What else is a meta-lover good for?
They’re great company when both of us miss our mutual lover.
It’s a bit like having a beloved family member temporarily away, and the rest of the family knows that person so well that the stories keep popping up, with everybody having enough context to get a good laugh or memory out of them. Only you don’t necessarily have the same connection (or spectacular lack of connection) with a meta-lover as you would with family. I already talked about my spouse’s ex, with whom I’d do workouts or have dinner if my spouse was away (traveling, working late, etc). I even heard about a meeting between my spouse and my girlthing, purportedly to talk about “topic(s) of mutual interest,” but which degenerated into a soliloquy on Why Poly is Difficult for Married Men (I’m angling for the Cliffs Notes of that conversation to be the next Guest Post by the Spouse). And a comment from my secondary on hearing one too many good one-liners originally spouted by my non-spousal primary: I want to take this guy out for beers and talk about you.
My secondary’s primary is particularly good company when my secondary is physically or emotionally absent (which predictably happened a lot while he was in PhD-hell). It’s nice to have someone to talk to who understands the nuances of how and why I miss him, and who can fill in some stories to help me feel included in his life in the absence of firsthand experience. Lucky for me, her great company came in handy for a fantastic adventure road-trip during an unexpected absence.
“You’re flying over Nashville!” the first text from my secondary read when I turned on my phone again after my flight was over (really? Why did they route me through there?).
“Now is a bad time for a visit. I need to go home tonight,” read the second. A family emergency had come up, right when I was flying to see my secondary. He and I had three hours to pack him up before I drove him right back to the airport. And then I had two weeks at his house, without him.
Once again, I’m lucky--I can work remotely, so I had a couple of extremely productive days to do my own thing in a house with which I was familiar but in which I had no real responsibilities. I noticed that every couple of hours, I’d get an email or a text from one of my secondary’s friends who was aware I had been abandoned in town, and would I like to go out for beer/dinner/fill-in-the-blank (and no, sex was not explicitly offered, though there was general curiosity about whether I was seeking a lover to fill in)? I was busy; I was tired. I accepted one invitation and declined the rest, even though I was touched by the thought that even though the person I had flown into town to see was unavailable, he took it upon himself to ensure that someone worthwhile was entertaining me (mental note: it’s not only meta-lovers, but friends of friends for whom this trick of keeping great company works).
The other fun part was sharing the house with my secondary’s primary. It certainly had potential for interesting plot to be in a house I tangentially knew with someone I barely knew at all but who comes highly recommended. If this were a sitcom, there would be a catfight. Instead, it was like couch surfing with someone who got a five-star Yelp review and has access to amazing Scotch (thanks, Secondary). It’s interesting how much fun it can be to get forced into close quarters with a high-quality stranger.
More precisely, it was only close quarters until she invited me on the road trip (“invited” is the wrong term. “Captured” may be more accurate). After that, it was extremely close (car-sized). She had a three day weekend, and I had fully packed bags with literally nothing to do with my time, so we drove. We drove a long time. Turns out, my secondary historically didn’t like road trips (I think he’s changing his mind about that one), but his primary and I do. So I ended up with a built-in companion with a strong common interest, and we got to do something that only the two of us out of three would enjoy.
Driving is a great excuse for sharing stories, and we did a lot of that, both individual histories to start to get to know each other and some focus on our mutual lover. Hours of driving give plenty of time to agree about, disagree and analyze, and share hopes and dreams about our mutual lover. And if misery actually does love company, it was great to have the company. We both missed the same person. It’s special to have that understood.
What I was unprepared for was how obviously we must have been carrying the “someone’s missing from this scenario” message to the outside world, apparently along with “please try to fill in for them.” In my experience, strangers leave two people alone to focus on each other, regardless of the gender balance. In this case, the number of people of both of the most common genders who tried to catch our attention, and lingered for a borderline culturally inappropriate length of time as if trying to score an invitation to stay through the morning, was high enough to simultaneously shock and amuse me.
We’re still in a relationship V, with a clear central lover, but my meta-lover and I do talk independently, and sometimes we see eye to eye better than either of us does with our mutual lover (hence calling him out on BS). We also sometimes warn each other about interesting or complicated things going on in our lover’s life, which is a useful preview for whenever there’s a handoff.
So what’s a meta-lover good for?
Caring for either you or your lover whenever the other isn’t around.
*****
Questions or comments? I’ve got answers, or at least sources of answers. Try me at polysaturated@rocketmail.com.
They’re great company when both of us miss our mutual lover.
It’s a bit like having a beloved family member temporarily away, and the rest of the family knows that person so well that the stories keep popping up, with everybody having enough context to get a good laugh or memory out of them. Only you don’t necessarily have the same connection (or spectacular lack of connection) with a meta-lover as you would with family. I already talked about my spouse’s ex, with whom I’d do workouts or have dinner if my spouse was away (traveling, working late, etc). I even heard about a meeting between my spouse and my girlthing, purportedly to talk about “topic(s) of mutual interest,” but which degenerated into a soliloquy on Why Poly is Difficult for Married Men (I’m angling for the Cliffs Notes of that conversation to be the next Guest Post by the Spouse). And a comment from my secondary on hearing one too many good one-liners originally spouted by my non-spousal primary: I want to take this guy out for beers and talk about you.
My secondary’s primary is particularly good company when my secondary is physically or emotionally absent (which predictably happened a lot while he was in PhD-hell). It’s nice to have someone to talk to who understands the nuances of how and why I miss him, and who can fill in some stories to help me feel included in his life in the absence of firsthand experience. Lucky for me, her great company came in handy for a fantastic adventure road-trip during an unexpected absence.
“You’re flying over Nashville!” the first text from my secondary read when I turned on my phone again after my flight was over (really? Why did they route me through there?).
“Now is a bad time for a visit. I need to go home tonight,” read the second. A family emergency had come up, right when I was flying to see my secondary. He and I had three hours to pack him up before I drove him right back to the airport. And then I had two weeks at his house, without him.
Once again, I’m lucky--I can work remotely, so I had a couple of extremely productive days to do my own thing in a house with which I was familiar but in which I had no real responsibilities. I noticed that every couple of hours, I’d get an email or a text from one of my secondary’s friends who was aware I had been abandoned in town, and would I like to go out for beer/dinner/fill-in-the-blank (and no, sex was not explicitly offered, though there was general curiosity about whether I was seeking a lover to fill in)? I was busy; I was tired. I accepted one invitation and declined the rest, even though I was touched by the thought that even though the person I had flown into town to see was unavailable, he took it upon himself to ensure that someone worthwhile was entertaining me (mental note: it’s not only meta-lovers, but friends of friends for whom this trick of keeping great company works).
The other fun part was sharing the house with my secondary’s primary. It certainly had potential for interesting plot to be in a house I tangentially knew with someone I barely knew at all but who comes highly recommended. If this were a sitcom, there would be a catfight. Instead, it was like couch surfing with someone who got a five-star Yelp review and has access to amazing Scotch (thanks, Secondary). It’s interesting how much fun it can be to get forced into close quarters with a high-quality stranger.
More precisely, it was only close quarters until she invited me on the road trip (“invited” is the wrong term. “Captured” may be more accurate). After that, it was extremely close (car-sized). She had a three day weekend, and I had fully packed bags with literally nothing to do with my time, so we drove. We drove a long time. Turns out, my secondary historically didn’t like road trips (I think he’s changing his mind about that one), but his primary and I do. So I ended up with a built-in companion with a strong common interest, and we got to do something that only the two of us out of three would enjoy.
Driving is a great excuse for sharing stories, and we did a lot of that, both individual histories to start to get to know each other and some focus on our mutual lover. Hours of driving give plenty of time to agree about, disagree and analyze, and share hopes and dreams about our mutual lover. And if misery actually does love company, it was great to have the company. We both missed the same person. It’s special to have that understood.
What I was unprepared for was how obviously we must have been carrying the “someone’s missing from this scenario” message to the outside world, apparently along with “please try to fill in for them.” In my experience, strangers leave two people alone to focus on each other, regardless of the gender balance. In this case, the number of people of both of the most common genders who tried to catch our attention, and lingered for a borderline culturally inappropriate length of time as if trying to score an invitation to stay through the morning, was high enough to simultaneously shock and amuse me.
We’re still in a relationship V, with a clear central lover, but my meta-lover and I do talk independently, and sometimes we see eye to eye better than either of us does with our mutual lover (hence calling him out on BS). We also sometimes warn each other about interesting or complicated things going on in our lover’s life, which is a useful preview for whenever there’s a handoff.
So what’s a meta-lover good for?
Caring for either you or your lover whenever the other isn’t around.
*****
Questions or comments? I’ve got answers, or at least sources of answers. Try me at polysaturated@rocketmail.com.
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