PPP #083: Poly Isn't Just For Christmas

Ever found yourself floating on cloud nine after a date that just clicked? That's where our journey begins this episode, as we recount a year swept up in the highs of connection and the lows of navigating the intricate dance of polyamorous relationships. We talk about a year crammed with personal breakthroughs, from the electric spark of a first KK party anniversary to intimate ventures abroad that tested our independence and resolve.

Imagine stepping off a plane in France, heart pounding with the thrill of solo travel, or the quiet pride of shaping a birthday bash into a celebration of lifestyle friendships. That's the stuff of our real, lived experiences this year. Hunter shares the depths of his romantic evening with Lady V, a testament to the emotional bonds that can bloom in the world of non-monogamy. We pull back the curtain on our adventures and misadventures, revealing the flesh-and-blood moments that have stretched and strengthened us, from navigating club dynamics without an anchor partner to the misunderstandings that can turn into belly laughs—or lessons learned.

With the map of our journey unfurled, we look back at the encounters and milestones that have marked our podcasting (real life) voyage. We acknowledge our listeners across 69 countries who've joined us in the revealing dance of polyamory. As we cast our eyes to the horizon, considering the year ahead, we invite you to lend your voice, sharing your experiences and ideas as we continue to craft a narrative that's as complex, joyful, and authentic as the lives we lead.

Also, Merry Christmas 😁

H & B x

Chapters

• 0:14 Polyamory and Reflections on the Year
• 9:19 Events and Reflections Throughout the Year
• 24:45 Highs and Lows of the Year
• 31:16 Reflections on a Podcast Journey
• 38:30 Reflecting on Hardships and Moving Forward

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:14

Hello and welcome to the Poly Pocket podcast, the UK flagship podcast of polyamorism, CNM, sex parties and year-end summaries Woohoo. There you go. I should have done the sound thing more. Woohoo, don't need it, but she's already excited. There we go, post-coital butcher with us today. Hi butcher, how are you? I'm a bit zoned out. Excellent, I'm Hunter and I'm your friend who provides zoned out services to other friends.

Speaker 2 0:42

As well as number one friend Is that what you are, I'll take it.

Speaker 1 0:48

You did Quite well actually You're a trooper.

Speaker 2 0:52

What can I say?

Speaker 1 0:53

Yeah, anyway, continue, continue, okay this week we're doing a little bit of a wrap up of the year because in the car the other day we've just realized it's been quite a year and well, we're going to talk about it, but first we have our polyfila for the week. It's been a really good week.

Speaker 2 1:12

Quality week Quality week Not quality street.

Speaker 1 1:17

That's next week, although it did find out. If you put in the words is queue, like in Google, the very first thing that turns up is quality street vegan. Unfortunately, it was the back of a conversation, so we were convinced our phones were listening to us, but that was completely coincidental Indeed Anyway. So, polyfila, I think you should go first.

Speaker 2 1:40

Yes, so Friday I had the most magical date. For anybody who's been living under a rock or is new to the podcast, welcome. I had a date with a beautiful lady.

Speaker 1 2:00

And you can tell just by what's not being said how well it went.

Speaker 2 2:04

Yeah.

Speaker 1 2:04

Yeah, you go. Yeah, it wasn't a shit show, was it it?

Speaker 2 2:08

wasn't a shit show. No, excellent, it wasn't anything but a shit show. The polar opposite of yes, absolutely Can you tell us what you did? Not going to go into details, but I romanticised her. Oh yeah, I'm quite romantic really. Who knew I did? Okay.

Speaker 2 2:31

I'm oblivious because I'm me, yeah, but, yes, I made her feel special, I think, because she deserves it. She deserves to be made to feel amazing because she is an incredible person, and that's not to say other people in her life don't make her feel amazing. No, if anything, people in her life are just fantastic. Yeah, and I'm very, very grateful to them and very, very grateful to you for the support that you've shown as well, and I am looking forward to meeting that person as well. Yes, we're going to meet her and relevant people in the next week or so, just to all get to know each other and say hi. She was quite excited about having a name for the podcast. Oh, have we?

Speaker 1 3:23

I have one. I don't really start doing listen up polls. I make them choose.

Speaker 2 3:29

I asked her and she said she'd like to know when what I come up with. So you've got a short list. I've got a shortened version of the full name, which is the full names twinkle toes. Very good, we're going to go. We're not going to call it toes, we're calling it twinks.

Speaker 1 3:48

That also has problems by the way, does it? Yeah, a twink has a different meaning. Let's not go there. She's twinkle toes.

Speaker 2 3:54

Okay, twinkle toes, fine Twinkly toes.

Speaker 1 3:59

Twinkly toes is acceptable. Cool, I'll allow that. Cool. What was the full name?

Speaker 2 4:05

Oh no, it wasn't, that was the full name. Okay, sorry, so we're avoiding the shortened version.

Speaker 1 4:09

Yeah, we're going to call it toes.

Speaker 2 4:11

Please don't. Yeah, so it was fantastic and I've been living a little bit on cloud nine and above all, and we've got lots of things to think about moving forward. So we're moving from the practicality side of just all the stuff that you need to do when setting out in polyamorous relationships, but mostly diary settings, yeah, but she's just coming to such a good headspace and the support network around her as well seems to be pretty strong and, yeah, just I'm very, very happy.

Speaker 1 4:51

I'm going to let the audience into little secret here, which is this is our second time trying to record this, because, despite you being slightly blissed out because of recent events this afternoon, you've been very, very cloud nine, very distracted since seeing her because you just did a very good place and from my side of things, it's been beautiful to see that. So I'm also grateful to Twinkly Toes Twinkly Toes, I'm going to call that that's Twinkly Toes. But yeah, thank you, you're welcome. For my own part, I caught up with Lady V on Saturday.

Speaker 1 5:26

So the next day and had again lovely time, thankfully because most of our recent meets have been relatively short. It's been a few hours grabbed here and there, and whilst it's been lovely, it's always felt like it's ended sooner than we'd like, and so I'm very grateful to you for letting me stay out all night.

Speaker 1 5:47

You're welcome and we had a lovely evening, which involved dinner, a show and then catching up and staying overnight and it's that like it's. I think it's the romantic thing that sometimes scares people. But waking up cuddling someone else, it's something we've wanted to do. We did it. It was lovely, just just that. Yeah, snuggly cuddly thing is cool.

Speaker 2 6:12

And I think this is for a future episode and I'll put it in because we've got a mammoth planning planning session coming up. But yeah one of those things is looking at how people initially get scared about the sex but actually they get blindsided by the fact that the emotional journey comes along for the ride, and I'd like to sort of look at that versus those who absolutely fundamentally go we are not going to have feelings or relationships, and that's something I'd like to call out at some point.

Speaker 1 6:48

By the way, on that one, we've not talked about it, but if anyone out there is listening and would like to be part of that conversation, if you have any like experience or feedback, let us know. We'd love to like. We've got our own experiences. We've asked people one on one, but you know it's a big community. We'd love to hear from you.

Speaker 2 7:04

Actually, just generally, if you want to be on the podcast, please do reach out at hunter at polypocketpodcastcom or butcher at polypocketpodcastcom, because I think we are going to try and plan as much of this year as possible, because we've got a big year coming up, haven't we?

Speaker 1 7:21

Big year lots of things going on and also we don't want to just have just our voices.

Speaker 1 7:27

We think they're amazing, but you know, we'd like I sound amazing and you're here also, but we'd love to have other people's voices on the episode, say you know, if you have thoughts, feelings, feedback, a good radio voice, then yeah, get in touch, Even if you don't get in touch anyway. Also, by the way, out of my poi filler thing highlight, absolutely highlight. She'll kill me for saying it. It was a set down for dinner, Two tables down on his own having a wonderful time, just so that Bill Nye was set in the restaurant two tables down from us.

Speaker 2 8:04

I mean, I don't like to point out, but last night, when we were trying to record this, with my mum's annoying dog running around the place and you not concentrating I mean not concentrating you did say it was the best bit of your day.

Speaker 1 8:18

Which is not true, but it was like the unexpected highlight Everything else. I had expected that.

Speaker 2 8:23

I had not expected.

Speaker 1 8:25

It was a little treat, a little like you know legend, dig, dig, diggity, dig. Yeah, thanks for that. Lady V knows how fond I am of her. Moving on to this week's episode, which is actually a review of the previous 12 months, Because people, Polly is not just for Christmas.

Speaker 2 8:46

Thank you for waiting to get that in. That's the name of the episode.

Speaker 1 8:50

Oh right, so you know the whole meme, which is as soon as the title of the film is said. You could end the film at that point. There we go, there you go, we're done. Thanks, bye. We're in the titles. But yeah, we're going to go back to, not the start of January, to December 29th last year.

Speaker 2 9:10

Yeah, end of December.

Events and Reflections Throughout the Year

Speaker 1 9:11

End of December, because it was the New Year's ball for KK before it rebranded, as we Are, x. So it's like a lot's happened this year, if you think about that in one particular sort of context. So, yeah, what did we get up to? A lot, we got up to a lot, didn't we? We did go in with the because that was the one year anniversary of our first KK party.

Speaker 1 9:33

And we went in, we went with Bunny, so we went to the triple and we went in with the actually kind of intention of conquering, as I thought of it at the time Command and conquer, basically that.

Speaker 2 9:47

And we did, it was yeah.

Speaker 1 9:53

It was excessive, but it wasn't excessive, it was wonderful.

Speaker 2 9:56

It was just our wildest party really, wasn't it? Yeah, to that date, and I think it just gave us a real good confidence boost in ourselves which actually, as we go through the sort of round off of the year, I think is quite crucial to how the rest of our year has panned out.

Speaker 1 10:16

Actually, yeah, so we started on a high note. We met lots of new people that night and we went on to have ongoing relationships with some of them. We'll come to that in more. But I said, well, let's quickly knock it off. So we met Mr and Mrs Captain, we met Pixie, we went with Bunny. I think that's when I also met Miss Filofax.

Speaker 2 10:43

That's not her name. It was Princess Kinky Boots, princess Kinky.

Speaker 1 10:46

Boots. There you go. So we met a lot, and that was just the ones that had some ongoing commentary in the podcast. But, yeah, it was a busy old evening, wasn't it?

Speaker 2 10:55

Yeah, it was. And the next day, and the next day where Mrs Plawz appeared and applauded.

Speaker 1 11:01

And applauded.

Speaker 2 11:01

As long as she got her name yeah.

Speaker 1 11:07

It was a very wild 24 hours.

Speaker 2 11:10

Yeah, hmm, it was cool.

Speaker 1 11:11

It was very cool. Yeah, so that's the end of December. Then what? Two to bit weeks later, there was the country mansion Rich. It was KK again. It was KK again. It was pretty good. It wasn't a rousing success. There were a few issues, most of the gestical stuff.

Speaker 2 11:28

Yes, but I think our headspace had shifted. We went into the new year feeling absolutely fantastic and then, you know, unbeknownst to listeners of the podcast, things in our some of our relationship setups were taking off and some were unraveling quite rapidly.

Speaker 1 11:51

Yeah, so there's some expectations being set and just odd behavior and we dealt with all that and New years had been such a high the country mansion had a lot to live up to, it didn't quite hit it for us, personally speaking.

Speaker 2 12:05

No, but I think it was. Whilst there are the just school issues, it was. I feel it was a bigger us problem than them. Yeah, from our perspective anyway, fair enough.

Speaker 1 12:16

Like that's kind of January. Isn't anything else up in January?

Speaker 2 12:20

No. I think so, not of no, but I think February you spent quite a bit of time dating Pixie. Yes, because I remember he was bloody freezing that was all because she never had the heating, from what he told me, that's true.

Speaker 1 12:37

Uh, just need heating or food. That was a chaotic and fun three months, three and a half months, maybe. Wasn't all upsides, but you know it was uh yeah. I don't want to be strictly, isn't you want to say too much? I enjoyed the time I have, but also came to an end, was welcome too shortly. So is anything else really happening in February, though?

Speaker 2 13:02

Not that I really remember, but, um, I think, I think that three month period that you had with her has been very defining for me in the sense of what I Require from your partners in order for this to be Able to work. In many ways, in the way that my partners look after you Um, I look after yeah sorry, my partners look after you. I need I also feel like I need level of being looked after as well.

Speaker 1 13:39

Yeah, and I do as well, but we haven't really had the problem the other way around. By the way, I've just been going through our calendar for last February just to make sure we were missing something, and what have you?

Speaker 2 13:48

missed. I went to France for the first time. Yeah on my own, flew on a plane on my own for the first time. All these things that you're doing in your mid 40s I. I am not in my mid 40s, no no, we're close Wow Um you.

Speaker 1 14:08

On the other hand, I don't look like it. Um, so I've done, but people think you, people thought you're like don't even go there.

Speaker 1 14:17

Yeah. So yes, you had your first like a way trip with a partner and went to go and see Montréal Franch Fransy, yes, as we probably missed him at the time yes, and I remember being quite nervous in the run up to that. And now I look back on it and again like all these things, once you're on the other side of you go, yeah, that that was fine. And it's only a matter of weeks before you go again and that's like, yeah, cool, still jealous having some time.

Speaker 2 14:50

Oh, god, yeah, this, yeah, I'm going in January on.

Speaker 1 14:53

Yeah, you're in a plane again and like, oh god, it's like 18 days, cool, it's not even that. I'm looking at the mobility dates 21st, so it's uh, anyway, soon. Um, but yeah, that was February.

Speaker 2 15:09

March, it was my birthday mansion. It was your birthday mansion, wasn't?

Speaker 1 15:14

it. Yes, so we got what? 13, 14, 13 of us, 13 of our nearest and dearest, all together Lifestyle friends. Yeah, actually that's a good point.

Speaker 2 15:27

Yes, you can just roll my parents and your parents and your sister and my sister. No no, that's a bad idea.

Speaker 1 15:34

Yeah, friends, six wins.

Speaker 2 15:36

Yeah.

Speaker 1 15:37

Um, and we got a very large, so older manna house, air bnb. I think I had eight bedrooms oh, more Is it more? Okay, a lot of bedrooms and spent two days Having a laugh and occasionally having fun, but arguably More laughter, more eating, more, more friendship than there was sex, to be honest. Yeah, because even now we've got a ongoing like WhatsApp chat group with that lot and, uh, one of them in particular is Possibly one of the funniest people I've met in my life and I've still never had sex with him, I know.

Speaker 2 16:19

So many opportunities and yet.

Speaker 1 16:21

His trousers sometimes get in the way, but we need to come back to that, because that's what happened yet, hasn't it? No, yeah, but uh, birthday mansion is quite I don't know. I know people out there do it and have like Whatever you want to call I don't. I want to call it a swing apart. You kind of think everyone gets together, but it was that but we and it's like anyone can do it if you're sufficiently motivated. Yeah.

Speaker 2 16:41

Yeah, but it was good fun, it was really good. It was really good fun and happy birthday for that, thanks.

Speaker 1 16:48

And then we move into april where, um, we went to torch guns, yeah, which is when things started unraveling. No, no, they unraveled, sorry, unraveled, yeah. That was the end of the unraveling, really wasn't it. So we went with, uh, a bunch of us went. It was my third time, your second time.

Speaker 2 17:10

And actually the night itself was great, was great. We had a riot, yeah.

Speaker 2 17:16

Up until the point where, until the point that we left. So we got to the end of the night and we got to the end of a relationship yeah, simultaneously, yeah, based on certain things wasn't just that night, it was a concoction of a lot of things and ultimately, you know, I think in relationships we can want people to change, but it's not their prerogative to change. And then it's making a grown-up decision as to whether you Can live with someone not changing this is on both sides, by the way or whether you actually celebrate one another's differences and you know, the sort of outcome of that very much drives whether there's an ongoing relationship. It's very well put Thank you, yeah, and so, and so it ended. That was that and, on reflection, I think, with how stressful the end of this year has been, I'm very happy that it did.

Speaker 1 18:30

Yeah, yeah, there's only so much, so much tension you can deal in your life and actually that ending then was probably the optimum time for it to happen. If you could look in hindsight, totally hindsight and all that yeah, the torchguard's bit was great and we haven't been back since and I realized that's a long time ago now and trying to work out when, in our calendar for next year, we can even go back, we'll work it out.

Speaker 2 18:54

So many things to do and new people to take. We'll see We'll see, and then sorry, looking at my notes.

Speaker 1 19:05

Actually, looking at our incredibly complicated calendar, May, May I don't think anything particularly happened in.

Speaker 2 19:17

May, we went to the Reading Social. Oh yeah, so, and that's where.

Speaker 1 19:24

Oh yes, this is where we get to tell the joke isn't it?

Speaker 2 19:26

A certain friend of ours, mid-orgy, could not get his buttoned up new jeans off. And because he'd thought about it earlier that morning, of imagine if I was in the middle of an orgy and I couldn't undo my button on my new trousers, and then how funny would that be. How funny would that be. And then the thoughts that he had transpired to the point that he was crying at the orgy We've laughed at, but he had to extricate himself from the room along with his partner, and that was that. That was that Very funny, oh dear. That was an image. I love him, though it's a phrase, just that pure moment. He is undeniably himself.

Speaker 1 20:17

Own it. That's what I say. That was May, then June we had the wax, because by this point it changed his name, although it was still a KK party. But it was the summer ball and it was an all-white event and we had outfits and we're all ready to go and we just weren't really feeling it were we and go on, sarah.

Speaker 2 20:40

I remember, on the night, because there was so much happening, people there who we felt made us feel quite uncomfortable we probably made them feel uncomfortable as well, to be fair just by sheer presence. But you know it is what it is, Because we were terrifying, Supposedly so, but it just. I remember just having this almost fog in front of my, in the front of my head, and everything just felt way too complicated and way too hard. And I felt very manipulated that night by certain people who were making out that they were coming to talk to us and this isn't the wax or KK staff, by the way. This is other members of the community making a point of coming to speak to us. We realised that it was because they were trying to get one on one over on other people who could see?

Speaker 2 21:38

us talking to them and then when we followed up to say it was really nice to talk to you, that particular person then went oh no, I don't think we should be talking. It's the wrong idea. Yeah, that was a fun one and it was like thanks, so you've just made the shit situation.

Speaker 1 21:57

Even shitter.

Speaker 2 21:57

Even shitter.

Speaker 1 21:59

Yeah.

Speaker 2 21:59

To make yourself feel better.

Speaker 1 22:01

And I think, going back to what you said, sort of April, April was the start of a low point. And kind of this is probably the lowest point, because we just had lots of confidence knocked out of us, a lot of uncertainty about what we wanted, who was meant to be in our lives, what our values were, and, as always, it ends up with some good outcomes. We're going through the process is just hard work and I remember that being it was okay at the time, but we walked into a relatively expensive party with new outfits and lots of high expectations.

Speaker 2 22:42

Five Five what should have been an expensive party. Thank you, wax, that's true.

Speaker 1 22:50

I have my fantasy white lace underwear on. You know that's where that started from, and we walked out having done nothing apart from playing with each other, which is not what it was meant, was not the intention.

Speaker 2 23:02

But we went home and had some fantastic sex, just us, and realized we actually, in the end, felt stronger and better for walking out and going, not feeling it. Yeah, I don't need this. I want it, but I don't want it at all costs and that's okay, because our relationship is so strong that we are polyamorous. We're not basing our values on other people needing to have sex with us or wanting us. It's about and maybe this is the difference between swinging and polyamory Another idea, not saying either is good or bad or indifferent, but polyamory is about connecting with the right people for the right reasons to have an ongoing relationship, whether that be highly sexual or occasional sex or a very, very strong platonic relationship. That's going to be some thought Interesting. Yeah, but I don't. I felt like we walked out of there feeling validated, that we didn't need sex to validate us. Yes, or sex with others.

Speaker 1 24:12

We didn't do it together. We do things together and we didn't do that together, yeah, and then, after some of all, just to sort of like round off the fact that we did that together, we also then went and met somebody for dinner the next night, which when we first met Lady V. That was interesting. Now I think about the I've not really thought about it the juxtaposition between those two events, because they were so close together as well, I kind of forgotten that they were that close together.

Highs and Lows of the Year

Speaker 1 24:41

So I told just now but we'll talk more about her shortly, shall we? Yeah, we'll move on. I've already skipped over to August. Sorry, I apologize. Look at the wrong one. Yes, you went to France in.

Speaker 2 24:50

July yeah.

Speaker 1 24:52

And I think that was like the pick you needed it was.

Speaker 2 24:55

And it was the first time I'd ever swung with a partner away from you. You'd done it once with Bunny in the very early days and gone to TG and you know it was too early really for us in this journey. But again, you don't know until you try, and all these things. And yeah, him and I went to a club for the first time on our own and it was a very interesting experience just on how I sort of managed myself and kind of thought, okay, if I was in Hunter's shoes, what would I feel comfortable with? What if I go home and tell him it's going to feel like too much or not enough or whatever it may be. So that again was very eye-opening and another big step for us.

Speaker 2 25:46

So then into August, yeah well, we had a family holiday. Family holiday, yes, and it was nice because French Fancy lives relatively close to your parents. We left the kids with my parents, your parents, and went to see him and I think it was really nice for you and sorry if I'm putting words in your mouth just to see where I go, what I've done, and get the experience of where he lives.

Speaker 1 26:16

Yeah, it was. I remember at the time feeling slightly nervous but then afterwards feeling very like it had the right effect, but it was. It was a bit of a journey of going through that. This is at my space with you, this is his space with you. I'm now stepping on your boyfriend's turf and it was. It does really bad, but I felt it. And then after a few hours, because he just makes you feel comfortable, I was like, oh, that's fine.

Speaker 2 26:49

I think he was slightly rattled when you found two pairs of my shoes in his shoe rack.

Speaker 1 26:55

Why are your?

Speaker 2 26:55

shoes here. Why are your shoes here? Because I was picking them up today. What do you mean you were picking up today? I specifically left them here last time. I was here to pick them up today so I had room to bring back presents for you and the kids. What do you mean? No, literally, I had planned to pick them up today. This day that we are here, I'm taking them home. It's funny it makes sense.

Speaker 1 27:20

It makes loads of sense after the fact, but at the time I was like going why are your shoes? Here Are you moving in? Are you secretly moving in one shoe at a time? One?

Speaker 2 27:29

pair of shoes. Five one pair of shoes.

Speaker 1 27:32

By 22.36.

Speaker 2 27:33

I've moved in Genuinely. I had a friend that did that to a boyfriend of hers. She just like would take over some clothes day by day. In the end he turned around after a year and was like, have you moved in?

Speaker 1 27:47

Yes, yes, also that month back in August, lady V came over to stay, so I spent some time with her.

Speaker 2 27:58

She didn't stay. Stay, she didn't stay. Sorry, Although I was quite happy for her too.

Speaker 1 28:04

Yeah she had to get back for her own reasons, didn't she?

Speaker 2 28:06

Yeah.

Speaker 1 28:07

So August was like the bounce back of everything, sort of getting more back on track. That leads nicely into September, doesn't it?

Speaker 2 28:15

Oh my God, that feels, that feels like that can't possibly be that close together, but it is Exactly so.

Speaker 1 28:23

This is what I mean. It's like oh, we had a full on journey this year. Oh my God.

Speaker 2 28:29

Sorry, that's just really hurt my head, the fact that you met her in August and by mid September we renounced it and then you didn't have work for 11 weeks. Well, we jumped ahead. No, I know, but sorry.

Speaker 1 28:45

So, August, we went to Amsterdam. We had a what was it? A four day break, Just two of us, and did all the normal Amsterdammy things. But we also went to Fatima Gano, which is like a swing and sex club, and an amazing time. We did that evening experience a couple that we met that evening. We then spent quite a bit of time the next day with as well, and, yeah, that was. That was the opposite of the low point. That was the for us together as a high point of us regaining your confidence and knowing that we can just like string together a nine-person or a junior sex club because we can, we can. I wanted to and we did. We can be more Dutch, Could always be more Dutch, but that was, that was August. No, that was September.

Speaker 2 29:35

August September.

Speaker 1 29:36

That was yeah, that was September and then yeah, so if anything was, is like the job I had to go back to. What you were saying is we were flying out on the Thursday afternoon. On Thursday morning I was told the project I was working with being cancelled.

Speaker 1 29:50

Sorry that was Wednesday night, Sorry. So Thursday morning was right to hand over email log off and then. And then you said like take two or three weeks off and then find some work. And two or three weeks turned into 11, maybe 12 weeks without work and that was very stressful. So that's like again rollercoaster year, yeah, and then October.

Speaker 2 30:12

Well, september you had your birthday and then Lady V's birthday's, october, and it's not very far apart, are they? So you kind of had two big celebrations on the bounce.

Speaker 1 30:21

We saw a lot of each other in quite a short space of time there which was alluded to in a message earlier on from there, wasn't it? And I had lots of free time, so you know I made the most of it while I could Not. That it was like that sounds slightly more self-serving than it was, but it was appreciated.

Speaker 2 30:38

Yeah, I think so.

Speaker 1 30:39

So yeah, my birthday did her birthday. Then it was November, november was the KK birthday ball.

Speaker 2 30:47

It was but before that I had my first date with Twinkle Toes Twinkle.

Speaker 1 30:55

Toes Well, vanilla day.

Reflections on a Podcast Journey

Speaker 2 30:56

We met for the first time, although I'd had been talking to her because throughout this year, I've travelled semi-regularly for work. In comparison to you yeah, to me too. Yeah, I ended up in her neck of the woods, jumped on the wax app to have a look at who was around, and so I'm just smiling at something she told me on Friday. Now that I am recalling this story, she's reminiscing you should see her face Sent a message to their profile and her and I were going to catch up for a drink at the time, but for whatever reason, things didn't happen, and I was up her way again a few weeks later and again didn't happen, and I don't know whether I should say this or not, but I feel I don't know. She said to me when she first saw my profile that she thought to herself I'm going to be with her. Oh, you never told me that before.

Speaker 2 32:06

No well she only told me on Friday Okay. So that was kind of like okay, because I looked at yours and went oh God, I wish I could be with her.

Speaker 1 32:21

Now I'm nervous. This is it. It's like this is serious.

Speaker 2 32:26

No, it was, um, yeah, so we caught up, we went for a very cute date and it was lovely, so, yeah, and then we did the birthday ball, which was before that story the same also forgot to say, which is we went in state with a sort of fox and easily bruised. I mean we're getting down into the weeds here because all of this is populated by you know we saw the asteroid and legs in the summer and we saw easily bruised and still fox multiple times this year and yeah, so this, I mean this is a high level summary.

Speaker 2 33:02

I'm really sorry if anybody feels half down.

Speaker 1 33:06

Yeah, so that was a bit of that and then, yeah, so the sort of next year. That was November, with the birthday ball, which is very local to us, and I had a good time, a pretty good time, yeah, really good time.

Speaker 2 33:19

Yeah.

Speaker 1 33:20

Yeah, made some new people. Yes, that's some fun. Hopefully we're going to actually see some of those people again soon, and that was kind of November that you're into December, which is now, which is now, and we've kind of done, yeah, we did our polyfiller, and that's cool.

Speaker 2 33:40

I think the other thing that this year has bought is just how much traction the podcast has got from just the amount of people listening and engaging.

Speaker 2 33:51

And again, like we said this time last year but you know, we do not underestimate that it's really humbling to see how many people, from 69 different countries around the world, 69 people, have been listening to our content.

Speaker 2 34:11

And you know, like we say this time last year, we do this for free and I think the content side of things like this pure content side of things we're always going to do for free, in the sense of we still hold on to the fact that when we started this journey, we had nobody that we felt we could resonate with. They were too much towards the swing side or they were too much towards having a commune or different accents, different cultures, different. We were like there was nobody like us that looks and sounds like us, yeah, and we thought, well, there's got to be others that feel a bit out there on their own. Again, because we've talked about how, as a demographic, normally particularly you far more supported and recognised within life, but actually within this remit, you're not. Yeah, exactly. So I think we have plans, but ultimately, the podcast still stands as something that we want to do in order to give back to the community.

Speaker 1 35:21

But I think what you're saying is you want to build on it.

Speaker 2 35:23

Yeah.

Speaker 1 35:24

And yeah, and effectively try and find more of the community that's out there, because you know what we've got good listenership, good numbers. It seems to have a weirdly global reach, which I'm constantly surprised at, but I think it's because we meet. I think is I put it on Instagram. I think it's because your foreign fetish actually is hanging off now and you're working your way around the world Not quite, but yeah, I think Australia's next isn't it?

Speaker 2 35:55

I'd have to take quite a long break for that, but yeah, it's just, it's been a journey and, I think, my biggest. I think the other thing that's helped it has been the support from people like, or businesses like, wax, who have helped us or we've helped them, whichever way you want to look at it with doing the lives that we've done this year. We've done several interviews with various coaches and experienced polyamorists. I would say, yeah, a far more experienced than us in many ways and it's just been fabulous. But the biggest thing for me is that it's who I am, but it's not just the whole sum of me, and that's been my biggest learning this year. It's not like I walk into every situation and go I'm polyamorous, I fuck multiple people, I do this. It's just like it just happens to come up if it's relevant.

Speaker 1 36:59

It's not like you do crossfit, is it?

Speaker 2 37:05

No, but I do play football. I don't know if anybody knew I have the age complete surprise.

Speaker 1 37:09

We didn't do that, did we Go quickly 40.

Speaker 2 37:12

Thank you, well done, and I have a very sore foot.

Speaker 1 37:16

Because of football.

Speaker 2 37:17

Yes, because of football. Just checking, I only played 20 minutes, but my foot does not look like it. I only played 20 minutes.

Speaker 1 37:24

No idea if anyone's going to tell what you just said.

Speaker 2 37:27

It's got a big stud mark in the top of my foot, basically.

Speaker 1 37:30

But I think, ultimately I want to say thank you to you, dear listener. We couldn't have done this without you, literally yeah, basically. So Been a point, just talking to the void. But, yeah, we just hopefully you'll stick with us for 2024. And, like I said earlier on, you know you thousands of people out there listening to it. So if you have requests or ideas or thoughts or questions, or if you want, or if you just want to come on and have an amble, then you know let's go for it.

Speaker 2 38:00

Well, I love the way, actually, how we jokingly said I would use the podcast in order to find you a girlfriend, and then guess what?

Speaker 1 38:08

Yeah, I actually worry about how did she reach out?

Speaker 2 38:11

via email.

Speaker 1 38:12

I'll never let live that down. I love that woman.

Speaker 2 38:15

She's, she's adorable, she is awesome.

Speaker 1 38:20

Got to know, so I can't stop that. That's the end of the podcast, isn't it?

Speaker 2 38:25

Yeah, I think the next one won't be until New Year's Day.

Reflecting on Hardships and Moving Forward

Speaker 1 38:28

Yeah, so thank you 2023. It's been a roller coaster ride, jesus hasn't it, but also sorry. The obvious thing is we have come out of it stronger because of the experiences we have gone through together.

Speaker 2 38:41

Yeah, and that's a good thing.

Speaker 1 38:43

It really is. Well, it's planning session to do. Should we crack on Also? The door's just gone, so cool.

Speaker 2 38:49

All right, keep us in your protection, your pocket.