you are how much you love - pt 1

I've been more or less staring at this empty blog post page for hours now. I have been doing other things in between of course, I am ADHD after all. But this has been open at the back of my browser and the back of my mind. I want to write about it but it's not easy. It's rather complicated because I am only in the process of figuring it out. Which is why I want to write about it. Hello, vicious circle, nice to meet you - again.

The hardest part is probably that I am somewhat scared of judgement this time. Which is funny since I talk openly about depression, my ADHD and my bisexuality which is in the process of morphing into multisexuality (think Jack Harkness minus the aliens). I have never ever been afraid of backlash or judgement regarding these parts of me. But this one... it's tough because it's a topic that might touch some people deep down at their core values and possibly even offend them much like some people are offended by gay marriage. Is that okay? Definitely not. But it's something that - even if they are not attacked nor affected by it - people might want to take a stand about. And it's something, I think, only a few people will be able to handle without judgement - be it uttered aloud or not. You might accept me through all my crazy and queer but what I'm going to tell you next might just be a bit too much to handle. I say might. Because, of course, I hope.

But here goes.
(I just had to take a fucking deep breath.)

I do not believe in monogamy.
I do not believe that love is finite.
I believe in compersion (more on that further along probably in another blog post but you can find some stuff about it on wikipedia).
I believe that even if it might not take a village to raise children, in the end a bunch of people loving them and being there and available for them might just be the most perfect thing in the world.

I believe (though I have no way of knowing for certain) that I am indeed polyamorous.

This is not the throwaway line of the cheater claiming that "humans aren't made for monogamy" to still their fighting conscience.
It isn't an excuse to just "shag around" a bit when marriage becomes boring.

Funny, I don't actually believe in swinging. I realise I might be influenced by the image of a bored 50ies married couple fooling around with the neighbours and people group shagging to the backdrop of some impeccably ugly 70ies wallpaper. Whatever the reason, it seems a bit ghastly to me to go and meet a couple with the purpose of exchanging bodily fluids. Or, gods forbid, even go to a club where couples gaze demurely at other couples with the distinctive plan of picking something that strikes their fancy, much like you would chose the prettiest grape from the fruit bowl and pop it in your mouth.

It is not about sex.
It's not about fucking around.
It's about love. (Go on, call me cheesy, I know you want to.)

And it's something my life circles back to again and again.

When I was 16 I loved my boyfriend and I loved my best friend. And I didn't see much of a difference between those loves except I was having socially accepted sex with only one of them.

When I was about 19 my friends and I were quite open with one another. Relationships were more fluid than ever before or afterwards. It came with the partying and the utter absence of a readiness to settle down, I guess. With some people it was just about sex but there was a tightly knit group of people that actually loved each other. Naturally, we had no idea what we were doing and experimented the hell out of it. It was a damn sloppy mess and people got hurt in the process. And then we grew up and apart and returned to monogamy, mostly.

Since then about eight years have passed and for six of them I've been in the most serious relationship of my life. But polyamory has been on my mind. We got married last year. And still polyamory is on my mind. It's not a constant presence but it has been part of my inner conversation on and off again.
I am not currently in a polyamorous relationship. I am probably in what one might consider an open relationship but we find we still lack the words to properly describe this work in progress. It is definitely not monogamy. But it's a theoretical non-monogamy. And I'm fine with that because we just haven't met the right people yet. But at some point, I want to take it from concept to tangible.

Since this is running quite long already, I've decided to do this in two parts (at least). You just read pt 1. Now stay tuned for pt 2. In wich I will take you along on my little polyamorous daydream.

And please, please, my dearest lurkers - I know you're out there - this would be a good time to come out of hiding and give me some fucking feedback because I'm scared shitless about this as is :)

12 comments:

  1. Your fear is unnecessary. We loved you then, we love you now, we will love you later. What I am judging you for is, the usage of the world ghastly... are in in victorian times? ;)

    N.

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  2. What N. said - except for the "then" part, which doesn't apply because we weren't even on each other's radar then.

    I've never fallen in love, so I don't know what I'm talking about, obviously, but I figure the more love the better, and what shape that love takes is nobody's business but that of the people involved.

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  3. I completely understand, I absolutely do not judge and sometimes find myself in the same shoes. I am more unclear about this, though. What I want, what I need, what I love.
    There's complete support from my part. Limitless understanding.

    A.

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  4. Thanks for the support. I love you guys *sniff* not not THAT way (geeez..) ;)

    @N: ghastly ghastly ghastly :p I think ghastly is wonderfully onomatopoetic. ghastly is in itself wonderfully ghastly.

    @deadra: sometimes it really doesn't matter how long someone has been on the radar. I think we've grown on each other quickly. like fungus ;) who else gets my obsession with certain men ;) as for love: you will fall in love, I'm sure. once you get out more and, you know, actually meet people.

    @a: more unclear? I think I'm being pretty vague myself :) It's seriously complicated, I think. it's a bit like figuring out whether I was gay/bi without ever having slept with a woman. I mean, how the hell do you figure out something that is theoretical only?

    I think I will write part 2 of this today.

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  5. First of all: Kudos for yet another very brave post! Only very few people are that open about these subjects.

    So, while I believe polyamorous relationships can be a wonderful thing (at least if all participants are mature enough) with many advantages, I also see a couple of problems:

    1.: The more people there are in a romantic relationship, the more mathematically improbable it gets: While 2 people means 2 combinations, 3 people means 6 (A has to love B and C, B has to love A and C, C has to love A and B). 4 people means 24 combinations. Sounds highly unlikely to me! I once read an interview with someone who was in a 5-way-relationship at the time (120 combinations!) which I don't think can last very long. Of course, love isn't math. But still.

    2.: Jealousy. This might be less of a problem in 4 or 5 person relationships, because everyone can have one or two favorites and be open about it without making anyone feel unloved. With three people, however, anyone having a favorite will kill the relationship sooner or later.

    3.: Many people will judge you when they find out you're in a polyamorous relationship. I guess it's something like being gay in the 50s or so. Of course, people who judge you for something that doesn't harm anyone can go fuck themselves. But it is something that _can_ destroy you.

    4.: There was something else which I forgot about while writing, of course. Maybe it comes back to me after part 2.

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  6. Don't know if I'm officially a lurker or not, but here I come out of hiding to not judge you. :)

    There are many valid lifestyles - and as long as you're true to yourself and the people involved, I see no harm in loving as many people as you want - be it none or twentyfive. We love who we love, after all.

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  7. Okay, so wth is "multisexuality"? Because all I can think of now is, you know, cows, kittens, chickens, sheep... ;D
    Is it a trans thing? Because I always thought that bisexuality already encompasses attraction towards/regardless of both sex AND gender, but maybe I am mistaken.

    I've had thoughts about this, too, but can't speak from experience. I have never loved. Oh, I've been in love, and when I desire something, I do so with a burning passion that renders me quite incoherent at times, but I have never actually /loved/.

    But yes, I have thought about monogamy and polyamoury, and I will not heave judgement upon a practitioner of either (if anything, I'm more likely to be baffled at someone who manages to be monogamous). But in my case it really is more of a "can't get enough/don't ant to miss out/want it all" mentality. Veering away from people and turning to objects in general, I am not good at picking THE ONE THING I love most of anything, really. I love many songs, I love many books, I love many episodes of tv series, etc.
    If I weren't such an exclusive bitch concerning the whole "being with someone" thing, I can very well imagine myself being capable of loving more than one human being with the same intensity. Except that I'd get jealous if it were the other way around. So, uhm... Whatever you think might make you look bad with your posting, I think I just made myself look worse :D

    I'll leave you with a bit of science; more specifically, that an inclination either towards poly or mono might be in the genes (sadly, they seem to have tested only men, but well, it's the best I can do right now):

    http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/news/news/1455/

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  8. muhahaha! Agnes! ew! that'd be SODOMY. brrrr.... disgusting!
    multisexuality or pansexuality or omnisexuality means exactly what you suspected, it's "the trans thing". Originally I assumed I was attracted to biological men and women, but I've discovered that I carry quite the torch for the occasional FTM (MTFs however don't really attract me, tbh)

    now you are the second person to comment that they've never loved or been in love. it is quite astonishing since I fall in love soooooo fucking easily. it's a bit like that rebekka bakken song "the art of how to fall": "I fall in love with everyone And every time I fall I fall in every way there is With every little kiss " okay, so it's not that bad, obviously ;) but I do have a tendency to see wonderful beautiful things in people and then I fall... but yes, I guess that's "falling in love" and not "loving". although I'm sure that if you think about it you probably have loved, just maybe not in combination with "being in love" in regards to the same person?

    and no, you haven't made yourself look bad at all. jealousy is perfectly normal. Which doesn't mean it can't be kicked in the rear. But it's very very human and normal :) I think I'll cover jealousy in my next post...

    @kalafudra: congratulations, you have successfully unlurked ;)

    @patrick: did you really just come at me with math? *shudder* hehe
    But to answer your little mathematical problem: I don't exactly aspire to have relationships only with people who in turn have relationships among themselves. that, as you pointed out, would be fucking improbable and really really complicated. But I can't deny the mathematical issues... it's hard enough to find one person who you love and who loves you back. to then find others who, additionally, are also okay with polyamory ---> fuck near impossible.

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  9. Haha. Okay.

    Please note: Being IN LOVE is not the same as LOVING (not in my book, at least). I've had crushes left and right, and I've had moments of "please never let us be together like this forever". But that's always infatuation, lasting only a few weeks or months. Love... I believe should be deeper than that, it needs more time to actually KNOW the person. Patrick Rothfuss put it nicely with, "Anyone can love a thing because. That's as easy as putting a penny in your pocket. But to love something despite. To know the flaws and love them too. That is rare and pure and perfect."

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  10. Weird. As I was reading, I kept nodding and agreeing and then for a while, I tilted my head and wasn't sure I agreed. And then, towards the end, I felt pretty sure that I disagreed...only to start nodding in agreement again.

    So...who the fuck knows what I think?

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  11. oh maria! LOL I am terribly sorry to have confused you. or all of you. patrick forgot what he wanted to say. you can't decide what you think. oh my... what have I done? ;)

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  12. Speaking from experience: try it. I tried and failed. I believe you can love more than one person. In my case, I just couldn't accept that my girlfriend back then could do the same. While normally jealously isn't a big thing for me, I went completely nuts. What I'm trying to say is that it sounds easy in theory, but simply isn't. Well, maybe for some.

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