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Polyamory: slicin’ and dicin’?

Aoife O'Riordan, , 18 Comments

Although I don’t practice it myself, I’m all for monogamy. Forgive me for this, I can’t help myself: some of my best friends are monogamous. Monogamy is, to me, one of those things like being an accountant or a dentist that’s perfectly useful, makes some people I love very happy, and holds about as much appeal for myself as, well, pulling teeth. Tis cool. We’re all different, we all get to decide what kinds of relationships make us feel happy, secure and fulfilled and to pursue that with people who feel similarly.

As someone who lives in a great big world full of mono people and who’s been in my share of mono relationships with very lovely people myself (I always, by the way, behaved myself) I have a fair insight into why people choose monogamy, why it works for them and what it’s like.

I have a feeling that some of my mono friends don’t have quite the same insight into the way I do relationships. I think it’s time to start setting right a misconception or two. In particular, well, one. This one.

Slicin’ and dicin’?

I have a friend- an old, dear friend I love to pieces, which is lucky for him- who keeps on referring to poly people like myself as having fractions of partners. According to him, I have 1/3 of a girlfriend, and the wives of the man who someone once met going to St Ives have 1/7 of a husband. Let’s look into this idea, shall we?

I guess- and I am just guessing here, so correct me if I’m wrong- that if exclusivity is something you value strongly in a relationship it could seem that sharing a partner with someone else means, well, sharing. And that for some reason all of us poly folks are happy to have a fraction of a relationship here and another fraction there.

I don’t know about you, but the idea of sewing together a Frankenstein’s monster of partners seems as unappealing to me as it does to the average mono person. Let’s- if you’ll pardon the phrase- deconstruct this a bit, shall we?

All the people in our lives

One of the things that poly people love to talk about when explaining how we can go around having multiple relationships at once is the fact that having more than one relationship is something that everybody does all the time. Think about the people who are important to you in your life. Sure, there’s something special and distinct about what you have with your partner(s). But isn’t there also something special and distinct about what you have with all of the other people in your close circle? The big example that poly folks like to bring up here is kids. In terms of devotion, committment, time, energy and love, there isn’t really anything that can rival the parent/child relationship. And yet if I were to mention someone having a second child nobody would assume that the love of the parents for their first child would be in any way diminished. Sure, they’re going to be a lot more busy and will have to work to balance their attention between their kids. And sure, there’ll be an adjustment for the older kid. But love and the parent/child relationship itself? It’s not divided.

Our romantic partnerships and relationships are, of course, very different. But it’s a qualitative difference, not a quantitive one. I love the Ladyfriend, my family, and my closest friends in different ways, but I love them all. My love for Ladyfriend isn’t in any way diminished by my having a wonderful circle of friends and family. In fact, I’d say that having a healthy life of my own outside my relationship enhances what we have. I’m a happier and more interesting person because of the people in my life. Aren’t we all?

It’s not just people, though. When I think of the things that take up Ladyfriend’s time and attention, her work comes far higher than any other person. I’m sure that anyone who’s dated someone with an overwhelming devotion to a job, hobby or project can empathise with that. We’ve all met (or been) PhD widows.

What are relationships made of?

The other day, as I was having the fateful fractions conversation with my old friend, Ladyfriend was off on a date with a new person of whom I approve immensely (she’s a sweetiepie!). That next day when I phoned her up to ask how it had went, did I suddenly have less of a girlfriend than I had had the day before?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again- I absolutely respect monogamy. I see why people choose it. We all have things we’re comfortable with, things that are hard limits, and great big grey areas in between to play around in. One relationship can be overwhelming enough. With two or three, things can get complicated. And yep, we all get to have feelings and boundaries about what we’re okay with our partners getting up to with others. It’s one of the best things about creating cultures of active consent.

I do think that there’s a limit to the amount of commitments one person can make. That limit varies from person to person and at different times in our lives. The person with the demanding job, young kids and evening course is barely going to have time for sleep, never mind dating. But within that limit- which, by the way, the poly people of my acquaintance tend to be extremely aware of- adding new things and people to our lives doesn’t diminish what we already have. My taking up roller derby and spending hours and hours a week training doesn’t subtract from my relationship with Ladyfriend. And similarly, if during those hours she’s spending time with other partners, I haven’t lost anything at all.

I understand that thinking about your partner being involved with others can make a lot of mono people uncomfortable. Trust me, I get that- I’m no more immune to jealousy than anyone on the planet! But relationships- all relationships- are made of a lot more than the time not spent with others. They’re made of more than what you get up to when your partner’s not there- although honesty about that is one hell of a big deal. I don’t measure my relationships in minutes spent with me versus with other people, or in feelings for me versus for other people. The most important thing, to me, is what me and another person share together. 

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Polyamory: slicin’ and dicin’?
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The Introverted Polyamorist

Aoife O'Riordan, , , , , 7 Comments

As with any fairly smallish group, when it comes to polyamory bizarre stereotypes abound. While I could (and probably will, with with BloggyWriMo/NaBloPoMo) expound on many of them, today I’m gonna stick with one: the idea that poly people are all massively extroverted social butterflies. I can see where this one came from. After all, the whole idea of polyamory is that you’re up for having more than one partner. It’s not a vast jump from “likes to have more partners than I do” to “likes spending a whole lot of time with lots of different people”. And while plenty poly people are like that, there’s also a lot of us for whom that isn’t true. So from one somewhat-introverted poly person to you lot, here’s why it works for me.

Smaller, closer groups

If there’s one thing that distinguishes extroverts from introverts, it’s our preference for spending our time with smaller groups of people who we’re close to. I’m like that. Lovely as they can be (and they really can!) I have only so many spoons for acquaintances. It’s the people who I know really, really well that I prefer to spend lots of time with.

That doesn’t make me poly, of course. Being poly just means that in those small groups of people I love dearly, I’m able to fall in love with more than one. And I’m only okay with getting in relationships where that’s fine by everyone. The way that I ‘do’ poly fits in with my introversion. My poly is all about letting relationships find their own level, embracing the gray area between ‘friend’, ‘lover’ and ‘partner’, and seeing what kind of interacting fits me and a particular individual best. That isn’t unique to polyamorous people, of course. For me, though, one of my favourite things is seeing how my close relationships evolve over time. How they ebb and flow, and how we love each other in different ways and the months and years go by.

The Basic Social Unit Is One

I have no idea where I first heard this. But it’s something that I really, really like about lots of poly ways of interacting.

You know the way that sometimes the world feels like it’s built around couples? Plus-one on invitations. Hotel rooms booked per-person-sharing. Talking about your partner as your ‘other half’ (or even more vomworthy, your ‘better half’). The entire rom-com industry. I could go on, but you get my drift.

In poly circles, you don’t get to do that. If a person could be seriously involved with four people or nobody at all, then you can’t make assumptions and you end up with two choices. Either you put plus-n on your invites and risk your party being six times larger than you had planned, or else you start acting as if the basic social unit isn’t people in a romantic relationship after all. And the basic social unit ends up being one.

As someone who likes my solitude, being in communities where it’s assumed that the individual is a perfectly great social unit all on their own is fantastic. If there’s no assumption that I’ll be with a particular number of other people, then it’s perfectly fine to be on my own. Poly also comes fully-loaded with language to describe my need for alone time. I tell my partner- mainly just kidding- that although she’s the only person I’m dating right now, I’ve gotta take time for my other primary relationship with nobody at all. And as we’ve mentioned time..

Time

I have this friend who is both mono themselves, and who is one of the biggest introverts I’ve ever met. They’re a sweet, caring, loving person who needs absolute oodles of alone time. And while they’re generally either cheerfully-single or monogamous themselves, they’ve said to me several times that, when they do date people, they prefer their partner to be polyamorous. You see, the handy thing about dating someone who’s in another relationship or two is that they’ll be wanting to spend time with them. Lots and lots of time. Time when you can be pottering about by yourself with not a smidgeon of guilt that you’re leaving your lovely partner(s) alone. In fact, you could even describe yourself as delightfully giving! Your partner is off spending tons of time with their other partners, with nary a hint of complaint from yourself. Shure, you’d get a medal for it if you weren’t not-so-secretly loving it.

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The Introverted Polyamorist