Question: How do you poly people have time for all your lovers?
Answer: As with anything, we prioritize. Only the importantthings 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.
Answer: As with anything, we prioritize. Only the important
*****
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.
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