Before you begin to date an older man who is in an open relationship, there are some things you should know about what’s allowed.
The most important one: You may ask all the questions you need. He should answer all of them without taking offense. You are now a part of his intricate romantic life, and you deserve to know.Â
For instance, it's OK to ask if she knows that he's on a date with you right now. He should assure you that she, too, is on a date, or at least that she sends her blessing and doesn't plan on texting him goodnight. It's OK to feel a little weird about that, a bit exposed, but then to forget about it.Â
You can ask if they have girlfriends or boyfriends besides each other, or if they just casually date. It can be the one question he hesitates to answer, as long as he then says that it depends on what you mean by those labels. That he only has and will only have one life partner, but he has relationships with other people that resemble what is typically thought of as a couplehood. You get it, kind of.
When you're in his apartment later, it's OK to pick up a professional award that resembles a brick, then apologize for touching his things. He should grin and say that it's no problem at all, that it's pretty strange for an award to be printed on a real brick. You can look at items that are most likely hers, and at photographs of them taped to the fridge. But it's probably best to not touch those, or to linger.Â
(You should take a moment here to remember that you're only 23, and he is 32, and he has the career you want, and you met him when you were an intern at the place where he earned that brick award, and you don't know what the fuck you're doing or if any of this is actually OK. Again: You are 23 years old and you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing, ever.)
When you leave, you'll smell like him, but also like her. It's not likely he picked out the lavender hemp soap in the bathroom.Â
You set out to know more than you did when you began, and now you do. But you still won’t understand why he looks heartbroken when you finally break it off, or why you can’t bring yourself to acknowledge his partner when you pass her at a coffee shop in your shared neighborhood. Why you feel sad, but mostly relieved. Why you still don’t understand what the rules are, and maybe never will.
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P.S. Tomorrow is my 30th birthday. As a present to myself, I broke my prescribed word count because I love this one. Share your actually-100-word breakup story here. <3 jz