💭 "Does anyone know about you and Boyfriend? What's the hardest part of keeping it under wraps?"

I wouldn't say nobody knows, but I try to keep it private. Honestly, the reason I don't tell anyone, really, is that most of the people who seemed to get it.. didn't.

I saw a post on some arcane social media site, with a link to a discord server for 'people who love dogs.' I was in kind of a dark place at the time, and was desperate for validation and attention, so I joined under a burner. It seemed nice at first! The people there were kind and welcoming and seemed to totally understand what I was talking about when I (vaguely) talked about Boyfriend.

But, maybe a week in, I started to see some of the cracks. They talked about their dogs kindly, but only ever about the sexual pleasure they got out of them, not through the companionship. Talking in such crass terms, and only ever about sex, not outings, or dates, or philosophical musing about the nature of their relationship and why they were so interested in their dogs. I started to feel like they were attracted to the concept of dogs, not their specific dog, y'know?

I tried to discuss this privately, assuage my fears, with one of the people I had come to know as a friend, and they pushed back, asking me why I had to 'make waves' after being there only a week.. But it was him saying "Why do you care so much? They're just animals."

That was.. enough for me. I politely excused myself, left the server, and deleted that account. Realistically, they have no ties to me, at least, I hope.

Look, apart from anything else, I love Boyfriend. He's my little sweetheart, and even if he never wanted to have sex with me ever again, I'd still love him. Him. His quirks, his neuroses, they're all unique in what makes him him. I could never replace him with another dog as effortlessly as these people could.

I probably won't be open about this with any of my peers. The way I see it, the ones who care about dogs will have some (understandable!!) problems with it, and the ones who won't have problems with it.. probably don't care about dogs. I don't know. All I know is that I worked hard to be on somewhat equal footing with him, and I wouldn't trade that for anything -- even if it means I'm gonna be a bit lonelier as a result.