polyheart monomind

“optimism of the heart, pessimism of the mind” — rz paraphrasing Gramsci via Hsu

‘do you want to have an open relationship?’ said she still wet and towel-wrapped. ‘uh sure’, i said.

dear reader, this wasn’t as ill-considered as it seems. i had been thinking about it for years at the time. i just didn’t know it was doable. the year was 2009 and i was about to turn 27.

that experiment had its accidents, but it taught me a lot. that love finished living and went where all the loves that do that go, but i think both of us learned a lot, especially about relationships and non-monogamy.

in fact, whenever anyone has asked me about polyamory, i’ve suggested that they instead think about relationships from first principles. those are the things i learned in that first rodeo.

learning how to operate a polyamorous heart in a monogamous world entails many trials & tribulations, but i don’t want to talk about those. many have done that way better than i ever could. all i can say is be True.

what i want to talk about, though, is my favorite subject: ME.

within me lives a contradiction about polyamory. nothing in my poly nature has changed, yet i’m certain i want monogamy. some might say that this makes me what people call monogamous. fair enough. i also think that’s the best way to present.

the interesting bit is that my insides are just as polyamorous as ever, my heart remains a huge slut. however, my desire to spend effort externalizing those insides across cultural boundaries has basically disappeared.

no, this doesn’t make that much sense to me either, but it’s also completely clear.

so, can we try to figure out what’s going on?

if we’re going to do that, i’m going to have to stop being cryptic. but that’s so much fun. maaaaaan…okey.

during my college years i had the most awesome girlfriend. Sha, if you’re reading this, i stand by it and sorry for the thing that follows. i had the most awesome girlfriend and i kept falling in love with other people. i never acted on those feelings and i even tried to avoid acknowledging them. i didn’t know that being untrue always comes back to chase you, yet.

the “uh sure” conversation happened in a different relationship, about five years after Sha’s love finished living and went where all the loves that do that go.

the whole time in between, trying to make sense of my polyheart was somewhere in my mind. sometimes i thought it was just “ugh…men” and other times that it was the nature of gender-relations and roles where i grew up. other times i thought something was wrong with me. and so on. hey man, it was the early 2000s, it wasn’t all the baristas in Portland doing it, yet, okay?

however, early in my philosophizing i had this realization: the only problem is the deceit.

once i gave that it’s due importance, polyamory (or non-monogamy as i called it those days), became natural and straight forward. i learned how to talk about it early in relationships, to gently push against partner’s boundaries to let relationships happen, to negotiate playing fields, and this and that. it had its accidents, but it all worked out.

my best appraisal of the situation right now is as follows: whether you are polyamorous is basically like your height ie mostly innate. further, i don’t think it is evenly distributed, and evidence kinda suggests more people are monogamous than not, but it’s really hard to say because non-monogamy runs counter to so much culture, tradition, and norms. this is probably for good reasons, but it is hard to tell if those reasons are still valid.

fortunately, despite broader social patterns, evolutionary forces, and cultural norms, choosing to act on your non-monogamy remains under your control. it might be too difficult to do that in practice or who knows.

it also might be, like Aella says, that those who are even willing to consider monogamy are not sufficiently polyamorous to be considered viable partners for polyamorous folk because they often end up monogmizing and hurting. that one kinda rings true, actually.

seeing that pattern play out over the years has made me reflect on my own situation. it is partly why i think it is best for me to present as monogamous. i am not going to act on my polyheart’s desire. i might have feelings, but i don't have actions inside me for it. this is because i only have actions for other things.

as with anything, i might change my mind later, but i am as sure as i can be that i won’t. at least not in any consequential way.

what gives me this certainty?

the short of it is that across my decade or so of non-monogamy i learned that being a good partner is very time consuming. not only because of logistics and drama, but because of emotional impact. NRE is a hellofadrug, yo. the logistics and drama get better as relationships mature, the NRE fades, and shared norms evolve, but the emotional impact remains very high.

it isn’t that there’s bad emotion. there might be, but that ain’t it. it is that my emotional life gets very varied and interesting. it gets sooo goooooood. which in turn leads me to paying a lot of attention to it, which in turn leads to me not paying attention to other things.

that’s where the rubber meets the road. i am not a hedonist, more like epicurean, or maybe just not that into philosophy — i think that one book by Kaufmann about this is really good, actually. Humbition be where it at.

humility dictates that i fully embrace the fact that i'm finite, which includes my capacity to experience good things. ambition dictates that i fully embrace wanting to have impact and do hard things, sometimes even at the expense of experiencing good things.

and so i find my heart and mind in ongoing dialogue:

oh my heart, you always think you can figure it out.

oh my heart, i know you can do it a lot, but not always.

oh my heart, you are a slut.

oh my heart, i trust you, but this mind has also a say.