Serene of the Oakland Serenes

Someone in polyamory asked what being polyamorous is like. My response:

It's like loving someone, falling in love with someone else, and not having to break up with the first someone.

It's like having two boyfriends and smiling at them because they're sitting at the foot of your hospital bed geeking about comic books while you fade in and out of consciousness.

It's like needing a scorecard to explain who someone in your family is in relationship to you ("she's my partner's partner's partner, and she lives in the house behind theirs").

It's like having more than one best friend.

I'd love to see your responses.

Edit: And now I have the urge to say "It's like rain on your wedding day."

There's a thread somewhere else about how to go about saving a relationship in which one person is monogamous and unhappy about the other person's newly annouced polyamorous desires. The poster seems to be struggling to find the ethical and loving way to deal with this, but one way zie wants to do this is to find poly friends and relationship possibilities, and introduce them to zir partner to show that they're nice people (or some such). In responding to this person, I put into words something that I haven't really talked about much in public, and I thought I'd share.

Until you said you were looking for relationship possibilities, I had no problem with it, either. And if I were your partner, I'd be fine with it either way, because I'm fine with my partners seeking other partners. But she's clearly NOT fine with that, and I think you may be downplaying that aspect of it to justify going out to meet folks you might want to date in the near future.

And why I think this is that that's what I did. It blew up on me, and I hope it doesn't blow up on you.

I honestly didn't think I was seeking partners when I got together with stonebender/someotherguy/sogwife, but what was obvious to other people and not to me was that I was. I was stifled and unhappy in my de facto monogamous relationship, and I wanted romance and NRE in my life (I even wrote about wanting them in my LJ a few months before that), and I changed the way I interacted with people so that I was more open to romance than I usually am.

It was the beginning of the downfall of my relationship with cute-poet-chick (not that that relationship was all that easy to begin with, but it was beautiful and loving, on the whole, and I didn't want it to end).

That whole thing taught me never to agree to any form of monogamy, because it makes me unhappy enough that I'll do slimy things to wiggle out of my unhappiness. (I never cheated on cute-poet-chick -- I learned the hard way, by cheating on TOTGA, that that way lies misery -- but I did things I would've advised poly newbies not to, like pushing for faster change than she wanted, and accepting my new loves' housekeys without checking with my existing partner first. Stuff like that.) Nowadays, I set my own rules, but I've been burned by my own thoughtlessness before, and as much as I'm now in the best, happiest relationships of my life, I hope I can stop learning things the hard way.

Tomorrow at this time, I'll be halfway to stonebender's house. Thinking about anything but the trip (and preparations for the trip) is difficult today, but things are going on anyway, as things will have the tendency to do.

Had a wonderful date with sogwife and someotherguy yesterday. Spent a couple hours with sogwife first, then the three of us hung out together in a really peaceful, loving way. someotherguy made wonderful soba/tofu soup that I'm still wanting more of. Relationship-geeked a bit with someotherguy and spent a lot of time just shaking my head in wonder at how good my life has gotten lately, and how easy just about everything has been. And admiring how incredibly beautiful sogwife is, but that's par for the course. Also spent a fair amount of time enthusing over seeing stonebender, which I hope wasn't too obnoxious. :-) (They gave me something to give to him, which I think was adorable.)

And. *deep breath* They gave me their key.

Tonight, we (cute-poet-chick, someotherguy, sogwife, and I) are having dinner together. "Interesting" is such a wimpy word for what this evening will be.

me: "I'm going tomorrow to meet [other cool person] and Joe from alt.poly."

her: "Is this the Joe we didn't meet at Mary's party?"

me: "No, another Joe; teal7's partner (she's met teal7), from Australia."

her: (*said in good humor*) "Oh, 'cause unless you're planning on having him as a partner, I think it's unwise for you to even meet joedecker. He's apparently irresistible to everyone he meets."

Heh. One never knows what details one's partner will latch on to at a poly party.