Of late, I find that Twitter no longer gives me what I need to get me through my day.  The spontaneous flirtation and sexy chat quotient is way down compared to six months ago.  It’s my own fault, of course.  I shouldn’t have disappeared for a month and a half.  During that time my followers decreased, though not significantly.  More importantly, more tragically, the amount of interactions I enjoyed with sexy people also dropped.

Continuing to tweet rather than taking a break wasn’t an option.  Had I not logged out on my computer, not removed the app from my phone, I know that the many obligations, professional and otherwise, that dogged my every step throughout September, would have gone unfulfilled, and the stress would have taken a very unfortunate toll on me.  Understand what I’m telling you:  I’m such a hopeless Twitter junkie that I had to actually uninstall the Twitter app from my phone.

On some level, I knew that a decrease in the amount of pervy interactions I enjoyed with sexy people was inevitable in the wake of my hiatus.  I wish I didn’t require these interactions to equalize the toll that being a stay-at-home parent takes on me.  But I do.  And it does.  Make no mistake, I love my daughter.  She never fails to make me smile, even when she’s acting out, refusing to sleep, or throwing a tantrum in public.  Because even at the worst of times, even when she is challenging me in ways I can’t abide, I realize that Jill and I made her.  She is a part of us.

But being a stay-at-home dad has taken its toll.  I am physically and mentally exhausted, much more in need of sleep now than I was a year ago when I would regularly stay up until two or three o’clock in the morning writing and editing blog posts or commenting on the blog posts of others.  This could be due to the fact that my daughter is much more active now, and as a result I must also be.  She talks more.  She thinks more.  She asks more questions.  I’m proud of her for all of these things.  But I need a break.

On the other hand, perhaps my fatigue is tied directly into the fact that I’m interacting with others less than I was.  The thought of waking to a flattering blog comment or a sexy tweet was all the motivation I needed.  I could happily get four hours of sleep on any given night with the understanding that I’d be talking dirty to some fellow sexy blogger or trading naughty tweets once I woke.  These days I sleep a lot more – I average six or seven hours per night – but the odds of having a sexy conversation to take the edge off my day are slimmer than before.

So maybe it’s a lack of time and energy on my part.  I’m usually exhausted.  That comes with the territory when you’re raising a rambunctious kid and you’re determined to give her a fun and exciting childhood.  Maybe it’s a lack of interest on the part of my followers.  I can’t say I blame them if it is.  We tweet much less than we once did.  We are barely blogging.  Maybe I’m just less into the whole kink scene than I was a year ago.  Maybe we both are.  While Jill and I will never be vanilla, our prospects for non-monogamy have all but dried up.  Financial issues have made travel difficult, and these days playing locally is pretty much out of the question.

At the start of the school year we found out that one of Jill’s co-workers may have been fired for some sort of “sexual impropriety”.  It’s all rumor at this point, of course; as far as I know no one’s spoken to the fired co-worker and gotten her side of the story.  Also, I have no idea as to the nature of the supposed impropriety.  Caught at a sex club?  Extramarital affair?  Poly relationship or triad?  Something to do with a minor?  Horse-fucking?  Obviously as long as it doesn’t involve a party that is unable or unwilling to give consent, I don’t consider it an offense worthy of termination.

That said, my wife is a teacher.  She works with young children.  Because of this, different standards apply to her than to medical professionals, carpenters, supermarket clerks, and bus drivers.  I don’t know if the rumors about this person’s termination are true, nor do I know where they originated.  For all I know, the person just moved away and all the whispered rumormongering is born of paranoia or sex-negativity.

Anyway, that’s probably a big part of the reason why Jill hasn’t tweeted of late.  That’s also part of the reason why our prospects have dried up.  That’s also part of the reason why I rely so extensively on my online interactions with others.  I can get off using Kik, Twitter, Skype, or a number of other avenues that don’t require face-to-face contact.  It’s not ideal, but in a pinch it’ll do just fine.  We’ve got nothing planned with others in the near future, and I would definitely consider that a pinch.

As a guy who grows increasingly uncomfortable with monogamy, this is a problem for me.  I need the promise of regular non-monogamy to be content.  I need the sight of another pair of breasts, another willing mouth, another available orifice, on the horizon.  That’s just the way I am.

My preference is to play alongside my wife.  We’re a team, after all, and we work well together.  That’s why threesomes – preferably with sexy bi-ladies – are so ideal.  We invariably both come away from the experience very satisfied as we’ve had our sexual needs met, and together we meet the sexual needs of another.  But I don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon.  Jill has a sudden aversion to playing locally, i.e. with people from our own area.  This is understandable considering the situation.  Were our sexual proclivities to become a matter of public record she would certainly lose her job and find herself blacklisted from getting another in her chosen field.

Whether she gets past her aversion in a couple weeks, six months, or never doesn’t matter to me.  Right now it’s a very real barrier, and something I must respect out of love for my wife.  At any rate, she doesn’t seem to be as conflicted about it as I am.  She’s of the mind that if something comes along, and the circumstances allow, great.  If it doesn’t, also great.  She enjoys playing with others, but she doesn’t require it the way I do.

We’ve discussed me playing alone, since the need is much more pressing for me than it is for her.  For whatever reason I’m having trouble with it.  There’s risk involved, of course, as Jill’s local social network is vast.  In the event that I was seen at a bar schmoozing a woman who is not my wife, her relatives, friends, and co-workers would be unwilling to consider that we’ve got an open relationship.  And while this wouldn’t affect Jill’s and my relationship, it would definitely affect Jill’s relationship with whoever saw me.

Some of these people have intimated that they suspect I’m a womanizer with the potential for cheating.  I’m okay with this.  I have no intention of subjugating my will to the expectations of unqualified others.  That said, I have every intention of sparing my wife the embarrassment that would result from the discovery that her husband likes having sex with other women.  In the interest of maintaining the illusion, one of her two rules is “Be discreet”.  The other is “Be safe”.  She’s such an amazing wife.

I’m not sure why I can’t just take yes for an answer.  Maybe I’m afraid that this isn’t really what she wants, that she’s capitulating under duress.  She insists that she’s not, and trust me, she’d say so if she was.  In fact, she wouldn’t capitulate.  Jill is not the sort to capitulate under any circumstances.  Compromise, yes.  Capitulate, no.

So why am I having so much trouble proceeding?  Anyone as preoccupied with non-monogamy as I am would have gone for it long ago.  But I am also aware that my wife was raised to believe in monogamy, and while she’s had fun with our handful of very gratifying non-monogamous experiences and would certainly like to have more, she would probably shed no tears if such a thing never happened again.

I guess I’ve brainstormed enough for one day.  Now I believe I will take my child to the park while the sun is out and the sky is blue.  And if any of the single and stay-at-home moms who happen to be there catch my eye, I may strike up a conversation.

– Jack