Ivy had just ended a decade-long relationship when she found herself dating for the first time in her adult life. And despite being a relative novice to the dating scene, it wasn’t long before she found herself in a polyamorous relationship with a man and another woman.
I met this guy. I knew this guy for years. I’d worked with him briefly. I ran into him after I lost 50 pounds. He didn’t really recognize me. I was at this event with a friend she was like, ‘My friend’s hosting this party. Let’s go to this party real quick. So I was like, ‘Ok, cool.’ And somehow we just hit it off. He was kind of flirting and I was like, ‘Oh okay, I kind of like this guy.’ I already thought he was cute, anyway. So we exchanged numbers. And the next day, he started hitting me up.
There was a big celebration in the city and he was like, ‘I want you to come hang out with me, my brother, and some of my friends.’ I was like, ‘Ok, cool.’ So, I go out with them and I at this point, I really just started dating because I was out of my years-long relationship. I was interested just to see. So I get there and he’s with two girls and his brother. We’re just hanging out but I kind of felt uncomfortable because the ratio’s off. It’s too extreme. There are two girls with you, your brother and then, at the same time, I’m an introvert, so I leave.
He texted me right after: “The girl who was sitting next to you, she wants to kiss you.”
And I was like, What are you talking about? At this point, I’m so confused. I’m like what’s going on? I responded, ‘No, she doesn’t. I don’t really understand how this conversation even turned.’
He’s like: “No, she wants to kiss you.”
I responded, “Sir, you’re playing games and I don’t really know what your goal is or what you’re trying to do.”
That weekend, he’s like “Come hang out with me and my friend.”
I was like, “Ok.”
And he’s like, “It’s at her house.”
So I was like, Ehh I don’t know her. And I asked, “Are you sure she’s ok with a stranger coming to her house?”
He says, “No, she’s fine.”
I said, “Give me her number. Let me just confirm.” I can tell he’s also that type that will probably put you into a situation that you’re not really comfortable with and he’s not going to give you the whole story. So for some reason, I just felt like if I go to this girl’s house, she’s going to be like, ‘Who the hell are you coming into my house?’
So, he gives me her number and I text her, ‘Hey, this is _____’s friend. He mentioned that you’re going to get together and have wine and food. Is it ok if I come over?’
She says, ‘Yeah, that’s fine.’
I get to her place, I knock on her door and nobody answers. So I’m like What’s going on? I text her. ‘Hey, I’m here.’ And she’s like, ‘Ok, open the door.’ Again, I’m a stranger. Open the door, she’s upstairs in the shower.
I’m like, I don’t even know you lady! She knows nothing about me. So I’m texting the dude. “Get your ass here! What the fuck are you doing?” At this point, I’m like, You’re trying to set me up with some shit. What are you doing and why aren’t you here? I don’t think that I really thought that it would just be the three of us.
He’s like, “Chill out relax.” He also gets on me like, “You’re too uptight sometimes. Just relax.”
He’s one of those super free spirit, kind of hipster-y Black guys, which is something that I kind of like.
Eventually he gets there, we have wine and everything. Somehow that turns into having a threesome with them.
Gurl.
How did you become open to that or had you always been open to that?
I had been open to the idea but never acted on it. I would have never gone to my ex and be like, ‘Oh let’s try this out.’ More so because I’m a prude, like a prude. Forreal. And I’m very shy. I was actually surprised that they were able to get that out of me. So I had been open to it but just never had voiced it. Never had even attempted to ask my ex or say ‘We should try this.’ Never.
And maybe I didn’t want to bring it up because of how I felt his reaction might be. He might look at it like ‘Oh I’m not enough?’
Or when you’ve known people for a long time, you don’t want them to see you in a different light.
That too. And I think that was really what it is. He knows that I’m the prude. He had to really talk me into doing anything a little different.
So, from that it became a consistent thing for six months. We would hang out the three of us together, all the time. From the public eye, you wouldn’t know. We wouldn’t hang on each other. I was never with her by myself. It just happened, the next thing you know, ‘Oh, come over to the house!’ And we would literally have so much fun. We would play card games, they would watch “Game of Thrones,” just hanging out, drinking wine. And it became a frequent thing. Then it got to the point where he and I would be alone and he would say, ‘Oh, don’t tell her that you’re with me.’ So, I was like That’s strange.
You gotta go back though. So, how was the sex?
It was amazing! Especially at first because I didn’t have to do any work. I think because they knew ‘Ok this is new for her so we have to make her feel comfortable.’ The first couple of times, they made me feel totally comfortable. It was all about me. I didn’t have to do any work. At that time, I wasn’t giving head. I told him ‘I only do that for my boyfriends.’ At that time, I wasn’t as sexually liberated as I am now. There were certain limits for me that I wasn’t willing to do. And I voiced that to them.
But it was amazing. We would have a great time. I actually looked forward to it. With my ex I was never like, ‘Oh I can’t wait to get home to have sex.’ I never really looked forward to it. And it wasn’t necessarily the threesome. I don’t know what it was. I feel like I was more intrigued by him than her. And I feel like it was probably something I was doing because I was like, ‘Oh, he likes it.’ I liked it too, I still had a great time, I don’t know if it was necessarily “I want to go have this threesome.' I think it was more ‘I want to be with him.’
The other thing I was really surprised about is how safe they were. Even with hands, different hands for each of us, switching condoms. Things that I never really thought about. And I appreciated that because that may not have been something I even thought about. I don’t have sex without condoms with any of these guys I’m dating but I was like, ‘Ok they’re official at this.’
Which also made me think, I’m still, to this day, trying to figure out what made y’all try me? Did y’all have a meeting about this? Like, ‘Ok her. She might be down.’ And I might ask him still because I see him a lot. And every now and then we’ll have sex, like maybe four times a year.
But I’m trying to figure out was this a conversation and when I went to that dinner last night, were y’all feeling me out?
So it just developed and then it became a consistent thing. And then sometimes me and the girl would hang out, not sexually but we would just hang out. I wouldn’t call us necessarily friends but we had similar tastes in music, so we would go to concerts together or maybe go get something to eat together but nothing beyond that.
At that point, I didn’t really realize what type of situation I was in. I just looked at it as though, ‘Oh I’m having fun.’ Next thing I know I meet this other guy and start dating him. I’m not around them as much.
So they sit me down one day to have a conversation with me. And they’re like:
“You’re not allowed to date other people and we can tell that your time is being occupied by other people.”
I was like, “Wait. I didn’t really sign up for this.”
When I say I was in a polyamorous situation, I wasn’t really full aware and they never fully prepped me, like ‘The three of us are together. You can be with me or you can be with her but you can’t be with anybody else.’
It was so strange.
It also got to the point, which is why I would never open up an actual boyfriend to this, because there would be some times where we would be together and he would say, ‘Don’t tell her that you’re at my house’ or ‘Don’t tell her that we hung out with this person.’ So there would be times when I was trying to understand the full dynamic of their relationship.
So, she was the main?
Yeah. They were like best friends. She was definitely the main.
But it was more than sex. They brought you into the relationship.
Exactly. Super into it. To the point where when I was dating other people, and I didn’t mention I was dating other people, I wasn’t having sex with anybody else that I was dating. And they were like, ‘You’re not allowed to do that. And I was like I’m not having sex with other people. I could see for safety purposes, not having sex with other people; but I was like ‘Now, you’re trying to regulate my dating life?’ I didn’t like that so eventually I started backing off of that situation. I would still hang out with them every now and then but it never got back to that point.
It was a fun period of my life but because of that when my ex and I got back together, he found out.
How?
He went through my G-chat messages and I was talking to my co-worker. And he asked me and I had to admit it because I was like there’s nothing I can say. Oh my gosh! It turned into a whole thing. He was just so upset. Then it became ‘How did they talk you into this?’ ‘What did they do to you?’ He was confused. ‘How did this guy make you do something like this?’ And then I was trying to figure out, is the bigger issue that I did this period or that someone got me to do something…
...that you would probably want to do.
Exactly. And he was like, ‘I would never want to do that.’ But when we got back together, he would bring it up way too much.
He probably became obsessed with it?
He did. He became obsessed with it.
You can read part 2 of Ivy’s story about what happened with her boyfriend next week.