On Love: Part 3 - Dating Poly

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This is the third in a series of my thoughts about love and relationships.  The first part was on love in our world and my life. In part two, I wrote about love some more, and my journey to being polyamorous. Today, I have some thoughts about what dating has been like for me as a poly person so far.

In some ways, poly dating is just like any other dating. You meet people, you feel it out, sometimes there is chemistry and sometimes there isn't.  In other ways, it becomes much more complicated, and you end up facing challenges you wouldn't face in monogamous dating.

Since I have realized that I'm poly, I have been up front with everyone I've dated. It is clear on my profile on OK Cupid, and I include it in any personal ads I post.  I don't see the point of waiting to tell someone, because that is wasting my time, and theirs.  Why forge a connection with someone only to find out AFTER the sparks start flying that we are not compatible?  If I meet people out in the world, it becomes a bit more complicated because I have to figure out when to tell them, but honestly that doesn't happen a lot.  I don't have much free time, and very little of the free time I do have is spent in any activities with the potential to meet dates.

I am also up front about my time constraints.  Part of this is just normal stuff that would apply in non-poly dating - I am a single mother who works full time.  I don't get a lot of free time, and in order for me to go on an actual date, I have to pay money for someone to watch my kids.  But some of it is also a direct result of being poly - I am seeing someone, and some of my time is already claimed by that person.  Right now, that person is the one I have been seeing longest and I have a very involved relationship with them.  Some of my time is reserved for them.  It doesn't mean I don't have time for you too, but it does mean people have to understand from the get-go that there are certain times I'm not available.

Dating poly can be really joyful.  I get the chance to experience new relationship energy (NRE) and the comfort of ongoing relationships.  I love that I can get different energy from different people.  I love meeting new people and feeling things out, hearing their stories, delighting in our common interests.  I like that I get to have different kinds of physical relationships with people.  Most of the people I meet who identify as poly also tend to be more accepting in general, more open, etc. and I really like surrounding myself with positive energy.

So, what is difficult about dating poly?  

Many people don't know what it means.

Some people understand it from the start. Maybe they identify as poly as well, or have experience with it. Some people seem to just like the idea that there doesn't have to be a certain type of commitment that fits inside a box. But for many people who come across my ad or my profile, they start chatting with me and it almost seems like they don't really think about how it could be different to date a poly person.  I still get people asking me if I am looking for "the one," and I have to explain that the concept of "the one" doesn't apply for me.  I answer the same questions for many people.  Yes, I already have a partner.  No, I cannot define our relationship for you exactly.  Yes, there are other people who come in and out of my life who I consider friends and have intimate relationships.  No, it is not some giant orgy all the time.  Yes, I am capable of loving more than one person at a time.  I don't mind explaining polyamory to people, I want more people to know about it and understand, because exposure leads to normalization.  But it can be frustrating once in a while when someone just can't grasp it OR chooses to ignore it as if it's not an important part of who I am and what I'm looking for.

The assumption that being poly means I'm easy and just looking for sex.

No, polyamory isn't just one big orgy all the time.  I mean, I guess it could be, if that's what you want.  And if it is, more power to you!  I don't think that there's anything wrong with a lot of sex.  However, I definitely encounter my fair share of people who think polyamory means slutty, and easy.  I am not looking for a sex-only situation, so when people think this our interactions don't usually last very long.

Feeling like a sideshow instead of a potential partner.

Like I said, I certainly don't mind answering questions about polyamory.  But there is a point at which it becomes less about someone trying to understand and more about them just wanting to hear details of my life.  It makes me feel like an animal in a zoo, like they just want to study me.  I don't mind explaining my current relationship(s) to some degree, but I'm more interested in exploring any potential relationship I might have with the person I'm talking to than giving them every single detail of my dating life before I even know what their favorite kind of pizza is.  Sometimes I think that people message me who aren't even interested in me because they are curious about me.

Encountering people who like the idea of polyamory, but may not be polyamorous.

I saw one guy for about a month last fall. We met and I had this feeling, and I contacted him, which is not something I've really done in the "real world" (read: not online), and we went out on a date and our chemistry was just... wicked. It was intense. I could feel that both of us were super open and deep and intense and we had these FEELINGS and we were both trying not to fall into them, but the electricity made it hard. Both of us had thoughts when we're not together about how maybe we should call it off, but then we get in the same room and it would seem impossible.

About a month into it, I had to tell him that the level of togetherness we had been having was just not sustainable for me. I can't take long lunches and I need to pay attention to my bedtime. The NRE was strong and we both wanted to spend time together, but it was too much for me. At first it seemed like he got it, and it was okay, but it didn't work out.  He was unsure about how to deal with sharing me.  I would purposely bring up my other partners to see how he reacted, because I had to.

We talked about just letting it be what it was, once again the phrase 'without expectations' slipping from my lips. He was new to poly, newer than I am, and seemed to be coming at it from a completely different angle. He knew in his head that it makes sense, and he knew in his head that he wasn't really in a place for something "serious." But in the end, it felt to me like his heart wasn't in being poly.  He wanted a "one," someone to be there just for him, to get wrapped up in, spend time with, and be enamored with.  And that is totally fine, but I am not that person.

For me, poly isn't in my head. It's inside me, like a part of my spirit. It is a feeling. It feels like something I have been missing that I finally found. It feels like many other things I have discovered about myself this year, like a part of myself that has come to maturity and makes part of who I am, a part of this wonderful person that I have come to be and love.

But don't you get jealous?

Yes, there is still jealousy, but there are lots of ways to deal with it and experience it.  The goal isn't to get rid of it, but to figure it out and incorporate it into your idea of how things "should" be.  Or better yet, get rid of those boxes and ideas all together.  What feels right?  For some people, a lot of people, monogamy feels right and good.  Fall in love, move in, get married, have babies, happily ever after.  And that is fine and good and wonderful.  I tried that.  It didn't work out for me.  And now, I am trying something else and it feels like home.

The jealousy will ebb and flow over time, and I will work to change my perception of jealousy.  Instead of having a knee-jerk reaction that jealousy means I should immediately stop the situation from happening that is causing the jealousy, I will communicate and process and figure out what it means for me and how to deal with it.

Other Thoughts on Non-Traditional Relationships

Along with polyamory, I have thought a lot about relationships in general, and so far I have found that the relationships that work for me right now are often non-traditional in other ways.  I have thought about a lot this year is labels.  Our society places a lot of emphasis on labels.  We are always trying to figure out what things are, how to label people, how to label relationships.  Perhaps this is because we are trying to fit things that are new to us into boxes we can understand.  Perhaps it is because the unknown can be scary.  Perhaps it is because we are so used to being able to define things and we don't like feeling like we don't understand something.  We have all of these expectations of what things SHOULD be.

We watch movies where the virgin princess waits her whole life for Prince Charming, and that is supposed to be what we want and the end goal of our love lives.  Meet one person, who is perfect for us.  Fall in love with them (but don't sleep with them!).  Fall into a love so deep and profound that it would be totally TRAGIC if you were ever separated.  Become exclusive and monogamous.  Get married, have children, have sex with each other and only each other until you are old and grey and die.  Happily ever after.

Guess what, though?  This path does not work for everyone, but it seems like not many people want to talk about it.  We do what we know, and in this society, the "normal" that is commonly accepted is the relationship escalator.  On OK Cupid, there are all of these questions that you answer to get your matches.  One is: Which interests you more right now, sex or love?  Seriously?!  There are about a thousand answers that lie in between those, on a continuum of how connected you want to be to someone.  Do we really have only two boxes, one for fucking with no feelings involved and one for happily ever after?  Because I'm pretty sure that's what it's down to given those choices...

What would happen if we removed these expectations from relationships and encounters?  It opens up a whole new world of levels of relating to other people.  I attend a monthly polyamory discussion group now, and a lot of the people say the same thing when they talk about discovering poly - that they heard the word and suddenly there was a definition for what they'd been feeling inside.

I know that for whatever reason people in this culture look down on polyamory or non monogamous relationships. They think it's weird. They think it's strange. They don't understand it, or have never heard of it. It's taboo. But why? Why should we limit ourselves based on some crazy ass idea of one man + one woman = RIGHT? Yes, that works sometimes, and it works for a lot of people. But other things can work too.

The relationships I have right now are not traditional.  Sometimes, they are hard to define.  But I am okay with that.  I have let go of a lot - fear, pain, expectations - and it has only led to good things for me.  Being more open and accepting of myself and how I feel has led to me being more open and accepting of the world at large, and that is a very good thing.

On Love: Part 2 - Relationshift

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This is the second in a series of my thoughts about love and relationships.  The first part was on love in our world and my life.

Recently I was chatting with a friend and we were talking about how much we like one another's energy. They said to me, "I like how open and laid back you are. You're low maintenance, but not aloof." I loved that description. It's like a tagline. The all new Rachael. Low maintenance, but not aloof. Ha!

In the first few months after I split up with my J, I rediscovered my libido. Scratch that. I can't call it a rediscovery if it was completely different than it ever had been. We were kids when we met, 19 years old, and with little relationship experience. Suddenly, I had an appetite, a hunger, and a freedom I never had before. It was incredible. I learned that there is pleasure out there for the taking that I had never, ever imagined. I discovered that my lack of self confidence was unfounded, that there were all kinds of people out there who found me attractive, desirable, hot. And I'm not kidding, this was shocking to me. It's been over a year now, and I still have a hard time believing it some days. I had always assumed, no, KNOWN, that there were other women out there prettier than me, skinnier than me, better than me.

In that time of exploration, I came to know myself, for the first time ever. I came to love myself, also probably for the first time ever. I have more confidence than I have ever had, and I know my worth, and I feel like I have BLOOMED, and I am so, so open, and it's amazing. I was empowered, and it hasn't gone away.  Love started to grow in my heart, I started to share it, and now it feels like an amazing tap that I can't (and don't want to) shut off.

One day, I felt a sudden shift. It was as if a switch had been flipped inside me and suddenly I was ready and craving something else. But what was it? Certainly not something I had experienced in the past. The phrase I eventually came up with was 'intimacy without expectations.' This was the headline of the Craig's List ad I posted that led my current main squeeze to me, and it was exactly what I wanted. What does that mean? It means that I love sex, and I want it (a lot). But, I no longer ONLY wanted sex. I wanted connection. I wanted love.

I have already written about my experiences of love and how my perception has changed.  This was not a longing for a kind of love I have felt before. One of the most important lessons I have learned this year is that there are more kinds of love than I ever imagined. I have an incredible amount of it inside me, and I have found people with whom I am able to give it freely without an expectation of a certain end result. I wanted intimacy. I wanted to LIKE the people who were giving me all those orgasms. I wanted to be friends, to be close, to laugh, and to love, in whatever form that took.

Almost simultaneously, two incredible people came into my life. One was a guy I am currently seeing. My relationship with him is amazing and nothing like anything I have had before. It's comfortable, and it's close, and it's exciting, and a lot of other things. It's also undefined, and though once in a while I struggle with that, most of the time I don't even think about it. I don't know right now how long it will last, but what I have learned about myself from him has already been so much that I am eternally grateful, and whether it ends tomorrow, or a month from now, or a year from now, or never, it will have been worth it. One of the things that caught his eye about my ad was my use of the term 'non-monogamous,' which I'd heard from a brief dalliance earlier in the year. He said he hadn't heard it much outside of the alternative community, and at the time all it really meant to me was that I didn't want to be tied down.

The other person who came into my life is the friend I mentioned at the start of this post. We met for lunch and they lent me their copy of 'The Ethical Slut,' and to use another cliche, I think that book changed my life. I immediately took a great liking to them and to the book they'd lent me. I devoured it. I couldn't stop reading. And I FELT it, I have never read something that I identified so closely with. If I was Oprah, I would have been saying "A-HA!" all over the place.

Wait, this is a thing? A thing people do? Experiencing love and connecting and caring for other human beings, and not limiting ourselves, and being responsible about it, this is okay? And I read the book, and I put all these little bookmarks in it and my mind was blown wide open, and at the same time I talked to S about his primary relationship and what he was looking for, and I talked to this other new friend about polyamory and I learned, and I absorbed, and it all made so much sense.

It turns out that this is not my own unique experience. Many of the polyamorous people I have talked to have told me of having the same experience - of suddenly finding out that there was a word for what they were feeling, that this was an actual thing people do, and that it can really work for people.

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So, now, here I am. It has now been a year and change since my marriage was officially called off. I have done so much healing, thinking, feeling, and exploring in this time. When I say I am a very different person than I was a year ago, I am NOT being cliche, I am only being accurate. As the months went on, my mind went through phases. I have gone from interest in the idea of non-monogamy to thinking, well, maybe I am poly, to settling in to the idea that polyamory is part of who I am.

I haven't written about it much, though this is how I process things. There have been parts of me that wanted to shout it from any nearby rooftop I can find, but I know that not everyone will understand. I know that it is all very new, and that there is a lot left to learn and navigate in this world.  I have been very vaguely open about it with some of my friends, without applying labels or 'coming out' poly so to speak. Until now.

My Mom knows some of what I've been feeling, and I know that she didn't really understand at first, but seems to have become more comfortable and accepting over time. She is also just an amazing and supportive mother, so she is there for me no matter what.  She was the first one I told about the fact that the guy I was seeing already had a long-term girlfriend, and that we were all okay with this. I told my best friend and my cousin outright in November or December. My best friend was extremely receptive and loving and hugged me and told me she is so glad I am finding myself, but my cousin... she was not un-supportive exactly, she just doesn't understand. She thinks it just makes things messy and complicated. And, there is that potential. Sometimes, dating poly is hard. But I have no doubt that the benefits outweigh those complications. All relationships get messy and complicated. Life is about how you handle it.  Yes, I get more complexity, but I also get more love, and to share my love with more people.

Being polyamorous doesn't mean that I just sleep with whoever I want (though, I kind of think there isn't anything wrong with that - but that's a whole other post). It isn't all about sex, it is about the way I relate to other people. It means that I have partners and we have an agreement that we are not each other's one and only, and between us we agree on what we want our relationship to be.

Lots of people are poly, and everyone has their own way of being. Sometimes, it is a triad, sometimes more.  Sometimes the partners are involved with each other, sometimes it is a V where one person has two partners who are not partners with each other. Sometimes one partner is poly and the other partner is monogamous. Sometimes, there is cohabitation, sometimes not. Sometimes, the web is tangled and complex and contains a dozen people or more in some capacity. Sometimes, when you are single-ish and poly, like I am, it means that I can have ongoing, wonderful, friendly, intimate relationships with more than one person at a time. It also doesn't necessarily mean I WILL always have more than one relationship. Life changes, people come and go, and sometimes I may only be dating one person, or none. There is a huge continuum of how poly relationships can work.

Polyamory has been getting more media attention lately, and I feel like in the area where I live, there is a pretty good community.  In the last 9 months or so, I have gotten fairly involved in my local alternative/QLTBAG/Poly etc. community.  I've started attending a monthly discussion group, and found support in online groups, and made some amazing friends.  I feel like after a long time in Bellingham feeling like I couldn't find my place, I finally have.  It is a comfortable place, where I never doubt that the people who like me like all of me, and like me for who I am, and where I am totally and completely myself. I feel like I have finally found my tribe here.

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The bottom line is that I am happy. I have made wonderful, amazing new friends. I have some seriously excellent relationships going on, ones I can't define, and don't want to define. They are what they are, and they are wonderful. They ebb and flow. I don't know where I'm going, because no one can know that.  I can't imagine ever being with just one person again, limiting myself, and trying to force someone to meet so many expectations and needs all on their own.  This is not a phase. It's not a choice I made, it is something that is already inside of me. I am open. I am free, full of love. And I am poly.