u/izzy-springbolt

This is my first experience with poly relationships; hinge has been practising poly for about 2 years, I've been doing it for 3 months.

Meta (hinge's primary) adores me and is very supportive of our relationship, though naturally sometimes feels jealousy - but they and hinge deal with it and work through it on their own.

I've been told by them that I have really great instincts around how to behave in a poly relationship, am very respectful of their relationship, am great at communicating and so on.

But even so, poly for me is untreaded territory, and loving your secondary is untreaded territory for hinge. Hinge and I are looking to go on a trip together soon.

Any advice? Please be kind, I'm new to all of this!

Why do I think big dicks give me thrush?

• 5 years ago I suddenly started getting thrush every 6 weeks or so (confirmed by swab as candida albicans - i.e. plain old thrush/yeast infection). I had like 4 or 5 occurrences in as many months.
• My partner at the time had a slightly larger than average penis and thrush always occurred in line with penetrative sex, and usually rough or longer sessions where I tore a bit on my posterior fourchette (the bit where your vaginal opening touches your perineum).
• After we broke up, I stopped getting thrush
• Then a year later I got it again after I slept with someone with a really big dick. (I'm not a size queen, I'm actually really not keen on big dicks... but luck of the draw.)
• Then I didn't get it for 5 years, with two partners with average-sized penises. I didn't really tear ever with them.
• Now I'm sleeping with a new guy with a big dick and I've gotten it twice in a month.

I've seen sexual health experts who tried all sorts:

• Tried a 6-week course of fluconazole (believe the American term is 'diflucan')
• Tried perineum massage to strengthen my posterior fourchette to help prevent tearing
• Tried reverse kegels to relax my pelvic floor
• Seen a vulval dermatologist who said my posterior fourchette is just naturally ridged which makes it more prone to tearing (so not really anything I can do...)
• Had STI tests to rule out anything else

I have an appointment with my GP this week to discuss this again but honestly, what can do I do at this point?

• I read some mention of oestrogen/estrogen creams, more info about that might be helpful?
• Surgery to prevent my posterior fourchette from tearing? (I'm not even sure if it's due to the posterior fourchette tearing - it could also be caused by microtears inside the vagina, which I can't do anything about)
• Any other suggestions? I like my partner, I don't really want to dump him just because his dick's big 😭

I don't have a recording of the song.

It was not your standard Hoobastank song, it had a fun beat and was quite lighthearted.

I've looked through their first two albums and I can't find it so I'm wondering if it was some B-side. It was something I would have downloaded off some back alley site in like 2009.

The song concept is there's like 3(?) guys all taking turns hitting on a woman in a bar and one by one they all get shot down.

It was not your standard Hoobastank song, it had a fun beat and was quite lighthearted.

I've looked through their first two albums and I can't find it so I'm wondering if it was some B-side. It was something I would have downloaded off some back alley site in like 2009.

The song concept is there's like 3(?) guys all taking turns hitting on a woman in a bar and one by one they all get shot down.

Hey, my sister and her 2-year old are coming to stay during the August bank holiday weekend. Does anyone have any suggestions of things we can go to that will entertain the tot?

She particularly loves nature and music, but she's a toddler so anything with bright colours and interesting stuff going on will amuse her.

I love my life, I think a baby would spoil everything I love about it - having money, free time, independence, time to date myself, rest whenever I want it, travel whenever I want it, a libido and the ability to go out and date whenever.

I really don't see how you can have and love all that and for a baby not to spoil it all.

Has anyone who has all that, had a baby and still loved their life? And not feel like it was all taken away from them?

When I fell off the back of my bench and hit my back on your seat, and as I sat in shock and you lifted me up by the armpits, I felt I had achieved a warrior's death and been rebirthed in Valhalla.

You positioned me back on my seat with all the gentleness of Freyja blessing her kin.

Skål, my friend, skål.

Hoping the next guy lucky enough to hear it gets the joke

EDIT: Very interesting stereotypes about prog fans here considering that at least two people here thought I was a gay man before they thought I was a woman.

I need to know it won't just be me doing the Marauders dance.

For almost all of my life I was a serial monogamist. I'm 32 and I've been in about 4 long-term relationships. I didn't know how to function alone.

Then I got therapy, and worked hard on healing and learning how to feel comfortable being solo.

Now, I've been single for almost a year and the idea of being in a relationship is so unappealing to me.

I love having my own space, I love dating myself, I love the mental real estate you save by not worrying about what some guy wants or needs. I get to focus entirely on myself. I am surrounded by people I love and who love me - my family, my large friendship group, myself.

I'm the very casual secondary in an ENM relationship, where the guy I'm seeing is happily engaged to his fiancée. So I get to have sex when I want it - honestly, physical touch and sex are the only things I can't give myself single so that meets my needs - and then he gets to go back and his fiancée can give him everything else, and I can go back to living my own full life.

I have everything I need. I don't know if I'll ever want anything more, and that amazes me.

Everyone there for the gig was sat around a big table.

Casey handed out little squares of paper and our first task was to be the first to assemble them into the Antimai logo.

Then we had a quiz themed on North American EP.

• One of the questions was "Magic tuna, magic cheese, ...?" ("Magic Beans").
• Another one was "What goes up but doesn't come back down?" ("Shlammin Salmon")
• The tiebreaker was "What was the last year Casey performed on his birthday?" No one got it.

And at the end when I asked Casey to sign something I started talking about Act 3 and I saw him immediately lose interest.

Was a fun night!

Hi! I will be coming to Barcelona for the first time in September to the Be Prog! My Friend festival!

Has anyone been, and what's it like? My first guess is, as it's a prog festival, it's going to be full of cool, chill nerds.

Hi! I will be coming to Barcelona for the first time in September to the Be Prog! My Friend festival!

Has anyone been, and what's it like? My first guess is, as it's a prog festival, it's going to be full of cool, chill nerds.

Has anyone else had the symptoms I'm having this week? Kind of bizarre, not had it before.

• I feel basically fine
• Except I have a chesty cough
• Weird gross throat (the kind that when you swallow you think "oh I've got a cold coming" -- but for a whole week)
• Maaaaybe slightly tired and slightly chilly?

Usually when I have the weird throat and the chesty cough I also feel rough as hell but I don't. I don't even know if this is a non-contagious thing and maybe I've just breathed in something strange.

It's like a cold that doesn't want to be a cold, or like an illness where my immune system hasn't kicked in to full Inflammation Mode yet.

If anyone says "Hanta virus" haha you're hilarious so funny, maybe you should consider a career in comedy.