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-   -   Marya's Musings (http://www.polyamory.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4004)

Marya 10-18-2010 09:21 PM

Marya's Musings
Hello, I introduced myself in this thread: http://www.polyamory.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3998

I'd just like to do a bit of writing, I wasn't entirely sure if it should go here or in the 'new to polyamory' section, but since I would like a dedicated thread just to write about my experiences it seemed to me that here was more appropriate.

Yesterday I was talking to a friend about the new girl in our lives. She was telling me its all very weird, etc. Asked how I'd feel if my boyfriend slept with her when I wasn't there. I said that'd already happened. Both of them have way higher sex drives than me and I don't always _want_ to be involved, and sometimes she stays over on nights where I've got work in the morning and have to leave, I know on those days they'll usually sleep together. She is very shocked, says she could never deal with that. I told her I'm not in that way jealous. I'd be feeling upset in a situation if at the same time as he grew emotionally closer to her he grew distant to me, but that isn't happening, and besides, the boyfellow knows me well enough to be especially attentive/caring towards me.

She disappears, and then a few moments later one of my oldest friends who the girl I'd been talking to lives with gets online to talk to me. She was obviously upset, and the whole prospect of this relationship structure upsets her. She said it made her feel uncomfortable, and that she was trying not to be obnoxious or judgmental. She wouldn't mind if it was just sex, and she'd thought that it had just been flirting/sex gut was really uncomfortable that emotions are involved in this. I asked her if she could explain why she was feeling judgy/uncomfortable. She said she's never been keen on a guy with multiple girlfriends because it strikes her as chauvinistic and degrading. I tried to soothe those discomforts by explaining the relationships. That my boyfriend isn't forming relationships with multiple women, while we women aren't forming relationships of our own. I gave my perspective that aspects of it _are_ sexist because my boyfriend is uncomfortable with either of us being with other men - but that I've always dealt with that in relationships because I've always been allowed to sleep with other women but not men. The sexism there had never bothered her. She said that was just sex, and it was different. I tried to tell her how cool the girl is, explained traits about her my friend would know to understand means 'compatible with me' and how the relationship isn't authoritarian in the way that some mormon with multiple wives might be.

She said she didn't know what she'd achieved by voicing her discomfort, that she shouldn't have said anything. I said I was not happy she was uncomfortable, but not hurt or offended. It took me a little while before grasping that I was hurt though.

It felt like sudden judgment was coming out of nowhere. She's seen some pretty interesting things relationship-wise. She's slept with a huge amount more people than me, guys, girls, threesomes etc. She knows all my previous relationship and sexual issues, she knows me _incredibly_ well. I don't know, she's been one of my oldest friends. I never expected her to give me negative judgment - I'd have thought she'd have supported me. She was being about as respectful as she could be, but, yeah. I feel a little hurt. Its probably the suddenness of it. One moment I'm having a nice conversation with her housemate the next my best friend is being suddenly judgey where I never thought she would be.

I am feeling a little hurt now. Not a lot. I think having a non-MSN conversation might help, but I don't know just how uncomfortable she feels. Perhaps it wouldn't help. :/

SNeacail 10-18-2010 10:15 PM

I'd vote for the non-MSN conversation. She is ok with the "just sex" because that is what is familiar to her, developing and keeping emotional connections with her partners maybe harder for her and so it might be triggering her insecurities. As humans, we have a hard time not judging that which we don't understand or comprehend.

Ariakas 10-18-2010 10:29 PM

Some people accept sex readily and not love. The love part throws people off when dealing with multiple people.

Swingers can be vehement in their denial of love over sex. Regardless of how kinky or how many partners they have had. It isn't much different in this case. :)

Marya 10-19-2010 10:41 AM

@SNeacail - Your response made a good deal of sense to me. She can be a distant sort of person emotionally even to the one emotional partner she does have at any given time, so the reasoning that "just sex" is familiar to her makes sense.

@Ariakas - I'm not really using the word love right now to describe my feelings with her (I should come up with pseudonyms for lady-person and boy-fellow...) While there's a definite sense of caring and protectiveness, I'm not sure I'm in love, though, its early days in dating.

I was going to write a musing thing on love actually, or strength of emotional connections, because there's probably a bit to explore there. For example, my boyfriend says he's something similar to aromantic - he doesn't identify that way, and looking up the term it more means 'lack of desire to be in romantic relationships, so I should go on to explain myelf properly... he enjoys caring relationships, but doesn't think he feels 'love.' Tjinks he's incapable of it. -- Its hard for me to know what this means. In my insecure moments I'll think that he's probably capable of love, but not capable of loving me, but most of the time I take the sentiment/statement at face value, and understand lacking whatever he defines love to be doesn't mean we don't have a caring and intimate bond.

I might write more about that another time.

SNeacail 10-19-2010 01:33 PM

Is he an engineer or scientist type?

If someone said to me that they were "aromantic" (without looking up defenitions) I would take that to mean that the things the media puts out as being romantic just don't do it for them. The flowers, cards, gifts, poetry, long walks on the beach, etc.

I identify this way most of the time. My idea of a romanitc weekend is going backpacking with just the two of us, not some fancy hotel with a bunch of spa treatments. All the fancy "romantic" sentiments really weird me out sometimes.

Marya 10-19-2010 01:39 PM

Actually, I feel that of us, I am the closest to a scientist or engineer type. He's a psychology student, and despite psychology is a social science and they do try to place a strong emphasis on the _science_ he joined up for the talking to people, and hates his stats courses. The other lady is doing teaching, majoring in history. I've got work in IT as a programmer, which has a strong base in logic. I enjoyed doing discrete mathematics in uni. I feel strongly rational. (Though I do not think emotions and rationality are opposites. You can have rational and irrational emotional responses to things, etc.)

aromantic might have been the wrong word to use, its the word that popped into my head when thinking about it, but he doesn't self identify that way - and the definition from a quick google didn't really describe how he describes his association with love.
