Convenient Fictions: Paring Down the Truth

In my last post, I chose not to recount the note of levity with which Travis began our Summit: When I was coming up the walk to your house for that dinner with Helen, I looked down...and sure enough, my fly was open.

I laughed, and filled Parker in on what had happened the day before: I had been leaving Travis's place, when, noticing that his zipper was down, I warned him he'd better attend to it before he came to dinner. Maybe my mother-in-law will be more comfortable with your presence if your fly's zipped, I suggested, teasingly.

Never one to miss a comedic opportunity, Travis came up with an alternate scenario. I don't know – maybe I should leave it gaping open...and then, when I go to shake Helen's hand, I'll start pulling out all the panties you've left lying around my apartment.... (Here Travis began a pantomime, stuffing phantom panties into the crotch of his jeans and then pretending to pull them out, one by one, until I thought I was going to die laughing.)

In my last post, I also chose not to recount the note of levity with which Parker ended our Summit: after I hugged Travis goodbye, Parker sidled up to him, crab-walking, in a deliberate parody of the approach used when a hyper-masculine “from the side” hug is what's intended. He proceeded to give Travis a regular hug after all, then cracked, “Aren't guys weird?...I wonder what it'd be like to be one of them.”

I also neglected to mention the graphing exercise Parker insisted that we all do, in which we had to chart our level of interest in certain core pursuits, tracking the changes over the course of our adult lives. I didn't write about almond butter and blackberry preserves on a white plate, a broken red crayon, feeling self-conscious about my new haircut, or how Travis's place feels a bit like a bunker or a medieval church.

Why did I leave out so much of what happened during that meeting?

Because I had a specific story I wanted to tell. Three people come together to talk about how they might share a future; ironically, each person comes away from the experience feeling more alone. A true story. But not the whole truth. Stories are always, necessarily, partial.

Which brings me to the stories I want to tell today.

Story #1

Robin gave Lilianna a necklace for Christmas. Not surprisingly, given the crisis their relationship is going through, the gift was highly symbolic. Lilianna has been wearing it -- symbolism, emotional turmoil and all. A couple of days ago, she sent Robin a picture in which his gift is clearly visible around her neck. His response to this photograph was as follows: “I can't look at it and still manage to convince myself that you are totally worthless.”

Lilianna was shocked. “Is that what you're trying to do? Convince yourself that I'm worthless?”

“My life would be a lot easier if I didn't love you,” Robin replied.

Story #2

A few days before Christmas, I got a letter from Rick. He wanted to explain some things about why our relationship, his and mine, had ended the way it did. It was for his own peace of mind, he said.

I followed along as his letter dug up our shared past, exhumed the bones of our presumably laid-to-rest romance, and performed a very belated autopsy.

According to Rick, one cause of death was a feeling he'd had: he'd picked up on signals that I would “really not be okay” with him dating anyone else while he and I were in a relationship. Lilianna, on the other hand, “seemingly had no problem” with him dating – which Rick pointed out was “ironic,” since she's his wife, whereas I was only his girlfriend.

My reaction, on reading Rick's version of the factors and events that led to our eventual demise, was defensive. I immediately looked up certain key email exchanges, in which I had made it clear (so I thought, anyway) that he was free to do whatever he liked – that, while I couldn't guarantee I wouldn't have any negative feelings, a little bit of emotional processing was all I might need in order to be completely okay with him dating whomever.

I also found myself remembering every instance that might contradict Rick's claim about how Lilianna was supposedly so much better than I at not having a jealousy problem: what about (for example) the fact that every time he and I went on a trip, we had to spend a substantial portion of our time together searching for the perfect gift to bring back for Lilianna? This was her way of participating in the trips Rick and I took, her solution for dealing with the envy that came up whenever we went off together, and it never bothered me that she seemed to need this from us. Quite the opposite, in fact: I actually enjoyed the process of helping Rick select gifts for her. However, Rick's story wasn't sitting well with me, so I kept coming up with facts he'd forgotten or ignored, facts that would prove him wrong.

On some level, I want to erase his story and tell a different tale, one that suits me better.

Story #3

There's a party game in which each participant has something written on his or her back – the name of a famous person, say – and the object is to figure out your own “identity” without looking in a mirror or otherwise cheating. The only way to determine who you are, then, is to pay attention to how others treat you.

In real life, people don't always agree about what's written on your back. They're going to read what they see there, and treat you accordingly. They're telling themselves a story about you, and you're telling yourself a story about them. You're telling yourself a story about their stories, and they're telling themselves stories about the stories you're telling.

One way to get at the truth is through multiplicity: let everyone speak. Put all those competing narratives together, and the truth will emerge.

Another way: Forget about stories. Forget about language. Forget about identity. Listen to the silence.

Collage a Trois

This is the doodle I drew today during the First Ever Parker-Viny-Travis Summit on the Unpredictablility of the Collective Future.  Said Parker, "Every available spot is filled up with something."  Quipped Travis, "Uh-oh -- I think I see a blank space down there at the bottom corner.  Better do something about that, quick!"

Our little crayon convention, graciously hosted by Travis, took place because yours truly had been feeling like the three of us needed to have a talk.

A couple of weeks ago, Travis got into a funk about the future.  Parker and I are going to be moving, and Travis has been trying to decide what to do in light of this relocation:  he doesn't really want to move with us, but he would also like to maintain his relationship with me.  So, he hit on the brilliant plan of going into business for himself, so that he would be able to have offices and/or residences in two different cities.  (As he explained it to me, "I think I may be polygeographical.")  However, it was beginning to seem to Travis like he couldn't bank on this plan working out: "I don't know if Parker is going to be happy in a new city -- what if you guys move there, and he decides it's not what he hoped it would be?  So there I am putting all this energy into starting an office in a new place, only to have you guys pull up stakes again." 

"Would you be willing to talk to Parker about this directly?" I asked. "Sure," said Travis.

A few days later, Parker was talking about how much he had relished traveling around this past summer, never being in the same place for more than three or four days at a time.  "Travis thinks you aren't going to be happy anywhere," I said.  "Yeah," said Parker, "I've been noticing that lately there's this Parker-is-just-unhappy-with-everything-so-let's-not-listen-to-him thing that's been going on.  You seem hostile to everything I have to say about the future, and I think it's because of Travis." 

"Would you be willing to talk to Travis about this directly?" I asked.  "Sure," said Parker.

Ergo, today's Summit. We even had a babysitter for the event: Parker's mother, Helen, is here for the holidays.  "But I really wish I could come and take notes," she said. "I need some good dialogue for my new play." 

Right from the get-go, there was the problem of positioning: where to sit?  We eventually decided we should all sit on the floor, even though it was uncomfortable.  Otherwise, it would have been two of us (which two?) on the sofa, and one on the chair.  We started out as an equilateral triangle, but Parker drifted closer to me as the conversation went on.  Travis busied himself getting tea, distributing cushions, fixing himself a plate of food, and doing up some dishes.  I spent a lot of time filling my piece of paper with little crayon doodles.

It was a good conversation, but it didn't get anywhere much until almost three hours in, when it was already past time for me and Parker to relieve his mother from kid-duty.  I had suddenly gotten very vehement about not wanting to be financially dependent on anyone -- not Parker, not Travis.  It's time for me to start a career in earnest, now, and I want to be certain that nothing interferes: this is what I was expressing. 

And then there I was, standing, facing the mirror that runs the length of Travis's living room wall, with Travis on one side of the couch and Parker on the other, both of them facing me, and Travis said, "Just to be honest, now that we've had this discussion, I'm feeling far more discouraged about the possibility of working on anything together.  I'm not going to have kids with you.  I'm not going to live in your house.  Now, it seems clear that I'm not going to be building a business together with you.  So what's left?  There's no room for me in your future."  And Parker said, "That reminds me of how I've been feeling, probably for the last year: Viny has her own agenda, and it's not about anyone else."

And I thought, "Oh good: they see now that they're not really in each other's way: they're actually experiencing something similar."  And, "Oh damn: they see now that I'm the real problem."

It was really uncomfortable.

"So...We've decided that Viny does not play well with others?" I asked. They laughed.  Ruefully.

We concluded our Summit without coming to any real conclusions, and bid our farewells amicably -- tenderly, even, grateful that we took the opportunity to learn something about ourselves, about each other -- but there was something about the shared interaction that made each of us feel just a little bit sadder, just a little bit more lonely.

Conversations with My Son

The Scene

Yesterday, Christmas 2010, half an hour before the big feast is set to begin at Lilianna and Rick's place. A bunch of us are in the kitchen, including my husband and my 14-year-old son. My boyfriend has just arrived.

The Conversation

Lilianna: Hey Travis – I should introduce you to my family, right? Let me just check this cheddar sauce first. Viny, come taste this!

Me: Mmm.

Lilianna: So, how do you want me to handle this? “This is Viny's friend...”?

Me: Yeah, sure.

Denali (snickering): Close friend. Very close friend.

[Lilianna can be heard in the other room, introducing Travis to her father: “...And this is Viny's good friend....”]

Denali: Yep, that's what I say whenever my friends want to know who Travis is. “Oh, that's Travis. My mom's...friend.”

Me: Same tone of voice, too, I'll bet.

Denali: Except for the ones who know you're polyamorous, like George.

Me: Oh?

Denali: Yeah, he's all like, “It would be so cool to have an open relationship, like your parents – they can have sex with anyone they want!” And I'm like, “It's not THAT open.” But you have to remember that George is a little...well...

Me: Perv?

Denali: Yeah. Exactly.

**

The Scene

A few weeks ago. Denali and I are walking downtown. He's pointing out landmarks that have personal significance to him.

The Conversation

Denali: ...And right over there is where Montana cheated on me with her ex-boyfriend. But she couldn't avoid it.

Me: What do you mean?

Denali: She was trying to get her friend Shelli to kiss him, but Shelli wouldn't, she was all, “I'm not doing it until you do it first,” so what was Montana supposed to do?

Me: That is the lamest excuse I have ever heard.

Denali: Yeah. But it wasn't a big deal.

Me: Sure – I mean, you know my views. It's not like I'm going to go ballistic about someone “cheating” – it's about upholding your agreements with someone, whatever those are – but it's ridiculous for Montana to play it like she didn't have a choice. She obviously wasn't too upset about the prospect of kissing him, or she wouldn't have done it.

Denali: Yeah, I'm familiar with your views. And maybe that's partly why I didn't really care.

**

The Scene

Spring of 2006. Part I of the conversation takes place in a tent in the mountains – Parker is sitting by the campfire with our friends, and I'm on kid duty, which means I'm waiting for Denali (age 9) to fall asleep. Part II takes place a couple of days later, in the kitchen – I am doing dishes, and Denali is probably rummaging around in the fridge.

The Conversation

Me: So...did it seem weird for Lilianna to have a sleep-over with your dad the other night?

Denali: A little, yeah. [pause] Was it okay with you that she slept over?

Me: Sure.

Denali: Even though she and Parker slept in the same bed?

Me: Of course.

Denali: You knew they were going to sleep in the same bed?

Me: I figured they would, yeah.

Denali: And... that was okay with you?

Me: Yeah.

Denali: Even if they didn't have clothes on?

Me: What makes you think they didn't have clothes on?

Denali: It sounded like they were getting dressed. In the morning.

Me: Oh. Well, I told Parker beforehand that whatever he and Lilianna wanted to do during their sleepover was fine with me. Were you worried that I would be upset if I found out they were naked? Did you think maybe I didn't know that might happen?

Denali: I wasn't sure.

Me: Parker and I talked about everything, sweetie, and I'm fine. Are you still worried?

Denali: No, if you're fine, I'm fine. I was just checking.

Me: I was a little surprised to find out that you were feeling a little bit worried about Parker and Lilianna – remember, when we were camping? What we talked about? I mean, I used to have sleepovers all the time with Scott, and you never seemed to worry about it, or whether your dad was okay with it.

Denali: Wait...let me get this straight...Scott was your boyfriend?

Me: Yeah, what did you think he was?

Denali: I don't know. I didn't think about it. I was a little kid. He was just...Scott.

Me: All those years? The time he came to visit us in Denmark, and your dad was gone for a week on that architecture trip? Kissing each other goodbye, and not just on the cheek? You seriously didn't know?

Denali [shrugging]: I'm telling you – I didn't think anything of it.

Calming the Jealous Stomach: Practical Advice

I'm halfway tempted not to follow up on last post's promise of some practical tips for getting through jealousy, because it's feeling a tad irrelevant just now. The week's theme has been something more along the lines of Best Made Plans Go Awry. Stomach flu will do that to you.

However, suffering is suffering, and acute jealousy has also been known to wreak havoc on the digestive system, and so, in sympathy & as promised: here's some ginger ale for the soul.

Things YOU (as the person-experiencing-jealousy) can do:

1. Pay attention to your emotions in a non-judgmental way. It's especially important to recognize primary emotions – in other words, not thoughts, but visceral feelings. Acute jealousy is usually characterized by a mix of fear and envy, but sadness and anger are also common emotional components. There is nothing wrong with any of these emotions; each emotion you experience is trying to tell you something. Your job is to listen. If you don't understand how you feel, you will not be able to communicate your needs to others.
2. Think about the causes, internal and external, of the emotions you are experiencing. Write a list of these, and be as specific as possible. A list for fear might looks something like this: “I'm afraid Honeybun is going to leave me for Candyman. I'm afraid of being alone. I'm afraid I'll hate myself later if this all turns out badly. I'm afraid I'm never going to feel okay again.” A list for envy might looks something like this: “I'm envious of Candyman's good luck: when's the last time Honeybun answered the phone in that tone of voice when I called? I'm envious of Honeybun, because she's got this exciting trip planned with Candyman, and I'll be stuck at home. I'm envious because Candyman has that jawline and that great head of hair – no wonder Honeybun is smitten.” A list for sadness might look like this: “I'm sad because it feels like everything has changed, and something got lost, I'm not sure what.... I'm sad because things went sour between me and Lollipop, and I never heard from her again. I'm sad because Honeybun forgot to ask me about how my big work event went, and it makes me feel like I don't matter to her anymore.”
3. Communicate your feelings to your partner. Ask for what you need – but beware of the impulse to say something like, “I need this relationship with Candyman to STOP.” We are assuming, here, that you and your partner have agreed to an open relationship. We are assuming that you would like to be able to take responsibility for your own jealousy, that you aren't comfortable blaming it all on an external circumstance, specifically the existence of a threatening Other Person in your partner's life. The rule of thumb that has been helpful for me and for other poly people I know: asking your partner to DO something (with/for you) is fine; asking him or her to REFRAIN from doing something (with/for the other person) is problematic. Note that not all of your “can you please do this for me” requests may seem strictly reasonable to you, but go ahead and voice them if they're not going to be too difficult for your partner to honor. For example, you might say, “Could you please change the sheets after Candyman comes over – every time, no matter what the two of you might or might not have done in the bed?” What you are really saying is, “Right now, I need to feel like I have some control over what happens in my bedroom,” and if a little bit of sheet-shuffling is going to help, by all means, ask your partner to humor you!
4. If possible, communicate with that scary Other Person who seems to be the cause of a lot of your negative feelings. You may feel like this is the last thing you'd want to do, but I promise you that direct communication, though initially awkward, really pays off. Half of your jealous anxiety probably boils down to distrust of the Other Person, whom you are mentally casting as The Enemy, and it's hard to learn to trust someone you don't know and/or can't talk to.
5. Avoid the comparison trap. You may feel tempted to ask your partner to run the numbers – that is, to tell you everything that's “better” about you, vs. everything that's “better” about the Other Person, hoping that when all's said and done, you'll still come out on top. Go ahead and ask your partner to tell you what they love/admire/appreciate about you, but don't get your reassurance at someone else's expense. This does not need to be a winner/loser situation. You're going to feel jealous as long as you continue thinking that this is a competition. Also, demanding that your partner answer a question like, “Who gives better head, me or Candyman?” is just asking for trouble. Let's say your partner answers, truthfully, “You do.” Even then, your superior position is not secure: what if Candyman perseveres until he surpasses you? What if, years down the road, your Honeybun meets Ms. Cunnilingus Spectacular, and your hard-won trophy ends up going to her?  Or what if Honeybun decides that oral sex is nothing compared to that mind-blowing thing Candyman does with the shock-waves emanating from his sixth chakra?
6. Focus some real energy on your own pursuits – and by this, I do not mean the hot pursuit of your very own Exciting New Person. Yes, you feel compelled to play the tit-for-tat game. Yes, you're hoping for the rapt attention of someone who will excite your partner's jealousy. Yes, you want “in” on some fun, your very own fun. Yes, you desperately want to be distracted from this sucky state you're in. So go ahead and put up that updated dating profile, write that potentially interesting friend you met at that convention last year, make those sparks fly on the dance floor – but realize, please, that this is not the greatest time to start a new relationship of your own. You're highly unstable just now. Take some time to get yourself grounded, first. And one of the best ways to do this is to get in touch with yourself, with what really matters to you, with what feeds your soul. Art – in whatever form you practice it – is good. Exercise – in whatever way works best for you – is good. Learning – about whatever intrigues you – is good. Service – to whatever cause could really use your help – is good.
7. Finally, throw yourself the occasional “Poor Baby” party. You'll be the only guest, which means that the only person you'll need to please is yourself. If Honeybun has gone off with Candyman for the night, don't spend your evening doing the dishes or, worse, frantically going through the Craigslist “Casual Encounters” section. Instead, treat yourself to whatever relatively harmless indulgences you most enjoy. Sure, have a beer or a bowl of ice cream, or even both together, if that's your thing – but do remember that the point is to enjoy yourself, to spend some time taking care of you, not to give yourself a reason to feel worse about the way you're coping with your situation.

Jealousy Junkies

In my next post, I'll be giving some practical advice about how to weather acute jealousy with your relationship intact. But before I do that, I want to talk about the phenomenon of a jealous identity.

People who identify as jealous types are attached to their experience of jealousy. Giving it up would mean losing something that feels essential to their personality.

If you are in a relationship with such a person, you must accept the fact that nothing you say or do, and nothing anyone else says or does, is going to make him or her drop the “jealous lover” role. Only a genuine change of heart – one motivated from within – will allow him or her to let go, to see that disengaging from jealousy in no way diminishes the Self.

Disengaging from jealousy does not mean that you will always be free from jealous reactions, or from experiencing the emotions of envy and fear, which are the principle components of jealousy. What it does mean is that you conceive of jealousy as something transitory, something that passes through you, not as part of yourself.

It also means that you stop thinking of jealousy as something that's being inflicted on you. It arises internally in response to external stimuli, but it isn't anyone's fault. It simply is, and then, as soon as you decide you're done with it, it's gone. Allow it to be, and then allow it not to be.

Yes, you'll feel it again. Yes, you'll get over it again.

However, there are those who will always be in thrall to jealousy, to one degree or another, because they choose to be. No matter how much pain their jealousy causes them, and no matter how much their suffering pains everyone else, they'll continue to cling to it.

Some potentially perma-jealous types include:

1. The Monogamous Martyr: has a poly mate, but self-identifies as monogamous. S/he seems to support the poly partner, but this is because s/he buys the “love means self-sacrifice” idea hook, line, and sinker. The unpleasantness of jealousy is a cross to bear, and the bigger the cross, the bigger the love.
2. The Perfect Lover: may pay lip-service to the idea that love is not a finite resource, but secretly believes that this is true only for “ordinary” loves, not for a “true” love. This person often idealizes a particular connection, staking everything on its being an exception to the rule. S/he deals almost exclusively in superlatives, and needs constant reassurance that the idealized object of affection recognizes the singular nature of the love they share.
3. The Tortured Artist: believes s/he needs negative emotions of all kinds, including jealousy, to be creative and vibrant. S/he cultivates situations in which pain can function as a proof of existence, and fears letting go of negative feelings because s/he equates peace with death.

Emotional Blackmail

Before I get to the topic du jour, here's a little background context:

Tomorrow night, Lilianna will be introducing me, Parker, and Travis to her new friend Paul. We'll all have dinner, and then, assuming that everything goes according to plan, she and Paul will be spending their first night together.

Rick, Lilianna's husband, is fine with it. He and Paul were officially introduced yesterday – Lilianna had lunch with both of them – and apparently it went really well, much to Lilanna's relief. (She called me on the way to the restaurant, saying she felt like she was in a twisted replay of that Seinfeld episode in which George freaks out about the collision of “family world” and “relationship world.”)

Robin, Lilianna's boyfriend, is not fine with it.

And that's an understatement. According to Lilianna, Robin told her, “I can't shake the feeling that if you and Paul make love on Wednesday, you'll be doing it on top of my grave.”

A possible suicide threat, however melodramatic, is not a thing to take lightly. Lilianna was worried. I was worried, too. In fact, I wrote Robin a note, telling him I was really concerned about him. He responded, saying he was touched by my concern but that I could rest assured that he wouldn't harm himself.

I was reassured. And I was also a little pissed.

Everything Robin has been saying to Lilianna – his over-the-top, end-of-the-world rhetoric – it's all just a form of emotional blackmail. Something is happening, and Robin wants it not to happen. If his threats and insinuations don't change Lilianna's mind, they may at least change her state of mind: Robin wants her to be worried sick about him. If she's so worried about him that she can't enjoy her evening with Paul, so much the better.

I have no doubt that Robin is genuinely suffering. Jealousy is no fun.

But the reality is that nothing Lilianna does with Paul tomorrow night is going to hurt Robin. In reality, what Lilianna and Paul end up doing together tomorrow night actually has very little to do with Robin.

And THAT is what's really bothering Robin. It's not about you is the truth, but it's a truth his ego just can't stomach. No wonder he has an impulse to reassert control, to impose, to make the evening all about him, insofar as it's possible to do so.

This brings us to a common poly conundrum: when someone you love is experiencing acute jealousy, what do you do? Naturally, you care about how he or she is feeling, and you want to proceed with care and compassion. But does that mean you have to capitulate to every irrational fear, every unreasonable demand? Must you take full responsibility for inflicting a pain that's largely imaginary?

Mainstream culture has it that the person who causes a lover's jealousy is almost always in the wrong: if person X flirts with person Y and that makes Z jealous, then X had better make amends to Z. X had better promise Z that there will be no further jealous-making behavior with Y or anyone else. (Notice that Y's feelings about the matter are not even taken into consideration.) But even the monogamous mainstream will concede that there are times when Z is just making things up: if person X tells person Y, “Have a nice day!” and person Z gets all bent out of shape about it, it's just TFB for Z.

So, the real question is this: under what circumstances ought we to put down our desires and/or our ideals in order to attend to someone who claims to be hurt by them? Is love really about sacrifice? If so, whose sacrifice?

Relationship, Lost at Sea

It was this time of year, twelve years ago, that Scott and I fell in love. It was this time of year, eight years ago, that our relationship foundered on the rocks of his jealousy (if you'll excuse the poetic conceit I'm developing here). It was this time of year, six years ago, that Scott and I separated for good: not knowing how else to end things with him, I took the coward's way out and seized an opportunity to move to a different state.

Looking back, it seems to me that our ship sank because we never had a clear idea of where we were going together. We were tossed about by the currents of our passion, ever present to the joys or miseries of the moment, but blind to the future.

There were a lot of things we never discussed. For example, I took it for granted that Scott and I wouldn't expect sexual fidelity from each other – that ours wasn't that sort of relationship. After all, when we began having sex with each other, he had another sexual partner (his fiancee, Monique), and so did I (my husband, Parker). However, Scott apparently saw it differently: he assumed that our love affair was an anomaly for both of us, and that the only reason we weren't married to each other and monogamous was that we had previous commitments to people we cared about.

Scott's vision of things shifted somewhat after he and Monique divorced. Once he was single (or rather, once his only romantic relationship was with me), he saw his desire to date other women as part of “balancing the equation,” given that I was still married. Scott wanted a family of his own, and he set about finding a new life partner with my blessing. He never dreamed that I might have any desire to date other men – or at least he fervently hoped that, if I had such desires, I would never dream of acting on them.

When Scott started dating Chani, I initially had a very difficult time (see “Jealous Rantings, Part One”), but I busted my butt working through my negative feelings, trusting that Scott would do the same for me if ever he found himself in my position, feeling jealous about a new romantic interest of mine.

When I did end up having sex with someone else, Scott absolutely lost his Christmas cookies about it. Literally. He was a total wreck, and he blamed me for how rotten he was feeling. As for me, I felt terrible – it is never a pleasure to realize you've caused your lover that kind of pain – and also totally confused. First of all, I'd thought I had gotten Scott's (grudging) permission beforehand. Second, I remembered my own reaction when Scott first slept with Chani, and had been prepared to deal with something similar. I was not prepared for Scott's actual reaction, which was so extreme it almost seemed as if no action of mine could possibly have caused it. I began to think of his jealousy as an accident: I had set out on a voyage with a willing companion, thinking we'd charted our way, and now here we were, smashed to smithereens and in serious danger of drowning.

Although I didn't know whether we could salvage our relationship, I wrote Scott a letter in which I finally spelled it out: he was not, as he believed, an anomaly in my life, the only exception to the monogamous rule.

The following is an excerpt from that letter, dated December 22, 2002:

Everything about my day with [Mr. E] seemed good and right and I don't regret any of it, not even in the midst of this pain. I can't regret being open to the wonderful things that can happen in this crazy world; this kind of openness and being-thereness is my highest value, what makes life worth living, what saves me from despair. One of the reasons I love you so much is that you are able to be there with me, to BE and to live and to understand, and to encourage me to live, really live, too. I believe it would have been a huge mistake to turn my back on what began to unfold between me and [Mr. E] the other day. And what is it? It is a continuation and a deepening of a really wonderful friendship. It is not like what I have had (and hope to God still to have) with you. It is not like what I have with [Parker]. And so you want to know, is it just [Mr. E]? Or am I going to fuck all my friends? The answer is that I must be open to amazement and joy in my life. Sex with [Mr. E] was part of that. I don't know anyone else I'd want to share that with -- but I have to be honest, even though it frightens me, and say that it is possible that I could meet someone else like that some time in the future.

Scott's response was titled “LOVE LETTER,” and I won't include any of it here, because Scott's words aren't mine to use without his permission. The gist of it, however, went like this:

I see now that you have always tried to be clear about wanting a sexually open relationship, and I'm sorry I didn't really get that this meant you having sex with multiple people besides me and Parker, but now I know I cannot accept this kind of mistreatment from you. Your actions hurt me, and that is not the way to honor true love. I cannot travel with you down the path you've outlined in your letter. I think Parker and I should be enough for you, and that you are a fool not to be satisfied with what you already have. I realize that I'm not comfortable with who you are and what you say you want, and that trying to make you happy will not make me happy.

In other words, Scott finally realized that my being poly was a deal-breaker for him. So, not knowing what else to do, I agreed to try it his way: it would be just him and my husband, no one else. Mr. E and I went back to being “just” friends. Things went on this way for two more years, with me feeling increasingly trapped and increasingly resentful, until my desire for freedom eventually eclipsed my desire to keep Scott in my life.

At first, Scott failed to see me as I was, and then, after he began to see me more clearly, he couldn't accept what he saw. That was the deal-breaker for me.

I moved away, and our relationship underwent a major transformation. We managed to pick some good bits out of all that flotsam and jetsam, to make a seaworthy friendship out of our wrecked romance, but it was never the same. And, even after all this time, I still miss what we lost together.

Public Displays of Availability

So today, Travis changed his Facebook relationship status from “Single” to “In a Relationship.” I was kind of pleased by this, and also nonplussed: he's been in a relationship with me for over a year now. What's changed? Why the sudden desire to publicly acknowledge something he's been keeping pretty private?

My fourteen-year-old son Denali also changed his relationship status. He asked a girl if she would go out with him (whatever that means), she said yes, and apparently a few whole hours elapsed between this interchange and the Facebook announcement.

In mulling over the day's events, and thinking about my last post on internet dating, I remembered that Parker still has a profile up, even though he hasn't seemed interested in writing anyone, or dating, or even thinking much about relationships, for quite a while now.  So this evening, I asked him, "Why are you still on OKCupid?"  He shrugged. "Deleting it would would take work.  And besides, this way I have all my information there, in case I want it later. Why'd you ever delete yours? It just means you might end up having to answer all those same questions again!"  (IMO, the "leave it on idle" strategy probably works better if you're a man, unless you're a woman who feels okay about simply ignoring everyone who writes you, which I'm not.) 

Meanwhile, my friend Lilianna and her long-term lover Robin have been embroiled in...something, let's call it a drama lasagna, just to be cheesy...about the fact that she's begun a relationship with Paul, whom she originally met on a dating site. When Lilianna suggested that perhaps Robin ought to think about dating other people himself, he responded, “I do not want to fucking date!” She said she bet he would have a dating profile up before the week was out. And he did. “You're going to be upset,” he told her, “But I wrote somebody.” Lilianna responded that she had figured as much. Robin was apparently unhappy with this response – he had been hoping to get more of a rise out of her. Ah, yes: the jealous lover, wanting to dish it out instead of having to just take it. The tit-for-tat impulse is a fairly common reaction to extreme jealousy: “Oh yeah? Well, I can make you jealous, too! So neener, neener!” Although I'm embarrassed to admit it, I've reacted this way to jealousy myself. 

So, yes, I've been thinking quite a bit about availability lately. What makes us feel open to exploring new relationships? What makes us feel like focusing on our existing relationship(s)? In other words, why does the prospect of dating elicit internal responses that run the gamut from “wow, how exciting!” to “meh – why bother, really?” to “no way in hell”? And, finally, what makes us want to take these feelings public – to advertise our availability to others, announcing, as it were, that we are “free for the taking” or “already taken”?

For people who identify as monogamous, the answers to these sorts of questions seem like they'd be pretty straightforward: you feel open to dating when you are single, or because you sense that your days as one of a couple are numbered; on the other hand, when you're in love, and have committed to someone, you stop feeling like you want to date anyone else. Ergo, for practical reasons, you let everyone know when you're single, and you take care to announce a change in status as a way of communicating – to yourself, your partner, and everyone else – that you are now committed to someone and thus off-limits to everyone else.

So, why might a poly person who is already in at least one relationship choose to advertise her availability? 

And why might a poly person – who considers herself open by definition to new relationships – choose not to put herself out there?

Digging a little deeper, why might this hypothetical poly person feel the need to explain/apologize BOTH when she feels open to new relationships AND when she feels closed to them?

Yeah, yeah, I'm talking about myself again.

When I put my profile up on OKCupid in the fall of 2008, I remember having this feeling like I had to justify my desire to date – like I was defending myself from someone, I don't know who, but someone whom I imagined passing judgment, like maybe my ex-boyfriend Scott (“Admit it – you're really just a horny housewife!”) or my mother-in-law (“Maybe you should focus on appreciating what you have, just for a change!”) or those gilt-winged recording angels on high (“Greedy little trollop – don't let her in!”).

Then, when I deleted my profile in the summer of 2009, I felt like I had to justify that, too. I remember explaining myself to Travis, somewhat sheepishly, on the evening of our first date.

“So you won't be able to contact me on OKCupid anymore,” I told him, “Because I removed my profile this morning.”

“Oh? Why'd you do that?”

“Well...I guess, because I'm poly, I'm theoretically open to new relationships... but I've been pretty pleased by how things have been going with Drew, this guy I've been dating, and, oh, I don't know... I have only so much free time, you know?”

But I did leave the door open for Travis that evening, just a smidge, and I'm glad I did.

Internet Dating: PolyMatchmaker vs. OKCupid

I had a bare-bones profile on PolyMatchmaker for a few months in 2003 or 2004, back when Parker and I still lived in California. In it, I explicitly stated that I was interested only in meeting new friends, not dating, and I didn't include a photo of myself. No one wrote me, except for someone who wanted to let me know about a local poly discussion group, but that was fine with me: I was mainly interested in reading other people's profiles, and following what seemed to be a soap opera of sorts going on in the lives of the site's moderators. In fact, I created another “fake” profile on PolyMatchmaker a couple of years ago specifically for the purpose of finding out what had happened with the moderators' complicated relationship groupings & re-groupings, and was gratified to discover several interesting plot twists: the original MF couple had split, with the woman forming a monogamous relationship with someone outside the original group; meanwhile, more than one of the couple's original OSO's (several of whom they had brought on board to help with the site) had also gone their merry ways.

Overall, I can't say I recommend PolyMatchmaker. It's too bad, as it's the only site I know of that caters specifically to people who identify as poly. There were an awful lot of couples on that site advertising for the elusive single bi babe, a woman with no significant attachments of her own, who would be interested in joining their already existing family, spicing up their stale marriage by putting out for both husband and wife, helping out with household duties, possibly even helping raise existing children, kind of like a nanny-with-benefits. Ew.

I frankly don't even know if their site still exists, and I'm too lazy to check just now.

The only other site I know much about is OKCupid, which I do recommend. It's pretty poly-friendly, too, for an all-purpose site.

I put a profile up on OKC in the summer of 2007, because Parker, Lilianna, Rick, and Robin – not to mention my single friends Erika, Cate, and Georgia – had all recently joined the site, and it sounded like fun. I was pregnant with Sienna at the time, and had no interest in dating, but I was also home alone a lot, and – quite frankly – bored. So I put up a fairly detailed profile, with the caveat that I was not really in the market for anything but pen pals. After a couple of months, I had more pen pals than I could keep up with, so I removed the profile. I continued my correspondence with three or four of my most interesting online friends for some time afterward; one of them still writes me occasionally to recommend books and movies.

I did try internet dating “for real” a little later: I had an updated profile on OKCupid from November 2008 through June 2009. Why did I feel the need to date? That's a question with a complicated answer, so I will just stick to cataloging my experiences for now.

It was kind of bizarre, as I'd really never “dated” before. Parker and I were high school sweethearts, which meant that I married without ever having been part of the adult dating scene.

On OKC, I didn't do much work in terms of checking out other people's profiles; I basically waited for men to write me, a pretty common strategy for women on dating sites. However, I did make an effort to answer every halfway thoughtful message I got, which is somewhat unusual – or so I gather from the complaints I hear from the men I know, who claim that they're lucky to get responses from half of the women they write.

Once I'd determined that someone was at least possibly friend material, I was motivated to meet him pretty quickly, because I didn't want to devote a lot of time to developing a correspondence with anyone whose company I would turn out not to enjoy. I looked at the whole exercise of meeting people as a big experiment, and I quite enjoyed myself in the process, even though some of the individual dates were not all that.

In all, I ended up meeting nine people over the eight months I was on OKCupid.

Here's what happened with each, in approximate chronological order:

Casey: Turned out to be a worthwhile sort, but I had doubts about him from the beginning. First of all, he was single, and after Scott, I was wary of getting involved with anyone single. (Casey's response to this concern: “But that isn't fair – it's the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer!”) Secondly, I just wasn't physically attracted to him. We went out probably a dozen times over the course of several months, and we never exchanged so much as a real kiss. Finally, after canceling a date because of a sore throat and getting a comment from him along the lines of, “This is one time, at least, that I'm glad we haven't been making out,” I told him I wasn't interested in anything but platonic friendship. He pretty much dropped out of my life after that.

Bob: Like me, Bob was in an open marriage (it has since ended); they'd had some experience in the swinging community, but Bob said he thought that form of relating was somewhat artificial. We realized very early on that he'd actually dated my friend Erika for a while, and, although he was a very likable person, this meant that I knew too much about his sexual proclivities to be interested in a relationship. Specifically, Erika had complained that he wouldn't go down on her unless she shaved (or, better yet, waxed) off all of her pubic hair. In my view, preferences are one thing, but an absolute requirement that someone alter his or her natural appearance – especially when it's something like pubic hair, or male facial hair, just a fact of being an adult – is simply not cool. So, Bob hung out at our house a few times, and came to a few parties, and helped us recover our data when our Mac crashed, but nothing sexual ever happened between us.

Guy: I wrote about him in “Photographers I Have Known” – he was my one experiment in casual sex. He fit all the criteria on my checklist (he was attractive and intelligent; in a stable – but open! – relationship of his own, with kids to boot; and he didn't seem likely to be a drama queen), and I slept with him on date #4 – which, for me, was moving very quickly. We had our first date in December 2008, and our last in May 2009 (unless you count the time, several months later, when we met for a friendly catch-up-on-the-news dinner).

Drew: We first met in person on March 1, 2009, and had an absolutely crazy ride together for several months; our romantic relationship ended in September, largely because Drew was jealous of Travis, but also because he'd met a woman who wanted sexual exclusivity. There's a lot more to say about this relationship, and the role Drew has played in my life, and I intend to address this topic at greater length some other time.

Travis: As my devoted readers already know, Travis is my current boyfriend. Yes, we met on OKCupid, in June 2009. Sort of. (Again, more on the how-we-met-story some other time.) Coincidentally, the day I met Travis was the day I removed my dating profile from OKC.

Now, if you've been counting, you'll no doubt have noticed that there are FOUR people not yet accounted for. I haven't forgotten them, but they were One Date Wonders. One of them was an absolute nut case – I had been pretty sure he was psycho before I met him, but he was such an oddball that the clinical psychologist in me just had to have her curiosity appeased. Another was older than my father, and I told him straight up that there was no way I was interested in any kind of romantic involvement, but he insisted that it would be just a friendly lunch date, so I agreed to meet him – then, much to my chagrin, he spent the entire time telling me way too much about his non-existent sex life, and then had the temerity to complain that the only women interested in him were in their fifties, or – horrors! – sixties. “You're sixty-five years old,” I said reprovingly, “Are you implying that there's something wrong with women your own age?” The other two men were in their thirties, and not wacko, but I was disappointed to discover that they were pretty immature, both of them, and clueless in similar ways. Neither had ever been a long-term relationship, and each spent our hour together bitching and moaning about how hard it is to date, how inexplicable women are, and how so few of them are intelligent and attractive enough to bother with, anyway. Needless to say, I was not charmed. I gave each of these whiners some practical advice and a friendly but perfunctory hug, and ended our involvement right there.

Love and Other Accidents

Yesterday afternoon, I was in a car accident. I stopped for an emergency vehicle, and another driver ran into the back of my car. It seemed like a no-brainer “not my fault” event, as I had been at a complete stop, with cars in front of me at a complete stop, for several seconds by the time the other lady plowed into me, but she thought we should get a police report.

So, we pulled off the road into a vacant lot, and waited. For over two hours. At which point, there was another crash on that stretch of the road: four or five cars were involved this time, with the nearby intersection obstructed. The cops managed to get to that one within twenty minutes, and when they'd dealt with those folks, they sent someone over to talk to us about our little piddly accident.

So, for almost three hours, I was sitting in my car, getting colder and colder, stubbornly refusing to turn on the car to run the heater, because it would be a waste of gas. I can pick some really inconvenient times to be an eco-freak.

Travis sat there waiting with me almost the entire time, because he'd called right after the accident happened, and -- to my surprise -- showed up almost immediately thereafter.  He kept me company except for a brief period of time, when he drove to my house and brought me back a plate of the coq au vin dinner Parker had made.

Picture this: I'm sitting behind the wheel of my car, in the dark, in a drab part of town (“Your Post-dated Checks Cashed Here!”), looking out onto the scene of the big accident; Travis is sitting in the passenger seat next to me, holding a plate of cold dinner; I'm picking bits of chicken off the bones with the fingers of my right hand, while holding my cell phone to my ear with the left hand. I'm talking to my father, because it's his birthday, and I wanted to make sure I called him before the end of the day. I don't say anything to my father about Travis being there, but I keep feeling like I want to mention it.

I want to say something like, “Yeah, Travis has been so sweet, keeping me company – he even got me some dinner!” But no, I'm just hashing over the details of the accident with my dad, and it is as if Travis doesn't exist, and I am powerless to make him exist. If I were to say anything about how grateful I feel that Travis is here, supporting me through my minor ordeal, I would be imposing my reality on my father, who prefers to forget uncomfortable facts about my life, such as that I have a boyfriend.

Travis, somehow erased by omission, sitting there silently holding my dinner plate for me. It is a little tragedy, and I am acutely aware of the injustice of it.

That isn't the only injustice, either, since the whole debacle ends with me getting a citation for an “unsafe lane change.” (Because I pulled over for an emergency vehicle, came to a complete stop, and several seconds later was hit by someone who was neither slowing or attempting to pull to the side? What??!?)

Picture this: I'm standing in my kitchen later in the evening, talking on my cell phone to my father for a second time, because, as a retired lawyer, he can perhaps advise me about whether or not I ought to contest the unfair citation. Travis is leaning against the kitchen counter to my left, near the microwave, and Parker is sitting on the other counter, to my right. I notice that we make kind of a triangle, the three of us, and I'm struck by the thought that my father, if asked to picture the scene at my house, would not picture what I'm seeing.

But I don't ask my father to picture anything. I thank him for his advice, wish him a happy birthday (again), tell him I love him, and press the “end call” button.