Monogamous people don’t often have the experience of being rejected by new interests.

This is a particularly comfortable, appealing aspect of monogamy, but I’m not convinced it’s “better.”

The other night, a hottie from whom I hoped to collect a kiss, maybe more, disappointed me, offering instead that rejection I so fear. Was it me she rejected? My personality? My looks? My sexuality?

Or was it something less specific, something more circumstantial?

I can’t really know. I’m left to my own devices, to guess at her reasoning. As I said, this isn’t necessarily comfortable. But I think it good, an opportunity, for me.

I carry into my adulthood a predisposition to shrink away from rejection (and, of course, to court it). I feel very lucky to be able to experience it in emotionally safe contexts. This was a woman I found attractive, whom I’d have loved to use in a variety of ways. But honestly, it’s no skin off my nose if I never talk to her again. And/but, learning she’s not interested – first, the night of, and then a day or so later, again, confirmed – sucks. It leaves me unmoored.

Which I get to study.