[imperfect_cupcake]

Originally Posted by Mel C.

Thank you for your thorough response honeybarbara! I hope others chime in as well.

For me, if I don't know where I stand in a relationship, I can't be fully invested. I'm fine with casual sex, friends with benefits, dating, etcetera. As long as I am aware of the expectations, I can decide whether I am a willing participant. The fact that I don't currently have a primary relationship doesn't mean I am not poly, it just means no current relationship has gotten there (yet).

Well, exactly. If you are poly, you don't stop being poly as your relationship-sexuality just because you are single-ish. Also some people don't want a primary. They just want meaningful friendships with sex and to be not "obligated" in a long term way to anyone. I understand that mindset when I'm not up for the responsibilities. I personally am that way until someone clicks that deep "I get you" response in me and suddenly I can "see" myself having a lifetime with them. Until that happens I don't really want to make any long term commitments. And I know if they leave, I'll be sad, but they don't add to my life in a massive impact kind of way. I value them, but just not as a romantic partner. I don't really want to invest in them in that way. I don't see it going anywhere. But I still enjoy them, today and for now.

Some people want that just as they function, end of. That's great. But I would be very wary of ever falling in love with someone who functioned like that. I wouldn't be able to. And I would never consider them for any kind of long term investment and therefore I wouldn't be able to conect deeply. I'd always have a particular emotional wall up between them, and my deepest places of care. And I wouldn't look after them if they were sick, nor would I read them to sleep when they had insomnia. I wouldn't grocery shop with them and I wouldn't talk to them more than twice a week... Blah blah. I'd keep the checks in place to ensure the relationship never advanced past a certain point, emotionally. I'd hang out with them like I do friends, but I wouldn't treat them like a long term love. After all, my loss wouldn't mean a whole lot. They don't wish to invest. I go by the adage of "never make someone a priority to whom you are an option"
I've made that mistake too many times.

When I fall for someone, it's quite hard. I'm a very devoted partner and I actually enjoy being one. To me, that requires big C commitments.

Being in a monogamous relationship doesn't mean I am poly either, it just means I am not in a poly relationship at that time.

Functionally monogamous. Sure.

I personally do no call myself poly or monogamous. I'm not sure I'm either. I was married monogamously and when I was then I was monogamous. But I think of it as kind of being pansexual in a different kind of way. I'm fine with monogamy .well. Ish. To be clear I'm *theoretically* fine with monog. It personally wouldn't bother me to only have sex with one person. I mean, I have been around a bajillion blocks and screwed through three continents, I know how fucking rare mind blowing great sex is with a good emotional connection AND friendship. But To be perfectly honest, I don't trust it. I know I can be monogamous without effort, but my relationships have never lasted longer than five years because the monogamous partners I have had, cheated on me and left me. So I have a hard time trusting that real monogamy actually happens. Every long term (5+ years) monogamous couple I know, personally and intimately, has had someone cheat (they dealt with it) and I've know it even when the person telling me " we've been monogamous for 12 years!" Er, maybe you have but I know your partner hasnt...

I know it's very possible, but I thing very long term actual monogamy is very rare. I don't fancy all my chips being bet on it. If I want a lifetime commitment, I am not going to require sexual fidelity be a sticking point. I'd rather have honesty. Am I going to have boundaries about it? Hells ya. And I know some poly people say "but how can you do that! how can you stop someone from falling in love with someone they are having sex with?"
Because I would prefer to pick someone who knows how to have casual sex and understands that certain things promote emotional intimacy, so you leave those things out and you don't purse sex with people you have massive crushes on, der. I don't get crushes, so it pretty easy for me. I get sweet on people, but never a full on crush. Crushes only develop with me with emotional intimacy. Never from the "at a distance" thing people do (and I just don't understand. Wtf kind of projections are you doing in you head??? You know it's a complete fantasy, right??) And I think that's the starting stages of falling in love anyway.

If you fall in love with people you have sex with because you can't seperate sex and love, then obviously non-monogamy isn't going to work for you. Only poly is. But for the love, don't assume that there aren't those of us that find it quite easy to have emotional boundaries and actually function well within them.

"But why would you want to? Love can't be restricted! It has to be free...."

Jesus fucking wept. Look. I don't know if you've ever expereinced a loss so big that it made you stop eating for 5 weeks, you lose your job cause you can't function in daily life and it takes you 3 years to recover from to actually feel centred enough to be able to connect properly with people again, but if you haven't then shut the hell up to me about what I should be doing with my emotions and how old are you anyway??? Do you have kids with someone? A morgage with someone? Just like true long term monogamy is very rare, poly where honest to fuck free-and-truly-equal in-love is equally rare.

I don't think either are the hoops that we have to be shooting for.

I know the ethical slut was written blah blah blah and more than two has come out but the authors of those books have had their lives fraught with relationship drama in ways that would fry my mind. That they are happy with it, hey, more power to them. I would go fucking insane with the kind of stuff I know has has gone on behind the words they sell books with. We are not ideals, we are human, fleshy and bloody. And the best thing to do in all cases is *know yourself* and no when to say NO to something you know is not going to work for you because it's too damn stressful for you emotionally. Don't be pushed into it because you think you have to because of lofty love ideals. know *functionally* what you can do and can't do. I don't do shit that triggers depression in me. I don't care how restrictive people thinks that makes me. It's basic self care, self respect and good boundaries.

I personally would never *ever* pick another partner my other partner didn't like. Why? Cause damn, I don't want that kind of drama in my life. Are you fucking kidding me? Way, WAY too much work, and emotional stress brings on depression for me, and I won't function. Why would I keep someone I'm not even bonded to yet when my partner, that I am bonded to, hates them?

But some people don't want rules or boundaries in their relationships. That kind of poly is called "relationship anarchy" and it's a political and romantic ideal about absolute independence. If that's your thing, then that's your thing. It's not mine and I won't be joining in. But it's another way to do poly.

The person who got my train of thought moving suggested that if I wasn't having sex with someone, they were a "friend" and I disagreed. They also suggested that if I wasn't a "family" with those involved, it was an open relationship not poly.

Bullocks. That is a form of poly. It's called poly-family and is a specifc *type* of poly. I tend to get flack from 21-35 year olds with poly families thinking they have invented the fucking wheel. Wtvr. It's amusing to hear them talk. They have no clue what my past it or my history is. Uh huh. Please. Do go on.

For me, relationships don't form spontaneously. It takes time to decide whether a connection is there and what that connection means. I believe you can have a romantic relationship without sex and that you can love more than one person (romantically) without being "in love" with them. I also believe you can have sex with someone who you aren't in love with (which I sometimes prefer). I don't think sexual practices determine whether or not you are poly.

For now, I think I will label myself "open poly whore" to cover all the bases.

Well, for me, I know fairly quickly of there is a certain heavier connection *possible* - that click I get when I'm understood without effort. When certain things are really similar between us. That can get ousted very quickly if I find their behaviour stresses me out - if they aren't dependable, they are mecurial, are moody, don't like lots of talking and connecting.

But if they are solid, honest, present, vulnerable, funny, dominant and dependable along with all of the wild sex and "hey! No way! Me too!" Stuff, and playful, like being kids together, chances are I'm going to very slowly fall in love with them.

But if they hey me too stuff, and That kid like quality between us isn't there, then I can care about them, very much, but I won't fall in love with them.

That there are oodles of kinds of non-monogamy and oodles of poly goes to show how differently people work. Everyone thinks the way they do things is the best (or they wouldn't do them!) but I feel absolutely free to roll my eyes at people telling me how to do my relationships according to how they do theirs and is the "real" form of ________.