Me: I love you.
Lover: I could be a pain and ask what you mean.
Me (without skipping a beat): I mean that your priorities are at least as important to me as mine.
_____
Sure, I’ll take one for the team often enough, especially if it’s on a topic that’s easy or about which I don’t care, but when I love someone, it’s a completely different vibe. I want them to be happy. Them being happy makes me happy, and I don’t even have to be the one to do it (that might help explain why I get such a kick out of my spouse coming home happy after the Walk of Shame from an external love interest’s place), though I’m certainly more than happy to.
It makes for some interesting scenarios, such as temporarily living apart from my spouse so that we could each focus on careers for a while (and that’s not even so unusual a decision for academics). Or recruiting potential full-time (statistically, probably monogamous and therefore likely to kick me out of the hypothetical triangle) lovers for my non-spousal primary.
As an advanced skill, I prefer love that’s been developing long enough for me to be able to predict and act accordingly on what would make my lover happy. That takes time, and study, and thought (or, you can just be my non-spousal primary who reads minds, and you’re good to go). Or at least a lover who’s very willing to explain the protocol for getting along with them, possibly multiple times. That said, I can’t think of a single lover I have had that I’ve completely figured out, or even come close to figuring out. I certainly get a burst of joy when I correctly predict an idiosyncrasy in a lovers’ behavior (bonus points if I poked at them to effectively provoke the response), but I’m also continually surprised.
If love at an A+ level involves correctly predicting behavior and response, maybe I’m averaging a barely-passing C by acknowledging surprise, asking about unexpected words or actions, and refining my understanding of my lovers as people with unique thoughts, preferences, and personalities. And repeating the process. Maybe I’ll advance to the B-range with skills improvement. Or maybe part of long-lasting passionate love is a constant curiosity about the complexities of another person, and I’d get bored as soon as I figured them out.
When I expounded on my definition of advanced love with predictive ability, the lover listed above expressed dissatisfaction because one might be able to very effectively predict an enemy’s actions simply through getting to know them sufficiently well because of a number of forced and unpleasant interactions (the advantage of a poly blog: you get multiple opinions and can choose your own adventure). One can in fact be intimately aware of someone’s thoughts, actions, and opinions in the complete absence of love (does a correct prediction result in the same burst of joy in that case?). I accede my lover’s point; knowing someone well is not sufficient to love them. And unless I’m willing to admit my own poor talent at love, I’d also point out that it’s not necessary. It’s just a lot of fun.
Something that strikes me in my definition of love is that there is no mention of need. Sure, there’s desire. And longing in their absence, which happens a lot as I’ve never seen all four of them at the same time. But I don’t get the same feeling of nonfunctional desperation that’s so common in fiction and art. That said, I am not happy about the prospect of any of them leaving me, even with a built-in support network of the other ones. I’m polysaturated, and happy about it.
*****
Questions, comments, or concerns? Try me! I’m polysaturated@rocketmail.com.
Lover: I could be a pain and ask what you mean.
Me (without skipping a beat): I mean that your priorities are at least as important to me as mine.
_____
Sure, I’ll take one for the team often enough, especially if it’s on a topic that’s easy or about which I don’t care, but when I love someone, it’s a completely different vibe. I want them to be happy. Them being happy makes me happy, and I don’t even have to be the one to do it (that might help explain why I get such a kick out of my spouse coming home happy after the Walk of Shame from an external love interest’s place), though I’m certainly more than happy to.
It makes for some interesting scenarios, such as temporarily living apart from my spouse so that we could each focus on careers for a while (and that’s not even so unusual a decision for academics). Or recruiting potential full-time (statistically, probably monogamous and therefore likely to kick me out of the hypothetical triangle) lovers for my non-spousal primary.
As an advanced skill, I prefer love that’s been developing long enough for me to be able to predict and act accordingly on what would make my lover happy. That takes time, and study, and thought (or, you can just be my non-spousal primary who reads minds, and you’re good to go). Or at least a lover who’s very willing to explain the protocol for getting along with them, possibly multiple times. That said, I can’t think of a single lover I have had that I’ve completely figured out, or even come close to figuring out. I certainly get a burst of joy when I correctly predict an idiosyncrasy in a lovers’ behavior (bonus points if I poked at them to effectively provoke the response), but I’m also continually surprised.
If love at an A+ level involves correctly predicting behavior and response, maybe I’m averaging a barely-passing C by acknowledging surprise, asking about unexpected words or actions, and refining my understanding of my lovers as people with unique thoughts, preferences, and personalities. And repeating the process. Maybe I’ll advance to the B-range with skills improvement. Or maybe part of long-lasting passionate love is a constant curiosity about the complexities of another person, and I’d get bored as soon as I figured them out.
When I expounded on my definition of advanced love with predictive ability, the lover listed above expressed dissatisfaction because one might be able to very effectively predict an enemy’s actions simply through getting to know them sufficiently well because of a number of forced and unpleasant interactions (the advantage of a poly blog: you get multiple opinions and can choose your own adventure). One can in fact be intimately aware of someone’s thoughts, actions, and opinions in the complete absence of love (does a correct prediction result in the same burst of joy in that case?). I accede my lover’s point; knowing someone well is not sufficient to love them. And unless I’m willing to admit my own poor talent at love, I’d also point out that it’s not necessary. It’s just a lot of fun.
Something that strikes me in my definition of love is that there is no mention of need. Sure, there’s desire. And longing in their absence, which happens a lot as I’ve never seen all four of them at the same time. But I don’t get the same feeling of nonfunctional desperation that’s so common in fiction and art. That said, I am not happy about the prospect of any of them leaving me, even with a built-in support network of the other ones. I’m polysaturated, and happy about it.
*****
Questions, comments, or concerns? Try me! I’m polysaturated@rocketmail.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment