The Woman, The Man And The Other Woman. Mine, Not His.

It wasn't like dating was easy before my relationship threesome entered my life. Pleasing everyone seemed to be my priority over pleasing myself, one of many mistakes I made in my romantic life.

Mistakes had been stacking up on my dating resume; involving myself with the wrong man, letting go of the right man, having a one-night stand with my best friend's ex. The list was becoming unmanageable, to the point of wondering what I was doing in this dating world.

Was I cut out for it? Should I give it up? Am I better off single, lonely, but free to make mistakes?

As fate would have it, a mistake landed me in the arms of a new man and a third. A triangle relationship. A threesome with zero intimate perks.

My third person came in the former of another woman. A cliche, right? The other woman. The home wrecker. The elusive, uncaring woman without morals. Or a heart.

She wasn’t your ordinary, run-of-the-mill mistress, probably because I was the one who introduced her into the relationship, and not him.

But like the typical ‘other woman’, she had an agenda, something she wanted from me, a pursuit I found myself falling for hook, line and (almost) sinker.

And has left me forever speculating how I’m meant to feel about this.

Me and Anthony, the “conventional” couple

When the saga of the other woman exploded into my life and my romantic relationship, Anthony and I were new.

We had been sleeping together for a couple of months, on and off, dancing around the idea of making our relationship official.

At the time, I believed it to be the most confusing start to a relationship. Probably because every other partner before Anthony entered my life through conventional means.

Polite dates. Polite kissing. Official requests for my hand-in-relationship, so to speak.

Boring beginnings, you could say.

And it is not a guarantee you’re going to end up with the one, either.

Sometimes, I wonder if our unusual beginnings, unusual for me at the time, attributed to why I couldn’t keep a fixation on Anthony.

I cared about him, and I wanted to date him, but there was something about our relationship that never felt right. When we were away from each other, I didn’t miss him. It wasn’t like he was pining for me, either.

Upon reflection, I’m not even sure I ever heard him say he missed me.

He lacked any sense of romance; when he bought flowers, it was as an apology. He once bought me a box of chocolates for Valentine’s Day, which turned out to be a peer-pressured induced purchase.

When he presented me with the box, he quickly pointed out the ribbon printed with the words ‘love’ wasn’t indicative of his feelings.

“Don’t get too excited; it was just how it came.”

Anthony wasn’t possessive either, something I rarely gave him credit for. Yet, he lacked any concern about another man asking me out in front of him. The men did, by the way, and he did not flinch.

If he felt invested in the success of our relationship, he rarely showed it. And this feeling of being forever second perpetuated within me over time.

How do you give yourself to someone who doesn’t make you feel like they’re going to do the same to you?

Now I’m not saying it’s the reason I cheated on him with Cara. Despite all our myriad issues, we were a couple when I kissed her. I cheated on Anthony.

I know I messed up, and the blame for cheating rests squarely on my shoulders.

But he didn’t react the way I thought he would, and neither did she. And it’s what continues to confuse me.

Me and Cara, the unlikely friendship

Cara was beautiful. She was free. And she was unashamedly gay during a time when people like her felt inclined to apologise. Her freedom was admirable, and I wished a little of her authenticity would transfer onto me.

I met Cara during my university days. We were studying the same course, us and forty-eight other people.

By the time graduation day came and went, the fifty of us were tighter than the schoolyard.

And much like the schoolyard, everyone knew of our brief affair. That’s what they called it: an affair. A hook-up in my friend’s guest bedroom and once in a tent in someone else’s backyard hardly makes an affair.

But as gossip goes, the one spoken about rarely gets to dictate the way people choose to describe them.

Cara was friends with everyone, something I struggle to sympathise with. It didn’t hurt to be discerning about who entered your life, a point about life she didn’t like me telling her. Perhaps I needed more of her open heart, she would remind me. I could never tell who had it more figured out.

Though she loved everyone, Cara spoke her mind, every single word she was thinking. Her gift for honesty was why we were friends for many months before anything happened.

I knew where I stood with her.

When we met, I didn’t know she was gay. Was I meant to? I still have no idea.

In fairness, I didn’t know anything about her love life. She was honest, but she wasn’t exactly what you would call open. Nor was it something we spoke about.

We babbled about our studies, comparing notes about the usual student tribulations. There was too much in front of us to worry about the unseen. And during the long days in the library, slumped over the textbooks, off-campus relationships were invisible.

It was during a discussion about gender studies that Cara announced she was gay. I admired her honesty, but this didn’t change my opinion of her.

As that thought danced around my mind, I noticed Cara’s attention towards me changed. She began spreading her feathers like the peacock; now the world knew what her exhibition meant.

It was almost as if her confession gave her permission to flirt.

And, foolish me, I returned her flirtation.

As you grow up, you understand flirting is a human normalcy. People engage in this behaviour without conscious thought as well as with complete awareness of what they’re trying to achieve.

You don’t have to be receptive to flirting, especially when you don’t find the person physically attractive. Nor when you don’t want a relationship beyond friendship.

But I’m talking about my youth and stupid hormones and an inability to return flirtation when you’re not getting what you need at home. Rationality is off the table. And you flirt like this person solves all your troubles.

I shouldn’t be so disparaging of youthful hormones. It’s not like this changes when we’re meant to get older and wiser.

And how two people find themselves locking lips doesn’t change either. Back to the story.

After too many drinks at an end-of-year wrap-up party, Cara and I kissed. Not the funny dare like kissing, but the roll around the floor, inseparable kissing. We made out like there was this heat and passion and undeniable attraction between us.

I woke up the next morning with a hangover and a feeling that all wasn’t right in my love life. Of course, it wasn’t right. I had cheated on my boyfriend with a woman I didn’t want to be with.

What on earth was going on?

Me and Cara and the offer

In every relationship, there are three sides to every story. The side of the two people and truth. In this case, there are four sides, and I can only recount mine.

I’m sure Anthony and Cara didn’t quite feel like this, nor did it seem like such a wrestle of emotions for them. But for me, I felt jammed between a rock and the proverbial hard place.

I know I cheated on Anthony. Yet that seemed to be a moot point when I told him. He loved it. ‘Every man’s fantasy,’ he said, probably with the hope of joining the three of us together for a night of debauchery.

I knew that wouldn’t be happening. I didn’t have a desire to share Anthony, nor did I want Cara in our relationship bed.

Or my bed.

Or her bed.

My ‘relationships’ with Anthony and Cara, as complicated as they both seemed, were separate entities. Different ideas. Different concepts. And the idea of mixing them together didn’t sit well. Never the two shall me, I declared internally.

I told Anthony it wouldn’t happen again, a one-off. He was happy to laugh away the idea.

It should have been a relief to me that he could laugh, and we could move on and forget it ever happened. But Cara wasn’t forgetting. We didn’t have the same conversation.

We didn’t have any conversation about our relationship. Of course, that always ends well.

A week later, another university party. There was Cara, and there was the problem staring me in the face. I avoided her most of the night, but as the party dwindled, we found ourselves together again. I hated what I was doing. I knew it was wrong, but with my juvenile restraint, I was unable to stop myself.

That was until she presented her sobering idea. “I want to be with you,” she declared.

“And you can keep your boyfriend. But I can be your girlfriend, too.”

She even posed a timeshare situation by which he could have me on certain days and her on others.

It was a strange advancement. After all, it was only the second time we had kissed. It took Anthony and me months before we could come to an understanding of a relationship. And she was jumping to it in a matter of hours.

And two relationships? I didn’t know what to make of the offer, but my immediate reaction was to feel extremely exhausted. This situation I had got myself into was beyond tiring. I wasn’t doing so well with one relationship, let alone two.

And I didn’t want two.

What had I done? How was I going to tell Anthony? How was I going to break it off with Cara? What was I doing?

After plucking up the courage to tell him, Anthony hit the roof. A surprise to me, considering his lacking adoration for me.

He chastised me for entertaining her idea, something I vehemently deny doing. And then he ordered me to right Cara’s perception.

So that’s what I did.

By the time the new year came along and classes started again, we all pretended the incident never happened. We went about our ways, restoring our lives to when they were conventional and everyone understood their place.

The threesome had disbanded. It was all over.

But I could tell this wasn’t a misunderstanding I could forget.