MONO, POLY, WHATEVER
       
       
       
       
       Overview
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       A rambled musing on relationships. Mildly coherent.
       
       
       The core
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       In my core I believe people are good and well intended. Maybe I don't
       always see that goodness in people, but it's what I believe. I like
       this belief because it lets me approach the world in an open and
       positive manner. I also believe that people want to make connections
       in the world, and that these connections happen in many different
       ways. We make connections that are friendly, romantic, sexual,
       platonic, and/or intellectual. Often, these connections are turned
       into a framework: best friend, lover, partner, mentor, and so on.
       
       
       Getting hurt
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       Hurt is inevitable in any connection. Anyone can hurt me. A friend can
       do it just as well as a partner. I don't like getting hurt. Being
       dumped hurts, and it hurts to try to understand why I was dumped, and
       why someone wants to be with someone else, and why someone doesn't
       have the same love for me as I do for them. Fundamentally, I want
       people to be with the people they want to be with. So fundamentally
       I'm actually OK if a (ex)partner wants to be with someone else in a
       different capacity. If either I can't understand or can't accept their
       reasons, all I can do is accept this fact. And all I can do is be
       happy for them for their new path and, if agreeable, and find a new
       way to carry down our own path together (how long does it take for
       ex-lovers to become best friends?)
       
       
       Collision
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       All of these thoughts and feelings and beliefs for me collide into a
       single concept: commitment. For me, what the relationship is called is
       secondary to how it breathes; for me, it should breathe with
       commitment. A commitment to be open, to be emotionally present, to
       work through conflict, to love and show kindness, and to create, agree
       upon, and respect each other's boundaries. The qualities of commitment
       are important in any and every relationship, and they're truly always
       present in the relationships that survive. For me, really and finally,
       this is all that matters. And it's from here that I find strength to
       create many types of new relationships.
       
       
       Common carry
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       Unfortunately, starting new relationships is difficult. I come into a
       relationship along my unique trajectory with my particular satchel of
       experience. As I lay the particulate before me and in front of a new
       boo, there may be particles that appear to them unfamiliar,
       threatening, or frightening. Hopefully, too, some particles appear
       exciting, enticing, and loving. Commitment figures its way into a
       budding romance just as it defines a long lasting union. From the
       start there is a commitment to be together openly on new ground,
       examining new behaviours, reactions, reflections and challenges. What
       particle from my satchel will I add to our common carry? What will
       they add? If two particles are incompatible can we get along with our
       journey all the same?
       
       
       Frameworks
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       Relationships end. They always do. It could be death, or something
       more exacting but diffuse like a growing distance, a new interest, or
       a breach of trust. The constant is that one way or another they'll be
       over. But that's not a bad outcome, it's not something to avoid. For
       me, finding a framework that allows me to move through the changing
       features of a relationship in a positive way is most important. It's
       corny, but I do believe that /all endings are also new
       beginnings/. It's difficult to stomach the hurt that results from a
       framework disruption. For a while, the feelings may be inverse to how
       the relationship began. Not happy, but sad. Not elated, but
       defeated. Not hopeful, but despondent. Is this inevitable? Maybe.
       
       
       What I want
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       I want to love the people in my life. I want to be emotionally and
       physically available to these people--my loved ones--in ways that are
       appropriate, honest, and reciprocle. I want to feel my feelings freely
       and act on them responsibly. I want to be surrounded by people who are
       not threatened by what they don't understand. I may not be able to
       explain what brings me joy and pleasure, fulfilment and
       connection. And I want that to be OK. All the same, I want to
       participate as active player eager hearer of what brings my loved ones
       their own sense of love. I imagine these wants like a dinner with many
       people gathered around. Each person at the table representing a
       different part of myself: the part that grows and learns, the part
       that laughs and cries, the part that desires and endeavors, the part
       that touches and is touched. My loved ones bring these parts out of
       me. /They are these parts of me/. And I'd never want to find myself
       seated at a table without one more seat, one more meal, for that part
       of myself who has yet to arrive and has yet to be loved.
       
       
       Love
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       I've been through frameworks of monogamy and polyamory. I've become
       frustred by not being understood by monogamists who can't grasp
       polyamory, and polyamorists who can't grasp monogamy (I've also been
       that stubborn monogamist, and I've been that stubbord polyamorist.)
       Returning to fundamentals, I believe the /existence of love/ is what's
       important, not /what that love is called/. The framework--monogamy,
       polyamory--is simply the protective shell that's used to insulate its
       inhabitants from getting hurt, which is ironic because that hurt
       usually happens from the inside-out, not the outside-in. All of this
       leaves me feeling that whatever I call the relationship doesn't really
       matter. I've called it a friendship, partnership, cohabitation,
       whatever. Mostly, though, I've always found myself just wanting to
       call it love.