Poly breakups

Some random guy I’d never met before: See?  Poly doesn’t work!  You’re splitting up!

My poly mentor: What an interesting perspective.  My ex and I have been married since before you were with your first wife.  Now you’re on your third.  So you’re telling me monogamy works better?

Random guy: (blush)

*****

Yes, openness can break marriages.  As can monogamy.  It depends on the context in which they’re applied, and on whom.

In this case, though, the openness seems to have had little to do with the breakup, except perhaps to postpone it or make the process a bit easier.  The breakup happened the way any breakup would, especially of a long-term committed couple: they started to realize they were not seeing eye to eye, and they no longer felt like their goals matched.  They felt the best thing to do was to go and live their lives according to their own personal wishes, rather than stay together in arbitrary habits.  They’re still good friends, quite possibly inappropriate friends.  And why not?  They clearly liked each other for some things.

Couples who discover a deal-breaker incompatibility break up.  Even open couples.  A fair number of my compatriots in open relationships are in the process of breaking up right now, and I’m noticing some common themes.

1. If they have another lover while they’re breaking up with one, the devastation factor seems to diminish.  Sure, they’ve lost an aspect of a relationship with someone they care for.  But they haven’t lost their only source of care and support.
2. If they have another lover while they’re breaking up with one, the other lover may be heading out the door, too.  I’m noticing an uncanny tendency for multiple breakups to happen to the same person at one time.  When it rains, it pours (if scenario #2  is applicable, scenario #1 is less so).
3. Breakups within open couples seem more amicable or less contentious than monogamous ones.  It might be the habit of open and honest communication, or the advanced jealousy-mitigating emotional skills.  Or it might have something to do with the strong emotional support network listed in Scenario 1.
4. Just because there may (or may not) be a lover who stays doesn’t mean the breakup is emotionally seamless.
5. Outsiders seem to assume that the reason for the breakup in open relationships is the openness.  It can be; differences in relationship style preferences are an incompatibility just like any other, and there are a lot of different types of open relationships one might prefer.  But it isn’t necessarily the main source of contention.
6. Open people sometimes complain there’s a culture of not breaking up, of trying to stay connected even after a connection is stretched or severed.  Sometimes simply scaling back to a level of involvement that correlates with diminished interest works well.  And sometimes, maintaining any level of involvement seems artificial.

My heartfelt empathy to those of you in transition right now.  May the Force be with you.

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

Motorcycles and Non-Monogamy

I have NRE, big time.  She’s big, and she’s blonde.  She’s got some experience, but she’s brand new to me.  And I’ve got a huge crush on her.

She’s my new motorcycle.

I was so happy the day I bought her, my spouse commented at our celebratory dinner, “we should get you a new motorcycle every day!”

I had a motorcycle already, and I was perfectly happy with it.  But the new one just fell in my lap, and I couldn’t resist.  I’d ridden it before--it belonged to a friend of mine, who showed off by letting me drive it.  And it was love at first sight, at least on my end.  When my friend decided to sell his motorcycle and remembered the great connection I had with her, he wisely called me first.  I pounced on the offer.

My new motorcycle purrs.  She’s responsive.  She feels good.  She looks good.  When I’m with her, heads turn.  She goes fast.  I can take her on freeways without her whining.  When we’re together, it feels like we were made for each other.  The thought of her infuses me with energy.  I can’t stop raving about her to unsuspecting and completely uninterested friends.

But after a day or two of riding my new motorcycle, I found myself returning to the old one.  The old one is small, so it can fit easily into creative parking spots.  And he shifts so smoothly.  His gas mileage is unheard of (75 mpg!).  Unless I’m going a long distance, I don’t need the highway speed.  We fit together, too, in different ways.  The old motorcycle is very forgiving of me.  I can start him uphill from second gear without him whining, which I’ve accidentally done an embarrassing number of times.

And a funny thing happened when I went back to my old motorcycle.  Once I knew how a motorcycle with a lot of power feels when I’m driving, I pushed my old motorcycle harder.  I realized he wasn’t whining at 55 mph, just adjusting some things to facilitate the ride (OK, I still haven’t successfully broken 60 on the old one).  I trusted his turns more.  And when he wasn’t responsive, I just gave him more attention to make sure I got what I wanted out of him.

I’m still deep in crush on my new motorcycle.  And I still can’t bring myself to part with my old one.  They’re both wonderful for different reasons.  In some situations, either one will do.  But in other situations, I really want to admire the unique strengths that one or the other has to offer.

I’m not sure I’m cut out for monogamy, even in private transportation.  Too bad neither of my motorcycles is up for a threesome yet.

*****

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

Avoiding Problems

Advice from a poly mentor: Open marriages are harder than monogamous ones.  But I think it’s worth the effort, because open marriages can be better.

*****

I’m noticing that I’m surrounded by people whose primary motivation seems to be avoiding problems.

I prefer to live my life in a way that balances maximizing utility while minimizing the consequences of problems.  As far as I’m concerned, problems can come and go as they please.

We’re all familiar with the economic concept of a good.  For the polar opposite, there’s also the economic concept of a bad.  In short, a bad (noun) is trash.  Something that you want to get rid of, or something that’s not worth the resources (time, space, money) required to maintain it.

Jealousy is a bad. 

At least it can be in excess, or in certain forms.  Many people in any variety of relationship models actively work to avoid jealousy.  Jealousy can be so unfortunate a feeling, that they’ll go to pretty big lengths, and possibly miss some good opportunities, to avoid it.

What if, instead, the goal were to minimize jealousy, or somehow deal with it?

What if someone got a large amount of utility out of a certain action (or interaction, person, or thing), and the consequences to their personal network might include jealousy, pain or discomfort?  Does it matter that the negative emotions for one person might be less intense than the positive emotions for another?

For me, it does.  I’d happily endure some temporary discomfort or uncertainty if I knew my partner was having a wonderful time.  After all, my partners share their happiness with me, and in my ideal relationship, their happiness rubs off on me.  So even on a selfish basis, it’s worth it to me to get a little discomfort for a lot of joy.

Plus, the absence of problems doesn’t mean things are going well.  In a tight, well-run system, problems are discovered, dealt with, and overcome, ideally with a result that makes future iterations of that problem even easier to deal with.  If I’m doing well, I can take emotional risks and quite possibly get very strong emotional rewards. 

In a poorly run system, it may be more important to avoid problems, as even simple problems have the potential to completely derail it.  That doesn’t sound like very much fun to me. 

What does sound like fun is having new experiences, learning how I react to them (and giving myself permission for the answer to be: poorly), learning how to react to or deal with them better, and becoming a stronger person who knows more things, has had more experiences, and is more able to provide value to society than I was before.

*****

Epilogue: the poly mentor mentioned above is going through a spousal separation right now.

*****

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

Happy Anniversary to Me!

One of my lovers (about a recent date): She’s not quite for me. 

(pause)

Yeah, I’d do her.

*****

Nobody’s perfect.  We’re all looking for whatever it is that we want.  And if we’re lucky, we can find what we’ll happily put up with.  What I can put up with changes with the circumstances.  There’s an inverse relationship between the discomfort I’m willing to put up with and the time I’m asked to spend on it.

Physical intimacy takes time and effort.  It also has a lot of potential benefits, for both physical and mental health.  As with any commodity, the less intimacy I have in my life, the lower the quality I will demand in order to choose to partake (I’ll eat convenience store junk when I’m on a road trip with many hours since my last meal).

Right now, there’s a large variety of intimacy in my life, so I can’t imagine who or what would inspire me to add to my variety.  But quantity counts, too.  Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and if I miss someone, I don’t care how full up I am on intimacy in general.  I’ll want to throw my experience in with the person I miss as soon as I see them again.

Balance the absence

Much as it ticks off feminists, The Game has a lot of compelling points about attraction (most notably: if you’re trying to attract someone, make sure you have something of value to offer.  One might be tempted to interpret that as money, and sure, some people go for obvious sugar.  But the idea is a lot more inclusive than that--any good experience can be a valuable offering).

Why wait three days after meeting someone to call them (at least in the dark ages when I was dating for the first time)?  They’ve had time to miss you, and they haven’t had time to forget about you.  Pickup artists (PUA’s) as described in The Game have names for what happens when you wait too long between interactions: blur and stale.  Initial interest wanes after the target has a chance to fill their life/time/attention with things that are Not You, and so they don’t return your calls.  It’s just because they’re busy with other things.  When I lose interest, it’s usually not with the active malice that 13-year-old girls seem to imagine of boys who ask for their phone number and never call.  I’m simply otherwise occupied, and some things or people slip out of my attention if they’re not actively maintained.

Absence makes room for substitutes

The last time I was in the mood for casual sex, every one of my lovers was out of town, and an inappropriate friend was in town.  I like this friend, quite a bit.  They’re not usually one of my priorities, but circumstances were such that I was free, and this was the best option I had available.  It was a pretty good option, too.  So I spent a mildly inappropriate evening with them that I might otherwise never have gotten around to.  If it had never happened, I still would have been quite happy.  As it was, I got some intimacy, some variety, and I was perfectly happy with lack of sustainability.  As far as I am aware, so were they.

The lover at the top of this post was on vacation.  None of their regular lovers were around.  And therefore, regardless of how the interaction went (assuming excruciating safety!), nothing was really taken away from the other lovers.  If what my lover was after was connection, and it’s both unlikely and inconvenient to find consummate love while away from home base, why demand perfection for a temporary interaction?

Third-party interests

At least, the other lovers don’t have anything to lose in theory.  In practice, we tend to judge values and act according to our peers (people tend to to eat according to how much their meal companions eat, and so overeaters--or, for example, athletes--tend to cluster together by managing social cues).  There’s a tendency to prefer high quality in meta-lovers, as we see them as peers (you like that person?  Does that mean I’m annoying, too?  -or- Can I get away with such sloppy behavior and you’ll still keep me, too?).  But then again, not all lovers are equal in affection.

Then there’s the monogamous ideal that one person can so completely fill another’s every need that they are not interested in anyone else.

In truth, for significant snippets of time, even that has happened to me.

*****

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

Pets and Poly

Metalover (about a new OKCupid date): I just want to keep her has a pet.

Me: What does that mean?

Metalover: I like to talk to her.  I’m not really attracted to her, but I’d sure like to snuggle up to her.

*******

There are many, many inappropriate things people can do together that don’t generally qualify as sex.  Some of them are a lot of fun.  Some of them are often considered precursors to sex.  How does one stop at a particular level of inappropriate behavior that might be seen as a precursor to sex, but that one wants to keep as a singular outcome?

There’s a lot of talk in the open/kinky community about the “culture of consent.”  If no sometimes means yes, and vice versa,  it’s hard to figure out just how much someone is into what’s happening vs. just going along for the ride or actively wanting to backtrack mid-activity.  It’s safest to refrain from a certain activity until getting clear and enthusiastic consent from their partner(s).

That sounds great in theory, but in practice, a lot of things can go wrong in the moment, including:

1. I’m enthusiastic, so you must be, too!
2. What do you mean you’re not that into me?
3. Oh, come on, just give it a try.  You might like it.
4. We’ve gone this far, why not keep going?
5. Whine, bitch, moan, complain.

One way to deal with that potential--and very common--issue of overstepped boundaries or consent in the moment is for people to play well within their boundaries so the consequences of overstepped expressed boundaries are not so severe as overstepped actual boundaries.

At its best, openness allows for different levels of play with different people.  Everyone gets their needs met and nobody depends on a singular person to fill those needs, so there’s no need for pressure.  But what’s the difference between pressure and encouragement to expand one’s horizons into activities that might be fun, and if not fun, never have to be experienced again?  The kind of pressure expressed in lines 1-5 only seem problematic to society if in the context of sex, rather than, say, going on a hike or some other means of expanding horizons.  I prefer to have partners I trust to go to the edge of what I’m comfortable with around them and not further.  As with most activities, going just to the edge of a comfort zone builds skills safely and efficiently.  It just seems hard for some people to believe that the edge with them may be different than what constitutes the edge with a different person.  Or that someone else's edge may be different from their own.

My secondary seems to have a good way to get around that, and it’s quite the opposite of reactions 1-5 above.  It gets him a lot of action.  He sets boundaries early on, either his own boundaries (I’d like to get in bed and snuggle with clothes on), and sometimes a partner’s boundaries (don’t let me kiss you!).  And then he sticks to them.  Even if his partner’s boundaries seem to move in the moment, his never do.

“Nope.  You said not to let you kiss me.  And I won’t.”  It drives them crazy.  And yet, it feels safe enough to allow them to come off their guard.  If they still feel like kissing well after the cuddle session is over, new rules can get negotiated for the next session.  And they’ll be darned sure to want a next session.  There’s no “what was I thinking?  Why did I do something so stupid?” moment.  All they remember is they want more.  And they come back for it.

Part of being open allows for culturally inappropriate behavior with friends.  The assumption of sex is there, and it sometimes happens.  But sometimes, it’s just nice to get an inappropriately long vertical clothing-on hug.

*******

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

Sex parties

I love the snack table at sex parties.  That is my favorite part!

-Sex Nerd Sandra, Episode 100, 1:32:56

*****

There’s a lot of stuff I didn’t know about sex parties.  Most notably, they’re not about sex.

OK, well, that’s not necessarily true.  From what I’ve seen and heard briefly, there can be a lot of getting naked and getting it on happening at a sex party, but that’s not necessarily the point.  The point is finding people and getting to know one another.  Or maybe, catching up with good old horizontal friends.

I recently went to “one of those parties” (as far as I know, nobody has a word for them, but it was a party for the open/kinky community, where people--couples exclusively, in this case--can find sex partners to play with later but not use them immediately for instant gratification).  It was fascinating.  So I’m writing up a brief review to try to parse out what I’ve learned.

How do you know the hosts?

How do you know the host(ess)?  A pretty innocuous question at a party, and this party was particularly nice because, knowing that everyone was there to scope out sex for one purpose or other, I got much better answers than the, “oh, we have a mutual friend” that I use as the stock answer when introducing my non-spousal primary (the truth--we met on an on-line dating site--is not for mixed company).

Answers ranged from, “I know this person, who knows this person, who introduced me to... [6 people later], who’s dating the host” to “my wife is an artist, and the hostess is an artist.  We usually go to art shows together.  But sometimes, we have sex.”  Nobody used, “I was a stranger come in off the street, heard about this party, and decided to invite myself,” which is how I met my secondary.  That would have been an awkward way to enter this party.

My answer to how I know the hosts?  “My spouse went on a date with the hostess about a year ago.  This is the first party we were able to schedule to come to.”

Managing expectations

The most notable answer to the question above: We met at a meetup group for polyamorous people and swingers.

“Oh,” I said.  “So in this group, there’s overlap between polyamory and swinging?  Often, the two seem mutually exclusive.”

“Yes, well, some people are into just one or the other.  We do both. I presume you’re mono?”

This gave me two great opportunities:

1. if I can pass for monogamous at a sex party, surely I can pull the wool over the eyes of society.  I did a mental happy dance over that feedback.
2. it gave me a great way to manage expectations (the person in question seemed to get very attached to me rather quickly, and I preferred to move them away).  “I think I get both concepts, but I’m hard-core polyamorous.  I just would rather spend my time with someone I know and love, even if it's just on the phone, than have casual sex right now.”

Sometimes it’s nice to not have to worry about pushing off unwanted sex

Odd as it seems--not having sex at a sex party--I found myself very happy it was just a social event.  Given that this was a meat market, and I didn’t want casual sex (see “Managing expectations” above), it was great to have an excuse to keep my clothes on, even if the excuse was something like, “this isn’t the sort of party where we end up having sex.” 

The tension in the room was palpable.  It might seem like a no-brainer that in a culture of consent, nobody’s having sex who doesn’t want to.  But the fact that the point of this party was to find new sex partners, and I was the newest person to the network, meant I was surrounded by drooling idiots (and I do mean that in the kindest way possible.  They were all very attractive in their own ways).  Had sex been an actual possibility, expressing the constant “no” would have become exhausting.

You have to do your time at the public parties before you get invited to the really good private ones

This was the first private party I was invited to, and I was disappointed by the social dynamics.  We found the hosts after my spouse went on a date with the hostess (“How do you know the hosts?” above), and when my spouse met the hostess’s husband (called hereafter the “host” for short), fireworks ensued.  I don't mean the good kind of fireworks.  Those two didn’t get along.  That fact didn’t endear me to the prospect of even going to this party.  After all, there are people I love whom I’m not fucking right now--what am I doing at a party with an unpleasant host?

The effect was even worse after the host, who had chosen to act like an ass to my spouse, clearly decided to go after me.  What’s the worse social evil, to be rude to the host, or to lead him on (because, in my experience, anything aside from extremely clear and direct negativity has great potential for leading on)?  The choice would have been made much easier had I any other entree into the good private parties. 

The results

In general, I’d say the evening was a social success.  My spouse and I exchanged digits with a few compelling people, and apparently the “wait three days rule” that I’d heard back in the day the first time I was dating no longer applies now.  The text messages and plans to get together are already flowing through cyberspace.

The evening was so successful, in fact, that I wanted to leave early.  Not because I wasn’t having a good time.  Just that I had already been there long enough to figure out whom I wanted to see again and whom I could just as easily live without.  Sure, we could party for hours and have a socially awkward good time with near-strangers undressing us with their eyes (some of them welcome, and some of them less so).  Or we could go home and make our own fun.

We’re all judging, all the time

The big surprise was the conversation on the way home.  Whom did you like, and who turned you off?  Can we agree on anybody to contact later?  Was their partner worthwhile?  Details of body type and aesthetic on the ones we liked.  Snooty remarks about the ones who had obviously either snubbed us or misread our “go away” body language.

I felt very shallow.  And I know those conversations, for the other guests, involved harsh or objectifying observations about me, too.  But such is the consequence of trying to find chemistry that works for two.

*****

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

The Replacements

One of my lovers (who’s normally very good at poly): What do you need me for?  You’ve got all sorts of lovers.

Me: Yeah, but none of the others are you.

*****

What do you need multiple lovers for?

Selfishly, it’s to fill different needs or desires.  More outwardly compassionately, it’s to relieve one of your lovers from filling a role they would prefer not to.  If, like me, you don’t live with all of your lovers at once and instead spend time with each of them in turn (micro-serial monogamy), it might even have the benefit of keeping everyone in that puppy love stage where you never see quite enough of them, so you miss them in a flattering way and only see their good qualities when they’re around.  Annoying little habits are less annoying when someone else you’re with doesn’t have them, and you don’t have to put up with them all the time.

So if one lover goes away, it might be a creature comfort to have another lover around to console you*, but there’s no replacing an individual#.  The strange thing to me, which may not make sense to the monogamous, was how happy I always have been to be with a lover who was mourning the loss of another lover, even though I know the person they were longing for most strongly was decidedly not me.

My girlthing talks about “layers” of a relationship, as if a relationship were a Photoshop file that was beautiful in its completeness but could still be picked apart to have smaller complete aspects.  When a lover has a romantic loss, I feel like I can easily pull out and use the friendship layer of the relationship and simply be there with them while they mope.

When I speak of “loss,” it’s not necessarily limited to a breakup.  I’ve counseled only one lover through a full-fledged breakup, but there are other somewhat similar experiences.  There was my girlthing’s spouse’s first extracurricular date, which might have been more novel than uncomfortable, at least until I opened up my mouth with exactly what she didn’t want to hear.

And there was the time my secondary’s longtime ex dramatically reclaimed some mementos, which, though not a breakup, had some of the same sucker-punching effects.  Happily for me, my secondary correctly interpreted it when I sent him a care package of some mementos of my own.  I wasn’t trying to replace the ex; I was just pointing out that there are others who care for him even if the ex doesn’t.

When I’m with one lover, I’m in a state of flow. I almost never wish I were with a different one (the odd exception being when I’m fighting with another one, and I just want to get that resolved so I can get on with my life).  If I did habitually wish I were elsewhere, I’d take note of it, and that so far has led to the relatively few replacements# I have had.  It probably helps that my lovers all have different glorious attributes, and they all make a unique contribution to my life.  As my non-spousal primary puts it: you only need one drummer in the band.

So it may make sense that there’s a high barrier to entry into my life right now, even though I’m clearly capable of romantic love with more than my fair share of individuals.  If a fair number of unique positive attributes are already represented in my lover-space, it’s going to take a lot of work to either find a space that’s not filled yet, or surpass a space that’s already occupied so I’m motivated to make more room.

And how is that particularly different from having a lot of friends?

______________________________________________________

*Here, I fully admit to being full of shit.  I’ve yet to have my heart broken, so I don’t know what I’m talking about.  And I’m pretty old, so I’ll probably be unsympathetic to the plight of most humans for the majority of my life.  All that I’ve gathered is what I can figure out from the outward signs of loved ones who have had their hearts broken.

#You called it.  I’m full of shit again.  I can distinctly think of two lovers who were “replaced” in my life, with my own permission or design, by people whose positive qualities were similar but superior.  I don’t miss the former lovers because I’m surrounded by people who are closer to my ideal, which probably makes me a jerk.  So the downside of poly, I guess, is that you can be replaced by someone better who comes along.  This is completely contrary to the ideal theory of polyamory, where one person cannot take away affection for another.  My experience of the truth is... well, they don’t have to.  But they might. 

Quality and Satisfaction

Offended stranger (sounding incensed): You snob.

Poly-friend of mine (sounding perfectly calm): There’s nothing wrong with having standards.

******

I don’t smoke, unless I’m out of the country and have access to Cuban cigars.  That still happens several times per year.

I don’t drink unless the libation is particularly pleasurable to me.  That usually happens at least weekly.

And I’m not having sex unless there’s something spectacularly good or enjoyable about the person I’m with.  That happens... well, sometimes, it can happen several times a day.

If any of these experiences didn’t fit my standards, I’d have them less often.  I wouldn’t seek out lesser quality experiences; I'd simply do without, and I'd do so happily.  Unlike food (for which I aim for good quality and quite frequently settle for whatever’s in front of me), I can live without tobacco, alcohol, and sex.  They can either augment my quality of life or detract from it, depending on their quality.  And I only choose to partake of those which are above a certain threshold of pleasurability.

Because I have sex with more individuals than society thinks I’m allowed (and I therefore qualify as a slut, a title I wear proudly), a common assumption is that I’ll have sex with anything with two legs.

That thought exhausts me.  I’m so busy keeping up with the people I’m really into, and who add a great deal of joy to my life, to bother with casual sex.

A large number of the new people I meet who know I have a lot of partners--and who therefore think I’m easy--seem genuinely surprised when I’m not into them.  The truth is, it’s not easy.  I am willing to work hard to make sure the people whom I value a great deal enjoy what I have to offer and will continue to invite me back.  Sure, I’m easy... for the people I'm already with.  After they’ve worked hard to win me over (as was the case with my spouse and my non-spousal primary), or finally broken down and allowed me to date them (as with my girlthing), or just displayed some delightful set of pheromones that like to play with mine (as with my secondary), the tables turn and I work hard to maintain them.  Given that I also have a day job, that doesn’t give a whole lot of free time left to seek out/meet/sleep with everyone else in the world.

Not to say that I’m closed to new experiences.  Just that the people I already consort with have set the bar very, very high because of their extremely high quality (here defined as compatibility with me).  In fact, I don’t get the sense that I’m attracted to a great many people (as evidenced by the large number of first dates I’ve been on that didn’t have any indication of that “spark” people are always talking about on dating sites).  The difference is that I’ve had extreme luck in convincing a large proportion of the people to whom I am attracted (and to me, attraction requires a degree of familiarity with a person, so I’m not particularly picking up random hot people on the street) to sleep with me.

Certainly, there are people who think of sex differently than I do.  For some, there is much more of a sense of need than the mere desire I describe.  The analogy might be more along the lines of food (any love is good love, especially if it’s about time for some action).  And for some people, the extreme need for food that I feel every few hours may not apply, and so they may be willing and able to hold out for higher-quality specimens than I would be if I'm in the mood for instant gastronomical gratification.

But in general, I’d say I’m fairly satisfied with my sex life (the recent month I spent apart from my non-spousal primary that had me moping around and useless is a noted exception).  Quite possibly the large and varied nature of it--rather than indicating an insatiable appetite--contributes to my general satisfaction and subsequent disinterest in anyone who’s not already tried and true.

*****

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

Privacy and Openness

Me (finding a bottle of lube on the floor in the kitchen in the morning): Oh!  Was there phone sex last night?

Spouse (blushing): Um, yeah...

*****

What’s the balance between privacy and openness in a poly relationship?  The brainless answer to this and all poly-related questions might seem to be the age-old open and honest communication.  But Roe v. Wade, controversial as it still seems to be, pointed out everyone’s right to privacy.  And what about a right to not have to see, hear, or think about something you don’t want shoved in your face?

Unlike a lot of open couples, my spouse and I aren’t particularly big on rules.  The one “rule” we tend to live by is if we’d be scared to tell each other about the experience, we don’t do it.  Even so, just because we’ve had an experience doesn’t mean we tell each other about it (if we didn’t edit our experiences for each other, we’d be in danger of death by overcommunication).  Sometimes I’m protecting the privacy of the other person I was with (I was amused rather than annoyed when one of my meta-lovers surprised me by pointing out my deep-seated hatred for Garrison Keillor’s voice, an attribute of mine that’s usually kept at home and that she learned about through my spouse.  But that easily could have gone a different way).  Sometimes an experience is just not relevant to another person, or there’s not much to be gained from telling, so why bother?

Some things I like to keep private out of convenience.  I don’t like people looking over my shoulder at things I’m reading or typing (I happen to be typing this on an airplane, which has a lot of potential for spying), and I certainly expect people to keep their eyes on their own business (my life is interesting enough to not inspire me to peer inappropriately into others’ business, and I expect the same of them).  But the reason I like privacy when reading or working isn’t because I feel ashamed of what I’m doing.  Usually, when I’m working, I’m in flow.  If someone asks about it, there’s usually a lot of background and context that needs to be explained to tell the full story, and that’s not usually worth the time and energy for a quick one-off email or text.  Then we’ve wasted a lot of time for very little gratification.

And sometimes, I’m OK with something in theory, but I don’t like to think about the practicality.  If there’s an emotional component to that (I’m fine with you being with someone else, but I feel hurt/insecure when I hear details about it), the workaround may be a simple don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy.  On the other hand, the reason for not wanting to hear something may be perfectly innocuous, such as boredom (I’m pretty sure my non-spousal primary is fairly fond of me, but that might have something to do with how rarely I spout the emotionally-neutral math-nonsense that’s often occupying my head).

VIPs’ such as lovers’ and meta-lovers’ preferences aside, what about the rest of the world?  I’ve clearly offended someone I thought was a good friend by disclosing my open relationship, and one might argue that it was none of her business.  That’s true, but how good a friend can they have been if they can’t handle basic information about how I structure my life?  People usually know their friends’ spouses/partners.  Spouses and partners usually have some form of sex or intimacy with each other.  And yet, introducing my spouse to a stranger only puts my life into context (these are two people who are important to each other and make many of their major decisions together), rather than throwing them into a rage of having to imagine all the sex we’ve had in the last decade-plus that we’ve been together.  I would really like to have the option of introducing a lover in a way that gives the same context (this is someone who is very important to me, and I’d appreciate your treating them well for my sake.  Or, there is a very good reason I visit this person more often than I visit you, and I’d prefer you don’t take it as a sign of weakness in our Platonic friendship) without the backlash.

*****

Questions or comments?  Ask me: polysaturated@rocketmail.com.

Extra clothes

Non-spousal primary: You have four lovers.  You need four times the normal clothing budget.

*****

Spouse: Ever since we opened up, you’ve gotten a lot more... shoes.

*****

My lovers all have taste.  Unfortunately for my wallet and closet space, it’s not the same taste.

There’s the one who likes bright sundresses that bare the shoulders, the one who prefers skin-tight black, and the one who doesn’t like skirt-shaped objects at all.  There’s the one who can’t stand synthetic fabrics, and the one who responds well to latex.  There’s the one who likes platform fuck-me heels, and the ones who don’t like any lift at all.  There’s the one who likes the look of almost going hiking, and the several who like the look of almost doing yoga.

Packing for a trip is much more straightforward if I’m only going to see one lover at a time.

Shopping for clothes turns into an optimization problem for an extra level of consideration.  Not only do I pay attention to the normal considerations of how flattering is the look, to what occasions I’d be able to wear it, cost, quality, and applicability to my wardrobe as a whole--I also get to think about for whom I get to wear it.  It makes clothes shopping almost not worth the hassle.

Then again, there are some surprising overlaps.  Everyone seems to like the jeans my non-spousal primary invested hours into researching for/with me.  Well, except the one who just doesn't like jeans.  They all seem to agree on the yoga wear.  Which is good, because that stuff is pretty much indestructible, and I don't like replacing it.  The best option I have been able to come up with is to more or less tailor the clothes I wear to the lover (the spouse gets to see it all, so good thing he has broad tastes) and replace or update often.

So yes.  Multiply the clothing budget by number of lovers.  Or just ignore their preferences and do whatever the heck you feel like.

*****

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

Threesomes

I love threesomes.  I can’t imagine who wouldn’t.

Here’s what’s great about threesomes: no matter what the politics are, I always win.

Nina Hartley’s Guide to Total Sex, Chapter 13 gets a little defensive about why Nina would put up with having some other woman in bed with her and her husband (he may want to fuck your brains out, but he loves me), but at least she’s fairly secure through the pushiness.  It’s nice to be in a committed relationship, where one of the many fun and varied times you’re getting it on involves a third person.  That third person isn’t going to take either of you away from the other; there’s no drama about who’s going to sleep over; there’s no threat.  It’s fun.  On the drama-scale, it may even be a little boring.

The other likely option is that you’re the unicorn, the extra person brought in to spice up some established couple’s sex life.  That’s a great position to be in, because it’s almost impossible to mess that up, or at least to mess that up because of what you did (as threesomes seem to be an uncommon experience for most people, they can bring up some unexpected emotions, but that’s usually drama between the established couple rather than specific to the third).  Everyone’s looking for the unicorn, and with finding one being so rare, the established couple isn’t going to be too picky about what they get by the time they’re actively looking.  And if they’re any good at people, they’re going to bend over backwards to make the unicorn happy about being with them.

The established couple gets security (boring, but generally what people want or claim to want).  The occasional treat gets treated very, very well.

When we’ve had a unicorn (and “we” here can mean me with any of my heterosexual lovers, as I consider them all established), the new person in bed is exciting.  They’re novel, and must be poked, stroked, and played with to figure them out.  They usually start out getting all the attention, from both me and my lover.  And if they’re playing with one of us, the other will make sure to keep them distracted.  Anybody who survives the adventure with me in my lover’s bed all night is going to get breakfast made for them, to their specifications, and first crack at the shower.

When I’ve been the unicorn (given my sad general lack of interest in straight-up causal sex, this has only been with my girlthing and her spouse so far), life is fun!  They giggle.  All of my unique qualities (the ones I’ve lived with all my life and therefore take for granted) get pointed out to me, usually gleefully.  They both want to play with me!  They’re a gloriously fine-tuned sex machine that’s churning out results.  If I am playing with one of them, the other’s usually helping, and there’s instant gratification.  One evening began with me unwrapping a kinky sex toy.  I got a four-handed hot wax massage when I keeled over from exhaustion.  And I don’t even have to feign ignorance of the coffee maker; coffee just appeared in my hand the next morning.

The sad thing I’m noticing is that threesomes are fun no matter where I am in a hierarchy, but there’s still a hierarchy involved.  And the Commie in me doesn’t take too kindly to that.

The other choices are a perfect triad with equal emotional attachment among all parties (sounds fun, been published elsewhere, and since there’s no source of drama, boring), or having a V wherein two people have an equal emotional attachment to one central person, but not with the other.  I’ve tried the latter several times as well, either as the center or as one of the arms of the V.  In those cases, the center of the V got all the attention, and it either went gloriously and synergistically with the two arms, or it somehow crashed and burned with drama.  I’m sure those stories will come out later.

So maybe the safest thing for a threesome is for everyone to know and be secure in their ordered place on the totem pole.

*****
Got questions on dealing with multiple lovers?  I’ve got answers!  Try me at polysaturated@rocketmail.com.

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.

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.