Posts tagged polyamory
Posts tagged polyamory
Every now and then I hear about the mono-poly relationship and I believe it’s a myth. I believe that by definition the mono-poly relationship doesn’t exist. Let’s review: a mono-poly relationship it’s one where one of the member is polyamorous and the other one isn’t.
At first I thought one of the members was allowed to date and the other one wasn’t, which is disgusting of course. Polygyny and polyandry make me sick. Thankfully, we are not talking about that. We are talking about a couple in which one member chooses to date, it’s allowed to date by the rules of the couple, and the other one doesn’t.
And I think that’s why mono-poly is a myth. Both members of the couple have to deal with the issues of polyamory, learn to communicate, handle jealousy, etc. If one of the members is not dating anyone else because she’s busy with work, does it make it a mono-poly relationship? nope.
If one of the members chooses not to date, does it makes it a mono-poly relationship? apparently it does. But if one day, that person gets infatuated with someone else, like it happens all the time, and pursues that relationship; what then? is he breaking the rules? if not, did the relationship changed from mono-poly to poly? Did one of the members involved started being poly?
To me that’s like saying that people dating one and only one person are not poly, they are monogamous… and single people don’t even qualify as monogamous. No, that logic doesn’t work. To me, mono-poly relationships are just poly-relationships with a member that prefers to not to date… for now… you never know.
It’s hard not to become more emotionally mature when you start learning about polyamory. It isn’t that being poly is more evolved, is that the path to become a good poly person evolves you (no reason why monogamous people can’t grow in the same way and many indeed do).
One of the bad side effects is that many movies and songs start to make no sense… or even… they start to suck.
“Too much love will kill you if you can’t make up your mind”, not really. It may tire you… a lot… if you know what I mean, but not kill you.
“Search your mind, search you’ll soul and when you find me there you’ll search no more”, err… why not? The more the merrier!
Let’s not talk about “Every breath you take”, Sting wrote it from the perspective of a crazy stalker and people’s romantic spin on that song is kinda weird.
My latest song to sadly join the group is one by The Beatles, one that I used to love:
Love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love.
There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done.
Nothing you can sing that can’t be sung.
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game. It’s easy.
There’s nothing you can make that can’t be made.
No one you can save that can’t be saved.
Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time - It’s easy.
All you need is love, all you need is love
Stop… stop right there! No, love isn’t all you need. You can’t just expect relationships to work because there’s love. You need to communicate, learn, grow, take ownership of your feelings, communicate with other people, let go, withstand the pain, share the joy, then communicate some more, tolerate, accept. And all that after you done the homework and picked someone with whom you can actually do it, which may not be the person you fell in love with.
Maybe love is the fuel of a relationship, without a well engineered and maintained engine to burn properly, you’ll just get a big ball of fire that will blow you up.
I realised that I was losing yet another song when I was listening to a podcast called Pedestrian Polyamory, episode 8: Meeting Franklin Veaux – From DIY Sex Toys to Transhumanism to Poly Hierarchy.
Monkeyfetish said
That’s exactly how I feel. Every relationship I ever had started as a friendship that grew closer and closer. I’m really puzzled when people say things like “I was friend-zoned” or “I wouldn’t date her, she’s a friend”. That almost makes me feel dating someone is something harmful they do.
For me it’s a continuum. Everybody starts in the stranger level. If they are bad, they go down into the not-welcome level, which is a dark place. But as I get to know people, spend time together, share activities, opinions, experiences, they go up the ladder of love to acquaintance, friend, close friend and eventually lover.
Of course those are just some generally vague labels. There’s no graduating ceremony from one level to the next, it’s a continuum and even in the lover category a person can be higher or lower.
Well, that’s not totally true if I am monogamous; there’s a graduation to the lover category and for another person to pass that barrier, anyone who is currently there must be pushed down to another category. Generally it’s a pretty painful and messy process that ends up with people in the bottom.
That’s why I think I’m poly. I’d like people to move through my continuum of love regardless of anything else than their own merits, I’d like friendships to grow to their maximum potential.
With one of the woman who claimed all men are poly I had a follow up discussion. I mentioned that after my current relationship, I wanted to explore my poly side. She said something like “I hate to break this to you, but most men are poly.”.
Really I though? That makes no sense. If all men were poly society would be different, we wouldn’t have stories upon stories of idiots killing each other for the love of a lady. So I decided to test her and I said “Really? I don’t know that many guys who are ok *sharing*.”
Her reply was: “Oh, you are willing to share your partner? That’s so open minded of you!”
Well, doh! It’s polyamory, not polygyny. It’s a symmetric relationship. My partner has all the freedoms I have. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
It’s the second time when I mention my poly inclinations, outside of the poly-community, that a woman replies that all men are/want to be poly. And I only mentioned it to three people. One said:
All men are poly and all the woman who say they are poly are lying.
The other said, after I said that I wanted to explore my poly side:
Yeah, like all men
It seems they are forgetting that poly isn’t fucking around. It’s also allowing to fuck around. That is, it’s not only about getting freedom, but giving freedom. I don’t see men having an easier time giving freedom than women, but maybe I’m wrong.
The third person probably didn’t react this way because I said something very abstract:
Maybe I don’t want relationships to be exclusive
I’ve felt jealous towards a partner a couple of times in my life, but that’s not interesting. What’s really interesting is that I faked jealousy once. I’ve felt that it would show that I care for that person.
I’m just probably poly. I’ve never been in a poly or open relationship of any kind, so I’m not sure. But I do know that I generally don’t care what my partners do. I would care if they leave me; but not if they spend some of their time with other people doing whatever they want.
It’s incredible how much the society brainwashes us to be monogamous that I faked one of the worst feelings that a person can have. Just because I was expected too. I think some people are naturally monogamous, but how many really?
