Anti-Lonely Hotel Rooms

So what else are lovers good for?

It’s nice to have multiple choices of people to bail you out of trouble at inconvenient times.

As sometimes happens, I missed one of my two connections while I was flying home from an exotic location.  The location was remote enough that my blackberry only worked for texting, not phone access.  I needed to text someone and get them to call the airline so they can rebook me on a new flight (the location is also exotic enough that the airline doesn’t actually have a counter at the airport).

First, the most obvious option, and the one everybody else uses: the spouse.  I send the spouse a text.  Ten minutes later, no response.

OK, next try the one who’s uber-competent at getting results he wants at ticketing agencies and who always loves to help: the non-spousal primary.  Still, no response.  To be fair, I’m no longer willing to wait 10 minutes.  Also, I’m in a cab at this point trying to get to a hotel, so there’s no internet available.  I know there’s no way I’m getting out of town that night.

The secondary is always asleep at that time, but might as well try him anyway (miracles happen), and I’ve never asked the girlthing for anything this serious, but you’ve got to start sometime, so I ping her, too.  Still awaiting responses.

Who else do people find in emergencies?  The parents can’t even open their old flip-phone, much less figure out that they’ve got a text message waiting (do they even have that service?).  The siblings have youngsters crawling all over them and therefore don’t do well waiting on hold, but I might as well ask anyway...

Mid-thought, the girlthing pings me back.  Lovers’ network to the rescue!  I explain the situation, and she happily calls the airline, who sends her to the travel agency, who sends her to the travel agency’s emergency after-hours number.  Luckily for me, it’s a rare moment of lethargy for her, and she has nothing better to do than sit on the couch and wait on hold.  She sends updates and questions.  I send answers.  I express empathy that she’s on the couch, on the phone, and on hold.  She points out it gives her a good chance to write up one of her recent fantastic sexual experiences.  I get curious.

The spouse is still nowhere to be found.  I hope he eventually gets the message that I’m not going to make it to our appointed pick-up time.

Then the non-spousal primary pings me back.  Might he be helpful?  Maybe, but I’ve already got one of you on the phone on my behalf.  Please hold in case of failure, and then we may have to make use of advanced persuasion skills to get me home.  He keeps me entertained by periodically updating me on what’s going on, and asking for status updates (there are none).  The girlthing waits patiently, listening to Muzak.

This is the anti-lonely travel experience.  I’m alone in a hotel room in a country where I know nobody, don’t speak the language, and with no real hope of getting home soon.  But I’ve got one person working hard on my behalf, and one person just entertaining me.  I have nothing to do but wait and listen.  And I do get to listen, with supportive lovers checking in frequently.  I’m sleepy, and nothing looks like it’s going to get solved soon.  However, there’s coffee in my carry-on (my original location was one of those places with exquisite locally-grown coffee), and a bona-fide coffee maker in my hotel room, so I might as well test out the treats I got myself.  Sleepiness subsides, and drug-induced happiness sets in.

The spouse is still nowhere to be found.

The Muzak has changed!  I get the update that the travel agent is talking to yet another person at a different department, and so there’s new hope of success.

There’s a bathtub in my anti-lonely hotel room, and I smell like I’ve been in the same set of clothes for three days (I haven’t, but I was not privy to air conditioning for a while before my flight).  Might as well draw myself a bath while drinking ridiculously delicious coffee and reading updates on the one mobile device of mine that works.  Life is good.  And comfortable.

And then... triumph is ours!  I’ve been promised a flight out about 24 hours after my original one.  With imminent bedtime, a late check-out, an unexpected day to explore a new location, and a ticket home, all is right with the world.

And *then* the girlthing sends me her write-up of her most recent new sexy experience.  She has of coursed finished and polished the document a few times over while on hold, and she sends it to me in celebration of successful airline-ticketing.  I read it.  And I get hot.  And my eyes bug out of my head.  And then other stuff happens before said imminent bedtime. 

“Good night, Princess!” the final update reads.

And I fall asleep feeling well cared for.

And still, the spouse is nowhere to be found.

*****

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

High-Quality People

Question: How do you poly people have time for all your lovers?

Answer: As with anything, we prioritize.  Only the important things people get done.

*****

Most poly-love advice is the same as mono-love advice, only with higher stakes because more people are involved in the consequences (drama) of failure, and therefore you get more noise.  You also get more total fun results from successes.  But one thing I’ve noticed about poly-people that doesn’t apply to my monogamous friends: we poly folks only hang out with extremely high quality people.  There’s just not enough time in the world for mediocrity.

Miss Manners has a lot of rules of behavior, and most of them make sense (for a complete list of her rules, check Miss Manners’ Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior).  One of the more notable ones is that if a couple is invited to an event, both members either have to accept the invitation, or they both reject it (after all, how is one to know which of the two people the host[ess] actually wants there, and who is only along for the ride?).  I always hate to disagree with Miss Manners, but that social mandate seems a bit impractical to people who are members of more than one couple.

In my experience, people with multiple romantic partners don’t tie themselves to that couples’ expectation of socializing (though Dan Savage will point out the concept of social monogamy, where it looks to the outside world that you're only sleeping with one person).  The opportunity cost of going to a mediocre social event is much higher when the potential missed opportunities include quality time with a different lover rather than just another chance at Cave Night (which is, incidentally, pretty compelling itself to those who date often).  Instead, each member of the couple decides for themselves what they want to do based on what are likely multiple potential posibilities.

Friends of the newly-coupled often complain that they never see the person in question any more, because they’re always spending time with their partner at the expense of other friends (and of course, when the friends wait for the puppy-love stage to wear off, they see each other again, just perhaps with a lover in tow).  If the “newly-coupled” is part of a polyweb instead of a singular couple, the effect can be that much more pronounced, as they have multiple people with whom to spend quality private time.  So what happens?

When someone has multiple compelling options with whom to spend their time, they only spend time with the top-priority people.  That’s not to say we never hang out with our non-sexy friends.  In fact, it seems that people with a lot of lovers have a lot of friends that they maintain, too.  It’s just that the barrier to entry for taking up time (which is the limited resource, unlike affection, in theory) becomes high when one is surrounded by high-quality people of one’s choice.  The same may or may not be true for becoming the lover of someone who’s already polysaturated, but that’s a different story.

When I was monogamous, the thing I noticed about my poly friends was that they were inconsistent about who they brought with them to social events.  And I found that annoying.  Goodness, it’s hard enough for me to remember the name of the spouse of one of my friends, but to remember the names of multiple spousal equivalents who keep showing up and starting to look alike after a while put a tremendous social burden on me.  I was also curious how they decided who went to which event.  Turns out that’s a pretty easy decision to make if everybody has access to Google Calendar, goes to the events they want to attend, and skips the ones they don’t.

My spouse and I have found that when we only spend the time together that we want, we are extremely happy to spend time with each other.  If there’s no social obligation to accompany each other to events, there’s no owing each other social favors/back rubs, or taking one for the team.  If each of us stands on our own independent two feet to decide how we want to spend our time, it turns out that we often choose to spend our time together, doing something we both enjoy.  And then we really enjoy it rather than having someone wish they were elsewhere.

We go one step further in this process: we might choose to have separate transportation options for the same social event.  That way, we’re still doing exactly what it is we want at the time we want to do it.  It takes me, the extraverted morning person, about two hours to finish working the room at a party, and then it’s time for me to go to sleep.  By that point, my more introverted night-owl spouse might or might not have talked to enough people to figure out who he wants to engage with one-on-one all night.  I go home when I’m ready, and he doesn’t feel like I’ve dragged him away before his time.

Turns out there aren’t very many social consequences to skipping the party of the year (nobody remembers who was there anyway, if it was a good enough party, and you end up hearing the stories often enough you could tell them yourself if you want to fake it), or failing to make an appearance at a corporate event, or continually failing to find time to hang out with that mildly annoying neighbor.  The irritating meta-lover is not going to miss you if you’re gone.  Or maybe there are social consequences, but nobody bothered to tell me.  I’m just too busy choosing exactly the company I want to really notice.

*****

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

Honesty and Fantasy

The #1 trick to open relationships (and all relationships), according to all the published sources: open and honest communication.
One of many, many complaints from Miss Manners in her Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior: there’s a paucity of married couples in this world who don’t want complete honesty.

*****

I’m a little sad to admit it, but: love is based on fiction.

OK, so that’s not entirely true.  I’ve never told someone I loved them and didn’t mean it, even if I mean different things when I say it to different people (interestingly, I have told people in the past that I loved them and can honestly not remember that feeling now, but I’m certain I did then.  Different blog post about the tricks of memory later).  And I love all those people I love for very concrete reasons, some of which I can articulate, and some of which I can’t.  The emotional connection is no less real if I have a hard time expressing it in words.

But I’m finding myself agreeing a bit with Miss Manners here.  Love, that love that makes you blissful, involves a bit of fantasy.  Or at least a bit of holding back the complete truth.

Maybe there’s more fantasy involved in monogamous love than the polyamorous (I’ve never been interested in anyone but you.  Translation: I’ve been interested in other people, but not to the point of bothering you, or not to the point of risking the discomfort of rejection to pursue it when I’m so comfortable/happy/satisfied with you).  But I think polyamorous love can benefit from a bit of fantasy kindness as well.

When does one insist on complete, open, and honest communication, and when does one let something slide?

As a starting point here are my rules:

1. If you know your lover already understands a negative message and they’re doing something about it, quit expressing it.  So they’ve got a bit of a paunch and have started a new diet/exercise program to get rid of it.  You can measure every day and pass judgement, good or bad (quote from my infinitely wise non-spousal primary: tying love to performance is a recipe for lifelong anxiety), or you can just support their efforts even during the inevitable backslide.  Once your lover understands there’s a problem and has a process in place to fix it, any verbal reference to the problem is going to shift that to the front of their attention and make it seem insurmountable, or just remind them of it and pull a dark cloud over their heads.  And then you get to deal with the aftermath, which has never been in my best interest.  Depending on their strength of character, they’re either going to keep working full speed ahead while they’re in a bad mood, or give up.  Either way, repeated harping is no source of motivation.  If it’s an annoying habit they have that you would both like to get rid of, I find a light physical touch helpful right when it happens.  A good lover can tell the meaning of what you’re saying there, without hurtful words or the rest of the world knowing what’s going on between you.
2. If it’s going to hurt their feelings and they can’t do anything about it, keep it to yourself.  What if it’s something your lover has no control over?  A medical condition that bothers you, or an aspect of your personality or behavior that bothers them?  Once again, if both of you already get the message, there’s little benefit in rehashing it.  What are they supposed to do about the fact that them being on chemo is hard for you?  Either hire extra help or push through or come up with a creative solution for yourself--they’ve got bigger problems than that, and a kind lover will spare them the additional mental burden.  Or what can they do about disliking someone of whom you’re fond?  You can be sensitive and keep them separated, or you can be a jerk and rub it in their faces.  No amount of expressing your love for someone they dislike is going to endear them to each other, or particularly endear them to you.  If one of these things becomes a dealbreaker, though, skip to Rule #4.
3. If you as a couple/triad/loving unit need some tough feedback and somebody freaks out about receiving it, give them the feedback anyway (usually).  Negative feedback is tough to take, and we all get it from time to time.  If the consequence is that the recipient freaks out, try a kinder or softer tack next time (but stop to think if Rule #1 applies first).  Often it’s worth it to keep giving the message (unless they ask you to stop--I have a safeword for mental pain as well as physical, and it turns out I use the mental safeword more often).  Sometimes the freakout is temporary, or just their way to process the information.  Then your lover gets themselves through the negative reaction to make the requested improvements, and you’re back to Rule #1.  Sometimes the freakout seems permanent, and then you’ve got a decision on your hands.  Does the problem occur with all feedback with no subsequent change in behavior such that you take what you get in the relationship and it becomes a done deal as is?  If so, is that the exact relationship you want for the time being?  You might as well keep giving feedback to see if your lover ever gets the message, as people may get desensitized when they realize negative feedback doesn’t come with withdrawal of love (I only suggest this if you’re willing to risk losing the relationship, as there’s the very real possibility that they’ll never get that message, and one of you is going to snap).  Or is that just a topic that’s a trigger point, and you’re back to Rule #2?
4. If there’s a dealbreaker afoot, tell them so they can decide what to do based on their own priorities.  My secondary suggested this rule based on my lovers’ general surprise if and when I dump them, and I like it so much I request it of everybody.  There are many, many things that I value in life.  Some of them are my lovers, and some of them are aspects of my personality.  If an aspect of my personality is a dealbreaker for one of my lovers, I’d like to know.  That way, I can make an attempt to change something, or at least make an honest assessment of what I value most in my life.  It’s just kind; if I get dumped, it’s with my own permission based on something I’m unwilling to change.  The big problem I have about cheating in seemingly monogamous relationships is that it robs the person cheated on of information that they could use to make their own autonomous decisions.
5. Tell them the first time something goes wrong, so they can fix it before it becomes a habit.  Here’s an embarrassingly common conversation: “That’s never bothered you before!”  Pause.  “Well, it did, but I just didn’t tell you before.”  Realizing that your behavior made it to a tipping point beyond what someone could tolerate isn’t fun.  Getting the information early--preferably the first time a behavior happens--turns it into a quirk of about your lover rather than a problem or a perceived flaw in yourself.  Even an established lover can seem new and exciting in light of new information, and that can mitigate the negativity of what might otherwise be a complaint.  Plus, just as getting a heads up about a dealbreaker, getting information about an annoying habit early on makes one feel like they’re in control of the decisions about their behavior.  Maybe I wouldn't try this on the first date, though.
6. Don’t make a complaint about someone you aren’t willing to make to their faces.  Lovers are loyal like older siblings; we may complain about their quirks, but as soon as someone else makes the same complaint, we’re fiercely protective.  It doesn’t feel good to hear complaints about a lover, and I try to only complaints to a lover about my meta-lover if I’m requesting help in effecting a change in my relationship with a meta-lover (keep in mind--change takes two, and it's not fair to ask the change to be all through them).  By help, I mean either using my lover as a mediator between myself and my meta-lover, or feedback on how to best get a message across to them (after all, they know their own lovers’ triggers and personalities better than I do).  I don’t mean I won’t make a complaint that I don’t want to make to my meta-lover’s face myself; sometimes, I’m trying to recruit my lover to give the message, and that counts to me as making a complaint to someone’s face.  Still, I’m careful with that option.  There’s a subtle difference between asking a lover to do dirty work for you, or trying to turn your lover against your meta-lover, and honestly trying to find the kindest way to give a tough message.

There’s certainly some ambiguity about which rules apply to which situations, and the rules can apply differently to a situation as time passes.  And as with any rules, these are just some suggestions of mine based on what works for me.  There are at least as many sets of relationship rules as there are relationships, although many times the implicit rules are assumed rather than communicated.

In which case, a bit of open and honest communication works well to complement the fantasy.

*****

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

Your Girlfriend is Hot

Me: Hey!  Your girlfriend is hot.

The other guy (blush): Yeah.  I know.

*****

I was really careful when giving that message.  I waited until the guy’s girlfriend (the guy looked pretty good, too) had gone to her bathroom, and my spouse had gone to his.  You can’t tell someone she’s hot to her face--that’s harassment.  And you can’t bring your significant other along for the reveal, or else the recipient will get creeped out thinking you’re looking for a couple swap or a threesome (which, incidentally, are fun rather than creepy, if done correctly).  And you definitely can’t be a guy if you’re giving that message, because that’s threatening.  You can’t express to a guy that he’s hot, or he may get confused and think you want to sleep with him, especially if he’s sleep deprived.  And guys who erroneously think someone wants to sleep with them may take more effort to convince otherwise than they’re worth.

So in a well engineered social situation where none of the above goes wrong, what’s even the benefit of expressing appreciation for an unknown person’s aesthetics?

First, it’s unexpected.  Similar things have happened with my and my spouse (here I’m thinking of the passing high-five he got from a random guy on the street when we were walking arm in arm), but never from a woman.  Unexpected things make people think.  In this case, think and appreciate.  Anything you’re used to becomes the status quo, and people get used to their long-term, committed relationships.  Their primary partners become a stand-in representation of the rest of humanity, not out of lack of thoughtfulness or awareness, or even taking their partner for granted, but just out of habit.  So a bit of external validation (hey--what you worked hard to establish and maintain has some perks that are visible to the outside world) reminds them that they’re with someone obviously special.

Plus, its positive feedback.  Guys work hard to find (and if they’re smart, maintain) relationships, especially relationships with attractive people.  The attractive ones are bombarded with attention, and it’s particularly hard to get on their radars as a partner.

And finally, I correctly guessed it would infuse him/them with energy.  All four of us walked out of the establishment at more or less the same time.  With neither my spouse nor the girlfriend knowing what went on, all they could tell was that he was in a good mood.  A really good mood.  One that involved giggling, and doting on her. She seemed to enjoy herself.

Just as, when thoughtfully invited and maintained, outside partners can really spice up an established couple’s sex life, some flirtatious outside attention can infuse a partnership with novel energy.  Novel experiences give couples that exciting feeling of being in crush, even without the emotionally gut-wrenching uncertainty of putting up with your lover crushing out on someone else.

My guess is that they had a fantastic time that night.

*****

Questions, comments, or stories?  I've got time for you.  Try me at polysaturated@rocketmail.com.

Extraverts are people, too

Me: My spouse is out, my lovers are all busy, and I’ve got three hours all to myself!  I’m ecstatic!  I can do so much with that time!  And I’m enough of an extravert that I had to announce that.

Meta-lover: You’re silly.

Me (grumbling silently at being misunderstood): No!  I’m dead serious!  And I chose to tell you because you’d leave me alone after this!

*****
After seriously questioning whether my secondary even likes me (a question I developed because I found him evading me when I sought him out, and not particularly interested in engaging me in the first place), I got sent a protocol on care and feeding of introverts.  Common sense, mostly, but it’s nice to be reminded in words how not all people think the same way I do.

Funny how I forget that.  I’m well aware that I’m polyamorous in a world full of monogamous people, many of them militantly so, to the point where they feel the right to comment about the immorality of my lifestyle choices (I’m considering arming myself with a 30-second elevator speech about how all of my lovers have made me a better person, and perhaps that makes up for the “immorality” of what happens underneath my pants when they’re not looking and can’t really get the effects anyway).  So hiding that is second nature. But there’s something lazy about my thought process, where the things that are unusual about me are so ingrained in my personality and life that I have to expend effort to remember that not all people share the same biases that I do.

I’m not the only one to feel this way.  I know, because my mother hands everyone in the room a glass of water as soon as she’s thirsty.  I usually end up just looking at it.  Life is better when I can effectively respond to people who aren’t exactly like me.

I’m a pretty extreme extravert.  Most people are extraverted, just not to the extent that I am.  And extraversion comes with its own set of social handicaps, including that I simply can’t evaluate a thought before I express it (I know this is hard for most of you to imagine).  The result is that I say a lot of stupid things, in public, that I backtrack immediately.  Or after someone else gives me input that I hadn’t considered because my brain was full of that stupid thought it was trying to get out to the world so I could get convinced of its stupidity and move on (funny how I can evaluate other people’s thoughts without expressing them...).  Or worse, after a little while.  So it seems like I change my mind a lot (I do, but I eventually settle into a well-thought-out and arguable stance, so my protocol eventually works).

Extraverts talk so much that the rest of the world generally seems to know what’s going on in their heads (don’t know what’s going on in an extravert’s head?  You aren’t listening.  Don’t know what’s going on in an introvert’s head?  You haven’t asked.  Or waited for the answer).  But we still have a slightly unusual and perhaps irrational way of interacting with the world, and so I was going to write up a how-to-deal-with-your-extravert protocol.  But it appears I was beaten to it.  My girlthing sent me this writeup, which is fairly accurate, if a bit whiny (though I’m admittedly also guilty as charged).  So no point in rehashing what’s already published.

The thing I’d really like to emphasize is that I feel like my extraversion prevents me from ever getting any work done (hence my excitement about having 3 hours or so off from people).  It’s a horrible Catch-22; without people around, I have no energy to do anything.  With people around, I’m so busy thinking that I can’t actually do anything.  Sigh.  I hope and pray for boring people to sit next to me on public transportation, so I can get some reading done instead of chatting them up.  How in the world can I be productive?

Clearly, the answer is partner work.

Here’s an odd side note: people with more of a tendency toward extraversion than I have annoy me greatly.  I’m hoping that it’s only a simple fight between my extreme need to express myself before I can really think--so listening to them prevents my own thought processes--and not the alternate hypothesis.  I’m dreading having to evaluate the hypothesis that yet a third social handicap on my part is that extraversion makes me annoy everyone who’s lower on the scale than I am.

*****

Questions, comments, or blog posts I should link to?  Try me!  I’ll evaluate them, even if I have to do it out loud: polysaturated@rocketmail.com.