Dear Glutton: Threeway Dining

Dear Glutton,

You've covered post-threeway etiquette before (thanks, I'll probably be using that one soon), but what about pre-threeway meals? My boyfriend and I have been on the hunt for a unicorn for a while, and have recently discovered a likely prospect on one of our apps. We all think it's a good idea to have a nonsexy meetup beforehand to establish some ground rules and make sure we, you know, don't hate each other, but the idea of running into one of our friends or our daughter's preschool teachers or something is agonizing. Help a couple of perverts out? – Parental Units

Dear Perverts,

Good job! As I believe I told the first couple who wrote me asking for threeway advice (How did it go, guys? I want an update!), the most important piece of adventurous etiquette is to make sure you remember that your partners are people, too. Outside of their interactions with you, they have their own unique set of weird neuroses, wants, needs, fears, and desires. By meeting up first – instead of just jumping into bed without a conversation – you're doing a really good job in honoring that individuality. It's important, too, for the strength of your partnership to know that you have a healthy and open communication model to bring into these things, especially since there's a kid in the picture. So for all that, I commend you.

The first thing you need to do, obviously, is get the heck out of your neighborhood. I don't know where you live, but I'm willing to bet that there are parts of town you haven't explored yet. Maybe your third has a suggestion – it would be good (in some ways) to be in a place that's familiar to at least one of you. But if not, it's up to you to pick. And as the hosts, you should pay for dinner, too! We need to find you a place that's nice, but not super high-pressure we-spent-a-lot-of-money-on-this-so-it-has-to-work-out nice; that has a good atmosphere, maybe even a little romantic, but doesn't seem sleazy or like you're trying too hard. No candlelight, probably, but no leopard print either.

Pizzeria Sorellina (Courtesy of Paul Brick)

The place that best fits the bill is Pizzeria Sorellina – all the way up in Spicewood, far enough that I can practically guarantee you won't run into a single person you know, especially if you meet up on a weeknight. The atmosphere is perfect, too, with simple outdoor seating on a wood deck that just happens to look over a gorgeous expanse of rolling Hill Country. The menu combines casual ease (hey, it's just pizza) with enough grownup special occasion fanciness (the pizza is wood-fired, and topped with things like wild ramps, harissa, and wild boar pancetta) to make it seem a little more special than your average midweek meal.

But it's also important to remember that, even if the worst does happen, even if you run into both preschool teachers, all your friends, your landlord, your plumber, and all of your judgmental neighbors, no one will have any idea what's going on. I mean it. They'll probably just assume you're out with a friend, unless you insist on making it weird for everyone with a policy of full disclosure. And even if they did know, I'm willing to bet that they wouldn't care. We live in a pretty liberal town, and people are harder to scandalize than you might think. They might even be jealous: Having a daughter in preschool and still, somehow, finding time to plan sexual misadventures is no small task.