped by (this was not a date, but it turned into one by way of being a hangout). What am I saying? Am I saying that it needs to be all glamorama dress up, expensive dinners, a good-night kiss at the door? I am not saying any such thing. I AM saying that we got comfy too fast and then I was sort of turned off by how..familiar it seemed. I was bored. I wanted him to court me more. By Month 6 or 7, I told him that — in those precise words. I also knew (in that moment, based on his response, which was that we both enjoyed being lazy at home), that I probably didn’t see myself falling in love with him and chalked up “the chilling” to one more reason I wasn’t feeling it. But it’s as much on me as it is on him. I should’ve happily accepted the radishes and the bouquet and sent him home, not offered him a plate of what I was cooking that night or escorted him out to the porch for some drinks. It’s a fine line, but a line nevertheless. Court me. It builds tension and makes for hotter next steps, which brings me to Point #2…

2. …Fucking. This might seem counterintuitive to what I just wrote, but ex-boyfriend and I didn’t go to bed together for about a month or so and I point-blank asked him about that as the weeks ticked by. “Hey, just wondering,” I said, “Is there something you want to talk about with me regarding any challenges around sex? I’m starting to feel like there might be a reason that we haven’t slept together yet, and I want to give you all the space you need to talk about this, if that doesn’t make you uncomfortable.” He laughed, and said, “Do you mean a performance issue? No, I just think it’s nice to take the time and tease it out.” But do you know what was NOT nice? That’s not what happened. What happened was that we hung out a ton, very casually, very familiarly, and then when we went to bed together, it was almost as if we were old lovers. We should’ve planned more hot make-out sessions, blue balls or whatever be damned. My point? Again, too familiar, too fast. A total dick softener — as in, my dick.

Looking back, I can see how this happened and yes, it IS age-related. How many of us like to be home, maybe even in bed by 10 (ok, 9 is even better, if at all possible)? Dinner at 630, even 6? Sounds like the perfect plan to me. Noisy bar or club, too dark to see a menu without a light even though we’ve all got our readers? NOPE. Hence, my place or your place seems like a great idea. And if we’re only going to be hanging out at my place or your place, what’s the point of even getting dressed? These yoga pants are clean enough.

MY SOLEMN PROMISE TO MYSELF GOING FORWARD, WHEN I START DATING AGAIN: we’re going to on dates. For every one or two nights that end up at home, on someone’s sofa, we’re getting dressed up and going out the next time we see each other, even if it’s just to the park to watch the stars (which should lead to a hot outdoor makeout session, right? With the ex-boyfriend, I wore a pair of crotchless red panties under a sundress on the night he took me to a minor league baseball game since I planned for us to stargaze after the game and that would include some parkside fucking. Pro-tip: extra-padded blanket in the back of the car. Your knees will thank you.)

^^^Above, Paul Giamatti and Hope Davis in “American Splendor,” the bio pic/comedy about cartoonist Harvey Pekar and his wife Joyce Brabner, who lived in rumpled plaid shirts and dirty socks, amongst what I’m sure was an overflowing sink of dishes and an overflowing litter box of cat shit. Not sexy. Think of it as the ultimate in “chilled out dating.” I kid, but…

Now, let’s get to dickmatizing. A most unfortunate situation because you rarely see it coming until it schlongs you upside the head, and by then? Sometimes it’s too late. You’re insatiable. I was.

I was once dickmatized by the most unlikely source. He was a lover who was never meant to be a big, serious relationship, but rather, a more casual partner who had neither the emotional bandwidth or the actual time (workaholic chef) to be the real deal. Since he was not the only man I was seeing in that moment, those limitations didn’t stop me. We were acquaintances who were curious about each other, then we were flirting, then we were sexting, and then we made a date to meet up at a hotel (and, all of this was above board. He was separated from his now ex-wife and I was in a polyamorous relationship with someone else who gave his blessing to my dating other people).

Going into that first hotel date weekend, I didn’t know what to make of any of it. This man was someone I found sweet, attractive, but not really my type. He was shorter than me. He lived a few hours away. Still, something seemed compelling in our conversations ahead of making the date. He professed a seemingly endless desire for me, something he said he noticed the day that we met years back, something he said he had never felt before, an instant stirring that made his knees weak and his dick rock hard. Who doesn’t like to hear THAT?!?

Dear Readers, from the get-go, we were INSANELY compatible in bed. Beyond electric. We drank wine and ate charcuterie and then ripped each other to shreds. All night long and well into the next day. I was speechless.

“Well, he is DELICIOUS,” I texted to my three college girlfriends the next day, the women who make up what we call our Pussy Posse. “But he’s going to be a WHOLE lot of work, I think. There is a weird connection to his separated wife that is clearly going to be a challenge. And his schedule sucks so we won’t get to spend a lot of time together. I guess it’s good that I’m already involved with someone else. This could never be a full-time thing.”

Well, you know where this is going, right? While I continued to date and grow closer to my primary partner, I still saw this man, usually once a month or so. In between dates, we texted and sexted but that was pretty much about it. Then, we’d meet up and literally devour each other. Talk talk talk, sharing some pretty soulful stories and confiding fears and hopes, while we nibbled away at cheese and crackers or anything that I’d whip up and bring to our trysts, and then of course, we’d fuck fuck fuck. This was pretty much all we did. We rarely left the bedroom. We stayed up all night talking and fucking. It was out of some truly deranged and orgasmic middle-aged fantasy playbook.

And while I was still having good, even great sex, with my other mainstay partner, he (my primary) was becoming a real person to me in every way. We were living together, showing and sharing flaws and bad habits. While my Weekend Warrior Once A Month Lover remained just that — encased in the perfection that was a naked body I knew inside and out and still thrilled me in every way, a beautiful cock, a juicy orgasm, and the ability to do it all over again, and again, and again. Like I said, we were insatiable for each other. He was just as gaga for me as I was for him, but here’s the rub. He KNEW he could never be anything more than a lover. And I was fine with him as a lover, but I was also falling in love with him and saw him trying to not fall in love with me. What a mess.

This man and I were together for the better part of three years and for at least half that time, we were battling it out over “what are we?” It was inconsistent, it was frustrating, it was sometimes insanely stupid, and it was all-consuming. Had we spent more time together outside of bed, I’m sure he too would’ve become a real person to me, (like my now former primary guy had become) and I’d have been much less compelled by him. As my darling oft-quoted friend Acacia says, “Honey, one solid week or two of him doing all the ‘home alone’ things he defaults to doing, except now he’s doing them at your place, when he’s not fucking you silly? Please.” Instead, my Weekend Warrior Once A Month Lover remained a hallowed ground fantasy fuck. No wonder when it finally ended, there were more tears than I expected and we had a helluva hard time staying away from each other, more than once. More than five times. Even recently, until I got my wits about me and wrote him a note, telling him that I had to release him with love, for good.

But being dickmatized as a Young Old is not just a serious inconvenience. It’s also a major poke in the ribs. Look! You are getting plowed in top-notch fashion! Was it this good in your 20s? It was not — you know so much more about what you like and don’t like in your midlife lovemaking. You can ask for anything you want. No one cares about a wrinkle or two, about a love handle, about a creaky knee that ouches even more the next day after you rode Reverse Cowboy for hours until you both nearly cried. What if THIS — this crazy great sex — never happens again? What if, as many Young Olds fear, this is just the beginning slide into OLD AGE, into vaginal atrophy, into ED and blue pills, all of it? Being dickmatized gives an unfair advantage to the dude who is administering the aforementioned dick, allowing him to get away with murder if he so chooses. And my guy did pull a few total bullshit moves on more than one occasion. He got away with it, too. More than I’d like to admit.

MY SOLEMN PROMISE TO MYSELF GOING FORWARD, WHEN I START DATING AGAIN: no matter how hot the sex, the out-of-bed life needs to be just as compelling. In fact, if the upright interactions aren’t red-hot in provocative humor or intellect, I’m not even heading towards the bedroom. If the mind is indeed the largest sex organ that we have, you need to engage with mine before you get your hands on anything else. Otherwise, this is just hooking up — nothing wrong with that but it’s not dating.*

*By the way, remember how I said I was thinking I’d like to have some casual sex as the world burns? I take it back. I’m too fragile. Chastity belt securely back on for the time being unless Magic Happens and Mr. (or Ms.) Yes Please appears out of nowhere. It’s happened before so, never say never, but at the same time, I think I need this time out, desperately.

What say you, Dear Readers? What have you learned about yourselves as you date, or abstain from dating to heal your trauma or broken heart? I have to say, in these now six (ONLY SIX????) weeks since the commencement of the apocalypse, I’ve spent A LOT Of time thinking about what I want to do differently when I get off my couch and onto a cock again in a meaningful way. How about you?