Comic: Elastics

Homesick

For a while now, I've had a blog post in my drafts called "My Poly Family." In it, I gush about how happy I am that I finally feel like I have a community. That I'm so happy to be friends with my partners' other partners, partners of some type with many of my friends, and close with most everyone else involved. But for some reason, that post never got written. I think it was because I knew there was a dark side to such inter-connectivity, and since Adam and I broke up, I've found it: he is still close with our community, I am still close with our community, but he and I are no longer operating together within it. In fact, it's hard to see him in the same contexts, which is why we've both been treading lightly when choosing which social gatherings to attend.

I know a lot of people have already gone through this, maybe in high school or college. Friend groups, especially back in those insulated environments, all dated around, or so I'm remembering from my own experiences. But many relationships in high school were fluid for me, and I only dated one person in college (my ex), so I've never had this experience before. In fact, other than those high school flings, I've never ended a significant relationship in the same town as the other person. So the only way I knew how to get over someone was to have a lot of space from them, which is quite easy when that person is across the country.

It's much harder when that person is in your living room, hanging out with someone you live with and not you.

Everyone is being great about this, though. Friends are being sensitive when talking about hanging out with him, and we've decided it would be best if we all socialized with him outside of our house for a while. I'm also trying to be better about knowing when I do or don't want to know what he's been up to. He and I are even talking and trying to make plans to hang out as friends. But I can't stop thinking about how much easier this would all be if one of us had just left town.

I don't know how to re-introduce myself into my community without constantly bringing up old memories. I know that it will take time, just as it took time to get over those guys who moved to other states. And I know that things are probably already getting better. But as you know from previous blog posts, I suck at patience. I want to be in those photos of my community having fun together with Adam. I want it to be a pleasant surprise when he comes over to hang out with my other friends, not something that shakes me. And most of all, I want to go out with Joel, Adam, and Adam's wife again. I know it will never be the same, but missing that, right now, hurts almost as much as missing all that relationshippy stuff.

I want to enjoy my poly family again. I want to come home. But I don't know how yet.

Space

Postmortem

I've needed to write for a few weeks now, but haven't. It just didn't feel like the right time. Maybe I wanted to wait until my feelings weren't as raw, so that my post wouldn't just sound like a big jumbled mess of pain. Maybe I was trying to spare others' feelings by being a bit more private than usual. Maybe I just didn't know what to say. I still don't. But I know that ultimately it helps me to write about and process experiences, and sometimes it helps others, too, so I'm going to try.

Three weeks ago, I made the decision to break up with Adam. I was visiting my parents at the time, and miserable in the knowledge that I had to wait another week to meet with him to talk about where things stood. I didn't want to do it over email; even though most of our communication happened online, I felt that this conversation should be in person. But the longer I realized I had to wait, the more miserable I felt. So while my mother was out at a meeting one afternoon, I sat at a local coffee shop and typed the email, knowing I was making the right decision but still heartbroken in it. I hit send. It was done.

A week later, I met him on a park bench near the dinner spot where we intended to eat. Neither of us knew if this was a good idea, and for the first fifteen minutes, I was convinced it wasn't. I voiced serious doubts, sobbing, trying not to look him in the eye. But as we sat there longer, and I allowed myself to look at how sad he was too, I calmed down. We decided that since we were already there, and starving, and wanted to still be in each others' lives, we might as well eat.

For two blissful hours, we stopped talking about the breakup and just were. We ate, drank, caught up from the previous few weeks, and laughed. It might have been the beer, but I felt happier than I'd felt in weeks. And it wasn't because I thought we were getting back together, it was because I knew I wasn't losing him for good. I saw a spark of what we should have had all along - an arrangement that was comfortable for both of us, that allowed us to enjoy each other in the moment and not worry about how we were not being fulfilled or not fulfilling each others' wants and needs.

Since then, it's been a challenge. I've always needed space from someone after a breakup, and have always gotten it - my last two significant breakups were a result of distance, so while I missed talking to them, I could control exactly how much I wanted to know about their lives post-me. 

But this is different. Not only is Adam in my friend group, he's close with who I'm close with, in ways I wish I was, and I'm reminded of this even if no one intends to remind me. He is still in the extended poly family of friends and partners I used to feel was a comfort, and now I realize is a double-edged sword. My close-knit groups are wonderful for support through the bad times and fun through the good, but can also deny me the space I badly need to get over heartbreak. 

Because of this, I have to be cautious, withdraw when I'm feeling I need more space, stay in when I don't think I'll have as much fun at that party he'll be at, and request discretion of those who we're both close to. I have to learn how to handle a breakup all over again, and maybe that's why I waited so long to write about it: I have no idea what I'm doing. 

The only thing I know how to do is strengthen other relationships, focus on other interests, make other plans; see Adam when I feel I can see him, talk to him when I feel I can talk to him, and retreat when I'm feeling hurt. Learn as I go. Ask for help. Cry sometimes. And trust that sometimes, the only way to save one type of relationship is to end another one. It's still something I'm only telling myself and not feeling. But I guess if I'd been good at telling myself how to feel, I wouldn't have had to end the relationship in the first place. 

Preoccupied

It's been this way for as long as I can remember. When I was younger, before my body started producing hormones that eclipsed all else, it was characters and movies and shows. Peter Pan, then Robin Williams (probably because of Hook and my lingering obsession with Peter Pan), then Twister and anything having to do with tornadoes. They were all I could talk about, think about, dream about. Others called them obsessions, but it wasn't until I grew up and realized what a loaded word that could be that I felt uncomfortable admitting that's what they were. But that's what they were.

And then I got older, it changed from fictional characters and celebrities to real people. After my first boyfriend in 9th grade, I no longer had to occupy my obsessive brain on fiction. I had something to attach to that was real.

I can't even type "something to obsess on," because it makes me feel creepy. Like I'm a stalker, like my thoughts are unnatural and unwanted. And I don't know, maybe I have been creepy. It's not like I've stood outside someone's window, followed someone around, looked for their car in a parking lot, called them at weird hours of the night. But I have definitely annoyed my friends and family by talking about my interests non-stop. I have definitely driven people away by being too enthusiastic about them.

I've also made plans based more on the excitement of these attachments than logic. Like, it's a good thing people don't choose professions at thirteen, because I'd be living in the middle of tornado alley right now doing weather science. I mean, okay, maybe I'd be happy doing weather science, but I wouldn't have turned into Helen Hunt, which is what I really wanted. But even more disturbing to me are the choices I made (or almost made) based on people I was attached to. Because when I'm in one of these phases - when there's something that occupies my brain for more time than other things - my own desires and needs don't matter as much.

As I've gotten older, I've learned the difference between someone I have an obsessive attachment to and someone I have a healthy attachment to. I've developed the ability to step back and go, "This is too much." But at the same time, I still let myself be dragged under, and it is never me who, in the end, says, "I need a break from this to detach." It is always the decisions of others who break me from the spell, and with distance, I am usually grateful that they do so. I just wish I could do it myself.

And most of all, I wish the peaks and valleys of the unhealthy attachments weren't so beautiful that the flatlands of healthy attachments seemed boring in comparison. Because it's hard to plant in rocky soil, and deep down, I know that it's time to grow more things that last.

Love's Inconvenient Truth

The last time I wrote about love, I pondered what it meant to me now that I'm poly. In that post, I talked about there being more than one kind of love, that love can be scary, that I don't have to love two people in the same way, and that love isn't always what we see on TV. To that, I will add one more:

Love is not enough.

Author Mark Manson discussed this very concept on his blog, which resonated with me and made me look back at how much stock I've put into love throughout the years to be the end-all, be-all to my relationships. Not only did I think as long as there was love the relationship would be emotionally satisfying, I also thought that as long as there wasn't love, the relationship was over. While in some cases the second might be true, neither are true 100% of the time, and that presence or absence of love is not what dictates the happiness of all parties in a relationship. 

All three of his main points resonated with me. Like "Love does not equal compatibility": when I married my ex-husband, it didn't matter that his chosen career path (medicine) and my lack of career path would cause problems. It didn't occur to me that his desire to sit at home most nights and my desire for adventure would cause problems. It definitely didn't occur to me that his desire for children and my indifference would cause problems, and I'm utterly grateful we never got that far (and am happy he now has the baby he wanted).

I thought, too, of my relationship with my ex, and others, regarding "Love is not always worth sacrificing yourself." I've been so ready in the past to pack up my own desires (whether I knew what they were or not) and follow someone else, that I'm surprised I haven't found myself in more miserable situations. 

And finally, there's this: "Love does not solve your relationship problems." 

Manson writes that "while love may make you feel better about your relationship problems, it doesn’t actually solve any of your relationship problems." In fact, I think it can make them worse. It makes the highs of a relationship temporarily drown out the lows, so that the lows are tolerated for much, much longer than they should be. This is the most obvious in situations of emotional and physical abuse, but it can also harm perspective when no one is really "at fault." 

Adam and I have been together almost for a year, and I've spent a lot of that time trying to adjust to a relationship that had more challenges than I'd faced before. The biggest challenge was a disparity in emotion, and even moreso, a disparity in how he saw me as a partner as opposed to how I saw him. For a long time, I thought that if he ever told me he loved me back, our disparity would lessen. But then he did,  and while it made me feel all kinds of warm fuzzies, it didn't change much else. Love didn't solve our relationship problems - we have to tackle those ourselves, by taking a break and re-evaluating if there even is a middle ground for us after all.

I don't want to stop thinking about love as something special, but I have learned that I need to stop using it as an excuse to stay with someone (or stay in a certain arrangement with someone) when so many other things are missing or not working. I would recommend everyone - no matter your relationship style - go check out Manson's post. It's not a happy truth when we think about it, but it is a truth, and I hope that by taking it to heart, someday the happiness will follow.

What is Love? (With Apologies to Haddaway)

I don't know, what can I do? What else can I say, it's up to ewe.

Now that you have that song in your head, let's talk about what I've learned about me and romantic love since being poly: 

There is more than one kind of love.

Love is not just what society tells us it is. It is not just kissing in the rain, marrying your high school sweetheart, holding a boombox outside someone's window, letting them have the whole damned door to float on even though it's clear there's room for you too. It is not just what is written in Hallmark cards. It could be any of these things, or it can be something completely different. It could be letting them have the last bite of cake, checking up on them in the middle of a really tough day, wearing their hair ties on your wrist even though you don't have long hair. The love I feel doesn't have to fit into someone else's mold.

I don't have to love someone the same way I love someone else.

Love is an amorphous feeling, and therefore can be different for everyone I love. I don't love Adam in the same way I love Joel, and I don't love Joel in the same way I loved others before him. I don't expect to be loved in the same way my partners love their other partners. And just because the love is different, doesn't mean it's not significant or shouldn't be communicated (or communicated about - see below).

Love doesn't have to be a floor on the relationship escalator. 

For a long time, I thought that relationships became real when you started saying "I love you" and whatever came before that was just casual. I thought that once you started slinging around love, more things were slated to come, like moving in together, going to (and almost breaking up at) Ikea, getting incessantly bugged about having kids. And then a few years ago, I fell in love with someone who would be leaving town just a few months later and realized that love doesn't have to be on the way to something else, or the end of something. It just is. 

Love can be scary.

In the past, I have taken for granted that love is a concept (and emotion) that has always come easily to me. I love often, early, and strongly. I fall hard. But not everyone is like that. Love is complicated for those who have only ever known it to be one thing for one person at a time (or for that matter, one person, period). Love is hard to express when you don't know if the emotion carries other obligations or expectations, and it's tricky to qualify, quantify, and clarify because it sometimes feels like doing so cheapens it. It's not always as simple as "He loves me, he loves me not."

I need to hear that I'm loved. 

Affirmative language is something I need a lot of in poly relationships, even if my partner and I aren't using "love" to describe how we feel about each other. Even though it does bring me comfort to feel a warm embrace or a tender kiss, the words "I love you" mean a lot in making me feel valued and important in a relationship. Obviously, if love is felt, it should be shown, but I'm wired to need to hear it too.

And finally,

Love should be communicated about, not just communicated.

It took me far too long to realize I needed to communicate what love meant to me versus what it meant to others. I think sometimes we think that it's this subject we have to tiptoe around because saying it for the first time is supposed to be special and important,  and because it means something. But really, it's more dangerous not to find out what that something is to everyone involved before diving in.

I truly believe that it is more enriching to live life with the potential to love more than one person. But at the same time, I know that this concept can be complicated and messy. It shouldn't be kept in a collector's box high on the shelf to maintain its pristine condition. It should be taken down, taken apart, played with, and most importantly, experienced. 

Alone

Over my mother's stressful visit last November, during which she caught Adam and I kissing and proclaimed loudly how much she didn't approve of our life choices, she told me she was worried that dating all these unavailable people meant I was just going to end up alone. "You can't be alone, Katie," she said. "I know you."

My first response was, "How could I be alone around more people? That doesn't make sense!" and my second was, "Well even if I am, I'm happier being alone than I used to be. I've changed. You'll see."

And I thought that I was getting better at it, that I relished those nights at home with no plans, that I still took comfort in reading or drawing or writing when I needed some restorative time, that I liked stretching out in a bed all to myself. I grew up an only child, after all, I should be used to being alone. Shouldn't I? Wasn't my mother just basing her fears on a societal stereotype that single people are lonely?

This morning, I said goodbye to Joel for a week as he embarks on a fun trip I can't take because I have to give a final and then grade them. Adam and his wife just bought a condo, so they're furiously trying to prep and pack and don't have a lot of time for dating this month. Instead of being excited that this time is an opportunity for me to get back to doing these activities I like to do solo, the prospect of a week without either of them, and then several weeks without Adam, makes me feel empty.

It shouldn't. In fact, if anything, being in love and in happy relationships should make me more okay with being alone because I know I'm really not - that there is someone (more than one someone!) out there who cares for me and looks forward to seeing me the next time we have plans. I've even met some wonderful new people I'm excited to get closer to and see more of. So why am I so lonely? Why has comfort with Joel and lust for Adam made it harder for me to be alone, not easier?

I'm frustrated with myself. I want to be stronger than this. I want to be telling my mom the truth when I say that if I end up living alone with no domestic partner for the rest of my life, I'll be OK. But right now, I'm lying to her and, I think, also lying to myself.

Sometimes I tell myself I just need a primary partner who isn't unavailable. That the problem is I keep becoming involved with people who already have homes, or who are okay with being their own home, when in reality I want someone to make a home with. But that's not going to solve the problem. I had that once and it didn't make me happy. Even if I had that again, there would still be times like this week I'm alone and lonely and empty.

This comic says very succinctly what I want to do: not be so worried about filling the hole in my chest. I think there is a misconception that poly people can't be lonely, or even that coupled people can't be lonely, but the truth is that if we're unhappy with being with ourselves, it doesn't matter how many people we live with or are dating or trying to fill that hole with. We have to figure out how to be happy letting it whistle as we run. I'm still working on it.

Maybe my first step is to get over my hatred of running.

The Price of Admission

Dan Savage was my first introduction to frank talk on relationships and sex. I remember fondly, and with some titillation, listening to the Savage Lovecast on my iPod while I did data entry at a temp job a few years ago. No one ever knew that as I updated databases, I was getting tips on having better sexual experiences and learning concepts like "DTMFA" (dump the motherfucker already).

Now I know that a lot of people are polarized about Savage, which I understand; I haven't been happy with things he's said either. But what I do like is when he takes a simplified look at some of the concepts in relationships that I think get muddled by centuries of idealizing what love and sex are "supposed" to be.

One of those concepts is the "Price of Admission": essentially, what one is willing to put up with, or "pay," in order to maintain a relationship (or what he calls "ride the ride"). In this video, Savage talks about it in relation to the little things: your partner chewing with their mouth open or leaving sandwich-making supplies all over the counter. (One of Joel's prices of admission are his sometimes disturbingly loud sneezes, for instance.) He admonishes an audience member who prompted the discussion for having too many deal-breakers - essentially, for saying he wasn't willing to pay any price of admission. Savage says, "There is no settling down without some settling for."

Beyond the problems I have with the concept of "settling" (which I'd really rather think of as compromise), I believe this is largely true, especially when it comes to loud sneezes and open-mouth chewing. If we are unwilling to pay some sort of price of admission, or make some compromises in our relationships, then we should get used to not riding much of anything at all (and yes, for those of you keeping score at home, that was a double-entendre).

But sometimes, the cost of maintaining a relationship - of riding that ride - is too high. Sometimes that threshold is easy to measure, like if your partner wants to move to a different country and you're already rooted. But sometimes it's not. Sometimes the threshold is simply at a point in time when a relationship, for whatever reason, is making you more unhappy than happy.

And where that threshold is could be muddled. You could lose sleep over it one night, cry over it half the next day, but after a little space and reflection realize you can afford more. Because you've thought about that ride, and it's been one of the best you've ever been on, and you're not ready to get off of it yet. But you're still aware that at some point, you might come up short, and that scares you. And you realize that this risk - the risk of too high a price of admission - is a price of admission in itself.

I feel like some polyamorous relationships have more prices of admission than monogamous ones. You have open-mouth chewers, loud sneezers, and messy sandwich-makers. But you also have jealousy, insecurity, impatience. You have relationship hierarchies and communication challenges and metamours. You have societal discrimination and scheduling issues. A polyamorous relationship can be a really big roller-coaster, which means it has the potential to be expensive and scary. But it also means it has the potential to be the best ride of your life. The question will always be, "Can you afford it?"

I wish I had a blunt Dan Savage-like figure in my life who could answer that for me, but I don't. And I don't know if I'd listen even if I did. Relationships aren't actually rides, after all; they're made up of people with feelings. And unlike a ride, the cost of maintaining them isn't set in stone - it's negotiable. Yes, the ultimate price of admission costs what it costs, but there's no reason you shouldn't try to make that cost affordable for both of you. If you - or your partner - ultimately decides the price of admission is too high, at least, then, you will have done all you could. That is all any of us can really do.

Return of the Jealousy Monster

While Adam was out of town with other partners this past weekend, I had a visit from my Jealousy Monster. It arrived on Thursday afternoon, settled in even as I tried to unseat it with a bubble bath and a relaxing evening of reading, and was still gorging happily on envy the next day, making the most annoying chewing sounds - like someone eating potato chips and smacking their lips in an otherwise silent room. My weekend, which was jam-packed with fun things, was at stake. I had to do something. 

In my previous post about managing expectations, I talked about the fact that most of what I know about navigating relationships comes from past experiences. I know, for example, that I fear the unknown, so when I've approached situations involving jealousy before, my first instinct is to have everything laid out in front of me. 

But this time, asking about the fun things he was doing made things worse, especially as I was, at that moment, grading a particularly horrible paper. I tried to explain that maybe I didn't need to know the details, at least not right then, and we even tried to change the subject. But the longer we talked the worse I felt. So I tried the complete opposite of my past inclinations: I told him I had to go. I wished him a good weekend, told him we'd talk when he got home, and closed the chat window. 

The immediate relief I felt was almost startling. Who was I? Wasn't I someone who felt that more communication, not less, was the solution to all problems? Hadn't I hated it in past relationships when the other person had requested a few days of silence? I continued to listen closely for my Jealousy Monster for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening, but I couldn't hear him. He wasn't gone, but he was no longer making those annoying chewing sounds.

I took advantage of the silence and enjoyed my weekend. It wasn't that I didn't think about Adam, but I wasn't dwelling on the envy the way I might have if we'd been checking in every once in a while. Instead I focused on those other things that make me happy, and because of it was glad to talk again when he got home. 

I know that the Jealousy Monster is still there, biding its time to come out again, and I feel like before I revert back to my tell me everything inclinations I need to make sure I'm ready to hear it. It's nice, though, to realize there are still solutions to be found, and helpful to recognize that they might be the complete opposite of what was expected. Hopefully next time I'll know ahead of time to focus on what's in front of me that I am doing, rather than wondering what I'm not. 

Reclaiming the Mix Tape

Like many children of the 80's, I have a particular nostalgia for the mix tape, especially the mix tape from a special someone. There was nothing quite like being handed that little rectangular case, pouring over the track names I knew and wondering about the ones I didn't know, and waiting painfully through the school day to go home and play it. And then, I hung on to every word and wondered, Why did he choose this one? This song uses "love" twenty times in it, is he trying to tell me something? (Spoiler: most of the time, he wasn't.) I'd reply in kind with my own mix tape that would show him my profoundly deep fifteen-year-old soul (though I'd never be there for the first listen, because who wants to see someone see your soul?)

Though I never stopped wanting to make mix tapes for special someones, something changed. It wasn't a disinterest in music - I still very much look to songs to qualify certain feelings. It wasn't the creation of digital media - I just started making playlists instead. And it wasn't that love songs have changed. It was my that my relationships no longer follow a preset societal norm, and love songs, most of the time, just aren't that poly.

But I was on a mission to make a mix, so I asked some other poly friends if they also had trouble with music. Several shared my frustrations, that otherwise meaningful songs become less so when overtly monogamous or jealous themes pop up. There's nothing quite like listening to a song and falling for it, thinking it says more than you could ever say to someone special, before realizing it contains a line like, "You're mine." I asked them, what do you do with that? How do you avoid mono-normativity* in mainstream music?

My favorite answer, other than the one recommending I just switch to dubstep, was this: I just ignore it. Though it had certainly crossed my mind to pick and choose what parts of songs I really intended to be about that special someone, there was always some voice in the back of my head going, That song is perfect except for those three lines, so it's ruined. Move on. But the more I thought about it the more I talked back to that voice: Why can't those three lines be re-interpreted? Who says I have to go along with what was it was supposed to be about? And then I got angrier: If I was one to always follow what was "supposed to be" I wouldn't be poly in the first place.

So I started to just ignore those lines that ruined a perfectly good song. Or, rather, re-imagined them. And why not? Why can't "You're mine" mean "You're mine right now," or "You're mine and you're also someone else's"? Music already squishes pages of emotion into three or so minutes, so isn't there always more complexity intended than what's on the page? And, even if that intent is totally different than the one we need, who's to say we can't change it? We're already pretty damned good at re-writing rules to fit our lives, why not re-write the intended meaning of mainstream music to fit our mixes?

Maybe this is my creative nature showing through, but once I started ignoring the mono-normativity, I found that making mixes was more fun - maybe even more fun than it was when I was fifteen. There's more of a challenge to finding a song that not only has those lines I can ignore but that also captures the desire for independence and community I have in my adult relationships. But once I find it, it's more rewarding. I mean, it's not quite as rewarding as writing out track lists by hand on a tiny rectangular cassette insert, but for some things, you just have to dig out a CD-R and a Sharpie.

I didn't use any of my friends' suggested poly-friendly songs in my latest mix, so I present their suggestions here, for amusement. What songs are on mine? Sorry, you don't get to see my soul that easily.

CSN&Y - "Our House"
Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band - "If I Should Fall Behind"
Todd Rundgren - "Hello It's Me"
Tim Minchin - "If I Didn't Have You" (to combat "one and only love forever" feelings)
fun - "Take Your Time"
Spice Girls - "Wannabe"
Alanis Morissette - "Doth I Protest Too Much"

and I'll add
The New Pornographers - "Challengers"
The Human League - "The Things that Dreams are Made Of"

Feel free to suggest your own in the comments!

*the monogamous "norm"

All Kinds of Time: Impatience and Immobility

Last week, I was hit with several large stacks of papers to grade, so many in fact that I worked through last weekend and most evenings of the week. I didn't cope very well with the pressure. I found myself anxious, jumpy, and wanting to cry at the weirdest moments. I couldn't focus. I wondered if I needed to ask my doctor about pharmaceutical assistance. The thought that Oh god there just isn't enough time rendered me almost useless for more hours than I care to admit. Last week sucked.

But I don't think I have an attention disorder. When I have one or two things on my plate, I can get them done, no problem. But when my daily to-do list expands into a weekly to-do list, my desire to get everything done right now makes it hard for me to figure out what to do first.

Saturday, while relaxing for the first time in a week and a half, I admitted that I have a problem with patience. I see things that I want to happen and for some reason expect them to happen today or tomorrow, and when they don't, or when I can't predict when they'll happen, I get anxious. I start to wonder if they'll happen at all. And in my anxiety, I am unable to work toward those things that I can actually make happen. (See: my novel-in-progress, a short story that's done and just needs to be submitted somewhere, the short fiction papers I should be grading right now.) I was posed with the question "What is your ideal for right now?" and by worrying about the future so much, I had difficulty answering.

As I sat down this morning to tackle everything on my daily to-do list, I heard a song by early 2000s band Fountains of Wayne (and it wasn't "Stacy's Mom," though that song does certainly have its merits). The song, "All Kinds of Time," is about an ultra-slow-mo moment between when a ball is snapped to a quarterback and when he throws it into the outstretched arms of a teammate. In that moment of chaos around him, everything stops: he looks around, imagines his family watching him on television, is at peace, and just like that, everything falls into place and he feels like he owns the world. 

I'm not a football fan by any stretch of the imagination, but I couldn't help but listen to it again and realize that in those moments of chaos when I'm working myself into an anxious frenzy of When will this happen or How will I ever get this done, I forget to step back and take stock. I forget to see that what I do have isn't worth ignoring for what I might have, and I forget to see that there are enough hours in the day, I just need to use them better. 

Patience isn't an easy virtue for anyone to learn, but I want to try harder because I feel like I've missed out on so many "own the world" moments. I feel like I haven't been able to separate the crushingly intimidating Future Goals from the totally obtainable Present Goals, and because of it have immobilized myself to opportunities. And mostly, I want to be able to answer the question "What is your ideal for right now?" so that I can attempt to make it a reality. Or, even better, realize that in a lot of ways, it already is my reality. 

My Big Fat Bisexual Pride Day

Today, September 23, is Celebrate Bisexuality Day. I posted about this on Facebook a few weeks ago and an old acquaintance commented, "They have to have a holiday for everything now, don't they?" My first instinct was to take him down in a brilliantly snarky, horribly piercing verbal battle, but then I took a step back, counted to ten, and instead replied, "This response is exactly why we need it."

I suppose one could question the "need" for celebrating something that's so obviously already celebrated during Pride. I mean, right? Can't you just so easily pick the bisexuals out of the amassed crowd? Isn't the parade just overwhelmed with bisexuals?

I'll give you a hint: it is. But you wouldn't know it by simply looking. Because so many doubt the existence of someone who can be attracted to more than one gender forever, it's easier for a lot of us to simply stay in one closet or another. Sometimes, we're already happily monogamously paired with a partner and therefore can blend into whatever community we appear to fit with. Sometimes, we are scared to come out because we're not positive we're bisexual because we've never had experience with more than one gender. Sometimes, it's just easier to ignore that others are erasing our existence and erase it for ourselves.

But we're out there. And we're not all just "confused," or "on the way to gay." We're not all more likely to cheat on our partners. We're not all poly (though, obviously, I'm not helping out with this stereotype). We're not all sex-crazed. We're not all experimenting. And today is the day out of the year that we try to remind others of these things, remind them of our existence, and remind them that even though we make up a significant portion of the LGBT population, simply celebrating pride with the greater community isn't enough.

Today, members of national LGBT organizations are holding a closed-door meeting at the White House to discuss the ongoing specific needs of the bisexual community. It is my hope that this meeting will not only allow activists from around the country to share ideas, but also spread awareness that we are a group to be supported, celebrated, and noticed. As for me, I will be wearing my bi pride colors today and will be happy to raise a toast to friends at the local celebration here in Boston on Friday. Thank you to all who already support our cause, and Happy Bi Pride!

If you would like to find out more about the Bisexual Resource Center and all that it does for the local and national bisexual community, visit our website. You can also support the BRC and all it does with support groups, literature, and education as the oldest nationally-focused bisexual organization in the U.S. 

Poly Communication, Part II: Managing Expectations

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. 

Bruised Apples

Sometime in the mid-90s, I taught myself to juggle. A lot of people would have thought, let's watch someone else juggle first. Let's rent a VHS tape. Let's buy one of those trendy Klutz books about juggling. But not me. Did I start out with silk scarves that fall slowly? Hell no. I started with tennis balls, and compensated for not having enough time to throw one before catching the next one by throwing them ten to fifteen feet in the air. It was months before I figured out technique and was able to juggle indoors.

But I never could get past juggling three. At some point, I got too frustrated to go back and learn another way, so I polished what I knew (and know to this day, to the sadness of all round fruit that passes through my kitchen).

When navigating poly, I should have thought about my past juggling limitations when deciding how much dating I could handle at one time. There was a month-long period back in 2009 when I regularly saw three different guys. This might have been okay if I felt the same level of casual connection with all of them, but there were two I felt quite fond of (one of whom was Boyfriend), so my dates with the third started to fill me with more guilt than joy. My mind was off with one of the other two while physically with the third, and that was when I realized I might not be as good at juggling as I thought.

For a long time after that, after it was down to just Boyfriend, I didn't date very many other people. I was trying to get my career going and became more involved in organizations. I went through a brief period after I came out as bisexual when I wanted all the ladies, but even that, after a while, calmed down to a quiet, "I'd like a lady, if she happens to come by."

But now, life has thrown me more tennis balls, and I'm trying to juggle again. Only this time, I know what it feels like when I'm taking on too much. I'm already feeling like I've reverted back to tossing them fifteen feet in the air. I like expanding my life to new people, but I need to be realistic, so I have two choices: lay down some juggling implements or start over and learn how to juggle properly. 

To get away from the metaphor for a second (and I know, I'm quite attached to it at this point), practicing polyamory requires the ability to manage time. If Rule One is Communication, Rule Two is Time Management. But even beyond scheduling, I feel lousy when I don't think I'm giving my attention fairly to someone. When New Boy suggested I write about juggling new partners and time management, he said the first thing should be, "Don't drop them on their heads." Of course he was trying* to be funny, but he was right. 

So what do I do? The solution depends on the situation of course, but the first thing I've learned to do is be honest. That conversation sucks, especially if you're talking to someone who you like and who likes you back. Letting that someone know you might not have as much time or as much attention to give them is hard. But what sucks worse is not saying anything and fading away over time, possibly leaving the other person wondering what they did wrong. I still might eventually realize that I can't give that person the attention they deserve, but at least I didn't drop them on their head.

I should also probably learn to juggle properly, to be honest. I should look at past experiences and realize how much I should attempt to take on in the first place. I should factor in the mountains of grading, the volunteering, the writing, and the social engagements, and more than anything else be realistic, so instead of having to limit the tennis balls, I don't pick up as many in the first place. The ideal results are less hurt feelings, fewer bruised apples, and more sanity, the last of which I need most of all.

Oh, and if anyone has one of those old Klutz juggling books laying around, I wouldn't mind reading up a bit this time.

*Okay who am I kidding, it was funny. I like funny. Funny is sexy.

Healthy Poly Relationships Rule Number One: Communication (with Ourselves)

I wish I could title this "Healthy Poly Relationships Rules Numbers One through One Hundred: Communication," but that sounds a little clunky.

While I think that most people new to (or curious about) nonmonogamy are at first the most concerned about jealousy, even more important (and usually more useful) is learning how to be a communicator. And not just a communicator, a super-communicator. Communication is a huge topic in any form of interpersonal relationships, not just romantic and/or sexual ones, but people who practice nonmonogamy (or for the sake of my typing sanity, "polyamory" or "poly"*) need to make it even more of a priority.

Take, for example, this almost exact word-for-word conversation I had with my boyfriend the other day:

Me: New Boy and I are going to get ramen on Thursday night.
BF: At the new place?
Me: Yes....wait! Was that a you-and-me thing?
BF: I was kind of thinking it was.
Me: I'm sorry! I don't know why but I thought you'd already gone.
BF: No, I haven't.
Me: New Boy and I can totally change our plans.
BF: Thanks, love.

Okay, I'll admit the above example is simple and possibly even a little gag-worthy, especially if you have much bigger issues than what restaurants you and your partners try together first. But think about what might have happened if Boyfriend hadn't spoken up: New Boy and I could have gone to the ramen place and had a fabulous time, and even though Boyfriend isn't generally an envious person, a little resentment could have formed. Little resentments can build into bigger resentments, and then grudges, and then all of a sudden you're angry at your partner for something that could have been made better (or even resolved) with a little communication.

But Boyfriend couldn't have communicated that he wanted to be with me for our first slurp-tastic new ramen experience if he hadn't known that it would bother him if I went with someone else. Before we can communicate with our partners or potential partners what we are feeling, we have to know what we are feeling and admit it to ourselves. This is especially true when our feelings are less on the uncomfortable side and more on the dark-and-painful scale.

Authors Dossie Easton and Janet W. Hardy, in their book The Ethical Slut, put it this way: "Silent suffering and self-deprecation have no place in this lifestyle. Pretending that you feel great when you're in agony...will make you bitterly unhappy, and it may make those who care about you even unhappier." (I will point out that "[s]ilent suffering and self-deprecation" don't have a place in any lifestyle, but for ours they are especially destructive.)

Admitting to our own feelings (and allowing ourselves to feel them) is the starting point to being a better communicator, because then we can address issues that arise from an "I" place rather than a "you" place. Boyfriend said, "I thought we were going to try that place together," not "You said we were going to try that place together." He was saying, "I don't feel so great about you trying that place with someone else," not "How can you do this to me?" When we communicate from a place where we know what we are feeling, or even that we know we have no idea what we are feeling, we take ownership in the communication instead of placing blame and, ultimately, building resentment.

The first place to start is by checking in: what are we feeling? What made us feel that way? As with allowing ourselves to feel jealousy if (when) it arises, we need to allow ourselves to feel whatever else it is we are feeling: envy, shame, resentment, guilt; but also joy, happiness, love. Because communicating the good is just as important as communicating the bad. It's not only, "I felt envious about you going to the ramen place with New Boy" but also I'm happy that you checked in with me about the ramen place. I'm happy our relationship is important to you. Communication of the good is the end-goal of sloshing through all that other stuff. It is, in my ramen experience, the sweet pork and slippery noodles in the bowl of broth.

It is only after we have checked in with ourselves about how we are feeling that we can bring those feelings to our partners, and I want to explore challenges associated with doing so in a future post. But first, I have to find a time for Boyfriend and I to get ramen, because for some odd reason I have a craving for it.

*Not everyone uses these terms interchangeably because they're not always exactly the same. If you're curious about terminology in general, check out this glossary.

The Jealousy Monster and Me

Jealousy is not a big green monster. I mean, it could be for some people, but my jealousy is tiny. It grips the folds of my ear, just inside the external auditory canal, and whispers to me. I've never put it under a magnifying glass, but I'm assuming if I did it would look like a tiny green fuzzball with menacing, jagged teeth, meant to gobble up emotions and spit back hurtful and sometimes irrational things. I know when it's there - it starts as a weird feeling of unease, and the longer I let it hang around the more my brain listens to it.

Everyone might not have a fuzzy green ear-dweller, but everyone experiences jealousy. Those who practice nonmonogamy are not somehow magically excused from it; in fact, we probably experience more of it simply because more people equals more possibilities for it to crop up. Sure, there are some lucky ones out there who say they've never felt jealous, but they are few and far between (and, I'm going out on a limb here, probably lying).

So how do we battle our monsters, no matter which form they might take?

I start where I start with most things: with the idea that knowledge is power. Information about jealousy in nonmonogamous relationships can be found in many sources, from books like Dossie Easton and Janet W. Hardy's The Ethical Slut to a myriad web articles, blogs, and forums. However, the discussion about jealousy that rings truest to me can be found in the book Opening Up by Tristan Taormino.

Sources agree that jealousy is not a cause, but rather an effect: a result of something else. Taormino outlines what some of these causes may be, including envy, insecurity, possessiveness, feeling excluded, and fear of abandonment.  My Jealousy Monster feeds primarily on envy, insecurity, and feelings of or fear of exclusion. Once sated with these emotions, it whispers things like "He's closer to her than than he is with you" (envy), "You'll never please her like he can" (insecurity), and "They're at the top of the Eiffel tower while you're just sitting at your desk surfing Reddit" (feelings of exclusion). Realizing the roots of the jealousy, or what it is that your Jealousy Monster feeds on, is the first step to weakening it.

After that, Taormino urges readers to allow themselves to just feel it. She writes, "Don't criticize yourself or pile shame and judgment on top of [the jealousy] -- that will just make you feel worse." If my Jealousy Monster's first course is envy and insecurity, shame and self-judgement are like its dessert.

So where to go from there? Just as Taormino suggests, I turn to friends and partners for support. Today, in fact, just as I was typing this post, a friend admitted that her Jealousy Monster had been a particular glutton for envy and insecurity, but also enjoyed a particularly big helping of fear. In addition to venting, she just needed to know that her feelings were valid, and that's something that we can all provide for people: the reminder that what we feel is what we feel, and it is only after we have admitted and found the root of that feeling can we move on to try and get past it.

As for my Jealousy Monster, it grows weaker when I replace feelings of envy with focusing on what I have that others don't; when I replace insecurity with doing something I'm good at and really love; and when I replace feeling excluded with getting up from my desk and creating my own adventures. I work on all of these by addressing the roots one by one, and most often talking about them with my partners, both the ones I'm jealous of and the ones whose partners I'm jealous of. It doesn't happen right away, and not usually without help, processing, blogging, journaling, and lots and lots of communication, but with time, the monster has little to nothing left to eat (at least, temporarily).

But I don't kill it nor forget it's there. Everyone's Jealousy Monster will reappear at some point, even if it's much weaker than it was before. It could feed on insecurity again, related to my relationships, but it also could feed on the insecurity that I don't fit into those jeans anymore. The key is to not forget it, but keep it distracted with other things.

I distract mine with marshmallows.

It likes marshmallows.

The Monopoly Metaphor: Ethical Non-Monogamy and Playing by Our Own Rules

When I first learned how to play Monopoly, it was from people, not the instruction booklet. Let's say for the sake or argument it was my parents, or perhaps even my aunt and uncle who like to recall a particularly silly game during which I said I was "property poor" and eventually degraded to wearing my headband across my forehead, shouting, "RAMBO!"

Yeah, let's say it was them. 

When Aunt and Uncle taught me to play Monopoly, I knew the basics - I could buy properties and if someone landed on that property, awesome! I got money. (By now you've realized that little me sucked at buying properties.) I enjoyed Monopoly for about as long as anyone who can play longer than an hour enjoys Monopoly. Life was good.

And then my friend Molly from next door filled me in: How had I not known about the Free Parking rule, and if you landed there you got ALL THE MONEY people had been paying for luxury tax, or getting out of jail? So when I played with Molly, we played Free Parking. I was still horrible at it, but happy to realize there were other rules. It was like a whole new game!

Apparently, there are many variations to the rules of how to play Monopoly, and since it's been around a long time, different families and friend groups have probably always made up their own rules to make the game a little more interesting (or, you know, not take five hours).

I like to explain ethical non-monogamy (or in my case, polyamory) by talking about Monopoly. When I played with family, I played differently than when I played with Molly. But in neither case did anyone cheat at the particular rules we played by. Everyone agreed to the rules, so everyone had fun. Relationships can be the same way.

There's this societal idea (for the sake of this metaphor, the official Monopoly instruction manual) that two people have to be monogamous to be committed, to have a healthy relationship, and to be a family (not contingent upon having a family, but that's a discussion for another time). But what if we want to play by our own rules? What if we want to toss the manual and make up something new? And, as long as everyone playing (i.e. everyone in the relationship) is playing by the same rules, why do we have to feel we shouldn't be able to enjoy the game just as much as those die-hard official Monopoly rule-followers?*

In any given game, I might have slightly different rules with each other player. For example, maybe when I land on Boardwalk, I don't have to pay the owner the full rent but rather half-rent and also stand up and do a little jig. But when I land on Indiana Avenue, I have to pony up the full amount. This silly example translates into real things: maybe I share every detail with X about Y, but Y and Z would rather not know about the details of each others' "turns." It sounds like a lot to keep track of (and trust me, it can be), but that's why being very clear and consistent about communicating** our rules is vital to everyone's happiness. 

My intention with this metaphor is not to say we should treat our relationships as games. But rather, to say we should think of the camaraderie we feel with each other when we're all having fun and following the same rules. Being clear about what rules we're playing by is the first step, and after that...well, this is where my Monopoly metaphor breaks down. Because unlike the frustration I felt from losing game after game of Monopoly as a child, the ideal objective of ethical non-monogamy is that everyone wins. 

*Who are, in fact, perfectly wonderful people and I'm sure are also having fun. What works for you works.

**Dear god do we poly people talk a lot. We probably talk more than anyone else, because we have to. But this is a more in-depth discussion for another time.

Stuff I've Learned as I'm Pushing 30

Okay, so 28 isn't EXACTLY "pushing" 30, but it's more than "just over 25."

I've been thinking lately about all the things that I have learned or changed my opinion on in the last ten years or so. I don't think I've necessarily grown up, per say, but I've definitely decided that some things I thought were a big deal are, well, not so much, and visa versa. Here are some of them:

-Bottled water is a ripoff. Unless there isn't a tap with potable water around at all, it's much cheaper (and better to the environment) to carry around a reusable bottle and refill it, or just order tap water. I don't always follow my own advice, but it's something I definitely think about more than I used to.

-Recycling is important! I used to think nothing at all about throwing away cans and bottles, especially if they had food waste in them. I used to be a huge baby about touching food waste. I still don't really like it (I would probably try to be an escort before a dishwasher) but thinking about the giant amount of trash sitting around, not decomposing, is kind of depressing. Sure, sometimes I still throw away paper. But I feel bad about it now.

-Doing housework is a lot faster than sitting around for weeks and dreading doing housework.

-Pets are awesome, but pets are expensive. And time-consuming. Make friends with pets, and petsit.

-I used to think I was sooo uncool when my mom would make me wear a helmet while riding my bike, but now I fear looking uncool without a helmet. Uncool and suicidal.

-Healthy food actually makes me feel better. Huh. Who woulda' thought?

-Caffeine does absolutely nothing to me, while alcohol knocks me out cold. So much for a lunchtime martini!

-Knowing about all the finances, whether combined with a partner's or not, is sooo important. I realize now that I couldn't count on one hand the amount of times I took interest in our finances when I was married. I would buy books, go to the coffee shop, and annoy Tom to death for something I didn't even fully grok doing. Bad Kate.

-The freedom from not having a television is worth the hours spent online. Most of the time.

-Walking a mile in the city is shorter than walking a mile in the country. Try it sometime and you'll see what I mean.

-I wear glasses. Holy crap I wear glasses!

-I have curly hair. Where was it hiding all those years? Oh yeah, up in my ponytail. Dur.

-Writing fiction is a hell of a lot harder than it used to be, when I would get lost for hours at a time writing complicated (and horrible) plot lines out on yellow legal pads in the back of my parents' minivan.

-Owning the "cute" car does not equal owning a good car.

-Geeks/Nerds are my people.

And age, of course, is relative, and I don't know if it becomes more relative the older you get, or the farther along we get into the new millennium, where 40 is the new 30, 60 is the new 40, and 21 is far too early to get married.

What have you learned since you've become an "adult"?

Another Fun Lesson Learned from Internet Dating

In addition to "Love you," another thing that will get you ignored on IM faster than you can type "LOL" is this one, which an overzealous dude said to me earlier today: "You don't want to miss out in this hunk of man." I think he was kidding. I think.