Morning.

Ate breakfast with Darkside. He was reading. Did not discuss the majority of my internal ramblings of yesterday with him. Did tell him that I'd left that voicemail message for Adam.

At the beginning of the relationship with Adam, the agreement included the fact that I have assigned Darkside the emotional position of Primary, so he gets priority. I have decided to give Darkside that priority at the expense of most, if not all, other romantic relationships.

I have decided that I want a relationship with Darkside, and I have decided that I would like that relationship, if there is one, to be a long-term one.

Step one in attaining that relationship: make myself attractive to him.

There was some of the usual kidding around at breakfast. Darkside "accidentally" set his soda can on my hand a few times; he pretended to stuff his soda can down my cleavage. We played Mercy. I surrendered. We arm-wrestled; he won. (This, despite my having worked out yesterday.) As I walked him to class, he told me the trick he'd used, and I demanded a rematch on the Mercy. He told me I'd come close to winning, but I'd given up too soon.

Attractive

So what is beauty, anyway?

Today, I was beautiful. I was dressed in clothing that flattered me, with brushed hair and lipstick, and a wide, happy smile. (ralmathon was unnerved as the smile resembled the dangerous Azz Grin.)

I have most of my health back, now that I've recognized that the "colds" that used to plague me for nearly the entire year were really allergies. I'm not in shape yet; I need to be, for my own health and happiness.

I am overweight. I possibly am heavier than I look, as there is a fair amount of muscle and bone inside, but I'm still overweight and uncomfortable with it. That's as much a health issue as it is a beauty issue. I'm not half as strong as I'd like to be; I'm not half as strong as I used to be. It has been something I've been slowly attempting to contemplate changing about myself, but somehow not something I'd ever gotten the motivation to do.

It's tough, being able to read between the lines in the things your friends say so very well. Darkside does not mention my weight. I don't bring it up much. If I do, he doesn't comment. It bothers him, though. He tries to not show it, but it bothers him. If I didn't know him so very well, I'd never know.

Being slightly uncomfortable myself is something I can handle. Having something that bothers Darkside that I wish to change about myself anyway -- there is now motivation for me to lose weight.

And I am. I'm getting tougher, thinner, prettier. I'd like to get back down to a size 18, which is where the cool clothes start to be. I don't want to have to stick to mens' styles and the things that I can find in sizes 24-26.

I don't just want to be beautiful. I want to kick ass.

Polyamory, read/write

DC feels that I'm coming out as Darkside's apologist for the lousy way he's treating me. She saw me through Shawn, saw the damage I took; and she met me a few years into the Shawn relationship, when I was already silent, quiet, his meek little secretary. She sees in Darkside another Shawn, another user, abuser, who will mold me into their conception of the perfect woman, then toss me, as their image of perfect won't be truly perfect.

I disagree.

Wired had alarm bells go off at my mention of stopping sex with other people because it bothered Darkside. I have a bad habit of writing the beginning motivation and the end result, skipping a good deal of internal debate in the process.

Given: Darkside values monogamy, and especially values my not sleeping with people who will do me mental and/or physical damage.
Given: I have a tendancy towards sleeping with people.
Opinion/Psychological observation: Darkside is less likely to allow himself to become attracted to someone who engages in frequent sexual activity with multiple people without an established healthy relationship.
Given: I love Darkside and wish to enter a relationship with him.
Observation: If I'm going to sleep with someone, it's most likely going to be someone I've slept with before.
Observation: Darkside approves of the idea of my sleeping with ralmathon.
Fact: I have not had sex with ralmathon.
Opinion: Neighbor does not wish to have sex with me.
Hypothesis: Darkside would not enter a relationship with me unless I were completely single.
Opinion: I really, really want to have a relationship with Darkside.

Weighing all of these factors, knowing Darkside as I do, I conclude that if Darkside has so much as a spark of attraction towards me, I could do one of two things to encourage it:

1. Continue sleeping with Adam, which situation frustrates Darkside for sake of my sanity


2. Make myself single so that Darkside would have a chance at me

Somehow, knowing Darkside as I do, seeing the disappointment in his eyes when he gets that tense expression on his face when I mention getting it on with Adam (not to mention iroshi's insights on the matter), I don't think that the solution is to keep throwing myself at other guys.

Knowing Darkside's history as I do, I suspect that one of the best things I could do to encourage him towards a relationship would be to demonstrate my caring for him, and my constancy. Knowing his conservatism, I vote for that as well.

Understand that constancy and celibacy are well within my nature, just not the side of my nature that I've been exploring over the past eleven months. Polyamory has been my ethical position since I knew the word. Polyamory is the loving of many, but includes also the loving of the self.

I would be doing myself a great betrayal were I to ignore my love for Darkside (yesterday, I realized how much I did feel for him) and continue to maintain relationships that I feel little for, now, and ignore the possibilities of things that might be, because it would be giving up short-term pleasure.

Darkside has always been the person that I knew I could become exclusively pair-bonded to, were I given the opportunity. As I hadn't been given the opportunity, I continued to play with relationships that I knew held little to no future. Darkside's Primary status was part of the initial consultation with Adam about a relationship. Adam will not date a woman who's not of his religion. I could not, would not, change religions for the purpose of dating Adam.

Cordelia said it best: people before principles.

I mainly speak of my many small submissions to Darkside, because it pleases me to submit. I don't speak so much of the equally many, equally small, actions of standing up for what I choose to be doing at any particular moment, no matter what he thinks of it, because after the repairs to my mind and soul, standing up for myself is not so much a problem any more.

If Darkside didn't care about me the way I am, I wouldn't consider him my best friend. If he didn't continually say little things to build me up, help me be more myself, refuse to let me blind myself, I'd probably have wandered off, feeling lost, in some other direction.

boojum knew me as I was just beginning to know Shawn, and her ex, pyrogenic, knew me before that. They're my baseline here. Everyone else I know on LJ has only known me after Shawn. I'm still not so sure how much of the me that I am now is me, and how much is Shawn, to whom I gave near-absolute write permission. Darkside's not Shawn. He refuses to become Shawn.

I could love him for that alone.

CRon.clue = false;

Ron, my old C++ teacher, aka Einstein-Newton from the local renfair, noticed my gigantic lunatic grin today and inquired. I responded that I was generally happy, and had consumed caffiene; after class, I explained to him that I had fallen head over heels in love, and was about to make a complete idiot out of myself.

He clearly wanted to inquire further, but surpressed his curiousity before it got the better of him. "Good luck", he wished me.

"Thanks, he'll need it", I said, skipping out the door.


Ron will probably catch on to what may or may not be up in the next few days. The guy's smart, and he comes in early every morning.

Silly boy.

Why would he want to stick his soda can down my cleavage?

We did have the discussion about what happens after he graduates. He hadn't planned on moving right after graduation; he's too broke to do that; his plan was, in his words, to stick around and annoy his parents, while saving up enough money to move out.

He's not sure whether or not he'd be getting together with me outside of school at all after he graduates. I told him that I didn't want to be switching best friends. He, sadly, is all too used to switching best friends.