The Eleventh One.
Morning,
Subheading: "So, what are you looking for?"
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| Pancakes. I want pancakes. |
The brief spat on my dating profiles reads: "Looking for: Ongoing romantic connections. Open to monogamy or ethical non-mongamy/polyamory. I have two kiddos that are with me part time."
You only have a limited number of characters to explain who you are and what you're looking for, so that seems like a good breakdown of things.
For some reason, turning to Tinder/Bumble/Whatever to help me meet people makes sense. I figure, well, at least I start from a place of knowing I'm in the flirting lane. Anyone messaging me is already armed with the information that I am polyamorous, bisexual, and have two children. One would imagine this alleviates some awkwardness, and it does- to an extent. However, once you make it past those initial inspections, people generally start to wonder...
"So, what are you looking for?"
The notion that I am an incomplete person, and that if I add someone to my life romantically or platonically, that I will then be complete is not something I buy into. This would also mean I'd have to believe that my partners are incomplete without me, and my presence in their life is what they need to finally actualize themselves. When you explain it like that, doesn't that seem bizarre and a bit narcissistic? It's also a lot of pressure, because what happens if someone decides they want to move on? It leads to feeling lost, hopeless, and quite literally broken if you believe that someone else was the pillar holding you upright.
There is little in life I find more energizing than discovering who people truly are at their core. Learning all the complicated intricacies of their past, their favorite things, political leanings, buried truths, all of it. Seeing life through another person's eyes, sharing our mutual experiences, trying to empathize with the things we can't even imagine, this is what relationships are for me- discovery. When we bond with another person over a shared experience, learn that we had an inaccurate point of view during a debate, try a new food, hear a new song, it can feel a lot like we are filling in a gap inside of us with these people and experiences. However, if we instead view this as an expansion of ourselves, it is easier to understand that people are creating room for more beauty to enter into our lives, not filling up a finite hole we were keeping reserved for them. As we grow, our lives are enriched, our knowledge expanded.
A common question I receive is, "What's the point of polyamory?"
It's very simple: To infinitely grow, discover, love, share.
To learn that I am capable of things I had never considered.
To challenge people and be challenged by them.
To do all of this without the idea that only one person in life is capable of offering me these things, and only one person is interested in all the knowledge and love I have to offer.
To erase the idea that marriage is the finish line.
"Yeah, but not a lot of people want to do this long term. They're probably going to leave."
It is common to say everything we did over the course of a relationship was because of someone else, and without them, what will we do? Why did we bother? What a waste of time.
You can change everything about how you view love if you instead ask yourself, "Now that I know I am capable of these new things, what else am I capable of because of this time and love we shared?"
Yes, people will leave, they aren't our possessions. People have left my life. However, what they taught me, what we shared, the person I am going forward, that remains. Of course it hurts, of course I experience periods of missing them intensely, but I try to re-frame it as a deep, smoldering gratitude. Instead of trying to forget them, I choose to vividly remember, and enter into my new relationships stronger, wiser.
All that being said, not everyone will leave, and those are the people I am hoping to find. People like me who will make time and space for the people they love, for as long as they want to stay. People who will value anyone who comes into their life after me with equal passion, without leaving me behind because of it. That's what I am looking for.
Simple, right?
As always, I hope you enjoyed this stuff, and come back for more things.
You only have a limited number of characters to explain who you are and what you're looking for, so that seems like a good breakdown of things.
For some reason, turning to Tinder/Bumble/Whatever to help me meet people makes sense. I figure, well, at least I start from a place of knowing I'm in the flirting lane. Anyone messaging me is already armed with the information that I am polyamorous, bisexual, and have two children. One would imagine this alleviates some awkwardness, and it does- to an extent. However, once you make it past those initial inspections, people generally start to wonder...
"So, what are you looking for?"
There is little in life I find more energizing than discovering who people truly are at their core. Learning all the complicated intricacies of their past, their favorite things, political leanings, buried truths, all of it. Seeing life through another person's eyes, sharing our mutual experiences, trying to empathize with the things we can't even imagine, this is what relationships are for me- discovery. When we bond with another person over a shared experience, learn that we had an inaccurate point of view during a debate, try a new food, hear a new song, it can feel a lot like we are filling in a gap inside of us with these people and experiences. However, if we instead view this as an expansion of ourselves, it is easier to understand that people are creating room for more beauty to enter into our lives, not filling up a finite hole we were keeping reserved for them. As we grow, our lives are enriched, our knowledge expanded.
A common question I receive is, "What's the point of polyamory?"
It's very simple: To infinitely grow, discover, love, share.
To learn that I am capable of things I had never considered.
To challenge people and be challenged by them.
To do all of this without the idea that only one person in life is capable of offering me these things, and only one person is interested in all the knowledge and love I have to offer.
To erase the idea that marriage is the finish line.
"Yeah, but not a lot of people want to do this long term. They're probably going to leave."
It is common to say everything we did over the course of a relationship was because of someone else, and without them, what will we do? Why did we bother? What a waste of time.
You can change everything about how you view love if you instead ask yourself, "Now that I know I am capable of these new things, what else am I capable of because of this time and love we shared?"
Yes, people will leave, they aren't our possessions. People have left my life. However, what they taught me, what we shared, the person I am going forward, that remains. Of course it hurts, of course I experience periods of missing them intensely, but I try to re-frame it as a deep, smoldering gratitude. Instead of trying to forget them, I choose to vividly remember, and enter into my new relationships stronger, wiser.
All that being said, not everyone will leave, and those are the people I am hoping to find. People like me who will make time and space for the people they love, for as long as they want to stay. People who will value anyone who comes into their life after me with equal passion, without leaving me behind because of it. That's what I am looking for.
Simple, right?
As always, I hope you enjoyed this stuff, and come back for more things.
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