Threefail

When one builds an online dating profile identifying oneself as “bisexual,” the messages one gets are pretty remarkable.

Among the many requests for a booty call (which apparently assume “bisexual means” “will do anything”), I found that I also received multiple requests to date and/or screw couples.

Here’s the profile: happy (perhaps married) couple finds at some point in their life together that the woman is into women – though, of course, not to the exclusion of sexual attraction to her man – and they decide to seek out a third person for their couple, however fleetingly.  This prompted myriad curiosities for me: How do you “date” a third person?  Are there to be rules in bed?  What kind of strain does this put on a relationship?  How do people characterize this in their own heads?

Because of my love for both of my readers, I decided to investigate for, you know, journalistic ends, without really committing to the idea of following through all the way to the bedroom.

None of these couples is comfortable putting pictures up on a dating website, it seems.  They initiate the messaging, but upon response two different couples demanded additional photos of me.  It was actually rather laborious a pursuit to get pictures of them.  I selected the most attractive couple of research subjects and sent some public photos and a phone number.

The respondent to email claimed to be the female, and she told me about the illustrious service careers of herself (call her Betty) and her partner (call him Scott).  Yet the text messages I began receiving were from Scott alone.  The first round of requests were for more pictures, which I politely declined, giving the distinct impression, I fear, that I was the most uptight interested party they’d ever encountered.  Texting with Scott continued for about a week, me clarifying that our first meeting should be in a public place.

For public I chose a bar nearby, and discovered after a hefty delay and a late start to the meeting that Scott was actually unemployed, with designs on a more prestigious hourly labor that he sought with idle intensity.  He asked whether I’d been in threesome before, and I invented a couple.

“So…have you guys done this before?” I ask.

“Yeah.  We’ve had two ... no – wait – three girls before” Wow, dude, you can’t remember, really? “So two of them were really short, like, they were just weird.  And one we saw for a while and she was cool but then she had some family stuff go down and disappeared.”  Sounds like a bullshit story to get away from you, but okay.

“Ever with a guy?”

“No, I’m straight, I don’t wanna touch a dude. So tell me about your threesomes.”

I’d thrown in a standard two girls and a guy. I’d also invented a male-male threesome because it hadn’t occurred to me that I’d have to be more explicit.

“You were with two guys?  How did it start?”

“Well we were just hanging out drinking, and I don’t remember what one of them said – it was a long time ago – but it prompted me to tell them I wanted them to cooperate, not fight, sort of suggestively.  And then I kissed both of them and we started to remove clothing and made our way to the bedroom.”

Then a deluge began: “Wait, so you fucked both of them?” No, just one. “From what position?” He was behind me.  “What about the other one?” He was in front of me. “Did you blow him?” Um, sure. “Oh my god that’s so hot.”

And on and on he went, clamoring for details.  Not once did he ask about my (purported) threesome with a girl and a guy. He wanted to know every miniscule detail about our position, what I was touching, how the guy was fucking, what was simultaneous.  He appeared to be rather obsessed with the idea of two guys on me at once. Sure, dude, you’re TOTALLY straight.

Then he made me wonder if there was actually a girl involved here, or if he’d just used some old pics with his ex, when after an hour or so of conversation he revealed, “Yeah, I mean. I don’t know about me and Betty.  I mean, yeah, we live together and we’re still hanging out, but, I don’t know,” and slightly later, “would you have a problem seeing me alone sometimes, like, we could hang out with Betty too, but I think I’d like to see you alone sometimes, would that be okay?” Um, maybe?

I excused myself and delayed further substantive conversation for about a week.  Low and behold, when he reconnected, Betty and Scott were “on a break,” (for a whole week!) and he was hoping he could come over to my place.  I’d say there’s abut a 30% chance Betty is real.