Tag: nonmonogamy

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I’m now alone here

House empty and beige

Windows wide open

And the tiredness

Finally seeping in

A failed lynchpin

Staring out to the trees

Understanding, at last,

The cause for the distance

And realizing

That I can’t carry any more

Day 21 Week 21

I won’t talk about the during-move blues, other than note that it was one of the most stressful times I have had in a long time. I blew past my breaking point and burned out twice over. I wanted to cry, a lot, and I wanted to not deal with that shit anymore.

And then, it was done.

How am I doing now?

First off, I am relieved. I am also grateful for all the help we managed to get. I’m not even happy that the hard part is over.

I am sad. Still in mourning for the house-that-was in my apartment-that-is. My favorite ideal future of a giant house with our individual spaces, of all of our hobbies intertwining, and metas and friends visiting often will never happen. Relationships have transitioned and bonds sustained damage. There is, as I noted above, a distance I can never cross.

I did enjoy organizing and decorating with my remaining nesting partner. We made the place ours, and the vacuum left behind gradually filled. And it has been satisfactory as we settled into our slightly modified routines (the shortened commute certainly helped). Coming home feels, well, like coming home.

I am not happy, yet. There’s recovering from the physical, mental, and monetary stress. I may need another month.

But I have a bittersweet contentment.

That’ll do for awhile.

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So I have a funny story.


Years and years ago– in the Before Times– I matched with someone on Hinge. We had a good chat. But I declined to progress further because I would have had to move to a voice memo service. “Who wants to install an app just to talk to one person?” I thought; “Besides, I am a texter. Also my phone only has 20 gigs and no space.” So that was the end of that.


Or was it?


Several years later– after the Before Times and solidly in the Current Times– I was trying out Yet Another Online Dating Thing: Facebook Dating. I matched with a few people, but most fizzled out. I did manage to at least trade phone numbers with another non-binary person and… I matched with this someone again. It wasn’t too much of a coincidence; we were both on Facebook and even in the same groups. But, eventually, that fizzled out too. So that was the end of that, right?


You know how I love doing things in threes; you know it isn’t.


Becoming exceedingly frustrated, I was taking my mind off the swiping and was (re)answering questions on OKCupid.[1] I even updated my profile a little bit. Then the boredom kicked in and I caught myself swiping. And there was that Someone in just a few swipes! For dramatic effect, let’s pretend that this didn’t happen over several days of bored swiping.


That’s it, I thought. One Time is Coincidence and Twice is a Pattern, potentially. Three times? I don’t know, but this is the point where I’m curious and brave enough to find out.


So I sent the first message. “We just keep running into each other, huh?” Or something worded to that effect; I am recalling from memory. I even mentioned our very first conversation together because– guess what, I even use their preferred service now![2] And despite a few hiccups in initial communication– from us not quite going the same speed on things, to me getting Pandemic’d— it appears to not be the end! We had one date at a coffeehouse, and we’ve been talking where we can, and we do have plans to hang out again once our lives settle down a bit more.


While there was the usual frustrations of online dating, I really had to sit with myself for a minute. I have a feeling my polysaturation[3] point is near. While in the process of scheduling another date (at this time of writing), I’m still riding off the fuzzy feelings of a very recent Cuddle Date on a potential partner’s couch. Between that, and making time for my current partners, and ensuring that I have enough Introvert Downtime to remain functioning– it’s becoming a lot.


So, the apps have been uninstalled and most profiles deactivated. Google Calendar, however, is getting a workout.


—


[1] In short, OKC is the one I keep coming back to. It allows me to filter out straight people (no offense, but full offense; y’all stress me out) and monogamous people (I’m doing y’all a favor; trust me). Also all those questions and percentages to gauge how you may jive with someone (just be sure to not depend solely on it).


[2] While I’m still primarily a texter, I’ve softened up considerably about voice memos. Quite a few of my people prefer them so I try to meet their needs. Voice memos are sometimes more convenient– and can be fun, too!


[3] Polysaturation is defined here as “the state in which a person doesn’t want or need more relationships than they currently have.” While polysaturation can be “satisfying or exhausting,” I’m feeling pretty content with my current setup. I’m also slowing my roll before it becomes exhausting for everyone involved.

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And before you knew it, two seven months have passed by. I had no drafts or throwbacks to throw into the queue, so the silence lingered.

A bit has happened since then: we’ve moved to a bigger and better house, I received my vaccination (edit: and booster!), I saw folks I haven’t seen in the past year, saw my LDR girlfriend for the first time in about five years (long story, so that’ll be a separate post), I also reconnected with someone special (again, perhaps, a separate post), caught up with a dear old friend at a tiny birthday party… and the job has been the same, despite the promotion and raise that came with it.

I’ve been finally catching up on IDW’s Sonic the Hedgehog, and I can say– as someone that lived and breathed Archie Sonic (and SatAM, and Jaleel White’s VA career, and the games for someone who never owned a SEGA system) I’ve missed Sonic comics.

Sonic popping out of a manhole, saying Hedgehog. Noun. A burrowing animal.
Also, come on. I love hedgehogs.

Ah, yes, and this wasn’t just any move: I wasn’t moving out of my parent’s house thrice (so I had practice), nor was I moving alone and only had me to worry about.

It was a lot of frustrating moving parts. Packing all the fragile things. Figuring out which perishables to take. Attempting to organize, only for it to fall into chaos in the garage. Misplaced boxes. Packing the mugs. Wrestling the cats. Losing power cords. Dropping a heavy box of board games on your foot.

But, again, we did it. And we hired movers for the big stuff this time.

My initial response is to say that said move was the most exciting thing to happen to me so far this year.

And here is where I re-calibrate my definition of “excitement,” because, sure, moving and painting are always exciting, but it takes a backseat to how I feel about some important people in my life. Moving and painting just made me tired. What got my heart beating was how we had all interacted– sharing podcasts, listening to Daft Punk, accidentally coming across A Wonk and getting bopped upside the head for it (figuratively).

Granted, this was Stuff I Already Knew after living with them for two years prior. But in the context of expanding into a new space it was exciting nonetheless.

I am happy at home.

But I am also tired.

As I brushed upon earlier, work has been… the same. But also, the strain of working in a pandemic for almost two years has been felt for quite some time now. The workload has been punishing, the pay is ridiculous, and many have been moving on to other pastures.

And I hope to be one of them, soon.

Because despite my aforementioned promotion, things have been largely the same and I have stagnated. Which could possibly be overlooked if I liked my job more… and if the pay was better… and if that one coworker would stop pissing all of us off… if the environment wasn’t so toxic… if there was actual upward mobility…

And the fatigue of being in this pandemic, as well. The misinformation, the tempers, the Trumpers, the just existing, the covid scares, all of it. I’m too tired to even elaborate on this but IYKYK. And all I know is there’s a therapist appointment in my immediate future.

Because of that, mostly, I haven’t been writing. Or doing much else. There’s been quite a bit of Youtube and Blanket Nesting.

At least Animal Crossing: New Horizons finally has some new content. I’ll go chew on that.

Animal Crossing characters on a ship. The captain is in mid song, saying "cause when ya chew on yer ship swabbies say you're kinda strange"
I’ll say it again: chew on people.

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I did this instead of sleeping.

Disclaimer: may not actually be funny.

[Theater curtains pull back to reveal a tiny apartment. BF (boyfriend) and ME (me) are hanging out on the couch or something. I ignore the roaches.]

BF: Hey guess what! You should totally see other girls because you’re bisexual, right?
Me: that is dumb reasoning i can totally be monogamous and im totally not ignoring any earlier hints in my life of the contrary
NARRATOR (who sounds suspiciously like Joey Lauren Adams and will never show up again): They did not stay monogamous.

[Time skip, a month. At some gaming thing or whatever I trip over a MTG card. Not enough Os in smooth. My crush was watching and the thought of asking her out would not leave my mind.]

ME: ok bet

[I run home to tell BF my intentions.]

BF: OK, cool!
BF: …can you not see other men, tho?
ME: Fine. One of y’all is enough. But we will revisit this in the future because men are occasionally hot.
BF: No penises.
ME: That’s fucked but I lack to vocab to explain why. I will fix that.

[I get on OKCupid, and start doing a lot of reading and Googling Words. Fastforward like, a month or something. Time is a farce. I’m back on the couch, on my laptop, and I have ACQUIRED VOCABULARY. And I never did ask her out. I’m a weenie.]

ME: Hey, whadayya know? I’ve done my research and reading and turns out, I’m actually polyamorous! I’m not broken! This is AWESOME! DOWN WITH ANGST!
BF: Cool.
ME: We’re a mono/poly relationship. That’s neat. It’s gonna be hard work.
BF: OK?
ME: Yeah, because we’re in an One Penis Policy and I don’t like it. You’re gonna have to get over this fear of other dicks.
BF: I–
ME: And your exact wording was pretty transphobic. I know that word, now. You thought I forgot, didn’t you? Check that shit, too.

[BF begins angrily scrubbing the floors.]

ME: dude just use a damn mop
ME: …I missed my cue to make a joke linking "hard work" and "other dicks."

[To make myself feel better about my shitty comedic timing, I print out the shiny POLYAMOROUS label and stick it next to my other ones. Somewhere in the world, one of those Labels-Are-Meaningless types gets a chill down their spine. I cackle in glee, knowing someone out there fucking hates my collage of labels. I hope they open the wrong can and it’s actually canned asparagus.]

ME: Who put that giant question mark next to my gender? Eh, I’ll figure that out later.

[Another fast forward, let’s say a year. I’m no longer guilty of my crushes and feelings, in love with this other person, been burned a few times, screwed up and learned from my mistakes, and I may have taken a flamethrower to the apartment because of aforementioned roaches. But I digress.]

BF: So I’m scared you’ll leave me for a woman.
ME: Not because you’re a casual sexist racist macho dorkward who can’t clean a dish?
BF: What?
ME: What?

[At some point, we get distracted. Three guesses how and what.]

BF: On a totally unrelated note, can we close the relationship back in the future?
ME: You can’t put Robin Williams back in the bottle, man.
BF: …what?
ME: I SAID WHAT I SAID

[We’re gonna skip the rather quiet breakup and I just jump through the trap door and disappear in a puff of smoke. I leave my clothes, but I quote a line from Aladdin first. Scene.]

NARRATOR (who sounds suspiciously like Joey Lauren Adams and I was wrong about this): I should warn you that the next time you meet, it’s gonna be awkward. You will also regret re-friending him on Facebook.
ME: Same as it ever was. Play me out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2-NaMALbm0

P.S.

ME: …wait. You used "they" earlier.

[NARRATOR (who I am convinced is Joey Lauren Adams at this point), just hands me a printout about from KnowYourMeme about Egg Mode.]

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The thread began with the usual curiosity from a monogamous person: “can you truly find happiness with multiple people?” But it was a passing comment on a forum jarred me out of my browsing:


“Polyamory is such a fad.” Even without voice, I could feel the tone and implications I’m all too familiar with, now.


I know some people just aren’t geared for non-monogamy, and that is okay. But still, I could not let that go unchallenged. For in my experience, a “fad” is a snide comment for anything that gains popularity due to more people exploring and becoming aware of new possibilities.


My sexuality was “just a fad.”


My gender identity is “just a fad.”


And the newest fad, evidently, is polyamory. They say some things come in threes.


And their comments continued, to paraphrase: It’s nothing to take seriously, because it’s so easy. You’re just playing until you find that one person to be your everything. Until then, you can just go to the next person like they’re nothing. You’re not really happy. You can’t be.


And I definitely did not let that slide.


This is hard fucking work.


You have to constantly check in with yourself as you deprogram from monogamous habits and deal with blindspots, insecurities, and time management. You have to confront your bullshit. You have to unpack the how’s and why’s of what you’re feeling. That is hard enough on its own, but you also have to field the outside static of potential abuse. Discomfort may be growth, but to borrow from Eve Rickert: never ignore your pain.


That is, if you want to go about it as healthy and ethically as possible.


And none of this happens overnight. Especially if you had no role models to follow and had to make the same mistakes others have before you. Then make a few of your own as you adapt to your particular life.


I had to be horribly honest with myself. Even scarier, I had to be honest with others.


So, yeah, I’m a little touchy when someone disregards the hard work upon myself as a mere “fad.”


If anyone tells you that any form of non-monogamy is “a cakewalk,” they’re either in denial or trying to sell you something or they’re looking for a third.


Sure, I could pour myself into one single person but that wouldn’t be fulfilling to me and ultimately unfair for them to be My Everything for Possibly Forever. And that’s valid.


You may feel differently and that’s valid too.


But neither one of us is a “fad.”