RedditPP Mascot

RedditPP

r/polyamory • … • u/Sooty_Grouse

Have you helped your partner to date others?

I've got a lot going on right now (too much context in my post history lol), and one thing I think would help make everything so much better is if my LT partner would start dating & prioritizing other relationships.

He's been doing better about spending time with other friends but he is needing more sexually that I can't give, and haven't for a long time.

What ways have you helped encourage and support your partner to date others?

Edited to add some important context: My partner has significant social challenges due to neurodivergence. He doesn't actually know how to initiate connections with people and has really depended on others to develop connections with new people. We only started hanging out because a person he was seeing nudged him towards me.

Update:

We had such a great conversation this weekend, talking about *all* the things (past post topics included.) I'm grateful for getting to process these thoughts externally here on Reddit first and for the people who took the time to read and to respond considerately and to set aside their own projections. I'm totally welcoming of criticism, as long as it's not based on incorrect assumptions.

I asked if he would want some help to figure out dating. He said he would like that. I offered to look into the dating app recommended here (FEELD) and to help make a profile with him, to suggest things to mention about himself, pick out photos, recommend conversation openers. We laughed about how the last time he was using Tinder, his opening line for conversation was offering garlic to folks (he works at a garden nursery and is a huuuge plant nerd and his love language is giving people plants, and plants/bugs/science/nature make up basically 70% of conversation we've had for the past 8 years.

I talked about the cues that I follow when I like someone, and I think someone might like me, for example, if they ask you what you are doing this weekend, they could be indirectly asking a couple things, like: are you doing interesting things with your life, and is there room for me in it? We talked some more about asking questions, how it is one big way that we show a person that we are interested in them. I asked if he wanted to practice asking me questions. It makes him so uncomfortable , he's afraid of accidentally asking rude or personal or just plain weird questions. He really doesn't know where people draw that line.

I've clarified in comments that I have no interest in speaking to or even reading correspondence from potential dates. If a date wanted to meet me I'd be open to it, but unless we sparked a natural friendship I wouldn't want to make that a regular thing.

Personally, I have an aversion to smooth talking people. I am drawn to awkward weirdos because I'm a hella awkward weirdo. I'm just much more skilled at masking it than many of the folks I end up dating. I would find it so cute if someone was trying to learn how to make a good first impression. It took a couple times of hanging out to realize my partner isn't a snob, that he's just extreeeeemely shy, and that he's actually a total dork (in the very best way). Once we started talking plants though that was it, he never stopped talking. It took about a month of hanging out with my partner to realize he was into me, and only because I was brave enough to ask him directly, and even still he wasn't sure how to respond.

There are lots of ways to support folks, and I'm thankful for the great suggestions and support and cautions I've received here.

— 0