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kaberettFor starters, I knew it was an option because I grew up being mentored by a bunch of folk (hi ♥) who viewed poly as normal and fine and just the way some people work; I got to see lots of examples of people making it work, and people not making it work in ways that were nothing to do with being poly and everything to do with the fact that sometimes relationships don't work or stop working.
As it happens I was still massively insecure; one way or another it was the case that I was cool with the concept of me having more than one partner, but got incredibly tied up in knots about the concept of people I was seeing having other partners, and consequently didn't think it was good or kind or fair for me to try to do the thing. Thus began (after my useless ex & I broke up) a period of ill-advised monogamy (ha, folk, I am so so sorry for turning into That One Friend Who Keeps Making Inexplicably Terrible Relationship Decisions), from which I emerged blinking and very, very mad. In the aftermath of getting on anti-depressants and out of that particular horrorshow, I found myself increasingly spending time with the boything and increasingly doing things that were unambiguously flirting and dates. I didn't properly register what was going on until his boyfriend Lucian cheerfully turned around during a birthday party and went "so, are you and![[insanejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/ij-userinfo.gif)
dreamfracture a thing, then?" whereupon I went "... I DON'T KNOW WE HAVEN'T REALLY TALKED ABOUT IT??? :D"
And that was how hanging-out-with-a-person morphed into a relationship in spite of the boything having other folk in his life, and mysteriously the world didn't end. I thought I was treating it as fairly casual; I was still surprised when I turned out to be completely fine with him rolling over one Sunday morning and going "alex alex alex last week I slept with a PERSON", apart from the bit where I still wanted to be asleep.
I managed slightly clearer negotiation with my useless ex about us getting back together, but it was still somewhat awkward and talking-around-the-things. I'd ended up spending a lot of time in his general vicinity because of Reasons, and it turns out that my having learned to code and his having learned to feminism meant we got on much better and had rather more to talk about. I still felt super-protective of him, he was someone I turned out to still want in my life, and so on; a couple of weeks ago marked our tenth anniversary (if you ignore the bit where we weren't on speaking terms for five or six years in the middle there, but hush).
Actual competent negotiations for initiating relationships occurred with my recentish exes; the rest of that saga is variously tagged up and you can read about it if you wanna.
Somewhere in all of that I realised that I wasn't just dating these people casually; that I wouldn't actually be okay just upping and moving continents and dropping out of contact with them, the way I'd sort of assumed would happen when I started the PhD; that I couldn't actually any more see myself ending up in a monogamous relationship. That I was actively just happy (if gently and fondly exasperated, coz mostly the way he tells me he's acquired a new partner is to somewhat sheepishly go "um, Alex, um, I kinda slept with someone") when my useless ex started datingsebastienne; that similarly I am just happy when boything has good things going on his life. That was pretty much the point at which I started explicitly identifying myself (rather than my behaviour) as poly.
This time around (see, Your One Friend Who Makes Inexplicably Terrible Relationship Choices) I have rather more of an idea of what it is I'm doing and of my intentions (give or take; I was intending completely casual makeouts and desensitisation to the general concept of one of my abusers, and we know how that one turned out), so I'm finding it kind of fascinating to do negotiations in that context. Like, the general set-up is that I don't need to know in advance about new folk, but (1) it's nice to know before the next time we shag, and (2) generally if a partner is being happy and squeeful about Possibilities In Their Lives then I'm interested and want to make fun of them. Similarly I do not have anything that looks remotely like veto power over new partners (nor do other people similarly with respect to me) but there is Reciprocal Understanding on the topic of saying "this person you are dating is not someone I want to be around and honestly I think they're kind of awful"; we're dating each other at least in part because we trust one another's judgement, so it's something to at least bear in mind.
Facesfriend is interesting not only in that I am negotiating with intent (and monitoring that intent and flagging up when it changes) but in that I'm not their only new partner-shaped-individual. I am finding it fascinating to have the conversations about who's going to be doing what when at events where we'll all be present, it being a bit less fluid and comfortable than my polymer-that-was; and the conversations about how facesfriend is feeling that he "should" be doing exactly the same things with each of us, and about my own insecurities, and about reaffirming that we're all different people who get to want different things and for whom different (forms of) intimacies matter. It's this fantastic thing where we know we absolutely can't make each other comfortable if we don't know what comfortable looks like, but accept that priorities might not align with doing the thing; nonetheless it is better to have information. To some extent this is probably a quirk of how I relationship, rather than being a One True Way To Poly, but I do think that more information is better information, and I really like talking to people, so - we're talking a lot, and we're gritting our teeth and being brave and speaking our truths and our uncertainties and bracing for the awful that... never quite materialises. That's honestly most of what I feel about this at the moment: that negotiating in the context of poly isn't really any different to negotiating in the context of any other new relationship; sure, the topics might be skewed differently, but the vulnerabilities (the is-it-okay-for-me-to-want, the it-is-an-imposition-for-me-to-want, the do-we-dare, the why-don't-we-both-agree-we're-both-afraid-and-too-afraid-to-say (if I said count to three, move toward me -- would you meet me half the way?)) are the same. We got into this by taking it in turns to take a step, to take a risk; that's still what we're doing. Fundamentally that facesfriend's other new partner is also making him happy is relevant to me only in that it's making me happy: we didn't meet up last night not because of them, but because an opportunity to see another hard-to-pin-down friend arose; him having affection for other people has no bearing on the degree of his affection for me, or the extent to which he'd like to spend time with me, beyond normal social demands and the joy of learning what other people find to adore in people you yourself adore.
I mean -- yes, I'm still a little jealous and a bit insecure and a bit scared, but it's very much coming from a place that I recognise as being not at all about these people I get to share these parts of my life with; it's about my history, and it's about past hurts, and it is fear that is fundamentally about myself, about my own worries. That's something to negotiate with partners only to the extent that I negotiate my other angst: something to talk over with a trusted friend, yes, but not something that requires response or reaction. I can soothe myself on this far better than anyone else would be able to, because it is not about them. I think that's one of the most important things I'm learning at the moment, actually - that in addition to not taking it personally when other people's feelings aren't actually about me, I can arrange matters so that other people need not take it personally when my feelings aren't actually about them.
I want to be clear that it is not the case that I think that poly is in any sense better than mono; I don't think I'm more enlightened or somehow freed from petty concerns (observe that I note that jealousy is absolutely still something I experience!). It's just that... this appears to be a way that I work, a way in which I get to see this particular kind of joy grow as it is reflected. For me, now, poly isn't good & it isn't bad; it is neutral; it is. And so we go on and see what the world has to offer.
As it happens I was still massively insecure; one way or another it was the case that I was cool with the concept of me having more than one partner, but got incredibly tied up in knots about the concept of people I was seeing having other partners, and consequently didn't think it was good or kind or fair for me to try to do the thing. Thus began (after my useless ex & I broke up) a period of ill-advised monogamy (ha, folk, I am so so sorry for turning into That One Friend Who Keeps Making Inexplicably Terrible Relationship Decisions), from which I emerged blinking and very, very mad. In the aftermath of getting on anti-depressants and out of that particular horrorshow, I found myself increasingly spending time with the boything and increasingly doing things that were unambiguously flirting and dates. I didn't properly register what was going on until his boyfriend Lucian cheerfully turned around during a birthday party and went "so, are you and
dreamfracture a thing, then?" whereupon I went "... I DON'T KNOW WE HAVEN'T REALLY TALKED ABOUT IT??? :D"And that was how hanging-out-with-a-person morphed into a relationship in spite of the boything having other folk in his life, and mysteriously the world didn't end. I thought I was treating it as fairly casual; I was still surprised when I turned out to be completely fine with him rolling over one Sunday morning and going "alex alex alex last week I slept with a PERSON", apart from the bit where I still wanted to be asleep.
I managed slightly clearer negotiation with my useless ex about us getting back together, but it was still somewhat awkward and talking-around-the-things. I'd ended up spending a lot of time in his general vicinity because of Reasons, and it turns out that my having learned to code and his having learned to feminism meant we got on much better and had rather more to talk about. I still felt super-protective of him, he was someone I turned out to still want in my life, and so on; a couple of weeks ago marked our tenth anniversary (if you ignore the bit where we weren't on speaking terms for five or six years in the middle there, but hush).
Actual competent negotiations for initiating relationships occurred with my recentish exes; the rest of that saga is variously tagged up and you can read about it if you wanna.
Somewhere in all of that I realised that I wasn't just dating these people casually; that I wouldn't actually be okay just upping and moving continents and dropping out of contact with them, the way I'd sort of assumed would happen when I started the PhD; that I couldn't actually any more see myself ending up in a monogamous relationship. That I was actively just happy (if gently and fondly exasperated, coz mostly the way he tells me he's acquired a new partner is to somewhat sheepishly go "um, Alex, um, I kinda slept with someone") when my useless ex started dating
sebastienne; that similarly I am just happy when boything has good things going on his life. That was pretty much the point at which I started explicitly identifying myself (rather than my behaviour) as poly.This time around (see, Your One Friend Who Makes Inexplicably Terrible Relationship Choices) I have rather more of an idea of what it is I'm doing and of my intentions (give or take; I was intending completely casual makeouts and desensitisation to the general concept of one of my abusers, and we know how that one turned out), so I'm finding it kind of fascinating to do negotiations in that context. Like, the general set-up is that I don't need to know in advance about new folk, but (1) it's nice to know before the next time we shag, and (2) generally if a partner is being happy and squeeful about Possibilities In Their Lives then I'm interested and want to make fun of them. Similarly I do not have anything that looks remotely like veto power over new partners (nor do other people similarly with respect to me) but there is Reciprocal Understanding on the topic of saying "this person you are dating is not someone I want to be around and honestly I think they're kind of awful"; we're dating each other at least in part because we trust one another's judgement, so it's something to at least bear in mind.
Facesfriend is interesting not only in that I am negotiating with intent (and monitoring that intent and flagging up when it changes) but in that I'm not their only new partner-shaped-individual. I am finding it fascinating to have the conversations about who's going to be doing what when at events where we'll all be present, it being a bit less fluid and comfortable than my polymer-that-was; and the conversations about how facesfriend is feeling that he "should" be doing exactly the same things with each of us, and about my own insecurities, and about reaffirming that we're all different people who get to want different things and for whom different (forms of) intimacies matter. It's this fantastic thing where we know we absolutely can't make each other comfortable if we don't know what comfortable looks like, but accept that priorities might not align with doing the thing; nonetheless it is better to have information. To some extent this is probably a quirk of how I relationship, rather than being a One True Way To Poly, but I do think that more information is better information, and I really like talking to people, so - we're talking a lot, and we're gritting our teeth and being brave and speaking our truths and our uncertainties and bracing for the awful that... never quite materialises. That's honestly most of what I feel about this at the moment: that negotiating in the context of poly isn't really any different to negotiating in the context of any other new relationship; sure, the topics might be skewed differently, but the vulnerabilities (the is-it-okay-for-me-to-want, the it-is-an-imposition-for-me-to-want, the do-we-dare, the why-don't-we-both-agree-we're-both-afraid-and-too-afraid-to-say (if I said count to three, move toward me -- would you meet me half the way?)) are the same. We got into this by taking it in turns to take a step, to take a risk; that's still what we're doing. Fundamentally that facesfriend's other new partner is also making him happy is relevant to me only in that it's making me happy: we didn't meet up last night not because of them, but because an opportunity to see another hard-to-pin-down friend arose; him having affection for other people has no bearing on the degree of his affection for me, or the extent to which he'd like to spend time with me, beyond normal social demands and the joy of learning what other people find to adore in people you yourself adore.
I mean -- yes, I'm still a little jealous and a bit insecure and a bit scared, but it's very much coming from a place that I recognise as being not at all about these people I get to share these parts of my life with; it's about my history, and it's about past hurts, and it is fear that is fundamentally about myself, about my own worries. That's something to negotiate with partners only to the extent that I negotiate my other angst: something to talk over with a trusted friend, yes, but not something that requires response or reaction. I can soothe myself on this far better than anyone else would be able to, because it is not about them. I think that's one of the most important things I'm learning at the moment, actually - that in addition to not taking it personally when other people's feelings aren't actually about me, I can arrange matters so that other people need not take it personally when my feelings aren't actually about them.
I want to be clear that it is not the case that I think that poly is in any sense better than mono; I don't think I'm more enlightened or somehow freed from petty concerns (observe that I note that jealousy is absolutely still something I experience!). It's just that... this appears to be a way that I work, a way in which I get to see this particular kind of joy grow as it is reflected. For me, now, poly isn't good & it isn't bad; it is neutral; it is. And so we go on and see what the world has to offer.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-10 03:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-10 03:49 pm (UTC)I think people should be who they fully are. I'm fairly sure that I'm ridiculously monogamous. Does it mean I'm happy all the time? No, but in the 20 years we've been together, I haven't felt urges (that lasted more than 2 minutes) to run off and get together with anyone else.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-10 04:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-10 05:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-10 07:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-11 09:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-10 08:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-11 01:59 pm (UTC)The closest I've come is in fact one-off sex with a close friend who did (alas) turn out to be fundamentally more monogamous than that, but mostly I think that was sex-as-friends-with-previously-unresolved-sexual-tension rather than someone I could fall in love with. And, hey, the sexual tension's now resolved, and we have reverted to mostly talking about poetry and music!
(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-11 05:57 pm (UTC)< Bitter, moi? >
(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-10 09:19 pm (UTC)I slightly envy people who knew it was an option (just like I slightly envy people who knew non-binary gender identity was an option) but much more than that am so happy that I got here in the end, to the shape of relationships that is working really bloody well for me.
I find reading/hearing about everyone's slightly different ways of relationshipping (whether poly or not) fascinating.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-10 11:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-12 01:33 am (UTC)like I pretty much went "... whoops well that's that I guess" soooooooo. NONETHELESS. ♥.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-10 11:33 pm (UTC)/so much love <3333333333333
(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-12 01:31 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-11 03:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-11 08:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-11 02:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-17 04:16 pm (UTC)