December 22nd, 2025 - Risk, Discipline

Dear TNY,

“Risk, Discipline” was today’s offering and I just dispatched it.

Um, I liked it?  I’m not sure if I liked it?  It was clean, the writing had a good pace, the story was simple enough that it didn’t get mired down in backstory, so much of it was in scene, and I like that it wasn’t “traditional” as it were.  My biggest beef with the story is I didn’t know that the protagonist was male until halfway through the story when he mentioned he needed to shave.  Now, I don’t give a fuck if it’s two men, two women, two whatevers, three whatevers, whatever.  Ya dig?  But from a storytelling perspective, I think the reader is only halfway in if they can’t imagine a character, fully fleshed.  If it was radio we’d have a voice.  If it was film, we’d have a voice and an image.  If it was dance, we’d have visual.  If it was anything else, we’d have more.  So much is given in a single image that we forget that in writing, we have to deliver these images via words.  I shouldn’t be wondering until halfway through.

I appreciated the tension in this.  A lot.  I felt uncomfortable in the What We Talk About When We Talk About Love scene.  But…that’s on me.  That’s my history.

Let’s get into it, guys.  I’m scared, but let’s get into it anyway.

She wanted an open relationship.  I did not.  But, she was willing to explore the idea of monogamy. And I was willing to explore the idea of an open relationship (which, she might argue with; for me, it was exploring the thing behind the thing, which is what I asked about, and received information that seemed to have nothing to do with an open relationship; also, I spent two years in a pseudo open relationship as well as a year in one in which my lady at the time dated women so she could bring them home; words that could be used to describe all of this could be “fun” or “exciting” but never “loving” or “stable” or “deep” or “successful”).  I don’t want to yuck anyone’s yum, as she would say.  But I do feel like I reserve the right to know myself and to try to understand myself.  Especially for the betterment of my partner.  So I asked some questions to try to figure it out from her side.  What’s the big sell, outside of the extremely superficial aspect of sex?  And I mean superficial in the most selfish way.  Like, what would I get out of it, regardless of my input or not evening thinking about my partner at all (not my natural way of thinking).  I’d get to fuck whomever I wanted?  Laughable.  It has always been more a, “whomever would allow me to,” situation.  That said, it’s also not what I want.  I’d rather not invite the risk in such that later, when things count (i.e. car accidents, cancer, death, and/or any other type of struggle and strain), there’s more chance of someone sticking around.  When it’s tough.  Instead of taking the easy way and bailing to the next best superficial landing.

But, more…it’s that I’m afraid.  I’m afraid of an open relationship with her.  Sure, jealousy.  But that’s not it.  How can a person who has given me zero assurances that we will last more than a month even be trustworthy enough to be open with?  How can a person, who when asked about why she wants an open relationship, states, “I just don’t want to feel stuck,” ever be trusted once the risk is in?  And I don’t mean trusted like won’t tell the truth.  I mean, that she won’t just bail whenever shit gets uncomfortable.  And, from what I can tell, stuck is what most people want (I mean, look at the kink couple in this story, the only way they can invite the risk in is that they know they are stuck no matter what).  We want to know that even if we fuck up, the person we are with won’t abandon us or reject us. Because we will be fucking up, if we are trying anyway. Trying is fucking up. Also, not trying in a relationships is also fucking up.  So, our partner may be mad at us, but they will stay anyway and try to figure out how to forgive us. And us them.  And being stuck has nothing to do with fucking.  And the only difference in an open relationship and a closed one is fucking.  So how does an open relationship solve for unstuckness?  It doesn’t.  So I’m afraid.  I could take the fucking.  Hell, I might even be able to fuck.  But the stuckness mentality is where my issues lie.  It’s almost a lack of accountability.  Like, she wants to be able to do anything, including leave at any time, but never have to deal with the consequences of her actions, even if they are bad.  That’s just inhuman as far as I can tell.  And has nothing to do with the labels around relationships.

But for me it’s not even about that. It’s about…I may sound upset or frustrated. But I’m not. All of this has been so exhausting. And you get worn out on thing’s like “upset”. Mainly, I’m just sad. And I miss her. Just want to talk to her. Listen. Share space. Because for me, it was always about one golden spirit finding another on this plane and knowing the truth.  That this is it.  And whatever she and I wanted from life before this is irrelevant.  That we found what we were supposed to do.  Even if it was hard and we didn’t want to do it all the time.  That has nothing to do with labels.  Whom we fuck.  Or don’t.  What we do.  Or don’t.  It has to do with giving up.  Seeing what’s happening and saying, “Well shit.  I thought all of these things were going to happen, but this is more important now.  And I bet it includes better things than I could ever imagine for myself.”

I don’t know where this is going or where I’m supposed to go.  I’m not shitting on open relationships or any other kind of relationship. Everyone is doing their best.  I just think that maybe listening to the thing behind the thing is so much more important than anything else.  And being able to give up.  Let go.  And find peace within the gifts you’ve been given, not try to exchange them.  And I may not be able to speak with authority on any of these things, God knows I’ve made mistakes; I do know that I exchanged plenty of gifts for other ones. But at this age with this perspective, I fucked up.  Because I didn’t want to be stuck. 

The reality is if I had gotten stuck with some of those gifts, I’d be a helluva lot happier than I am now.

Nick

P.S. One last thing.  I got told the other day that if something isn’t a, “Fuck Yes,” it’s a fuck no and likely shouldn’t be done.  I thought about that a lot.  Most of the best parts of my life came from, “Fuck No,” that turned into, “Fuck Yes.”  Being open to the world is embracing fuck nos, and finding the beauty in them.  At least, that’s how this loser sees it.

P.P.S.  It took all week to “finish” this letter.  Not because it wasn’t done on Monday.  I was actually on time.  Instead, I had to sit on what I wrote in the letter, which isn’t included here.  Guys, I actually have boundaries because I pulled so much material out of this because I knew it would hurt some feelings.  And did, in fact, not pertain too much to the letter as it turned out.  When I wrote that removed material, I was feeling really down and then by the end I felt pretty beautiful.  And I looked up from my computer screen and found the back of the shirt that is the photo for this week.  Maybe that material will see the light of day some time, but not today.