Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurelunatic) wrote2002-03-15 01:59 pm
azurelunatic) wrote2002-03-15 01:59 pm
cross-posting...
On the topic of Darkside, I made a post in ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
polyamory: http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=polyamory&itemid=168362
Polyamory/monogamy, convenient labels.
When contemplating potential partners, I often find myself asking, "Would I be willing to be monogamous with them if they should ask this?"
It's an interesting selftest. Of the two people I would at this point be willing to share the rest of my life with, one of them, if he wished it so, I could happily be with him and only him. The other one and I could never be monogamous, though I would feel comfortable marrying him and keeping him as my Primary long-term.
Why the difference?
It may boil down to this: one of them's poly by nature, the other one may not be. I am not one to attempt to convince someone to go against their own nature. Whenever I fall for someone I suspect may be monogamous, I ask myself: "Does my relationship with this person fill all my romantic nutrition requirements?" Some partners are better at snuggling. Some partners do passion very well. Some partners are ideal for long, peaceful, contented talks. I could never be a monogamist with someone who doesn't fill all my emotional nutrition requirements; I must be just as careful to avoid a polyamorous situation that fails in the same way: it's a balancing act much like balancing proteins.
If all my romantic requirements are met in a single relationship, I may or may not wish to have other relationships. This depends on who's available to date, and also whether I am submissive to or dominant of my partner, and my partner's preferences. If my partner prefers monogamous relationships, and I am submissive to that partner, I will be willing to have that partner as my only relationship, but I do still consider myself polyamorous, even if that relationship should develop into a lifelong closed two-person relationship.
...I find that I'm Hierarchical poly, but prefer to use the terms Primary, Secondary, & Tertiary to describe the strength of the emotional bonding/time spent, in such a way that I would have no trouble describing someone as having three Primarys and a Tertiary, or two emotional Primaries, one of whom is a timewise Tertiary.
I like sticking labels on things because it gives me a good reference point to start from. After I get to know the situation well enough, the labels are unnecessary, but until then, they're quite helpful. Starting off with blank keycaps is not always the best way to learn to type.
(and, in reply to a comment about the concept of RNRs)
It's a concept I've been contemplating ever since my teenage years, when I realized that my system generated, almost as waste energy, a large amount of love-energy of varying types. I naturally could not keep such energy internalized; it would burn me out. I had to always have some focus or other for it, whether it be my writing, or something else, or some person or persons... and how if I got into a relationship with someone who did not love me back in the correct way, how I had to have some source for the correct variety of love-energy...
Odd, bordering on the metaphysical, but ... a nice way of organizing, when I bother to organize.
polyamory: http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=polyamory&itemid=168362Polyamory/monogamy, convenient labels.
When contemplating potential partners, I often find myself asking, "Would I be willing to be monogamous with them if they should ask this?"
It's an interesting selftest. Of the two people I would at this point be willing to share the rest of my life with, one of them, if he wished it so, I could happily be with him and only him. The other one and I could never be monogamous, though I would feel comfortable marrying him and keeping him as my Primary long-term.
Why the difference?
It may boil down to this: one of them's poly by nature, the other one may not be. I am not one to attempt to convince someone to go against their own nature. Whenever I fall for someone I suspect may be monogamous, I ask myself: "Does my relationship with this person fill all my romantic nutrition requirements?" Some partners are better at snuggling. Some partners do passion very well. Some partners are ideal for long, peaceful, contented talks. I could never be a monogamist with someone who doesn't fill all my emotional nutrition requirements; I must be just as careful to avoid a polyamorous situation that fails in the same way: it's a balancing act much like balancing proteins.
If all my romantic requirements are met in a single relationship, I may or may not wish to have other relationships. This depends on who's available to date, and also whether I am submissive to or dominant of my partner, and my partner's preferences. If my partner prefers monogamous relationships, and I am submissive to that partner, I will be willing to have that partner as my only relationship, but I do still consider myself polyamorous, even if that relationship should develop into a lifelong closed two-person relationship.
...I find that I'm Hierarchical poly, but prefer to use the terms Primary, Secondary, & Tertiary to describe the strength of the emotional bonding/time spent, in such a way that I would have no trouble describing someone as having three Primarys and a Tertiary, or two emotional Primaries, one of whom is a timewise Tertiary.
I like sticking labels on things because it gives me a good reference point to start from. After I get to know the situation well enough, the labels are unnecessary, but until then, they're quite helpful. Starting off with blank keycaps is not always the best way to learn to type.
(and, in reply to a comment about the concept of RNRs)
It's a concept I've been contemplating ever since my teenage years, when I realized that my system generated, almost as waste energy, a large amount of love-energy of varying types. I naturally could not keep such energy internalized; it would burn me out. I had to always have some focus or other for it, whether it be my writing, or something else, or some person or persons... and how if I got into a relationship with someone who did not love me back in the correct way, how I had to have some source for the correct variety of love-energy...
Odd, bordering on the metaphysical, but ... a nice way of organizing, when I bother to organize.