I agreed but was still so curious about the whole sexual thing. I mean, "being used" was so different from "making love" or "having sex" I was used to when it came to talking about sexuality. But the prospect of it all excited me. However, I didn't want to seem like an eager beaver about the whole sex thing; I am a lady, after all.

"When you say, 'use my mind or my work,' what do you mean?" I asked.

He explained, "If I need to talk some things through and need someone to talk to, I should be able to 'use your mind.' And if I need you to clean, cook, or do some work for me, I should also be able to rely on you."

I scoffed, a bit offended if I am being honest, and said, "So if you say 'jump,' my response should always be 'how high?'" and he said, "Correct, as always, if that makes you unhappy, walk away."

That thought went against everything I ever believed about myself. After all, women have been fighting for a very long time to do away with this very mentality. I felt myself getting defensive and wanted to speak my mind. I said, "So, it is safe to say that you're not into the whole women's rights thing?"

He smiled, looked directly into my eyes, and said, "I am into the whole human rights thing. I believe people should be able to do what they want when they want, as long as it does not harm another person without their consent." He paused to sip his tea and continued, "If you've noticed, I never said that the person I choose should do anything against their will.
Absolutely everything I propose to a person is with their full will and cooperation. In fact, the next thing I wanted to say is related to that."

Wait a minute... he was no longer including me in the hypotheticals. He was now saying "the person" instead of including me in the thought. Did I mess this up? I felt a void in my belly, like the chance of being with him had been taken away just for asking such a simple question. I felt deflated, like the whole date had taken a turn for the worse, and I was completely inept at how to get it back. And then it occurred to me: "Holy shit, Red! Are you seriously considering this???" There was no time to dive too deep into my thoughts at the moment, but I knew I had to do some serious thinking about this.

At this point, I did what I felt was the best course of action: I asked about the thing he said he wanted to say next.

He leaned back in his chair, took a deep breath, and said, "Well, you see, Ms. REDiance..." — for fuck's sake, I am back to "Ms. REDiance" — he continued, "what I need is a collaboration. The person HAS TO want this as much as I do. If I even get the sense that they're not as excited about what we're doing, I simply don't want it. It is that simple. And this is not a strategy or punishment; something inside me clicks, and I lose interest."

This was puzzling to me, so I asked him to please clarify. He gave me a simple example. "It's simple. If I have to convince the person to give me a kiss, then I simply don't want the kiss. On that same thought, if I ask you for a glass of water and you give me some inclination that leads me to believe that you don't want to get me a glass of water, I simply don't want it, and I most likely will never ask you for a glass of water again."

I felt like I would be constantly walking on eggshells and under constant vigilance, and that thought was not so appealing. So, I said, "Sounds nerve-wracking, don't you think?" He promptly replied, "Only if the person, for whatever reason, doesn't want to be part of this, which is why the person is always free to walk away if they are unhappy with the arrangement. On the other hand, if they apply all their intentionality into everything they do, then everything can be quite... enjoyable."

I asked what he meant by "intentionality," but I think I had reached the end of what he was willing to explain, or I had completely turned him off, because he said, "That comes later, if the person decides that they want to be part of what I am trying to create."

I was thinking, "Well, what if I am having a bad day? We all have those," so I asked him that very question and he said, "Of course you can have a bad day and that is understandable, but you have to work through it. Having a good day, on purpose, takes work... we have to figure out how to turn a bad day into a good one; and I can teach the person how to do that, it really is not that difficult." He paused to sip his tea and continued, "If the person feels that having a bad attitude is necessary for their happiness, then the person is not right for me; there's nothing wrong with it, it's just not for me."

Well, he wasn't completely wrong... but I was very distracted by the fact that he removed ME from his examples and replaced the word "YOU" with "the person" in his explanations, it was REALLY eating at me. I had to find my way back into his plans. I heard my mom's voice in my head saying, "Are you serious??? You're into this???" and another voice that said, "YES, MOM!" I think that was the moment I knew that at the very least, I wanted to hear more about this, or at least I wanted to hear him talk. I was crushing on him, badly... don't judge me.

In a last-minute effort to wiggle my way back in, I crafted a question that I hoped would at least put me back into consideration. I felt a bit of shame, but the crush was real!

Taking a deep breath, I asked, "So, if I wanted to be part of what you're building, what would be the next step?" My mind was torn—part of me hoped he'd say, "We should kiss on it," while another part nervously anticipated a different answer.

He explained that the next step would be to spend more time together so we could get a feel for one another and see if we were compatible. After spending time together, we could revisit if we were still interested in going further into the relationship.

I thought, "Not quite the kiss I was hoping for, but it will get me at least one more date." Before I could respond, he added with a mild laugh, "There's one more thing you should know before anything else happens. If nothing else has made you run, this just might."

In my mind, I was confidently maintaining eye contact and smiling while holding my cup and saying "go on"... but most likely I was a fuzzy mess looking like a deer in headlights, again.

At that point, honestly, I was spent. It was a lot of information to process, and I was definitely reaching the limits of my attention span lol. With a deep breath, I said, "Okay, what is it?" I mean, it couldn't be more intense than what I had heard already, so I was pretty much ready for anything.

He, a little too confidently and nonchalantly, said, "I am polyamorous..."

to be continued...