Maybe it’s mostly for extroverts?
Cats: Ilona's Take, marriage etc.|All you need is love!
Love is a many-splendored thing.
Love makes the world go round.
How many more of those could we come up with? Love, love, love. We talk about it a lot, we sing about it constantly. We read about it, write about it, seek it in our daily lives. Some people seek it more diligently than others, of course.
Years ago, tidying a pile of my then-husband’s paper detritus, I came across an article on “polyamory”. I snorted. Yeah, right. What he was after was a rationalization of the affair I wasn’t supposed to know he was having. He was hoping to give his run-of-the-mill messing around a sophisticated, cutting-edge label. He was looking for reassurance that it was all right to love more than one person at a time.
Which it is, of course. I didn’t snort at the idea of polyamory, I snorted at his hypocrisy. He might have been allowed an extra love (and we will not wander into a dreary tangent by speculating on the quality of his ‘love’ for me at that point), but I sure as hell wasn’t. My having a coffee with my daughter’s karate teacher caused major domestic conniptions.
Besides, he didn’t believe in polyamory. Like many serial wanderers, he was constantly on the look-out for his “one true love”. Polyamorists don’t believe in a “one” love. That’s contrary to the whole idea, isn’t it? Poly = many.
At that point, I wouldn’t have been looking for an additional, enriching-my-life love, either. I’d have been looking for a replacement for the old, malfunctioning one… Not what polyamory’s about.
I like the idea, mind you. I think people should be allowed it if they choose. I love the idea of a household (or simply a series of interconnected relationships) where the love is free-flowing and all-inclusive. I also think the numbers of people who have the right mix of confidence, tolerance, and communication skills to maintain a multiple-partner relationship must be necessarily small.
And I think I’m not one of them. It’s not that I suffer from jealousy. I don’t. It’s not that I’m not a good communicator. I am. I thrive on it.
But I know how much maintenance a two-party relationship takes. I suspect that though I seem to be missing the jealous marker on my DNA, there are people, even in polyamorous relationships, who would feel it, and then every party in the relationship would have to deal with it. And that would mean talking, talking, talking. About something I don’t get, something I rarely, if ever, feel. It would be irksome. Talk, talk, talk. Work, work, work…
I’m also a fairly private person. (Who writes about getting a brazilian on the internet, I know, I know.) Some days it’s a bit of a stretch to deal with the one lovely man in my life. (And my kids. And his kids. And co-workers. And clients. And neighbours. And the family pets…) Would I really want more?
No. No, I don’t think so. When my life gets too frenetic, I fantasize about running away to Tahiti. And when I get there? I’m always alone.
I like the idea of polyamory. For other people. I suspect I’d find the practice claustrophobic.
June 16th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
I’m not an extrovert and I’m pretty sure it’s not for me.
I will admit to pondering a utopian ideal of “free-love” and thinking, wouldn’t society be so much better.
Then I bring the ideal into my own bedroom and I’m like, nah…I don’t think so. I will admit that jealousy is likely a factor.
Still, after spending our entire relationship dealing with kids, ex partners, in-laws and life in general, we’re finally just getting a chance to be a two person couple.
Like dinner at a restaurant, just the two of us, from cocktails to coffee.
Like going out to a movie and coming home to an empty house and being able to do whatever we want, as loud as we want.
Like waking up at 7:00 am on a Sunday and lying in bed talking until 10:00 am when Daughter gets home.
Add other people into the mix? No thanks.