So here’s the thing. Poly doesn’t mean that you are fucking multiple people every day. It doesn’t mean that you decide “I have 15 hours to spend with people I’m fucking so I will give 7.5 hours to Person A and I will give 7.5 hours to Person B.” Well, I guess someone could do it that way if they really want to. It would be highly unusual though. We aren’t Mormons with sister-wives fighting over a shared husband.
Particularly I am in favour of the flavour of polyamory that is referred to as Relationship Anarchy. What it means is that each relationship has the ability to filter into my life as far as is fitting for that relationship. It means I take my non-sexual relationships as seriously as I take dating. I will pick platonic friends over lovers to share key moments of my life because they are the ones I want to be in that moment with.
I’ve spent a lot of my life deferring joy. “I will be able to go do a fun thing in 6 months and that will let me eat a shit sandwich every day between now and then,” I was negotiating for poly with Noah before he died. I was negotiating for being able to be allowed to pursue someone in ten years–now 8 years away. I was looking for the ability to upset the apple cart a lot when I have my last quasi-adult in the house. That was when I thought I’d be able to seriously go nuts having fun playing with lots of people. I didn’t think it would happen before then.
As I look at my life right now I am fairly convinced that timeline is still going to be a big deal. That’s when my kids start pulling away really hard. That’s when they want only a few hours a week of intense time with me. I won’t have an empty nest (I’m not sure if that will ever happen) but my time will be my own. That’s when I think I’ll be able to escalate seeing new people a lot.
Before then every change in my life is going to happen at a glacial pace. We have a really good thing going in our house. We like each other tremendously and we have a fairly well oiled machine.
We have our ways of coping. Like, MC started out bitching massively about how they aren’t “allowed to have boundaries” and then we talked a lot about the difference between a boundary and having control over other people. In the end there is a ban on anyone walking into the kitchen between 10pm and 12am. That’s when they want to be cleaning and they can’t cope with people being in there while they clean. I have to walk through the apartment patio door and go through the hallway to go between the studio and my bedroom instead of taking the straight path. When they want to do a cooking project in the middle of the day they will use the apartment kitchen and no one is allowed to enter the room. I feel so much relief in my heart that we have enough privilege to have these things be possible. This house is a really good set up for us given our challenges around interruptions and noise. We have ways to adapt the space so we are all capable of sharing our best selves.
That’s something I can work with. No one is allowed to be in the room when I assemble Ikea furniture for the same reason. I will scream. I will yell profanities. I will be entirely out of chill. I can’t control it. I can keep people away from it. MC has lived with me all their life. Sometimes when they are working they are letting out all their ambient frustration. It’s cathartic for us. When we can’t verbally express love to each other (because we are having Big Feelings) we can know that we are showing through work a demonstration of taking care of each other because we love each other. We accept that we are all people who have to go off and have our tantrums. We don’t mean anything by them. We don’t want anything to change. We don’t want people to walk on egg shells. We don’t want to upset anyone. We need to let big feelings out of our bodies. We have found ways that work well for us–as long as people stay the heck out of the room. If you come into the room when we are storming you aren’t a victim you are a volunteer. You were warned.
We always give warnings about this. We know it is happening. If a stranger walks by we can break character and apologise profusely for our manner of dealing with frustration–we thought we were alone.
If someone cannot see the benefit of something we do that’s fine. I assume most people think we are crazy. It’s going to go rough if instead of asking questions with curiosity you attack and denigrate us. We don’t respond to that. All of us can fight but we work really at making sure we don’t do that within our house any more than necessary. We have very passionate discussions and arguments at times. If someone is about too go far and say stuff that might have consequences any one of us will call a time out so that we can retreat and clear our thoughts and feel our feelings before we come back and try it again. We all know how to watch for signs of someone is about to cross a line because they are too upset. I love my housemates so much. I love the way we have decided together how we want to feel in this set of relationships. I love that we all feel we have the right to be demanding because we know people will compromise to the degree we are able. We won’t get everything we ask for. That makes it safe to ask for the stuff that is hard to ask for. Sometimes we get it because it turns out we are not able to evaluate what is easy or hard to give for someone else.
I was thinking about this last night as I was going to sleep. People are only compatible with my life if they are deeply curious as a reflex. If someone is instantly judgy I don’t have the time or energy to deal with the fall out of that. I cannot have patience for someone projecting onto me and assuming the worst. Naw. If you don’t see my desire to be there as evidence of my interest then I should walk on. I can have patience for all the respectful questions in the world when I’m in a room with you. I can’t answer pages of questions for you in writing. Mostly because my hands hurt. Also because I don’t have time. Also because I’ve already answered that and 9,127 other questions in the Archive. Go spelunking by topic in the tag list over to the right side of your screen.
My friend who is going to help with catching up old entries has had a few things come up but eventually she will get started. I’m looking forward to that. I have lots of patience for “You can earn money whenever you can squeeze it in.” She has a busy life. She will do a few hours of this when she needs a bit of extra cash. Happy to be a steady side gig for a couple of months/years/however long it takes.
I decided to ask her for help because she was already the local friend who asks me the most invasively insightful questions about myself. She’s really intelligent and keen on what I think about social dynamics. We have amazing conversations. She tells me equally intense stories about herself. We’ve been chatting for years now and we see each other when she comes to town.
I truly am finding my people in Scotland. I don’t think I will ever have a network like I had in the US. I don’t have enough spare time to build the relationships. I keep trying though.
I will keep trying because I am poly. Being poly doesn’t mean I will be fucking everyone I have an intense relationship with. I fall in love with people and they filter into my life to the degree that is suitable. One of the five folks I think of as my Kids around here comes over the most and helps me the most. He is filtering into my life to the level that is right for him and the other Kids see me in the ways that are right for them. I don’t duplicate time or ways of communicating. I’m not weighing and measuring things so everyone gets their “fair” share of me. Everyone gets what feels like a stable level between us.
The first year of someone filtering in is slow on purpose. I used to be a very hasty person. I made big commitments and then 3 months later the relationship fizzled out. Of people I have gone on a first date with 91% end in the first 3 months, 4% make it to 9 months/1 year, and 5% make it past 2 years. If there is too much intensity in the first few months it can burn out the relationship. Those are counting all the friendships that involve sex. If you look at people with whom I was seriously trying for a Relationship instead of a friendship + whatever it’s only 3 people who have ever made it to 2 years or longer. I see no good to making big changes or promises early on. Most people won’t be able to handle putting up with me.
I won’t be having an intense amount of sex with new people any year soon. I can’t see a way for that to happen. I’d have to feel safe and I’m not sure I have it in me right now. I feel so fragile. I feel so scared of getting hurt in a way that would make me a bad mother.
The fact that I’m not rushing into intensity with a new person is a conscious choice. When I’m in a really bad mood and I think I won’t be able to keep my tone of voice nice I tell Gentleman not to come over. I am not stress testing this relationship. I am terrified of the very idea of that. No. He can help me with tasks that I can do in a good mood. I’m still keeping my awful side away from him because I don’t want it to be his problem. Noah got used to ignoring stuff I said on bad days because I was reacting from pain and stress. He said that on those days I admitted to problems I wouldn’t admit any other day so he paid closer attention to what I said then compared to every other day. The stuff I can easily and casually complain about is not what is making my heart bleed.
That is part of what I don’t want to have with anyone anymore. That is going to be a major barrier to intimacy. This is a place where I am broken right now. I don’t want to hurt people like that. I want to be more gentle than that. I can’t always be a nice or gentle person though. It’s part of why I like being alone so much. Then I’m not hurting people by existing.
I wish I liked me more. I wish I didn’t feel like the problem. I wish I wanted less. I wish I had less to do. I am drowning in paperwork and phone calls and responding to people I really have to respond to or there are legal consequences. The emails that get sifted out for immediate response before my brain stops being able to focus as I look down the rest of the list. How to do this triage. I don’t know. I need less on my to do list.
I really appreciate the friend who takes Shortie out for a few hours on Monday so I can work without interruption. I get more done in those 5 hours than I do in three weeks of constant presence. I know because I just went more than 3 weeks without the respite and my to do list is still very long. Maybe I’ll be able to get it all finished next Monday.
Why don’t I write more fun emails? I am being selfish and cruel and unkind. I am abandoning people. Yes. Clearly. My friends all hate me because I don’t write them enough emails. Right. Sure. Ok, turns out I am actually quite salty about that. I want to not be thinking about this anymore. It was an attack on a core wounding. Is my behaviour so poor that people can’t love me?
I am torn between feeling a wild amount of justification and security in how I live my life and this pernicious anxiety that people are going to have a lot of bad things to say about me. They aren’t going to like my results. I am not creating children with a lust to work themselves to death earning money. I am failing at capitalism. Instead I am having them read small business books about how to market and sell things they make because they are crafty little fuckers. An awful lot of the income around here comes from tourists. If we have to put up with the fuckers making the roads clogged, at least they can give back more money.
I did not raise people to succeed in big tech or high finance. I didn’t want to. I know people in those worlds and they are miserable motherfuckers. I raised people to feel like they have a lot of ability to learn new things and give back to their community. I don’t know where they will go with it. They get to choose their own adventure. Their stories aren’t really about me. I’m the spawn point. I’m part of the origin story. That’s complicated.
It’s weird hearing EC describe his childhood in stories. He gets feedback on body language. People ask him if he was abused a fair bit. He says he wasn’t but both of his parents were and he learned how to exist in the world watching us. Sometimes I wonder though. There were times I crossed lines. It happened way more often in the beginning. I haven’t been long term or large scale abusive. I think there have been moments I crossed lines. Not enough that he feels the need to hold me accountable for them. We’ll see if that evaluation changes over time.
I always tell my kids to leave space in their mind where they know that everyone opinion they currently hold very strongly might change. That doesn’t mean they were wrong in this moment. It means they learn new things and develop new context.
I have a lot of abandonment issues. No one is going to enter my life quickly. It’s going to take a long time before I build intense trust with anyone. I’ll keep trying though. You never know when serendipity will arrive. I simply sigh and nod knowing that I have an over 90% chance of striking out.
I fully understand that the level of harm I have experienced wasn’t intended. I know that. I’m not angry at her. I am processing what happened in my body when that thoughtless bit of communication was lobbed my way. It’s fine. I won’t be butthurt forever.
A long time ago a wonderful sex worker told me that I couldn’t be a sex worker because I took myself too seriously and I couldn’t laugh at myself. I still think she is right. I am not cut out to be in that casual of a role.
I believe that if one wants to be a slut then one must get over being butthurt at fast as possible. Not every swing connects with the ball. It is sad. Keep moving. The fact that I do not have another partner equally in a place in my life as Gentleman is not “proof I’m not really poly”. That is reductionist. I am going to hunting events. I am meeting people. I am working on putting tiny drops of comfort into buckets with new people. I am trying to build a community of people I can feel safe connecting with like that. I think it’s going to take me a while. I need more meat life time. I need to feel in my bones that I am not ever disappointing Noah again because he is gone.
I think he really believed that he had the strength of will to ensure he lived longer than me so that I would not suffer from the loss of the things he took away. He thought he would always be here to meet my needs.
Even when people are saying things they believe that doesn’t mean I can lean in to sharing that belief. The more intensely someone promises “forever” in the first couple of dates the more likely they are to flounce away when I don’t match the pretty picture in their head. I am a deeply flawed motherfucker. I am weak. I am over-committed. I have only tiny shards to share. If that shard is good enough then maybe we can have some fun. If it is not, no hard feelings. I know that what I have to share is not very big. It’s ok if it isn’t enough for you.
I wish you happy hunting. May you find what you seek. May the Slut Gods smile upon us all.