Cate sat down and had a sip of my bourbon. “Okay: I want to know how you stay engaged with two or more people without comparing them to each other all the time,” she said, almost as if she’d been prepping for my question all day. “I mean, how do you avoid turning everything into some kind of contest, some way of picking the winner and dumping the loser? What's the secret? Just focusing on one person at a time, trying to be in the moment with each one, or what?”
As soon as I stopped squinting at the dark page on which I was busily scribbling, in an attempt to capture Cate’s question, I looked over at Parker, nonplussed. He gave a little shrug. “Wow,” I said. “I’ve never thought about it.”
The whole POINT of being poly, for me, is NOT having to choose between people.
Cate might as well have asked me, “How can you be friends with both me and Georgia? Don’t you find yourself comparing us to each other all the time? Tell me, who’s it going to be, me or her?”
She might as well have said, “So, Denali and Sienna: how do your children compare to each other? And which kid are you going to keep?”
As we talked more about Cate’s question, though, it became apparent that her real concern was connected to the idea of commitment. Whatever commitment to a person might entail, I think we can safely say that “I promise never to replace you with someone or something else: there will always be a place for you in my heart” is a big part of it.
Even people who have a hard time committing to anything are generally pretty committed to their children. And no child is replaceable, as any parent unfortunate enough to have lost a child will tell you. Although a grieving parent might feel consoled in his or her loss by the existence of another child, or by the birth of a new baby, no one is ever going to take the place of the one that died.
It follows that no parent wants to have to choose between children. This is why the “Sophie’s Choice” scenario – being forced to declare a “winning” child, thus sentencing your “losing” child to death – strikes such a chill into our hearts.
However, people DO compare their children to each other. All the time. Some of us feel a little guilty about it. Others don’t seem to be concerned about even overt comparisons – witness those parents who will introduce you to their kids along with a label for each one: “This is Ed, the brainiac; and this is Ned, the quiet one; and this here is little Jed, our musical genius!” And how many of us heard, growing up, statements from a frustrated parent like the following: “Your sister manages to keep her room neat – I don’t know what your problem might be, but maybe you could stand to learn from her example!”
So, let’s just admit it: those of us with more than one lover may have NO DESIRE to choose between them, but we DO compare them to each other.
Not in some kind of global way, maybe, but in all kinds of subtle little ways. It’s just something human beings do as part of their effort to assign meanings to the things they observe.
Sometimes, a comparison has no bearing on the way we feel about our relationships. These tend to be “Apples vs. Oranges” sorts of comparisons. For example, Parker has blue eyes, Scott has brown eyes, and Travis’s eyes are greenish, or grayish, or hazel, depending on the light. I have no preference: they’re all good colors. It would be absurd to say, for instance, “Parker’s eyes are the bluest,” because such a comparison doesn’t mean anything.
Some comparisons are meaningful, in that they affect our actions, but there is no “better” or “worse” attached to them. For example, I like sushi a lot more than Lilianna does. So, when Rick felt like going out to sushi, he tended to invite me along rather than her – not because he preferred my company to hers, but because, given our different cuisine preferences, that’s what made the most sense.
Other sorts of comparisons carry with them an implicit value judgment, and these are the most problematic – whether we are comparing children, or friends, or lovers.
During her most recent visit, my mother-in-law noticed that Sienna is nowhere near as skilled at putting together jigsaw puzzles as her older brother was at the same age. Grandma Helen watched Sienna struggling to assemble a puzzle with 6 or 8 large pieces, and remarked, “Wasn’t Denali putting together that whole puzzle map of the United States at this age – or younger, even?” “Yes,” I conceded. “But I think he was a little precocious in that respect, don’t you?” Then, later, as Helen watched Sienna draw a face with the eyes to one side of the circle, rather than at the top, she laughed, “I think she might be a little spatially challenged!”
I was mad at her for voicing that opinion, especially given that both Denali and Sienna were listening in. Hell, I was mad at her for even mentally forming such an opinion: “Sienna may not have Denali’s spatial gifts,” I said hotly, “But she’s one smart cookie when it comes to understanding the nuances of adult speech. And furthermore, Denali didn’t draw at all at this age!”
Notice that the example I gave of a value-laden comparison was one involving my two children, not one that implicated my friends or my lovers. It’s easier, and feels far safer, to make such comparisons between my children, because I am completely committed to both. I love them both, with equal fierceness, and I could never in a million years choose one over the other.
My guess, then, is that comparing people to one another – which is something social creatures inevitably do, at least subconsciously – is going to feel comfortable only to the extent that we are equally committed to them.
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