For instant fun, just add people

Earlier this week I wrote about how people often overestimate how good other people have it.  They look at what others have, whether it be a relationship, experience, or object and figure it is an endless party.  When the jealous people actually get the thing they desperately crave they usually find out it isn't as good as they had thought it was.  This applies to owning homes (flooded basements), cars (replacing transmissions), kids (midnight tantrums), and sex (oops I bonked your ribs with my knee), and threesomes (oh no, that person has more impressive genitals than I do, how can I compete?).  That last one is what got people's attention.

In retrospect tossing in references to threesomes into a post about being realistic about what you want was going to get attention; I should have known that.

I got several responses to the post in person, on the blog, and on Facebook, and all of them were the same.  The responders generally agreed with my point that people often overestimate how much fun the thing they aren't doing is, but they all said that threesomes actually were just as good as everyone thought, and one person wondered why I said they weren't, given my enthusiasm for them.

There was also some bragging about how great their sex lives were on the basis of having great threesomes, and given my knowledge of the people involved I think the bragging was warranted.

So maybe I was wrong.  Or maybe I just wrote badly.  Possibly both.

Here is the thing:  I didn't write about threesomes not being as good as you think from personal experience.  My experience with group sex ranges from 'That was pretty fun' to 'I have never felt this good before in my life'.  My times with two men and one woman mostly cluster in the 'pretty fun' zone, and with two women it is more of the 'floating on a sea of bliss' type.

But I don't base my thoughts on how everyone works solely on my own experiences.  I have talked to lots of people about their group sex experiences and there are so many horror stories.  People talk about terrible jealousy and competitiveness and mind games.  They tell me about relationships ruined and having group sex because of pressure or guilt.  When I read about people's group sex experiences on sex advice columns or other internet sources there are tales of woe aplenty.

All of which led me to figure that there are people who have good times, no doubt, but that there are all kinds of disasters too.

I don't want to write advice based on my experiences alone.  It is clear I am a bit of an outlier in many ways, so I really ought to carefully consider how everyone else experiences a thing when I tell people what to do.  Yet maybe I give the wrong impression when I do this, and what people really need is my personal take on a subject, a catalogue of the things that happened to me and how I felt about them.  What would that look like though?  'Careers suck, don't bother.  Kids are hard.  Video games, super fun, do that all day.  Also orgies are great.  BAM!'  Is that really useful advice for anyone?

I suppose the real message I should have sent is this:  When you are desperately craving something someone else has, you should know that there is a good chance it won't be nearly as good as you imagine when you finally get it.  It will likely be as good as you imagine at times, but much worse at other times.  It might be great all the time though, or terrible all the time.

That message is true, but truth is random and messy and does not fit well on a motivational poster.