Choose your own meta-lover

Girlthing: Would you prefer your meta-lover to be just like you, or a complete opposite?

Me: (pause)

Me: (pause)

Me: (pause, scrunching face) I have no idea!


*****

What makes one feel secure about a lover’s choice in other lover?  What has the opposite effect?

As always, it depends on the people involved.

An ex of mine ended up marrying someone who looked almost exactly like me.  The new version of me was a bit shorter, a bit wider, and had ears that stuck out a bit more, but the physical resemblance was clear.  Nothing could have made me feel more secure (if I were aiming for “security” in a relationship with an ex).  The message I got was that he was aiming, physically, for something like me, and I didn’t even have to be ideal in conventional attractiveness for him to appreciate my features.

Still, we broke up and never saw each other again, quite happily.  So what happens if a current lover chooses someone exactly like you?

The assumption can be exactly the same: clearly, my lover goes for [insert salient feature here].  I have that in abundance.  Therefore, my lover is interested in me.

Or, the opposite can creep in: my lover isn’t getting enough of [insert salient feature here] and has to go else where to get more.  Or better.  Extra bonus points if the features of the lover seem better to the casual observer, or to the insecure lover.

My girlthing’s spouse has no interest in me.  Why would he?  He’d get a darker-haired, less flexible, less well-read person who doesn’t know him as well in his bed.  Bo-ring! 

Most of my boythings, on the other hand... let’s just say that have fantastic taste.  Does that make me insecure?  Well, no.  But that may be because I have the same crush.  And she seems to like me, too.

Having a lover reject someone who’s almost like you, but not quite good enough, is probably wonderful for security.  But there’s also the novelty factor: this person is a lot like you, maybe not quite as pleasing to me as you, but is new to me.  Novelty incites a lot of interest for a lot of people, and if you get to combine that sweet spot of novelty with a bit of familiarity, I might be willing to put up with a few less-than-ideal features to experience the adrenaline rush of novelty with someone who’s got some features I already know I like (because I’ve tested them). 

Then again, what happens to the new person when the novelty wears off?  Well, they’re either out on the street, or I discover new and wonderful features about them that make them work keeping around.  Honesty in intention might be the best way to spare feelings for the new person ("you are an experiment for me, and I may just want the experience once," can be refreshing to hear).

Then again, I seem to recall having flat out told my spouse that he’d never get into my pants, so I’m pretty wary of managing expectations.  Doing so has made me look like the fool.

So what happens if a lover takes on a new lover who’s the complete opposite of you?

On the one hand, it can be annoying.  You like that?  But that’s so far out of the realm of what I give you!  Are you going to prefer those other features, the ones that are opposite of mine, and dump me over it?

On the other hand, it can be refreshing.  Dan Savage is always going on about how freeing it is to have an outside kinky partner to fill needs not met in an otherwise perfect but fairly vanilla relationship with one kinky partner.  The same can apply more generally to any preferences.  Are you always dragging your lover off to a ball game?  Some people have friends to fill that need.  Some people have outside lovers.  I, personally, find it liberating to have guilt-free time to pursue my own goals while me lovers are off with someone else at a party whose theme or guest list I’m not into.

So in short, rather than try to predict beforehand (especially in a newly-open couple), I might suggest to try it and see.  The unruly pheromones of attraction are just as unpredictable in a meta-lover relationship as they are in a lover-to-lover one (admittedly, given the above, I may have less predictive ability of a new lover’s/friend’s long-term potential than most), and trying to pin them down to find the perfect meta-lover for your primary may very well lead to frustration and failure.  The key, as with anything in polyamory (or monogamy) is open and honest communication, preferably starting early on in the courtship process, listening with respect and tolerance, and a willingness to consider creative solutions.

*****

Questions, comments, or insights?  I’m here for you.  Try me at polysaturated@rocketmail.com.

Teachers & Students

There are two types of people in this world (as there often are, depending on what axis we’re talking about): teachers, and students.

I’m a student.  By the time I learn something, I’m so stupefied by its obviousness that I usually try to gloss over the fact that I didn’t know it (for an example of such a topic, see last week’s post).  There’s a ton of stuff that I don’t know, and that I’m trying to find out.  My favorite way to engage new people is really to ask a lot of questions.

Teachers--those people who derive joy out of lecturing me on topics they may or may not know anything about (to be fair, they may have just learned about them themselves)--therefore can really enrich my life.  All I have to do is listen attentively.  They feel appreciated, and I get some new information.  Or at worst, I get to daydream while they tell me something I already know, and they still feel appreciated.  It might have something to do with how my favorite activities with a lover are whatever makes me feel like they’re showing off (with the added bonus that they’re usually gorgeous when they’re doing something that both takes talent and makes them entirely comfortable).  As with a dom-sub dynamic, there’s something extremely complementary about the teacher-student one.  Extra bonus points if both parties switch occasionally.

There are a couple of times when teachers don’t work with me.  Most importantly, it’s when they’re downright wrong.  This often happens when they’re trying to teach me about something they just learned, and I happen to know a lot about (in fact, it was a particularly ignorant podcast about polyamory, by a poly couple that doesn’t even have outside partners to contend with that got me into blogging in the first place).  Sometimes, it’s amusing.  I can go off into daydream land again and trust that they will figure out the folly of their ways in their own way and on their own time as best they can, and I assume they’re just processing thoughts out loud the way extraverts do.  I’m generally pretty good about not saying, “I told you so,” unless I actually bothered to tell.  And depending on the personal dynamic, some teachers don’t like to be told (this, as well, can be either amusing or infuriating, depending on how important the topic is to me).

It was deadly on a recent job interview, though.  I’m pretty loudmouthed (overeducated extravert alert), and when two people in my office encouraged me to pipe up with my opinions about the office to a job candidate on an interview with us, I was surprised to find I was reluctant.  Then I realized what was up: the candidate was telling us how we do our jobs.  And she was wrong!  And she was very loud about it.  I suppose I could have stepped up and corrected the misassertions, but why bother?  It would have involved interrupting her, which is impolite.  Plus, all evidence pointed to the idea that she would have a hard time working in a group of which she wasn’t unilaterally in charge.  She didn’t do the appropriate homework, and she expressed a complete lack of curiosity about what might actually be going on in the office or about what anybody else had to say.  Incidentally, she’s a former professional teacher.

That said, I’d bet she was very effective at leading whatever group she ended up in charge of.

Happily, I’m not in charge of most teachers’ employment prospects, and the worst they can do for themselves is convince me not to hang around them.  This has happened both when I’ve gotten very insistent misinformation (look, do you want me to look it up on the iPhone so I can show you and kill the party, or can you be the big guy who admits that he doesn’t know the answer and I do?), and with the very obvious running commentary of someone’s thought processes.  “Look!  They’re wearing gloves.  They must be working with something dangerous!”

Um, yes, most likely.  Or they’re working with something regulated, or they’re running a demonstration of proper handling procedures on something completely innocuous, or they don’t want to contaminate a system with their own cooties.  Or any number of possibilities that didn’t pop up in my head in the first 3 seconds.

Understanding the common academic assumption that there are no stupid questions, it’s unkind of me to not want to be taught something I think is obvious (after all, how does one know what actually is obvious to someone outside their own head?).  But that preference still makes me reluctant to broadcast my newfound and inexpert knowledge on someone who didn’t ask for it.  Sounds a bit like the difference between extraversion and introversion, but I’d argue there’s something different happening (I am, after all, an extravert and a student, by my definition).  Extraverts and introverts process information differently after they’ve gathered it.  I’m thinking teachers and students have different preferences for disseminating vs. gathering information.

Many teachers--the ones I particularly like--seem to want to know everything and assume everyone else does, too, so they’re happy to be told the obvious from someone else’s perspective and are willing to risk boring someone to impart information.  Other teachers--often the ones who frustrate me--really like the sound of their own voice, and if there’s nothing interesting in their heads, they’ll settle for something boring rather than listen to someone else.  So it sounds like the world of teachers can be divided into two types as well.

*****

Questions, comments, thoughts, or controversies?  I’m all ears.  Try me at polyaturated@rocketmail.com.

80%

Your operation should only be running at 80% capacity.  That’ll give you flexibility to respond to emergencies, or take opportunities.

*****

This one was not told to me by a lover, but by a businessperson giving a seminar.  As with many things in my life, I find it applies to polyamory in addition to its intended topic.  And to monogamy, while we’re at it.  At any rate, it floored me, as do an alarmingly large number of simple and obvious ideas.

Aside from, “who gets to take you out for your birthday?” the big question people seem to have about those of us with multiple partners is, “ how do you have time for all that?”

The answer is: I don’t.

Or do I?  We always have time for what’s most important.  So maybe I choose not to spend my time in ways that normal people do (watching TV, for example).  Or maybe I multitask by trying to turn chores into a fun activity with a lover, since there’s always one or the other around (shopping works well for this, as I find that trustworthy lovers are efficient at getting me out of places where there’s nothing that fits my style).

The more general aspect of my life is that I don’t have time.  I didn’t when I was monogamous, either.  There was always something fun or useful to do with the spouse, or with a friend, or in my career, or in a hobby.  Not having time seems to have a lot more to do with an individual’s personality than with how many lovers they have.  It sounds to me like the excuse of not being able to afford something--in truth, what’s a priority gets our resources (time and money).  The idea that time and money are already budgeted elsewhere expresses that a certain activity/expenditure may not be worth reshuffling a system that works, when in fact, a new priority often can fit into a system by moving things around if that’s the goal.  So I felt like I didn’t have time for a new lover when all I had was a spouse.  And I felt like I didn’t have time for a new lover when all I had were three lovers.

That changed (thank goodness my girlthing is low-maintenance!).

So this idea of running your operation (in this case, the idea was a business, but I immediately mentally applied it to my schedule) at 80% capacity was a new one to me.  I’d always been running at 100% capacity--sometimes a bit more and with a willingness to get imperfect results in a few areas of my life (i.e. I can get by on 5 hours’ sleep and a bunch of coffee for one 24-hour period).  I felt like, if I were running on any less capacity, I wasn’t getting all I could out of life.  I wouldn’t be making as much money as I could.  Or building as many skills.  Or having as many/varied experiences.

In truth, though, while living in that model, every little surprise floored me.  A 15-minute telephone call would put me 15 minutes behind schedule, so I’d be 15 minutes late to everything else for the rest of the day and go to bed 15 minutes late.  That would mean waking up crabby (or not even waking up on time!  I’d be crabby for being late to everything else that day) or skipping the a.m. workout (which, endorphin junkie that I am, would make me crabby, too).  The President has a schedule that tight, and he’s got a lot of grey hairs these days.

In truth, living with that kind of structure was bad for relationships.  It would cause a great deal of stress to run into a friend on the street, because the inevitable, “let’s get together for dinner” would invariably engender the embarrassing answer of, “I’m free in 3 weeks.”  Until the answer became, “there’s nothing on my schedule on a Tuesday night 6 weeks from now, but then I’m booked until October.”  I spent my sick days on the phone canceling appointments (come to think of it, I’m surprised there weren’t more sick days with this kind of schedule going on...), which was also not exactly relaxing.  And the normal, everyday stress of having a little fight with the spouse turned into an exhausting, sleep-depriving ordeal (note: I do know some couples who schedule their fights, to good effect.  I’m working on having that kind of patience).

So maybe living at 80% would give me the flexibility to take opportunities for dinner dates, not floor me when I’ve got a surprise fight or phone call, and give me the time to rest and prevent those sick days.  I’m not there yet, but the concept sounds nice.  And awareness of the problem certainly helps in solving it.  In asking for a lover’s help in solving this dilemma, I was told, “no problem.  Give me 45 minutes, your calendar, and a phone.”  I periodically edit my schedule the way normal people edit their closets. 

It’s true, it’s not comfortable editing people out of regular social circulation.  I canceled plans with a tangential friend with what I thought was a very good excuse, “I’m moving and need to focus.”  What I didn’t realize is that he thought I was moving imminently and needed to focus on packing.  I thought (correctly) that I was moving in 6 months and needed to focus on my best friends.  That realization caused a lot of hurt when we ran into each other several months later, and I had not even started packing.

Good friends of mine like to suggest weekly appointments with me.  The weekly fun times are great, but unless I double-schedule, that leaves me a budget of 7 friends in my life (assuming I don’t need any alone time, which is debatable).  If 4 of those slots are taken up with lovers, and especially with lovers I’d happily see way more frequently than once per week, it turns weekly social engagements, which are supposedly a treat, into obligations (note to my lovers with whom I have weekly dates: this does not apply to you.  There’s, perhaps sadly, a big emotional difference between lovers and mere good friends).  I now know that about myself well enough to explain to those who suggest a Wednesday-night coffee date, but I get funny looks when trying to explain that I sometimes like to go dancing on Wednesday night instead.

Maybe it's easier to just say no at the outset.

*****

Question or comment?  I've got plenty of time to research.  Try me at polysaturated@rocketmail.com.

Companions and Competition

Secondary: I want to go on a date with you in New York.

Me: Why would you want to do that?  Your idea of vacation is camping.

Secondary: But you went with your spouse.  And with your non-spousal primary.  And you had fun both times.

Me: There’s no reason for you to be either of them.

Secondary: True, but I can incorporate their talents into my own behavior.

*****

Non-spousal primary (complaining, tounge-in cheek): Poly watched the movie, the one I got her excited about, with her spouse and not with me.

Monogamous friend (also tonge-in-cheek): See?  That’s the trouble with polyamory.  You can’t do everything with everyone.  And then tempers flare.

Me: Hey!  I’d watch that movie twice!

*****

I have a favorite thing to do with lovers, and it’s the same thing with every one of them: whatever they really enjoy doing. 

Many of the people I’ve heard described as good lovers are reaction junkies, meaning they get pleasure out of making their lover happy.  Doesn’t matter what they’re doing, as long as their partner is having a good time, they’re having fun.  Same applies to fun times out of bed.

People seem to enjoy doing what they’re good at.  And I enjoy watching my lovers show off.  When they’re in flow, when they’re doing something they’re really comfortable with, their faces look relaxed and happy.  Their bodies move in easy, aesthetically pleasing ways.  If it’s an activity that requires a bit of skill, I’m perfectly happy lacking the skill, being on the very steep end of the learning curve, learning something about my lover, and landing flat on my behind if it’s a skill requiring balance or motion, as long as I get to watch my lover show off, have a good time, and maybe teach me a thing or two.

I’ve historically claimed to hate horror movies.  In truth, I had no experience with them beyond the age of 7, and knowing my declared distaste, my spouse never asked me to watch one with him.  And then comes a new lover into my life (who eventually works up to non-spousal primary status), who, knowing none of this, drags me off to the theater to see a new horror show.  Turns out, it was good.  By going with someone knowledgeable in the subject, I ended up only seeing the high quality shows rather than getting stuck doing research on my own, with no basis for comparison.  And he was able to talk about the new movie in an interesting historical context. Turns out, there’s a particular mindset that makes the experience fun, and I got to experience that mindset in the seat next to me.

So do I like horror films?  Not at 7 with my parents.  But with someone who can really augment the experience, they’re fantastic!

So when my non-spousal primary got excited about a new film, I was pretty sure it was going to be good.  And if my spouse is going to share me with other lovers, he might as well get the benefit of my resulting broader experience.  So yes, I went to see my lover’s recommendation with my spouse.  And it turns out I had a great time with my spouse, too.

So did my non-spousal primary get the stiff, for not getting to see a movie as a fresh experience with me, after he did all of the legwork to get me interested in the genre?  Yeah, well.  I never claimed polyamory is perfect.  But most experience depends so greatly on the company, that I really am happy to see it twice!

On the other hand, if the quality of the experience depends on the company, sometimes I’ll very happily do something with one set of people, and not with another.  So yes, I love New York.  If I’m with someone who thrives off of crowds and loud energy, I’m going to have a glorious time.  If I’m there on a Friday night with someone who’s sensitive to the smell of trash day, I’m going to get a lot less out of it.

And I love camping, if it’s with someone who’s told me what to pack and knows the way to the beautiful, secluded sites.  If it’s with someone who likes a shower before bed (or sleep in a bed, for that matter), it’s a lot less fun.

So in an ideal world, polyamory can help expand horizons to build skills and broaden experience.  It can also allow one party in a relationship to bug out of unpleasant experiences guilt-free, if their partner can find someone else to accompany them instead.  On the other extreme, it can lead to competition and hurt feelings (as can any number of monogamous activities).

Oh, wait--when my lovers compete, I win.

*******

Questions or comments?  I've got opinions!  Try me at polysaturated@rocketmail.com.