37 - Holy Poly

Life really does have a twisted sense of humor.

I’m currently taking a PR course—to finally learn how to annoy journalists professionally.

Armed with my new skills, I decided to upgrade my Tinder profile—and, a few days later, voilà: a date with a polyamorous man I’d never met, but still decided to let into my house. The mister was both proud and horrified—simultaneously.

A small step for a man, but a big step for a mildly paranoid woman.

PR success: zero. Dating outcome: extremely promising.

But let’s start at the beginning.

Within 24 hours of updating my profile, I matched with a man who, on paper, checked every single box. He lived in multiple relationships at once—and came with an unrequested extra I secretly found very sexy: long hair. Something I’d never had before but always wanted.

Still, with my already ambitious wish list, that particular criterion felt unnecessary.

What followed were three days of intense messaging—with a level of honesty I usually only get from women after two glasses of wine, or from men right before a breakdown. I could ask anything, and he’d answer—in full paragraphs, sometimes in long voice messages. Minutes-long voice messages—the male equivalent of a love letter, complete with optional breathing soundtrack. I liked him immediately. He didn’t just share the flattering parts of his life, but also the ones that hurt—the messy, unpolished parts that made him real. It was raw, it was alluring—and for once, I didn’t find it suspicious.

Since my husband was out for the evening, we even had the chance to talk on the phone late at night.

What can I say?

It’s been ages since I’ve talked to a stranger for two hours in bed.

And since we were both already naked when the call started, you can imagine—it was an intimate conversation. It was my first time having phone sex in English—but my vocabulary turned out to be much more suitable for that than for faire l’amour in French.

That late-night tête-à-tête turned out to be just the prelude to our first actual date—three days later, at my place. I was more nervous than if I’d had to give a naked TED Talk on polyamory as a contribution to world peace—in front of the defense industry. When he finally stood at my door, my legs were shaking so badly he had to hold me up—and for safety reasons only, we decided to lie down immediately. Purely to avoid injury, of course. My legs refused service, my heart was doing backflips, and my libido was leaning seductively in the doorframe in a sheer negligee, ready to jump straight into the sheets.

I’d allotted a time window from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.—and I hadn’t expected him to actually use all six hours. But he did. We even went overtime by half an hour, because at 4:30 we realized we’d forgotten lunch. Unfortunately, there’s no minibar in our bedroom—a concept that definitely deserves reconsideration. Chloé would absolutely approve.

This was a man it clicked with instantly. Aside from my rebellious legs, nothing about that date felt like a first date. There was so much closeness, intimacy, and ohhhhhhhh. Even the now-standard squirting was, for once, a proper turn-on—instead of a clean-up turn-off.

So what did we learn?

A woman just needs to know what she wants—and hope that the Tinder crowd doesn’t take it as a joke.

But if they do?

Next time, I’ll try LinkedIn. With the new press release.