Bootleg Therapy: An Advice Column #12
A poly Thanksgiving debacle, and one straight man's letdown
Welcome to Bootleg Therapy: an advice column for wayward hearts. Think of me as your virtual stranger at the bar with a raspy voice and a weird scar on their cheek. The truth is in the worm at the bottom of the mezcal bottle. Submit your questions anonymously on brokebutmoisturized.com for a chance to be featured.
Poly Wants a Cracker
Hi Dia,
Mega-fan of the stack (of the sub variety!). I got into this major tiff with my secondary partner’s mother-in-law, as I’ve just arrived at their estate for thanksgiving (primary partner is stuck in Trenton since their ankle bracelet is just NOT coming off!). So ANYWAYS, I show up to Thanksgiving with my famous parker house rolls (secret is the nice Italian Puglia butter!) (infused on the stove with sage, everything but the bagel, and gochujang!) (I’m so sexy with it I should add another boyfriend?). So immediately I can tell something is wrong with this broad, she looks me up and down but you know whatever, I’ve always had an intense sensual vibe that inherently throws some beta women. Then post-coital one night, I sneak downstairs for some snackies, grab a handful of crackers and then scamper back upstairs to eat them in bed. Flash forward to the next morning, the whole family vibe is just tepid. SP’s mom confronts me, “****, did you eat some of my gluten free crackers without my permission?” in this total hag tone. So I said yes I did, so politely. SP standing there staring at the ground, can’t even look at me. Anyways we totally get into it and I leave the house crying, a little while later SP picks me up at the roadside Starbucks I walked to. He wants to smooth things over but I’m just so gagged. Anyways the solution is: I’m on the Amtrak, streaks of Lash Paradise staining my face I literally look like a rorschach, eating my rolls alone on the train. Dia, babe, should I drop him? Demote him to tertiary partner? What do I do??? anywaysss I’ll be at the LMNO bar all weekend drowning my sorrows in prickly hicklies and crab guac! Help me angel, guide me with your beautiful mind.
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Dear Poly Wants a Cracker,
We mock the bro who, fist pumping at a Vegas pool party, exclaims, “my life a movie!” That’s because the phrase belongs to thespians like you. I don’t normally respond to submissions this specific in nature, but you turned an ordinary story into cunty folklore. A saga that I’d rewatch and gasp and howl at 20 times over. Do you know how powerful you are? I think you do. That bit about the rolls said it all.
Before we get into it, let me tell you a story about Easter Sunday some years back. I was with my ex at his mom’s, and though his parents are long divorced, they still do holidays together. That makes it sound like they have a chill, amicable relationship. They don’t! And every holiday was some dramatic showdown. On this particular Easter Sunday, his dad, a hot head from a tiny town in Italy’s Abruzzo region called Villa Sant'Angelo, kept calling me his ex’s name. Chiara, pass me the salt? I was calm, maybe slightly uncomfortable, but smiling, giggling. My ex, on the other hand, blew a fuse. Before I knew it, everyone around me was SHOUTING in Italian. His mom stormed outside crying. All because I was Chiara for the day! (Chiara who, by the way, ended things with my ex by throwing all his belongings out the window of their London flat, into the street. Iconique. He cheated on us both. She and I became Instagram friends.)
Anyway, holidays can be fraught with our partners’ families. We come as outsiders and either leave with a house key, or some juice for our therapists. You are totally valid in being shaken up. But it doesn’t have to be make or break.
First thing’s first: I do not vibe with SP’s mom. Blame the hospitable Italian in me (disregard the aforementioned squabble), but if you, a guest, ate some of my fucking crackers, I’d send you home with the whole box, a container of leftovers, and a kiss on the forehead. I get that not everyone feels that way and maybe some people think it’s rude to raid a stranger’s cupboard. But either way, you don’t confront them and make it awkward!? And as for SP, their non-response was cowardly. They should have handled that easily and automatically, but instead, disregarded you like some Thanksgiving pariah. You should not have found yourself sulking in a godless Starbucks. De-escalation was a real option that no one took.
The big question of whether this warrants a demotion in your poly hierarchy, or a drop altogether, depends on a few things. Do you want to be close with SP’s family long term? And if so, is hag-toned, gluten-free mom redeemable? Do you and SP have an otherwise strong relationship—one that wouldn’t be rattled by a singular incident? Does your poly lifestyle demand frictionless arrangements, making it easy to drop someone at the first sign of difficulty? And if so, do you think that’s worth examining? No shade—we all have different thresholds for discord, and I don’t know the first thing about polyamory. It’s just that no one’s perfect and maybe overcoming this snafu is an opportunity for growth on all accounts.
If you really dig SP and they did a good job smoothing things over, I think it’s worth moving on from this together. I think this could easily be a one-off situation that doesn’t reflect who SP really is in conflict. But you need to give them the chance to show that.
If it doesn’t work out, there’s always LMNO. Prickly hicklies and crab guac and runny mascara and a cute stranger who loves a good story. Won’t you tell them yours?
Disappointed Dave
A girl presents herself as straight, she is really not straight, and she knows the guy doesn't know that. The girl further comes around to see the guy all of the time, she makes suggestions, and she shares a lot of personal stuff. She seeks affirmations from the guy and says, "I enjoy our chats. They relax me." When the guy asks for clarity about her interactions, she only makes more ambiguous statements. The guy is confused. Although no one is entitled to know another's sexuality, wouldn't you call a situation like this misleading? How could it be handled on both ends? Also feel free to reverse the situation to where the girl feels confused by a guy. At what point does one really have to be honest about their sexuality?
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Dear Disappointed Dave,
When someone doesn’t meet our expectations of who they are and their intentions with us, our emotions go haywire. First, we feel confused; the inconsistencies slowly reveal themselves. Then, we are defeated by the truth. Nothing makes sense and we are entirely let down and sad and broken and frustrated. And eventually, if we don’t fight it, a poisonous resentment takes over.
I get the sense, from your suggestion that I affirm the situation as “misleading,” that you’ve reached the resentment stage. You are bitter and you might like to teach this person a lesson, if only you had reinforcement. But I think I could teach you a lesson today that will serve you better than punishing someone you clearly care(d) for.
So our she-devil “presents as straight.” What does that mean to you? Is this solely behavioral, or are there physical elements that strike you as hetero? It’s easy to behold someone who, for example, leans femme, and presume their straightness. But that’s not how the world works. That’s not how queerness works. To embrace the vibrant complexity of the gender and sexual identities of those around you is to really, for lack of better word, get with the times. We’re creeping toward a point where straight is not the default (thank god) and there is no choice but to think differently. To move differently.
As for how she treated you, all you’ve described to me is intimacy. An amorphous, gray intimacy that hangs, motionless, between the platonic and the romantic. I have no details of your chats, other than them being “personal” and containing “suggestions” and requests for “affirmations,” all of which occur daily among friends, male and female, old and new. It sounds like you guys have different concepts of how friends behave; that level of closeness could be perfectly run-of-the-mill for her, and she may have been oblivious to how you’d interpret it. You said you asked for clarity, but how specific were you? It’s one thing to ask, “do you treat all your guy friends like this?” and another to ask, “do you have romantic feelings for me?” We both know which one’s more direct and thus, fair.
The thing about being led on is it’s completely subjective. And this subjectivity has disproportionately harmed women throughout history, i.e., we are our sweet, oversharing selves toward a guy and, when he realizes it wasn’t intended romantically, he becomes angry and lashes out. I’m not suggesting you’re doing that whatsoever. I’m just acknowledging the very real disparity here in how we’re allowed to act toward men without being accused of flirtation or worse.
I want to end on a positive note, Disappointed Dave. Even if you got the wrong impression, you gave someone permission to be their full, loving self with you. You got to experience deep connection. These are beautiful things. I urge you to explore that perspective, as it offers you both grace and tells a good story. Plus, she said your chats were relaxing. You can take that calming energy into your next relationship and have it returned tenfold.