And as a result of insomnia….
I don’t like Mondays
Recently I was introduced to a poly concept. Before I go into what that entails I should explain that I may be the most open minded while least experienced poly out there.Oh, there may easily be people far more open minded ‘poly’s than me, but most if not all probable have more experience. In fact, the amount of time that I have spent in my life openly dating more than one person at the same time (openly) may be less than 2 months.
So, for me there have been (at least not yet) no running triads, no experimental vees. No extended families, no maps of shame, no incestuous local groups… Mind you, I’m not opposed to any of these; the time just hadn’t come for me.
The path of poly discovery came up recently when a good friend told me he was having difficulty with someone he was interested in. The situation was that she was mono and her main problem was that, “She didn’t want to be Thursday.” I’d never heard the phrase before, but it didn’t take long for the mental hamsters to jump on the merry-wheel in my brain and crank out the explanation.
The poly date book. Many people have come to the conclusion that one can only be a successful poly if you have two rather complex arts mastered. Communication and Time Management. Personally, I’ve always been of the mindset that these things have little to do with Poly and have more to do with being a functioning adult who wishes to have functional relationships.
It strikes me that we’ve gotten to the point where our relationships get boiled down into which set of definitions we can put on them. I have a sudden vision of a little bird wandering lost on in the big city, walking up to a large vehicle and asking, “Are you my primary?” It honks and the bird responds, “No, You are not my primary, you are a honk.” Somewhere between blind NRE and scheduling a dentist’s appointment there must still be the life in a relationship.
I guess it’s ironic that as far as alternative lifestyles go, people need to find a way to have a set of terms and practices to shoehorn them together. I guess this is so that people have common terms with which to flame each other and stick their fingers in their ears and point and call others, ‘bad polys.’ Sadly, I guess in all of this I’m a bit shallow. I believe in making the relationship what it is. Feeling out what is good between myself and the other person. Making sure that whatever I’m doing isn’t making someone else in my life feel bad. Growing and shaping from there. Reluctance is a part of any relationship, but there’s no reason to start with reluctance based on what, ‘everyone else does.’ You and your partner aren’t everyone else. Hell, with luck you aren’t even you partner.
Oh, right… inexperienced guru talk about managing relationships. Well, as I said earlier, communication and time management; it’s not just something you se because you’ve upped the ante… or at least the number of people who have free roam in the kitchen. Everything is time management; visiting friends, doing work, partying, staying up late, loving your mate(s) (Err, separately or all at once)… And no, I’m not great at it. Hell, I think every day is more training in learning about time management and communication. The relationship is the people who love me because I’m always aspiring to make it fulfilling for those who love me as I love them… Not because I’m trying to make it like we read on the boards.
If there has been thousands of years of poetry, music, art, etc…. all dedicated to the pursuit, failings, and lack of understanding of the human heart… does it really make sense to try to categorize and shoehorn?
93 = YMMV
I don’t like Mondays.
This of course doesn’t mean that I’m not looking forwards to Thursdays… because I am 🙂
