What It's Like to Have a Crush on a Couple

Though I spent most of my twenties thinking I was straight, that didn’t stop me from desperately trying to have a threesome. Threesomes felt safely heteronormative—a quirky straight fetish rather than a queer urge; a quick, easy way for a gal to please her man. Porn reinforced this idea: girl-on- girl hookups usually transpired for the pleasure of the viewer (rather than for the pleasure of the women themselves) and typically functioned as foreplay before a holy cis man and his penis arrived. Most onscreen threesomes positioned women as objects for male consumption, implying that female queerness could only exist in reference to the male gaze.

But I hadn’t thought about any of that—I just thought it sounded fun.

In hindsight, it’s ironic that I thought of threesomes as a “straight thing” considering they’re inherently queer (find a group-sex configuration that only involves one straight couple and you’ll win the Nobel Prize). It’s even more ironic that “obsessed with threesomes” functions as a common stereotype about bisexuals—one that feeds the perception of us as greedy, slutty unicorns (that’s my name, don’t wear it out!). But because of monosexism and bi erasure, bi people don’t even get to reclaim this trope and call it our own. Imagine a world where hookups involving more than one gender were a sine qua non of multisexuality—where it was normal to think: I can’t wait to sleep with all of these people. I wonder if I’m bi?

Maybe this is why, for most of my life, my threesome aspirations didn’t phase me. I just thought they made me a straight girl with a wild side, rather than confirm that I was very queer indeed.

In the movies, threesomes transpire effortlessly, when three hot people find themselves in proximity to a bubble bath (happens all the time). But for me, orchestrating one took serious work. My first attempt was in 2013 when I lived in Los Angeles. Tinder had just been released, but it didn’t take long for me to hate it—using the app to find single men soon devolved from “great toilet activity!” to endless ennui. Straight dating meant enduring a steady stream of dudes who wanted to be actors and “didn’t think the timing was right.” People seemed to find each other replaceable, probably because we were replaceable—swipe one of us away and a new one would grow in our place. Every date felt routine, as did the emotions I felt afterward: I was either desperate for the guy to text me or I’d already forgotten his name.

But going out with a “straight” couple, I thought, might be different. I wouldn’t meet the same awkwardness as when I’d hooked up with Lauren since there would be a guy around. My imagination wouldn’t run wild picturing our future, since the two of them would already have future plans of their own. A threesome would give me another chance to touch a woman’s body, and it also seemed like the ideal form of meaningless sex: There wouldn’t be room to get emotionally invested. “What’s love got to do with a little ménage?” Fat Joe had once asked. Eleven years later, I answered.

At the time I lived with a Craigslist roommate whose grueling job involved managing production of the Oscars. I spent days searching for interested parties, often groaning about this laborious task, equating the stress of my sexual prep work to my roommate’s career (no wonder she and I barely spoke). Today, you can hardly open a dating app without being confronted by open-minded liberal couples—they’re like stomach gurgles in a two p.m. meeting, almost impossible to avoid. The prospects still aren’t perfect—maybe you’ve seen the meme that says “every couple looking for a third looks like this” over a photo of Grimes and Elon Musk—but at least they’re abundant. In 2013, it was a different game.

The couple profiles I did find gave off strong catfish vibes (black-and-white portraits and suspiciously low-res thirst traps), so I set the bar high and went out with the first two people whose photos had faces in frame. I messaged with the woman, a quirky twenty-four-year-old who looked like the early 2010s equivalent of Ella Emhoff. She sent more pics of her partner—a cute lanky guy with freckles and a Jewfro—then suggested a location: the jazz bar next to Canter’s Deli. I was thrilled. If things went well, we would sleep together. If things went really well, we could grab rugelach for the road.

We slid into a big round booth, butts squeaking across the cherry-red seats, and I spit all the game I had. I complimented Ella’s LCD Soundsystem tee. I asked about Freckles’ job. I suggested grabbing rugelach for the road. I was crushing it, somehow the best version of myself—charming, carefree, and for once in my life, a good listener. The bartender even bought me a drink—he’d seen a single woman sitting with a couple and figured he’d cut in. Ella and Freckles seemed to appreciate that a stranger had fawned over me, and suggested I continue flirting with him. It became a game: I’d walk to the bar and bat my eyelashes, then return to our booth with a free vodka soda and a story. The three of us lingered until the bar closed. After that, outside under the streetlamps, I kissed them both, one at a time, and they said they would text me soon.

But they didn’t. A few days passed, and I kept checking my phone. I wasn’t insecure so much as confused—I couldn’t figure out what went wrong. Just as I was about to reach out and ask, Ella texted me:

Sorry we didn’t call, she wrote. We discussed it and we aren’t sure we’re ready for this yet. Great meeting you though! Maybe we can connect again someday.

I sighed, annoyed that I’d been thwarted by their strong communication skills. Guess it was back to square one.

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