How to become a Relationship Anarchist by way of your hot queer nonbinary kinky poly long distance online boyfriend

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10. A year after The Shift you start seeing a Relationship Anarchist who, like Jude, grew up in a small rural town.

Dark wavy hair, shiny brown eyes, eyebrow ring. A bit of stubble. Thoughtful, emotionally intelligent, doing the work. Your type.

He is queer and poly and kinky and sex+ and body+ and when you think it can’t get any better, he tells you he’s a switch that leans service dom.

Like Jude. The hot queer nonbinary kinky poly long distance online boyfriend who readied you for this connection.

You were 50 years old when you matched with Jude in the fall of 2023. 52 years old now.

You know who you are and what you want.

9. Begin each morning with a phone check: Jude’s 3:00 a.m. Central Time post-workout selfie.

You can’t get enough of their pretty hazel eyes gazing up at you, beads of sweat glistening on their tattooed chest.

This digital romance built on daily routines and communication technology—photos, voice notes, texts, videos.

Among the many things you’ll learn from Jude, a new way of relating to others in a way that feels authentic and intentional, online and IRL.

From the time you were very young, you’d prioritized romantic connections, which were inevitably complicated.

It seems very you—a married queer bi-femme in her sixth decade trying to figure out how to be in an intimate relationship with someone you may never meet.

Every morning before you pee or wash your face, open Snapchat in the dark. The small screen lights up in your palm from your side of the bed.

Will today be sheer black or white lace? Liquid eyeliner or silver sparkles? Red pencilled lip or nude gloss?

These small but meaningful expressions of who you are—for you, for Jude—bring you joy.

8. Keep your notifications off. You are a wife, a mom, trying to run an online business as a creative nonfiction writing coach.

In quiet moments, check. Once, twice, three times an hour for a dopamine hit in the form of any word from Jude.

A video of them in the shower making direct eye contact with you.

Hot prickles just beneath the skin. Inside the warm cavity of your rib cage, all the way down to your cunt, tiny shooting flares.

7. At home, alone, try to work, distracted, until an hour before school pick up.

Close all tabs. Shut the office door. Lock the front door, too, in case someone comes home early.

Sit at your desk and stare at the screen.

Hold your breath as they unbutton their navy button-up with white pin dots. So slowly, the way they do.

Unzip the front of your green dress and slide the sleeves down your shoulders. As they gently trace their fingers over pierced nipples, mirror them, grazing lace, maintaining the soft gaze watching yourself, watching them, in this sustained trance.

You have never felt connected to another human in quite this way. Energetic. Hard to explain. The humming in your ears, thrumming through your body.

When a friend admits with a cocked brow that they don’t understand what you’re doing, tell them, It’s real. And so are the orgasms.

6. 

For ten months you and your hot queer nonbinary kinky poly long distance online boyfriend will bridge physical distance, cross borders, span time zones.

Relationship Anarchy allows you to co-create a digital relationship that includes a potent mix of everything you both want: kink, power dynamics, emotional intimacy, sex, communication, and partnership.

Yes, you long to touch their face, kiss their lips, wrap yourself around them. Feel their strong arms around your smaller, softer body.

All you can do is work with what you have.

Wash the black Reasons to Live t-shirt from your local indie book store using your gently scented laundry detergent. Wear it all day long over the pink lace bra you bought when Jude told you their favourite colour. Sleep in it.

Return to that sneaky bathroom selfie of Jude you adore—red ball cap, close fitting t-shirt lifted up at the waist, flashing their toned stomach.

Come and come and come, offering your sweat mingled with the scent of your skin. Strands of hair cling to the shirt you’ll wrap with care in red tissue paper and send in the mail.

5. As you drive through the village of your small seaside town, all lit up for the holidays, think of Jude, far away in their small American town near the Rockies, searching for a queer guy to date.

Grin, blush, imagining them finding someone they want to touch who wants to touch them.

Compersion—another word Jude has taught you. Champagne fizz when they share something with you that brings them happiness, even when they’re spending intimate time with someone else.

Just one more thing that runs both ways between you.

4. Be patient: you’ve spent 50 years not knowing exactly who you are. It’s best for your nervous system if the revelations that emerge in this relationship unfurl slowly.

When you first connect with Jude, you identify as bisexual, demisexual and sapiosexual—attracted to all genders, with a need for emotional connection and intellectual stimulation before you can feel real chemistry with someone.

When it all ends, drive to Chaster Beach where you met Jude for your first video call.

Slip each bracelet they wove for you off your wrists. Tie them around heavy stones and heave them into the Salish Sea.

In the months ahead, hold onto what you’ve learned. There’s more to know—parts that have yet to come into focus.

Grief will remove another layer. And then, you will see.

3. 

Your most persistent daydream about Jude: holding hands in public.

One day, they tell you it will come true.

They buy a plane ticket to Vancouver, and you will greet them at the airport, finally touch their face, and kiss them.

You will grasp their hand, and for all five days of their time with you, you will not let go.

2. Before Jude can help you see who you are, you will recognize with delight and trepidation that they are catching feelings.

You’ll hear the bloom of it in their voice before they say the words—the long pause, as they choose so carefully how they will tell you.

It’s an early morning in November, six weeks in.

The night before, you finally revealed who you were, no longer able to hide your true self behind a protective avatar.

They will claim you—first and last name, saying those familiar words aloud, and you will hear them as though they’ve never been said before as your heart trips over itself.

Along with the voice note, a selfie standing in front of a red brick building—their youngest kid’s elementary school.

Gold nose ring, gold hoops in each ear. Trimmed black beard.

A soft look in their eyes, an ease in their grin.

Across space and time you can feel the scratch of their stubble along your palm, your neck, your lips.

The pale denim jean jacket over the crisp white shirt, top three buttons undone, reminds you of a boy you would have dated in high school.

They are Jude and they are content just to love you.

They are Jude and they are perfect.

1. A year after The Shift you’ll meet someone new.

Dark wavy hair, shiny brown eyes, eyebrow ring. A bit of stubble. Thoughtful, emotionally intelligent, doing the work. Your type.

When he calls himself a Relationship Anarchist you’ll think, Me, too and Yes.

When you matched with Jude two years earlier your heart was so ready—wide open, eager to receive, prepared to learn new ways to love.

They saw you through the lens of your iPhone camera.

You saw yourself through their eyes and that changed what became possible for you.

It’s the first week of December, nine weeks in.

7:30 a.m. and the kids are up.

You are wide awake, with a brimming, gorgeous, luscious secret you can’t stop turning over and over again in your head.

Your heart is this wild stimming thing with its accelerated beat, pressing up and out against your hidden edges.

Make breakfast, get dressed, gather the kids. Bolt out the door—forget your purse, go back.

Forget your phone on the bathroom counter. Go back.

It’s raining and you will get wet. Yes, you need a coat.

Slide your arms into the old worn jean jacket you’ve had since before your kids were born.

In the Starbucks parking lot, snap a selfie:

The rainbow pride badge pinned to your jean jacket collar is a call out—not to Jude, to you.

An invitation you will never stop responding to.

One bold lettered word, all caps: IDENTIFY.

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.