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Originally Posted by femmebotdyke

Did most people meet their partners through butch/femme/FTM social networks (either formal or informal, online or offline) or through some other channel? .......... What initially attracted you to (or conversely, turned you off) your current partner?

Gryph and I met on the Dash site. I had been doing daily ritual for nine months to find the right partner for me; it started out, "I deserve to be loved the way I want to be loved; I deserve to give love the way I want to give it. I deserve to be safe. I deserve to be happy. I deserve to be a wife..." and it went on for as long as I could think of affirmations. I even included "I deserve clean air to breathe and clean water to drink" lol! But it WASN'T working and I was utterly miserable, heartsick and at the end of my rope when I happened to get online one Sunday... only to read the answer to my prayers!

I wasn't sure how things would go at first... I read the first posts and all I could think was "don't let this one get away!!" It wasn't the posts... it was in the name. The posts didn't hurt, though! So we started talking in the thread and pretty quickly in PM, then in IM. We talked all Sunday evening, all Monday evening, and then all day on Tuesday by phone. It was pretty clear to me at that point that my prayers had been answered; Gryph said he's been reading my posts and was already in love with me. We made a commitment to each other that night, and over the next couple weeks I fell in love, too.

I was in Wichita 7 weeks later. The shock of walking into Shrek's Cousin's Cave nearly undid me; I was SO CERTAIN that I had made a huge mistake!!! THAT couldn't have been the answer to my prayers!! It was amazingly hard to look past the filth and see the actual person I loved. I basically forced him to help me clean the mess up, which took us HOURS; and I privately resolved that I would just get back on the bus and go home as soon as the place was clean.

It was less than 24 hours before I changed my mind, though. He went to work the next day, I kept on cleaning, and the extreme joy and relief on his face when he came in the door that night and saw the clean apartment convinced me that it would be okay to stay.

The original plan had been that I would pack up his apartment and then we would come back to Arizona together; he'd drop me off at my mom's place and go on to Camp Verde, then once he got settled we'd move in together. Evidently, the Goddess and the Ancestors said "Why? You've already moved in together," and delayed his tax refund by several months. At that point, it was too late to move; our expenses had gotten too high. So he made arrangements to bring my Ladybug to Wichita and we planned a move for the next tax refund.

Again, even though this one came in on time, there wasn't enough and our expenses were too high.

The third year, we just gave up and bought a house. I guess Wichita has claimed us.

Along the way, I have realized repeatedly that there could never be anyone more ideally suited to me than Gryph is. We did have it rough in the beginning; after we got the cave sorted out, we still had to deal with old baggage over and over again. We both cried a lot that first year, although we've very seldom argued... but the baggage would pop itself loose and there we'd be, hurting beyond belief and desperately trying to figure out why. We healed each other from our past relationships that whole year, and we've continued to grow together since.

Originally Posted by femmebotdyke

For singles and couples- do you think it's possible (or even desirable) to de-centre ''the couple'' as the foundational unit of butch/femme culture or would doing so be kind of...I don't know...destabilizing?

I don't believe the couple IS the foundational unit of butch/femme culture. Maybe I don't quite understand what you mean?

It's been my experience that the foundation of butch/femme culture is the energy exchange (not power exchange, energy) that happens between and among butches and femmes whether they're coupled or not. I have had butch friends who sustained me with that energy exchange when I was single, and vice-versa, so it can happen between friends the same way it happens between lovers (minus the sex, at least on my part, lol). Also, I think femme/femme bonding and butch/butch bonding are intrinsic to and foundational to our culture.

If that isn't what you meant, I'd be glad to hear more. Maybe you're looking at it from a different perspective than mine?