Post weekend date

I talked about our really lovely weekend date: I was keen to make it clear how well it went so you could better understand what followed.

So what happened next?

He wrote me an incredibly sweet and flattering thank you note the day after he got home.

“…there is a whole dimension between the conceptualised and the actual of someone but I only found reality better than I had thought. You are smart, funny, sexy and I found you immensely interesting. I felt extremely submissive with you, your natural dominance is clear to me and it felt very much like how it was meant to be.

I started to write a reply, but needed some space to think about ‘what next’, so I sat on it while I figured out where my head was at.

In the meantime, we continued to text over the following days: friendly and sweet and engaging, but I was (over)thinking the ‘what next’ part. I felt the weight of it on my mind, I didn’t want to waste his time or mine.

All of what I wrote about our date was true, and yet… when we were together, the chemistry wasn’t quite there. There is no reason for that, there never is. Sometimes, rarely, I feel ‘it’ and sometimes, mostly, I don’t.

I was trying to light the spark when we were together, to see if I could fire it up, I *wanted* to fire it up, and the truth is that I struggled with it. I was frustrated with myself over it and in light of that, I felt like I had to decide if we could, or should, continue to pursue it given the challenge of distance.

Had this been a normal dating situation, if he was local, there would have been no question that I wanted to see him again, 100% absolutely and with pleasure. To see if there was a slow burn that we could gently stoke and bring to a flame as one often does when they date: That’s ‘normal’ dating.

Men like him are rare, hugely rare, and I know from experience that a slow burn can lead to something wonderful. But it’s really hard to do that with the difficulty of distance. Still, I was very reluctant to let him go without thinking very hard about it.

In a normal dating situation, this would be a no-brainer:

“I really like you: Let’s go out a few times and see if we can build something here” is a simple decision.

“I really like you: Let’s plan some flights when our schedules align and invest the time and money to spend a few days together 24/7 [and do that over and over] and see if we can build something here” is a very different proposition.

On top of this (yes, there’s more), I mentioned previously that he was in a situation that would normally be a show stopper for me and he talked me around. I’m always wary of mentioning specifics about people, but I don’t think it’s giving too much away to say that he has school-aged children for whom he is the primary carer. Long term he wants marriage, to be a family.

This makes perfect sense of course, and I baulked at the idea of children right out of the gate, for so many reasons. The main one is simple: I’m selfish, and not in the cute way that you can smile over, but in the genuinely self-involved way in which having the next ten-ish years of my life revolve around children (as it always does for parents, and then by extension the parent’s partner) is not something I think would work for me. He talked me down from that ledge with calm logic and his views on how he sees it working. It’s still a major consideration for both of us, but I was willing to put it on the shelf and ‘just see how it goes’ based on how he saw it working.

Apart from the logistics of long distance, there is a particular oddness of having intense 24/7 togetherness for a period of days, then not seeing each other for weeks. That kind of 24/7 togetherness is a lot of pressure and it’s particularly stressful for me as a pretty serious introvert. If the chemistry is firing out of the gate it’s different, but if you want to grow an ember, I just don’t know. So deciding if that effort and cost was going to be worthwhile was front-of-mind.

He finally called me on my post-date mood (I am hugely transparent). He was astute enough to know exactly what was going on with me, and he politely asked where my head was at.

“I sensed that I did not generate the level of chemistry you had hoped for but that you think I’m a good guy and am not sure what to do…”

He was right to raise it, brave to put it on the table, and he was spot-on with what was going on.

If I didn’t like him so much, it would be easy, but dammit, I really like this man. I see his stellar qualities, they are traits I value and admire and want in a partner and in a submissive: They are rare and lovely. We get along well, he is a pleasure to be around, and his bouncy enthusiasm is good for my cynical reserve. I enjoy him.

In our chat about our potential, he raised concerns about his end goal and my ability to fit into his life, and I talked about my concerns about trying to stoke a slow burn in the face of the logistical challenges.

We were both reluctant and sad to conclude that a long term relationship was probably not going to get off the ground. He thought he was more sad than me, but I’m not sure that’s true.

*cue sad music*

I know, I know, we ALL wanted a happy ending here *sigh*.

While the outcome wasn’t what we wanted, we agreed to keep talking. Our exchanges immediately became lighter with the decision made, or perhaps *I* got lighter, and that was reflected in how we talked. Free from the weight of big decisions or expectation, it felt more fun and open, just… better.

We are still in private messages daily. There is affection in our exchanges, some light flirting, perhaps some hopefulness, mostly it’s random topics, silliness, D/s subjects, updates on our days.

I am letting it go where it will.

I did send him the start of my post-visit email, the part of it that I wrote before I got over-thinky and stalled, though we had already talked everything through by that stage.

I wanted him to read it even though I had said it in different ways already.

Thank you so much for coming up to visit. I did well, picking you out of the hordes *smile*.

Let me say out loud how well you did: I saw the glimpses of the submissive you can be over the weekend, and it was lovely. You were actively attentive and generous. And by ‘generous’ I mean that with many submissives their behaviour is performative, they want to be seen to be ‘a good submissive’ so that they get whatever reward they think is coming. It’s transparent and it feels miserly and transactional. I felt none of that.

I watched you: I saw your nature. It’s rare, I appreciate it, and thank you for it.

I’m going to repeat that because you don’t know and can’t know that what I’m saying is true: It’s rare.

I think your openness is a good foil for my reserve. You are emotionally brave and it’s lovely. It’s a quality I don’t have and I admire it. I experience it as a breath of fresh air.

I imagine you are a wonderful partner, D/s or no.

I think any woman, dominant or not, would be lucky to have you.

We wanted to see each other again, and are talking about getting together after Christmas. I’m not sure what the state of play will be by then or if we will follow through or, frankly what it will look like, but thinking about it makes me smile, so why not.