Jealous for the first time
Jul. 6th, 2015 05:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sparrI recently experienced jealousy for the first time, in a situation with no especially novel components. I would like to figure out why.
I was at Firefly, a camping festival modeled after Burning Man. At such events I often engage in intro/demo-level kinky activities in public spaces, more in a carnival-barker fashion than as intimate play. An acquaintance to whom I am attracted, and who is aware of that fact, walked by. I used a TENS unit on her. She liked it. I offered to engage in more private play with that or similar devices later. She answered in a noncommittal fashion. I've had this same encounter many times, with electricity and rope and vibrating toys and cuddling. Nothing about our exchange here was unusual for me at all.
Fast forward 12 hours. I was in a cuddly space with a lot of people having small group conversations. I was sitting near this acquaintance and a friend of mine. They were engaged in touchy cuddly activities. She expressed a desire to do sexual things with him. He declined, temporarily at least, for reasons explicitly not related to attraction. Again, nothing out of the ordinary here. My friends and acquaintances fuck each other. I enjoy knowing they are having fun.
He walked away temporarily for an unrelated reason and she turned to me and began discussing the nature of her attraction to him. This is where the problem happened. She wasn't saying anything to me that I had not just heard her say, to him. She wasn't saying anything that I haven't heard a dozen female friends that I want to sleep with say about a dozen other male mutual friends. But somehow this made me uncomfortable and distraught. I think I felt jealousy. It didn't last long, but it was very disconcerting.
This wasn't envy. I feel that plenty often. I am not sure if I felt it at her or at him or both or neither. There were minor hints of angry and sad mixed in.
Here are a few potentially useful pieces of context:
This was the first long event I have attended since becoming sexually active where I struck out entirely on intimate activities (cuddling, cosomination, sex, kinky play, etc). I have gone much longer without such activities, and hit on people at other events both more and less frequently to different levels of success. I do currently have healthy active sexual relationships outside of the event, which both has and has not been the case around previous similar events. This happened when there was still ~30 hours left in the event, so at the time I had not certainly struck out yet.
The feeling passed quickly enough that I had no problem trying to play matchmaker between them later that night (recall that his rejection had been temporary and the attraction was mutual).
I did not feel further jealousy when seeing her engaged in sexual activity with someone I did not know later in the weekend.
Help me figure this out so I can possibly avoid or prevent it in the future?
I was at Firefly, a camping festival modeled after Burning Man. At such events I often engage in intro/demo-level kinky activities in public spaces, more in a carnival-barker fashion than as intimate play. An acquaintance to whom I am attracted, and who is aware of that fact, walked by. I used a TENS unit on her. She liked it. I offered to engage in more private play with that or similar devices later. She answered in a noncommittal fashion. I've had this same encounter many times, with electricity and rope and vibrating toys and cuddling. Nothing about our exchange here was unusual for me at all.
Fast forward 12 hours. I was in a cuddly space with a lot of people having small group conversations. I was sitting near this acquaintance and a friend of mine. They were engaged in touchy cuddly activities. She expressed a desire to do sexual things with him. He declined, temporarily at least, for reasons explicitly not related to attraction. Again, nothing out of the ordinary here. My friends and acquaintances fuck each other. I enjoy knowing they are having fun.
He walked away temporarily for an unrelated reason and she turned to me and began discussing the nature of her attraction to him. This is where the problem happened. She wasn't saying anything to me that I had not just heard her say, to him. She wasn't saying anything that I haven't heard a dozen female friends that I want to sleep with say about a dozen other male mutual friends. But somehow this made me uncomfortable and distraught. I think I felt jealousy. It didn't last long, but it was very disconcerting.
This wasn't envy. I feel that plenty often. I am not sure if I felt it at her or at him or both or neither. There were minor hints of angry and sad mixed in.
Here are a few potentially useful pieces of context:
This was the first long event I have attended since becoming sexually active where I struck out entirely on intimate activities (cuddling, cosomination, sex, kinky play, etc). I have gone much longer without such activities, and hit on people at other events both more and less frequently to different levels of success. I do currently have healthy active sexual relationships outside of the event, which both has and has not been the case around previous similar events. This happened when there was still ~30 hours left in the event, so at the time I had not certainly struck out yet.
The feeling passed quickly enough that I had no problem trying to play matchmaker between them later that night (recall that his rejection had been temporary and the attraction was mutual).
I did not feel further jealousy when seeing her engaged in sexual activity with someone I did not know later in the weekend.
Help me figure this out so I can possibly avoid or prevent it in the future?