The Making of a Gentleman Scoundrel - Part Two: On Objectification and Being Used

So here’s the thing. I’m a good looking guy who has something of a knack for being charming. I know a lot of stuff about a lot of things, and I can break down complex ideas into digestible chunks. I’m a good listener, and have so much empathy that I often have to shut myself away from people to avoid being overtaken by their emotions. I’m also a member of the polyamory community, and because of certain things, I feel (to a lot of women) like a safe person to be around. Protip: Avoid the sex jokes until she makes them, and then only make as many as she does, that’ll help you look less like a creeper. I’m actually kind of shy though, and I have social anxiety issues. So I don’t actually approach and talk to people very well. Once we talk for a couple of minutes, I’m fine, and I can be relatively charming and fun to be around. I have been labeled as “Best Guy” by the Guy Grading Board. This can cause some problems.

See, I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but (some) women have a tendency to complain that the Best Guys are either gay or taken. And here is a best guy who is one of those, but... not really? That takes a lot of the pressure off, because while I’m taken, I’m also available and the women with me always seem to be pretty well adjusted which means one of the best ones. Flexible morals will get you around the corner, as we used to say in Shanghai. As a result, I get flirted with a bit more than the average bear. It’s my own fault, I am a terrible flirt and more than a little bit of a coquette. Coquetter? No, that’s a dress maker. Coquet? That sounds like some kind of little pastry. My French is really, REALLY bad. This is why, when I flirt with beautiful Belgian women, we do it in English. I will get flirted with by a great many women, that’s my point.

AND, there are problems...

The Making of a Gentleman Scoundrel - Part One: Six Unicorns

Before we begin, we must define the chief term. What is a Unicorn? Put short, it’s a hot bi-babe who will join an established couple for sexy-fun times. The term is used derisively most the time because there are couples called Unicorn Hunters who are looking for a single bi/pan woman who will join them for sex, but not really be a full, paid-up member of the relationship. The joke being, those women are as rare as Unicorns. Unicorn Hunters usually aren't interested in the Unicorn as a person, but rather as, for want of a better term, a living sex toy.

The problem is, of course, that there are women who actually are looking for an established couple for fun times. The only problem I have with the whole thing is that the derisiveness tends to spill onto the unicorns themselves, which makes them feel like there's something wrong with looking for a couple for a multi-partner relationship. I don't even have a problem with the hunters, so long as what they're after is actually a relationship and not just a convenient three-way participant.

That’s hardly important to this conversation, but it’s important to understand the terms.

This is a talk about a journey, and an investigation into a character. As a writer of detective fiction, I always try to go over the ground and solve the case. In this case though, I’m the mystery and the solution is on the road. In order to move forward, we have to see where I’ve been. Enough of that intro crap! You want to know about the unicorns, so here we go...

I'm Not Poly-Closeted, I'm Just a Private Person

I've been seeing a few articles on the internet about people in polyamory situations being closeted at work. There are various articles, why you should be open, why you should stay in the closet, but I haven't seen one that hit the nail on the head for me. The thing is, I can put my issue down to one sentence. Fourteen words, one coma, two phrases.


I don't tell people what I had for breakfast, much less my relationship style.


Everything else I'm going to say here is just an extension of that idea. I'm a fairly private person, and one who collects ten times as much information a he gives out. I can give you personal details about 87% of the people I've ever met, and I've met a lot of people. I have great listening skills, so people talk to me. I also have a habit of asking just the right questions, so I gather a lot of data. Except I also understand how much of that data is any one persons' business and as a result I rarely divulge much of anything I've gathered. The point is I don't hand things out very much. I almost never share details, and my past is a clouded land of smoke, fog, and details that don't match up if you try to assemble all the pieces together into a cohesive narrative.

There is a reason for that of course. They don't fit, because I regularly leave out key details, like I was dating two women for a decade. That all three of us lived together for eight years, and that I acted as a housewife for seven of those years. That would bring the story into focus for a lot of people, but I don't much care if people have a focused view of me or not. I manage to be likable and friendly in the now, and that's all that really matters. Whatever else I do or have done is kind of irrelevant to the current situation. I also don't discuss my love of cooking, or the joy I get at looking at Bosch and Bruegel's strange-ass paintings or even the number of samurai movies I own. It's not important that I once had to sword fight my evil twin from the mirror dimension on top of a speeding train either, so I rarely discuss that at work. What it all boils down to though, is that I am not a person who shares details of his outside life. I am very much a "Leave it at the door" kind of person in every sense. Try to ignore the things that put you in a bad mood and just do the job when you clock in.

As I say, I've noticed that very few of these articles ever paint the portrait in this way. It's always presented as "You MUST tell people about you're lifestyle because..." or "I can NEVER tell anyone about my lifestyle because..." it's rarely ever "I don't tell people anything about my outside life." Thing is, I kind of quietly believe this is probably the reason most poly people don't share it at work. They wouldn't share if they were mono people living a mono life of regular mono dinner followed by mono sex and then mono sleep followed by mono breakfast. If pressed, yeah, I'd like to see more openness. People shouldn't feel that they NEED to keep everything they do a secret. I would like to see more openness, but you shouldn't have to wear it on your sleeve if you'd prefer not to be the poster child for an entire lifestyle. And you shouldn't have to wear anything on your sleeve if you'd rather keep your private life separate from your professional life.

So that's what all of this boils down to, my professional life doesn't need to know what I'm up to in private. I don't tell the people I work with much of anything, and who I have a relationship with and how that interacts is just another part of that situation.

The little things

The only thing I want more than a nice wicker picnic basket, with wine glasses and plates and everything, is enough people to go on a picnic. I can assemble a picnic meal no problem. I mean a nice one, not crappy lunch meat on Wonder bread sandwiches but a meal you could be proud of.


I should get a 2 person* one for Syd and I... but still. Being a poly-person in the midst of a two person thing when you're accustomed to a multi-person things can be difficult sometimes.


*This one is awesome!

“You should go Poly” and other things I am not allowed to say.

“You should go Poly” and other things I am not allowed to say.

Before we begin, I should state that I am not Private Skippy, and I do not actually have a list of things I am not allowed to do. Besides, who would make such a list? Who could enforce it? Syd has been of the opinion for some time that if we need rules, then I am not the right person to spend her life with. I behave within the code of conduct at work as well, and even keep most aspects of my private life private. Not because I feel fear or shame, but because my private life is private and only on display for you, my friends, and even then not always. I am fully aware this blog is public, but no one actually cares. Reading, I have been reliably informed, is for squares.

Anyway, enough of that preamble bullshit, let’s talk.

You will no doubt, at this late spot in our relationship, be surprised to learn that I am polyamorous. That Syd and I have been this way for the duration of our relationship and that a third person was with us for more than ten years before we parted ways. I know, right? As shocking as it is scandalous. Okay, it might be news to some of you, some of you haven’t been around that long. Point is, it’s a thing.

A thing that has been sometimes more and sometimes less of a subject for conversation depending on my mood. I know you know about my moods, everyone knows about those. Only, it seems, some don’t. That’s not really important, it’s just a lead up and I need five sentences to make a paragraph. There, that should do it. One more for luck.

I can date people, get serious about them, love them, and still love Syd. I can also love people on many a different level. I can love my dear friend, who I have talked about in the past, but love her in that I Am in Friend-Love With You way. I am mostly friends with women, and a great many of them mean a great deal to me. Many of them are also attractive, mentally stimulating people that I enjoy talking to, sure, but I’m talking hindbrain attractive. I can deal with it, because I’m a damn grown man and not some stupid little boy who can’t handle the fact that not everyone is for him.

EXCEPT! Every once in a while I find myself wanting to turn to one of these friends and say “You should go poly and we should totally date.” Except you can’t really say that. To say that would be rude, or too forward, or just weird. Most the time, the friend in question has made some kind of comment. “I’m going to be with him for the rest of my life.” or “I don’t think I can be with someone who doesn’t/does (insert a thing that makes me ineligible).” Or even “I’m not poly.” These are from people who know me, respect my life choices, and some of whom say things like “I love you” to me. They don’t mean “I want to bang you.” but they do mean “You are important to me and I care a great deal about you.” As a result, I can’t say something like “You should go poly and we should totally date.” Because who wants to be seen as a creeper, right? And I do understand, it’s a creepy sounding statement, but it’s one that occurs to me from time to time. Lots of creepy things occur to me, as I assume they occur to most men, I just try not to express them.

Again, in an attempt not to be creepy, I can’t say something like “For fuck’s sake, you’re a hottie.” or some such statement. Someone was discussing with me how they get dressed up in what was a reveling/attractive outfit recently and how everyone just looked at her like she was from Mars or something. And there I am, listening to this story and wanting to say “Yeah.... OR! You’re an incredibly good looking woman, with a frankly fantastic body, and you were showing it off in an unmistakable way. Only people don’t want to be creepers/ know you’re deeply mono with someone /cat calls are kind of passé (pick one or all) so they were covering up as best they could besides it’s hard to actually get a good drool cup these days.” Only you can’t because she’s kind of self-conscious and sort of shy and I don’t want to come off as hitting on her and so on. And if you don’t know that many a person would rather be known as a person rather than a collection of looks and parts, then I don’t know what to do with you.

I’m not even sure it’s society that tells me I can’t say these things. Some segments of society would say “You should tell your friend you’re interested in taking it to another level and see what she says.” or “A girl likes to be told she’s pretty.” And that sometimes even sounds good, buuuuuuuuuuut...

No.

It would be bad to tell someone who you’re pretty sure isn’t into your brand of luvin’ that you want them to join your program. If they haven’t asked some leading questions, or made some coded statements by now, then they probably aren’t interested. I speak seriously, when I speak of such things, and these people would know that if I said something like that I meant it. Even if I tried to play it off like a joke, they would know. These are undeniably smart women, or I wouldn’t be attracted to them in the first place. We can talk about all the poly theory you want, we can talk about anecdotes where that worked until the cows come home. There are other problems, and some of them are not surmountable without serious effort. Distance, time, money. Not having the privilege to suck face with them also means I don’t have the responsibility to be available for them whenever they need me.

I’m not sure I’ve got things enough together to take on someone right now anyway. I am only to step three of a ten step plan. Took me three years to get to step three, I’m playing a long game. Maybe, if someone came along and said “Hey, let’s hang out.” I might be willing to give it a try, but I don’t know right now. My personal stress-tests so far have said no, but I could be wrong. Besides, I’ve never really been an aggressive pursuer of the ladies anyway.

So anyway, of all the things I’m allowed to say, “You should go poly and we should totally date” doesn’t appear to be one of them just now.

Rules? Where we're going we don't need rules.

I have clearly grown older.

Okay, so the other day I was looking around and came across a poly blog that just made me wince. A young woman who talked about her triad, which should be nothing to wince over. It was the presentation though, that got to me. I will paraphrase, but believe me when I say this was very much the tone. "I live with my boyfriend... and his other girlfriend. Yeah, we're a poly-triad. That's a thing! Can you handle that? Yeah, my boyfriend has another chick and I don't even want to claw her eyes out. Did I just blow your mind?" And I sort of sat there, wishing I smoked.

See, if I smoked, I could pause, take a cigarette out of the pack and shake my head before lighting it. That is really the only acceptable response to that sort of thing. You can't yell at them, because they've clearly not been doing this very long and it's all new. They're still in that defensive stage where the need to justify is a big deal. People are telling them all the time how wrong they are, how they're breaking all the rules and need to grow up, and this is kind of the thing you come up with when you feel the need to defend your life from all sides. So I get it, so all I did was shake my head before lighting my non-existent cigarette. The only really cogent thought I had was "Oh Fancy, I hope I didn't sound that douchey when I was at that stage."And I was ready to step away and just smoke my imaginary cigarette, when I saw the link marked The Rules of Poly! and I hit the link.

I.
Hit.
The.
Link.

Why did I do it? I knew there would be problems, I knew I would want to snark, and yet I did it anyway. What I stumbled upon was nearly a thing of beauty. Labyrinthine doesn't even begin to describe these rules. Contradictory does though. I think they took every list of rules about polyamory and slapped them together into a super mega list without actually checking if things went together. And they were often worded in such a way that they were made out to be the immalleable and inarguable rules of poly and if you break one they will take you blazer bdage and not invite you to PolyFest 2013. No, I don't have examples or links to show you. I don't know exactly what happened. I hope I just closed the browser and watched some TV for a while. There's been a monkey though, and it's asking me about how Caesar Romero ultimately inspired both Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger. And of course he speaks with a sort of accent that makes it sound like he came from Gibraltar. Why do I keep ending up there?

Here is my point, and yes I do have one. Fuck rules.

Yes, that's my point. The older I get, the more I can't take rules, terms, props, symbols, or any of the other bullshit that gets connected to the poly community. I mean... rules?

Let me ask a question, just really quick.

If you have to write out a list of rules, are you trying to protect people from harm or control people? If you had to tell common sense things like "Wear a Condom" to your partner, why are you fucking them? No, really. Rules are for people who you can't trust to do the right thing on their own. That's why you've got rules at work, because your co-workers are idiots. Rules are a thing you put in place, with known consequences, for people who you think might break them. Rules are not for someone you trust with your heart. If you can't trust someone to think about what they're doing might affect you, maybe you shouldn't be fucking them in the first place. If that sounds like I'm being harsh, well, I am!

AND NONE OF THAT EVEN MATTERS!

Nothing I said there matter because of what I'm about to say next. Society says poly is wrong. Every romance book, every love song, every fucking movie (save five) says you cna't love two people. In the end, you must choose, even if the choice hurts. If you really want to know how totally and completely geared towards monogamy the world is, ask yourself how any given movie, book, song, or instructions on the back of a box of toothpicks would be different if everyone was poly. Mono is The Big Rule here... and I've already said I don't give a fuck.

If I have declared to 90% of the western world that I don't care about their rule, why would anyone expect me to follow a "Be home by midnight" rule? You can't have rules, there are no rules! You're dealing with people who openly and callously break The Big Rule, why would a little one matter? And is the rule for me, or for you? We do get into the control issue here, and that becomes really dangerous.

How about this? How about we agree rules are silly? We're adults, you don't give an adult a set of rules, you make a series of agreements. I don't go stick it in every girl that catches my fancy because some of them say no. Strange, but true. Also, I like Syd to at least meet people I might be intimate with. I don't use condoms with people because Valen who was Minbari not born of Minbari brought down a platinum Franklin Day Planner with The Rules of Poly written on gold leaves. No, I do it because protection is a good thing and you should maybe use some. I think about my own needs, the needs of my partner or partners and I weigh how best to suit all involved. If someone wants me to have a STI test done because it gives them piece of mind, I'm okay with that. After 15 years of the same two partners, and no problems, I've got a pretty clear idea what we're in for. If they say "I have a rule, everyone has to be tested." my immediate thought is that it's a shame and I was just starting to find them interesting.

Besides, Polyamory is the Calvinball of relationship styles anyway. The rules are always changing, and you really can't use the same ones twice. Every situation is a little different, and when you bring more people in, they won't always agree and the rules will become more and more troublesome. At that point, why have rules? To help the relationship, or to control people? If you need a written list of relationship by-laws, isn't that one of the seven signs of a doomed relationship? Isn't number four when the cat starts swearing at you?


SO! To recap...

1) You do things, or don't do them, because you're a decent human being. If you need rules, you'll probably break them anyway.

2) If someone can't respect your feelings, without a load of rules, maybe you shouldn't be with them.

3) You should always question if the rules are for mutual benefit, or for one party to have control.

4) Valen was Minbari not born of Minbari.

And I will give a brass figlagee with bronze oak-leaf palm to the person that spots all the references in this post. Good night, and good luck.

On the subject of Polyamory and Fear

I'm not sure I've ever actually seen anyone talk about this in these terms, so I'm going to go ahead and say it. 97% or all people who are poly are completely bullshit scared at one point or another. In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that the 97% is pants shittingly scared 82.7% of the time. Mind you, 93% of most normal people are paralyzing terrified 84.6% of the time as far as I can tell. Fear is just a big part of life.

We're not talking about so-called normal people though, we're talking Poly People. They enter the world of poly with hope, yes hope, but also with a whole lot of trepidation. Oh so much trepidation. I'll be flat out honest, it's a weird world filled with strange characters and bullshit terms that even people who live in the world don't understand. It can look scary, and it often is.

There are only two kinds of people who enter the poly world without trepidation, people who were always basically poly and didn't have a word for it, and people who have something deeply wrong with them. I have something deeply wrong with me. I leapt in fearlessly, with both eyes open, having viewed the terrain and calculating things in my head as I go. This has meant a lot of compensation, being cute, and fixing things later when mistakes are made. It also means listening to Prince. I'm not sure why that's important, but it seem crucial to me.

The way everyone else does it, if they're smart, is slowly and carefully looking at the area, being completely dogshit terrified. The fear is reasonable, it's understandable, in some places it's necessary. While people trying to pretend to be fearless say otherwise, those who actually live without the notion of fear realize that fear can keep you alive. Fear can keep you safe. Fear can keep you in out of the rain and maintain your position in society. This is where a manic pixie dream girl shows up and tells you that the only way to REALLY live is to abandon that fear, crank up some Prince and dance in the rain. Again, those notions are put together by someone who has the luxury of fear, pretending to understand the mind of someone who doesn't have that luxury.

Lack of fear seems freeing, but Prince has released a lot of shitty albums as well as some of the best music ever recorded. There are reasons for fear, and quite often what looks like fear is actually good judgment.

Let us point out that Poly is nowhere near an acceptable norm. Yes, there are people working towards it, but it'll be decades before the general public understands. Some of the people in the community aren't helping either. Hell, I still have to deal with people saying, in their out loud voice no less, "Me, my primary, secondary and metamours practice ethical pansexual polyfidelity in order to form more serious relationships built on trust, complicated rules and Franklin day planners which is why ours is a much more realer relationship than say your mono-cis-hetro-normative lifestyle." And that your honor is when the Red Mist descended and to be perfectly honest, I have no idea what actually happened after that. When I came to, I was covered in blood, leaning on a cliff at the top of the Rock of Gibraltar, explaining the cultural significance of the Batman TV show to one of the monkeys. I didn't even know they had monkeys in Gibraltar, but there they were.

Yeah, that paragraph when in a weird direction really fast didn't it? Strangely it turned into my testimony from that one time, when that one thing happened. You remember that one time? Yeah. Let's move on. The point is, those Othering Terms exist to form a wall of protection. Sometimes, the only way to stop someone else from pigeon holing you, is to do it yourself before they get a chance. That too is the result of fear.

Fear can be a powerful motivator, or a powerful deterrent. Fear will keep you from moving to another location, but it will also keep you moving towards that location once you do start moving. That's where the whole poly thing can come to a head. When fear and passion collide, you leap forward. Often you find yourself following a complete lunatic who knows no fear, but all the lyrics to Soul Sanctuary, and once you find a safe spot you stop again until the lunatic tears off again. The whole time, you are completely pants-shittingly terrified until you find a safe place. Every time there is movement, there is terror.

There are things to be afraid of, things can and do go wrong. Nervousness is just a sign of good, honest, horse sense. Of course, for those who decide to take the journey, there can be great rewards. And often the risk is far less of a risk than you think. Once you have distance between you and what you thought was danger, you find the tiger was just a kitten casting a big shadow. Granted, sometimes the danger is real and you should cower from it, but that's true if you go for a normal, heterosexual, monogamous lifestyle as well. There is always danger on every journey, but with the right companions it can be greatly lessened. One way is to find someone who already knows the way through the dark part of the forest and has head butted a grue or two. Another way is to trust in each other, and face the terrors head on with pluck and courage.

Either way, I wish you luck. In my view, the dark isn't really as dark as you think it is, and the bad will far outweigh the good. Educate yourself, learn all you can, be as honest as you can, and carry a lantern. It gets dark out there, and you're likely to be eaten by a grue.

"So what's wrong with being a Nice Guy?" You mean besides everything?

So we need to discuss this... I guess.

The other day I posted this link on another social media that sounds like a horror movie* if you say it right. The person I snagged the link from had kind of a discussion on their board because someone wanted to know what was so bad about being nice. He hadn't quite twigged to the idea of what Nice Guy actually means to the internet, and was soon set straight. Now, since most the Nice Guys I've met don't have the self awareness of a Rotary Club Sign, it might be time that we lay this mutha out for everyone.
*Seriously The Book of Faces! Also, Twitter is a romantic comedy, Tumblr is an action movie and My Space is a wacky Sci-fi comedy probably starring The Weasel himself, Pauly Shore. Yeah, I have a mentally undemanding job and a lot of time without interaction.


So the basic facts first, I think... and there is no nice way to say what I'm going to say here.

If you describe yourself as a Nice Guy, you might want to stop doing that. See, everyone outside of Nice Guys (note the capital lettering) thinks anyone who self-identifies as one is an asshole. Seriously, it's like a code that Nice Guys don't actually know and it's frankly kind of sad. Is that fair? Sorry, what the blazing blue fuck does fair have to do with this? Fair is for sports, and this ain't no sport. There ain't no points and you only loose by failing to play the game. Go read over that link I provided, that will give you a great deal of the problem. The sort of guys who call themselves Nice Guys are so often not, and in fact are just assholes in disguise that most everyone else sees the word Asshole when they read the words Nice Guy. So yeah, stop calling yourself that.

I'm not going to go into the whole Nice Guy thing, except to say that you need to either understand some women aren't as attracted to you as you are to them and be a man about it instead of a bitter little baby. Here's the thing, they might want you later if you keep being a good friend. I don't say that it WILL happen, but it COULD happen. However, if you take the rebuffed advances with the attitude of "All bitches are bitches and they don't know a good thing when it's in front of them." then it WON'T happen. Not only won't it happen with her, but if she networks right, it won't happen with any woman inside the tri-state area. They don't always share talk about the good ones, but they will always warn someone off a bad one. You should be nice, but be nice for its own merit and as its own reward. It's not a game, you don't build up points, the friendzone is not a penalty box.

In fact, let us talk about The Friendzone for a moment. I have only once or twice heard the term used by women. It's almost totally used in the context of "That bitch put me in the freindzone and *blah blah misogynistic whining and entitlement issues* what a bitch!" For starters, call her a bitch again, women love to be insulted by guys. If you can't spot the sarcasm in that last sentence, please break off a chair leg and beat yourself in the face until you see spots, I honestly can't be bothered to come over and do it for you. Most the people who use the phrase use it as a complaint, and I can't understand why. I am firmly in the Friendzone of a woman I know. She's married, and monogamous, and possibly not into me despite my long flowing hair and dark as midnight eyes. Thing is, I love her deeply and dearly. We've never been to bed together, we've never even kissed. I've kissed her on the cheek a couple of times, that's the closest we ever got to that and as far as I know it's the closest we will ever get. And I'm okay with that because I love her and to an extent I love her husband and I care deeply about them both. I can't imagine that being a bad thing. She didn't penalize me, she didn't even consciously "Put" me there, that's just where I ended up.

I did however once have a woman explain that she had to "Friendzone" a guy. This surprised me, as she and I always refer to each other as friends. Now... spoiler alert, she had slept with me before and did so again soon after this conversation and the whole time referred to me as Her Friend. so I was surprised to hear that "Friend Zone" didn't come with a side of sex for the poor bastard. She explained that she had sort of intended to sleep with him, but he went on this hateful rant about what a bitch his ex was and it totally turned her off him forever and ever. And that's the other part of that, I am friends with a great many women, and I've had sex with more than a few of them. Unless there was an ongoing, committed relationship, all those women called me their friend. So yeah, even in the friendzone, there is sex.

The problem is, if you approach with desperation, with bitterness, with the attitude on your face... they'll know and they won't want to be with you. Maybe they don't want to be with you anyway, but you don't want to poison the well as it were. Okay, this one woman doesn't want to date you. Maybe that's because she's with someone right now, maybe it's because she doesn't have those feelings for you, maybe it's just not the right time. If you react badly, if you throw a tantrum, they'll talk to other people about it. Even if you throw a tantrum outside that one woman's sight, other women will see it. The network is strong. The network includes all types and genders. There is no escape from The Network. Fear the network. The only thing worse that labeling yourself a Nice Guy is for The Network to label you.

AND THEN THERE'S THIS!

Even if "Nice Guy" wasn't being used by everyone but Nice Guys to mean "dickhead", is that all you have going for you? That you're nice? Really? Because where I come from, that's like saying "I have a pulse and metabolize sugars in my liver" or "I am a person" No matter what, you've got to have more game than that you are "nice" by whatever we mean by that. Nice is a baseline, nice is expected, nice don't even get you through the door. You need some skills. Probably more than video games, although maybe not. If you can avoid calling a girl a Fake Geek because she's better than you at Medal of Duty: Call of Honor, you might be in with a chance. Look at me. Yes, I'm pretty, but there is so much more. I write bad novels, I take amazing photographs, I sing, I dance, I know more about the history of film making than is good for me, and I write truly atrocious poetry. Result? I still strike out seven times out of ten. Some people just ain't into me, but I have a fairly decent reputation and I know how to self-congratulate in a way that is sort of endearing and appropriately lamp shaded.

Point is, grow the fuck up, be an actual man, and quit pretending that Nice ever was enough for anybody.

Thank you and goodnight.

On the Question of the Internet as a Platform for Courtly Love and Its Relation to Polyamory

Once Upon a Time, I said a thing.

Some long ages ago, I presented the idea that if Courtly Love has a modern place in the world, it is on the internet. My main idea behind this shocking revelation, that shocked the world by reveling the fact that it was a shocking revelation, was that the central idea of courtly love is perfect for the internet. While the days of courtly love included much stage management and adultery, there was at its core a pure idea. The idea being that love was above such petty things as physical contact. In the days of arranged marriages, there was a definite need for people to be able to sigh at each other in a garden over the azaleas. A safety valve had to be invented, or the whole system would have collapsed under its own weight.

Okay, you say, so what? We don’t live in the medieval system anymore, as you might have noticed what with the relative rarity of witch burnings. Castle sieges are a thing of the past and we haven’t had a dragon attack in months now. In fact, we are so far from the medieval world that any attempt to turn back the clock makes people wonder when I’m going to come out against birth control and women wearing pants. I’m not, don’t worry, but I would suggest things are not as much changed as they appear.

With poly, and distance, comes new problems, vis-à-vis relationships. Perhaps problem is not the word, perhaps issues is more the phrase we should be looking for. Even the idea of traditional relationships is slowly, but steadily breaking down. If you like, the concept of Friends with Benefits, is changing (or has changed) everything. While I’m not going to suggest that now is the time to go jump that hottie in marketing for a quick fling (although, you know, if you don’t do it now…) I am going to suggest that the traditional model is outdated and in need of a serious overhaul. The concept of love has become far more malleable over the last decade or so and the acceptability of that change is growing.

So where does that take us? Why to the internet of course, where the concept of Courtly Love should be able to exist easily. The idea of long distance flirtation, with a flexible amount of emotional investment is what many people are forced to do these days. We find people we want to stay in contact with, people we’re attracted to for one reason or another, and we use the internet to do that. In some ways, we come closer to the ideal of Courtly Love, since in many cases we have no real idea what the person at the other end of that wall of text looks like. Yes, we might find out through one method or another, but we often fall for the person’s thoughts and ideas first.

That’s what the purer idea of Courtly Love is supposed to be about. I say supposed because pure things rarely ever exist in the wild and we both know it. I have many people on line that I care quite deeply about, some of them I am attracted to physically, but as I continually bang on, I’m far more interested in a woman that has something to say than one that will flash her tits. I’m not against tit flashing, and I’ve seen a lot of the flesh of people I’ve never seen in the flesh, but it’s less important than the thoughts and ideas that she might have.

When it comes to the exchange of ideas, and the exchanging of affection without coming in contact with one another, you can’t get a much better medium than the internet. You can either form your missives in short tweets, long epic poems, photographs or drawings that represent your feelings, or even a video where you explain your love to the objects of your affection. The playing field is quite large and open, for whatever expression of whatever emotions you’re having. You could even learn to play the lute, or possibly the banjolele and record a song where you express your feelings like the troubadours of old did.

We live with an ideal platform for expressing affection, while further breaking down or at least redefining the concept of relationship, which has been plaguing mankind for some time. Polyamory has rightly gained a wider acceptance among those plugged into the internet among our generation than those who are not. I was going to talk about poly more, but I don’t want this to get unreadable in length. At the very least, we’ve given the world a way to flirt shamelessly and harmlessly with good looking people from all over the world. And that is not nothing, that is something.

Also, you’re looking quite hot lately, have I mentioned that darling?

Sex talk that I fail to have a clever title for due to the late hour and cold medicine.

Some one, I won’t say who (but she knows that she eats puppies) is having an enforced “Low Self-Esteem Day” brought to you by “Some Asshole in the Street” and other shaming types. As a result, she was asking if those of us with ladies would express what we liked about our ladies bodies. Now this is hard for me, because I have a plethora of Secret Internet Girlfriends (most of whom I only know through outdated photographs), and I have Syd, who hits me for saying anything about her body at the best of times. No matter who I talk about, I’m going to get in trouble.

So here is what I’m left with, I’m asked to make a series of statements about women’s bodies, but without accurate documentation. Now on the one hand I could ask you each to send me photos of yourselves in your underpants, for science purposes, but that’s a wee bit creepier than I had planned on being today. Instead, I was hoping for a slightly less creeptastic drive down Girl-Body Lane. Wait a second… did I just insinuate that I would be driving a car over a road comprised of dead women? Because that would be even creepier than asking you to send me photos of you in your undies. Fuck it! Let’s get to objectifying!

Let us instead talk in more general terms. I like all bodies, granting that I like them to be within reason. I like them long and lean, short and stout, medium and... um… medium? Okay, so that sort of falls apart, but it’s true. I like girls with curves, and I like girls who are skinny. I like all kinds of bodies, even though there are extremes on either end of the spectrum that turn me off. It would be impossible to claim that these extremes don’t exist, even for little old me, but the markers are generally further out than you probably think. I don’t know, maybe by now you know me well enough to know that my goal posts for fuckability are not quite where everyone else’s are. I rarely worry about where other people’s posts are, because to be frank, they don’t really count. If you can understand why I like this one, or that one, then good for you. If you can’t, well I can’t understand your desire for that one over there either, but I won’t begrudge you your desire for her.

I like all the bits of women too. Rather, I like something different on each woman. Each and everyone, a slightly different set of features to be explored and memorized. This one has such lovely eyes, that you could stair into until the end of time. That one has a strong jaw line and that comes down to a perfect chin. She has slender tapering arms, she has powerful shoulders, she has a thick wrists and she has graceful thighs. And yes, of course, obviously I notice the breasts and buttocks of every girl that I come across. That, however, is merely a matter of course. Save for a few, I’m mostly just glad that those parts come along at all. In many ways, it’s also a matter of how well those parts fit in with the rest of the body.

For the most part, however, that’s all just male gaze stuff. And while I understand its place as both a positive and a negative factor in male/female relations, how you look is not that important to me. If I were simply looking for someone who fit into a narrow body image, I could find her easily. However, there are problems there. Looks fade, and when you look exclusively for appearance you forget that they probably have habits that will annoy you. They might like the wrong kind of music, they might like Reality Shows, they might even think that reading is for like… squares and stuff? What do you do then? Dump her and move on to the next girl who looks nice, but will annoy you? Do you leave a wake of angry and resentful women behind you?

Or, do you do what I do? See, while I’m perfectly willing to admit that physical looks hold some level of importance, it’s far more important that a lady excite my mind. I could, quite easily, get some girl* to take to bed, if that was all I was interested in. The problem is, I need to talk to her afterwards and I need there to be some kind of connection between periods where sex isn’t happening. I’m a modern man, I need modern women. Without brains, there isn’t much I can do with you.

The mind is the sexiest part of any woman, and should be considered in any conversation of sexuality. If you’re not kicking it at the very top, then it really doesn’t matter how much you’re kicking it further down the body, because without mental stimulation I will get bored of you. I’m not even saying someone needs to have read all the books I have, as I said before, it might be better if she hasn’t, because then we could discuss different things.

Now, looking at my earlier posts, I can see that I was going to discuss slut-shaming, body-shaming and other such things, but I’m afraid I’ve run out of steam. I’m not fans of them, and it occurs to be that bi-shaming would take at least two pages for me to discuss and I can’t look down that barrel tonight. Still love me?

Okay, despite all my talk a moment ago, I’m not even that comfortable with dumb-shaming. You can be annoyed by ignorance, but you shouldn’t try to shame someone out of it. There, I talked a little about it. Now it’s time I went to bed.





*This boast brought to you by the year 1998

I Don’t Need to Like Your Music, I Need to Like You.

I have a friend who occasionally marvels at the fact that we are in fact, friends. She really liked The Lord of The Rings movies, and I hated how Peter Jackson raped Tolkien’s corpse on screen during Return of The King (in the back, during Legolas’s Mario Moment on the Oliphaunts, you can just see it). While I love a good Kurosawa movie, she mostly liked that I liked Yojimbo, rather than liking it for itself. She was a big fan of Game of Thrones and as you remember, I found it misogynist, overly rapey and despite what some people had told me, about as historically accurate as a Mr. Peabody cartoon. Also, too many characters suffer from To Build a Fire Syndrome, but that’s not important right now! She really didn’t like Sherlock Holmes either, but I love her anyway.

We also don’t agree on what makes good music. She favors things from the more industrial period of the 90s, while I’ve been known to spend a whole day listening to jazz and Celtic music. We don’t actually spit on each other’s choices of music, but we tend to be attracted to different kinds. I think we might find common ground on Jack Off Jill, but I’ve never really discussed it with her. At some point, I probably should.

That’s not the point though. The point is that we’re still friends, despite all these differences. We do have some overlaps in our interests, but there have been times when this friend has asked how she and I can be such good friends when we never seem to agree on anything. She hasn’t asked that in several years though, so either she understands how we can be friends, or she no longer cares. It did seem to bother her for a while though, particularly since she understands that art was one of only three things I actually think are important enough to take seriously. Of course, the fact that she also understood fine art helped. It’s nice that someone can sort of understand that I have a love of both Bruegel and Bosch along with Mondrian and Rothko, while kinda hating Picasso. And besides, anyone who can shoot down my joke about The Nut Gatherers and is able to look at that painting without seeing the inherent lesbianism is someone able to be my Best BFF Forever. Yes, I know, that was the joke!

So where am I going with this? No, really, where was I going? I have totally forgotten.

OH YES! I remember now… The point of that long ramble was that some six or seven years after we first met, we are still close friends. We have shared some music back and forth on occasion, we have traded some movies and even some books, but mostly we just spent time together. We’re both pretty good at listening, and at talking. We tell each other things, we enjoy one another’s company, we are friends. Despite all the interests in other things, we’re pals.

Syd and I have almost no reading material in common. Of all the hundreds of books Syd reads in a year, not one of them are ever written by Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, or even Rex Stout. How does a person go around not reading Rex Stout? SRSLY! As retaliation, I don’t read any oh her books about girls with psychic connections to talking horses. And yet, we’ve been together for… I dunno, 15 years? That sounds close. No! Wait! It’s got to be 18 years. 1994-2012, that’s 18, right?

In here, we start to get in on our main point. I don’t need to like the things you like, nor do you need to like the things I like, for us to get along. We can get along without having to agree on music or paintings, or even TV shows. In fact, as the only two shows I watch with any regularity are Good Eats and Mystery Science Theater 3000, it’s probably for the best if we leave TV out of this. We don’t have to agree on movies, or food, or books, so long as we agree on being able to stand one another for more than seventeen minutes, then we can get along.

That’s how it is for me anyway. I got used to the fact that no one, not even nerds, would ever be into all the things I’m into. It’s just not ever gonna happen. Even if I did one day find a fellow Nero Wolfe fan, they would probably not share my love of cheap horror films. When I find that Cheap Cinema fan I’ve been looking for, she won’t be able to understand my physical need to sit around and watch movies where Japanese people in period dress stand around and talk at each other, sometimes for up to three hours at a time without taking out those swords and killing each other. And so on, and so forth, and it goes on like this too.


Thing is, that’s a good thing in my mind. Yes, there is more here though, than simply accepting that nobody likes the things I like. There is actually elation to be had here. If you’re not into the things I like, there is a possibility that you’ve never tried them. Actually, in my case, there is the distinct probability you’ve never tried at least three of the things I list as my ten favorites. Most people have never listened to Blues Traveler, Prince, Acoustic Alchemy AND Nightnoise. I’ll find something new to you and give you an album to listen to. Just as likely, no matter how wide my musical net has been cast, no matter how many things I’ve heard, there is very likely some band you like that I’ve never been exposed to. I’ve been listening to Alesana lately, because a young friend gave me a couple of their CDs. I’m not going to become their biggest fan, in fact I should be waving my cane and demanding they get offa mah lahn, but I can admit that there is something there. These young troubadours are not entirely without merit.

I like being introduced to new and interesting things, and I like being able to share interests with people. One of the nice things about having a friend who is into, for example, French Action Films, is that they can tell you which ones to watch. They can also tell you which ones best exemplify the genre, which ones to avoid, and which ones are the best even though they’re transgressive. Often, the best movies in a genre are the ones that transgress the rules. If you’ve never listen to Punk, a pal who knows which bands rock the hardest can be a great guide.

The other part of this though, is that even if I don’t actually like your music, choice of movie, or books, I can still like to watch you enjoying them. There are few joys so great as watching someone’s eyes light up when they talk about their favorite band/movie/book/work of art. Particularly if you’re interested in pursuing a relationship with that person, you can tell pretty quickly if you’re going to like them depending on how they talk about such a thing. If you want to know what reaction to have, I love excitement and delight over superiority and hipsterness. The reason I gave Alesana a chance was that the girl in question was so dazzled by her love for this band that I figured I just HAD to see what the fuss was about. Her enthusiasm carried me along far enough to give them a fair shake. After all, even if you’re hating the band, you can like just being with the person who enjoys it. You can even start to see the merit in the thing that brings your friend such pleasure. This is about me liking you, being with you, wanting to see you happy. If I really love you, and of course I do, then my main interest will be wanting to see you enjoy yourself. That will often turn the tide, and bring me at least an appreciation of this thing I don’t get right now.

tl,dr - Sometimes, you really can love something enough for both of us.

Polyamory Q&A: Question 12

Have you had any other forays into poly other than your V with Syd and Holly? Or was that a triad? I get confused.

It was a V and then it became a triad, and then things went wrong and now we're a couple.

There were others, some we were in a quasi relationship, some wanted to be in a relationship, and some wanted in on the ride but couldn't make the sanity throw. If you read this post and this post, you'll get an idea.

I’m at odds as to whether or not I should give more details, or what kind I should give if I do at this point. Not because I’m worried about annoying someone or going TMI, but simply because I’ve written about that before, and this is just clarification and refreshing the memory. You could hit the poly tag and go back a few pages, I've written a few things on the subject. Alternatively, you could grab the sexuality tag and check that out.

I think we’re at the end of what I wanted to say at the moment, and you guys seem to be all out of questions. As proof of that, we have the next entry…

I haven't got any more general poly questions. :(

Well then, I guess we’d better stop for a while and consider this series closed at an even dozen. If you have specific questions, you can e-mail me, if you have non-poly questions, I’ll put up another poll in a few days.

Polyamory Q&A: Question 11 (hints)

Is there something you just wish you did better?

You know something sweetheart, I’m glad you asked that question. As it turns out, there is something I wish I was better at.

I wish I were better at getting and interpreting hints as they’re being dropped.

See, there have been times in my life, when I wasn’t just the handsome, charming and debonair fellow you see before me. There was a time, long ago, when I was down right pretty. I say this with no ego or self aggrandizement, because it never did me a bit of good seeing as no one ever mentioned it to me until it was far, far too late to do anything about it. By the time the phrase “Too pretty for words” came along, I wasn’t anymore. Weight and age had laid upon me and I was no longer the heart wrenching beauty I once was. Sadly, this really was something I didn’t know I had until it was gone.

It seems, as I have been told later, that about 98.7% of all females fell into a maddening, lustful, unrequited, crush that was akin to the gravitational force of a black hole. Only, unlike those massive dead stars, you could escape because I had no idea of the powerful draw I possessed in those days. Evidently, when there were mass faintings, I just assumed that there was some kind of gas, or I didn’t notice them fainting, or I was busy talking to someone, or… something. I have been told that it was happening though, just as I left the room all the girls would collapse and fan themselves and make sighing noises AND THAT’S NOT FAIR!

Why they couldn’t have done it while I was in the room… I don’t know. I was not consulted on this; no one asked my opinion at the time, and if they had I would have suggested changes. Most the females I knew in High School that were candid enough to discuss this were lesbians and didn’t see the attraction because they weren’t into men. When my opinion was asked for later, upon someone revealing that she had carried a massive crush torch for me all through high school, I said that she could have done things differently. Actually, I remember swearing and saying that I never even had an inkling of an insinuation that she wanted me. I remember a string of profanity and vocabulary words spewing forth, because that’s sort of what I do sometimes.

You remember me talking about red socks a while ago? This girl claimed that she had worn the local equivalent of red socks around me for four years just hoping and praying I would notice. Now, we were friendly, but I have to tell you that I NEVER saw the myriad of signals she claims she was throwing my way. By the time she was telling me this, she had hooked up with a nice guy and I was with Syd and the word “Poly” wasn’t even a thing yet and, and, and… nothing. Nothing ever came of that because it was too late to do anything about it. However, that would not be the first time I would be so frustrated.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten no better at seeing hints and signs. The only thing that has changed is that I am now aware that such sings and hints exist. To some extent, this has made things easier, and to some extent this has made me paranoid. It’s laughable to be paranoid about ancient aliens helping the Freemasons to come over here and steal our cheese, because that’s an absurd thing to be concerned about. It is not, however, absurd to be paranoid about missing signals that you know exist and that you know you have a history of missing. See, when you have later been told that a girl talking about how she loves brown eyes and guys with long hair, directly to you – a brown eyed long haired guy, is supposed to be a hint that she’d like you to take her roughly and ravish her under the bleachers, well it makes you feel silly for not having ravished her. It makes you feel particularly silly when you spent three years thinking said girl was the seventh loveliest thing you’d ever seen and had often wondered how she’d look while being ravished under the bleachers. Sadly, I was only informed of this after ravishing, bleachers and long hair had all gone out of style. Also, said girl has since dropped to the fifteenth loveliest thing I’ve ever seen, but that’s more because I have seen so much more and less that her beauty has decreased. Also, I later learned that she was kind of a self centered jack-ass and counted myself as lucky not to get wound around her little finger like many another I knew.

Sorry, where was I? Oh, yes, hints!

Now, I’ve learned a few other things about girls since then, and a few things about grown women as well. One of the things I’ve learned is that sometimes, when a girl says she likes your hair, all she’s saying is that she likes your hair. That’s one of the really hard things to deal with, at least for me. Men are easy, men think you’re pretty and they say “You shure is perty! You got a perty mouth. I bet you could squeal like a piggy.” and then you start to run with knives drawn, ready to kill. Women are more subtle and say things that could mean they’re just making pleasant conversation, or that they’re trying to lure your dumb ass into bed if you weren’t so damn dumb and could be lured into the place you clearly really want to go. AND! Sometimes, they’re trying to sound you out, see if you’d find them slutty for wanting to bang you like a screen door in a windstorm. So, sometimes it’s a come on, sometimes it’s not a come on, and sometimes it could lead to a come on if you answer the unasked question correctly.

Now, you throw polyamory into the mix. You have friends who know where you stand, and where they stand, and yet there are times when you think they’re flirting. But then, you think that they can’t possibly be flirting beyond telling a joke, because as far as you know they aren’t poly. OR ARE THEY? Because while you’re talking to them, and they seem to be flirting, they mention that they’ve thought about living in a group situation and that the idea sort of appeals to them. Then she mentions being bi and thinking your GF is cute and letting the rest sort of hang there. I’m making it sound like those all came in one sentence, which doesn’t do her or me any favors. Of course, by the time I’d worked out what her signals meant, I’d also worked out that there was a stability problem with her.

The other reason I find this frustrating is that in other circumstances, where no sexuality is involved, I can read 99.6% of all people like a large print book. Partly it’s that I’m a good listener, partly it’s that I’ve got enough empathy to understand where a person is coming from, and partly I have a conman’s knack for observing those tiny clues about a person that even they don’t know they’re doing. Probably, a big part of my problem with hints is that I’ve probably got this whole shyness/self-esteem issues going on. Yeah, I have a natural ability to decide that those hints aren’t what I might think they possibly could be. No, it must just be pleasant conversation, she’s just answering my question in a frank and unambiguous way because she feels comfortable with me and I talk in a fairly frank and straight forward manner most the time. Yeah, that’s it, that’s why she told me what she told me in a way that could be considered provocative and alluring, not because she’s trying to tell me that her bedroom is just upstairs and gosh I’ve got nice legs.

So yeah, I wish I was better at hints and clues. While we’re at it, I would also like to no longer be dyslexic and I would enjoy a cure of ADD if you’ve got one handy. I know the question wasn’t asked in a poly poll, but I’ve decided to drop it in here anyway.

Polyamory Q&A: Question 9 (b)

When I answered this the first time, I didn't quite get what they were asking, or whatever. So, let's answer it again.

When you're in a relationship with two or more other people, how do you ensure you make time for the people you're not sleeping with?

There are two ways to answer this. One, I can tell you about how most the people I want to hang out with are either Not Local* and I know them through the internet or have moved away to Not Local Land and I keep up with them as best I can. However, that’s sort of a weak answer and leaves people wondering why I don’t just make friends in the local area which is like asking a depressive why they don’t just cheer the fuck up or asking a man on a desert island why he doesn’t just eat the sand.

Let’s suppose people live local again, I deal with those people like anyone else I suppose. Remember, one of my central tenets for success is treating every relationship like its special and only separating friend from lover by remembering who I’m supposed to kiss on the mouth. As a result, I try to touch base with everyone on a regular basis, listen when they have problems and so on. It might take a little more energy, but the last time I had enough people local that I talked to, I managed. Of course, I could call people on the phone now that cell plans have made long distance charges more or less a thing of the past, but I don’t really like talking on the phone that much. Also, I don’t like bothering people.

Besides, I’ll be honest, people also have my number. That ended up causing problems for a while there, when I was about the only person calling anyone, suggesting things to do, making sure people got out behind their computers and did anything. So, yeah, that caused some issues as well.

Simple answer, effort. Not simple answer, there’s way more to that than we can cover in a short post like this.

*Not local means more than 20 minutes away by car. Considering how fast I drive, that’s some distance.

Polyamory Q&A: Question 10

10. How do I know if poly is for me?

You don’t.

Yup, gonna be plain and simple at ya there. To give you just one example, you could be in a poly relationship for (let’s say) ten years and then suddenly decide during, the eleventh year, that this isn’t working anymore and you have to go. That has been known to happen on at least one occasion.

Conversely, you could live in a quite, button down, boring old peanut butter and jelly monogamous relationship for most of your life and then, suddenly BOOM(!) Cornchips! you meet someone so amazing you have to be with them, but you realize that you can’t be parted with your current partner and decide that instead of sneaking around and having affairs, you move them into the spare room and all live together as a little commune for the rest of your lives. That has also happened on at least one occasion.


You remember back at Question 4 I started making comparisons with food? Wasn’t that fun? Let’s do that again. Do you remember being a kid and not liking asparagus? And then, do you remember having it one day during your adulthood and saying to yourself “This ain’t so bad. Actually, I kind of like this.” That’s because tastes change over time, unless you still hate asparagus, but if you’re going to be obstinate and refuse to work with me by eating your vegetables, then I’m afraid there will be no pudding for you. Well, all of life is kind of like that. One day you realize that Pepsi is just too damn sweet, that lemons are too damn sour, and that living with only one lover it too damn limiting. Like wise, you can realize that asparagus is tasty, that you prefer more peas to a slice of pie, and that sharing your loved one with another person is actually kind of refreshing. Or, you might decide after three years that it’s not so awesome as you’d previously thought. This is going to sound like something you’d get if a 13 year old wrote a fortune cookie, but I know of no other way to say this… “You just never know.”

You might think it might not work, you might think you could never handle it, but you won’t know until you’ve tried it. You might think you’ll be a wiz at it, but that’s always someone’s thoughts pre-smashing the car into a lamp post because they have no idea how to drive and just slammed their foot on the gas. Either way, you just don’t know until you’ve given a whirl and seen how you reacted. Each person is different, and each group is different, but until you’ve been there, you simply will not know.

Now, sure, you can look for some of the factors that are listed in other places around the internet, but you didn’t ask about factors, you asked how you know and I’ve gotta tell ya, you never know. Of course, you might be gay, or a secret kitten hater, or a Doors Fan and not know that either. I know, it sounds sort of mealy mouthed and wishy washy, but it’s all I’ve got for you.

Polyamory Q&A: Questions 8 & 9

8. How long have you been living in a polyamorous relationship?

15 years? Maybe? I’ve been with Syd longer than that, but about 15 years for the poly part I think. See this post for more details.

Okay, that was a really, really short answer. Let’s just throw the answer to question #9 in this post as well.


9. When you're in a relationship with two or more other people, how do you ensure you make time for the people you're not sleeping with?

Careful planning and precision execution. I personally spent time with each of them doing different things. Syd likes outdoorsy stuff and the magic of nature, Holly didn’t. Hol liked Museums and Syd will tag along, but she can’t get enthusiastic about them. Holy and I did most the shopping together, Syd and I slept in the same bed when I was sleeping at the same time she was. I never really had a problem, I never had a complaint from either of them that I wasn’t spending enough time with either one. Of course we were three fairly introverted people, so spending time apart was as important as being together.

I don’t know, I never saw it as a chore, rather just something that happened. I suppose you could say it’s a bit like knowing how to steer a little boat down a river, after a while you know where the dead tree is and how to avoid it. You don’t even need to see it, you just know it’s there and to go around.

Sometimes I am very not nice about polyamory.

I've decided I don't like the term "metamour" which is your poly lover's other lover.

It's too cute, too hipster, too "this is totally a legit lifestyle and to prove it we'll throw out terms to freak the squares" hypocrisy.

I’ve been Poly for well over a decade, and I’d never heard it before last week. I suspect that's the point. You've got to find a way to show that not only are you in a weird, freaky relationship style, but you're in so deep you've named every cog and spring individually.

“Oh, metamour? It’s a really obscure term, you’ve probably never heard of it.”

Well sweetie, I knew polyamory when it was still a shitty garage band with only three members and went under the names “Free Love” and “Open Relationship” before forming the party you just Johnny-Came-Lately to, so kindly stop making the rest of us look bad. I'm trying to show these people we're not all freaks and assholes.

There is a time and place for all opinions, and mine is that this word needs to be drowned in the toilet after being told that it forgot to flush.

Polyamory Q&A: Questions 6 and 7

6. What's your ideal relationship plan?
Hard to say, I want more than I’ve got now, that’s for sure. I would like at least one more person, maybe two, who knows. My plan is one where everyone is happy. If everyone is in love with each other, that would be best. A semi-closed triangle or square? Yeah, that sounds okay. Now, don’t get on me about fairness, or about what other people in the relationship might want, that wasn’t the question. The question was about MY ideal and MY ideal has a small group of lovers, each of whom I can form connections with on different levels with semi-regular intervals of group sex.

I just want all the little empty cracks in my heart to be filled. I learned long ago that one person wasn’t going to excite all my interests, so I needed more than one. Also, group sex is a lot of fun, I’m not going to lie to you. Three ways rock and I’m assuming four ways rock even more.



7. Would you like two co-primaries, a staggered hierarchy (primary, secondary, tertiary), or a partner and a host of casual fuckmuppets?

I am made very uncomfortable by the idea of the hierarchical layout. I just can’t get into that vibe much. I don’t like putting one person above another. Some people, that’s totally for them, but not so much for me. Of course, as things currently stand, who knows what the situation will be the next time someone shows up at our door?

That being said, I could see the advantage to casual fuckmuppetry, but I could also see the downsides. I’m fairly fluid mentally, so I could have a friend, and be sort of a lover, but still technically be a friendship, I suppose. I’d already have deep feelings for them, if we were going that far, so it wouldn’t be that big a shift. Maybe? I’ve never had a fuckmuppet before, so I can’t say.

Polyamory Q&A: Question 5

5. Lately I've been wondering about poly relationships over the long term. Relationships I thought were going to last didn't. How long can a poly relationship really last?

How long can any relationship last? Long term can be tough, you add extra people and the toughness of long term grows exponentially. Take a simple three way relationship. A has an individual relation ship with B. A also has an individual relationship with C. C and B have an individual relationship with each other. But wait, there’s more! Then there is the relationship between A, B and C as a unit. Then you have how A feels about B and C in their relationship, how B feels about A and C and how C feels about B and A. Even if B and C aren't actually involved, by dint of them both seeing A, they are still in a relationship of some variety. Now if C has an outside relationship, then the math gets even harder and I’m no good at math. There are a lot of variables, a lot of relationships, and all of them have to work for a poly relationship to work. When things break down then things fall apart. All that being said, I know some poly people who were together longer than Syd, Holly and I and as far as I know they still are together. It can work, but things have to be properly functioning.

I’ll say it like this, and then say no more. It’ll last as long as it lasts, try to enjoy the ride. When it ends, you’ll have your memories. It will end, because everything ends. People die, things change, end comes. You will one day have to meet the Sky Bunny and talk to the Great Pixie and everything will end. What is certain, and how long have you really got? Only Fancy knows, and she ain’t telling.

Polyamory Q&A: Question 4

4. Let’s go back to this Different People for Different Reasons thing…

That’s not a question, but okay. I like ice cream, you dig that? I also like Salt and Vinegar potato chips, you dig that? Okay, when I’m in the mood for ice cream, I go to the freezer and get some ice cream. When I want something salty and sour, I go to the pantry for the S&V chips, right? Okay! Now… Girlfriend #1 is a freezer and Girlfriend #2 is a pantry… and I just realized I am never getting laid every again… ever… too many fucking ellipses in this paragraph… I don’t care… I happen to like them and I think they give a nice Baroque feel to a… pation paragraph.

Sorry, what the hell was I talking about? Oh, right, food.

Sometimes the flavors mesh, ice cream and fresh berries go quite nicely together and make eating a delight. If you pour some hot caramel over them, and some whipped cream, and a couple of cute little cherries… then you’ll have to wash the bed sheets because that shit will get sticky. POINT IS! Flavors can mesh, and sometimes they can’t, but you can enjoy each as an individual thing and enjoying one does not detract from your enjoyment of the other. You can still love fresh strawberries, even if you also love ice cream. I don’t see the point in never eating a cherry again, just because I like strawberries a little more and I really don’t see the point of never having salt and vinegar chops again because I like strawberries as well.

Each person brings something new to the table, like a love of Shakespeare or in some cases, acid jazz. Syd likes outdoorsy stuff and the magic of nature, Holly didn’t. Hol liked Museums and Syd will tag along, but she can’t get enthusiastic about them. Syd likes video games and books with dragons on the cover, other girls like grunge music or cooking shows. I’m over simplifying, for the sake of making a model, but this could go on all night if I let it, but I won’t let it. The point is that I don’t need my one lover to be all things to me. I can have my other lover be the other things that the first lover is not. One can be gentle and understanding, the other can be frank and honest. It makes a good balance when it works, and you can build up a feedback loop of extra love that gets stored in little Coptic jars that have sexual positions on them instead of animal heads.