Though I've been poly for over four years, I still don't feel like I have a lot of poly "cred." I mean sure, I have a wonderful, stable relationship with my primary partner Joel (Boyfriend), and by witnessing chaos around us we're reminded we're pretty healthy, even if we don't have serious relationships talks on a regular basis. But because I was pretty comfortable in my relationship with him, and because grading a bazillion freshman writing papers takes up time and energy, I hadn't done a lot of outside dating.
Then a month ago, I started dating New Boy (or for simplicity's sake, Adam*), and my life abounded with new-relationship energy (or NRE, in poly-lingo). I know that it sounds like a non-problem, but as awesome as NRE is, it can be channeled into anxiety as well as happiness. There are a lot of reasons for this, I think - all those lovely things I talked about in my jealousy post, for some - but one of the biggest reasons for me was trying to manage expectations. And not just manage expectations, but manage realistic expectations for Adam specifically that weren't based on past experiences.
That's hard, because by definition, an expectation is a belief that something will happen in the future and is based on what's happened in the past. The last few people I had significant connections with before Adam (other than Joel) were temporary: when we started dating it was made clear that they were leaving town, and that our relationship time was running out. So accompanying the typical NRE I felt with Adam, I constantly had an anxiety that everything had to happen at once. It wasn't until I could tell him about this anxiety that it started to subside, especially when he reminded me that he wasn't going anywhere.
Now I've realized that part of managing expectations is realizing why I might have certain expectations that I do, and deciding whether they're realistic for someone new. Like most things in poly, this means talking early and talking often. It sometimes feels like wandering into an emotional minefield to have a conversation about where things are going and what each person wants (and frankly, can handle) in a relationship. There's nothing quite more exposing than putting your heart out there with the possibility for rejection; it really makes me want to go back to the toss-a-note-and-run methods of our youth (Do you want to be my boyfriend? ...a casual sex thing? ...just friends? ...blissfully unlabeled because The Man can't tell us what to do? Check one).
But even beyond those big, scary questions, trying to manage even the smallest expectations have made a big difference. Asking questions like, "Will you be able to chat later tonight?" can be just as important as "Where do I fit into your life?" As simple as that sounds, I think there are so many "rules" to dating that we forget we can just ask. ("He hasn't answered your IM in a few hours? He's playing hard to get. Turn the tables and don't answer him for a few hours." Or, you know, maybe he's in a meeting. Maybe he's cooking dinner. Maybe he has a date. Maybe you should chill out.)
A friend of mine has a tattoo across his chest that says, "I'm not afraid to ask." I feel like an entire world opened up to me when I realized that instead of wondering things like, "Does he like me?" "What are we?" "Should I send that extra IM tonight or will I be imposing?", I could just ask. And not only could I ask, but things would actually get better (even if it's only in the long run), if I did so instead of remaining silent. There are many hurdles to getting over silence - I'm not saying it's easy, even just to toss that note and run away - but it's freeing to know that it's actually an option.
The more expectations we can manage by asking, the fewer times un-met expectations cause positive NRE to be channeled into anxiety (or, on the flip side, the fewer times we drag out something that is really not what we want in the first place). We poly people throw far more notes at our crushes than the monogamously inclined, so it's important for the potential benefits to outweigh the potential rejection. Does he/she like me? There's no way to know for sure except getting out the sparkly gel pens and practicing our football-note folding skills.
*We've decided not to change names to protect the innocent, because neither of them are really very innocent.
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