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More than One, Many, MuchLove, the strongest and deepest element in all life, the harbinger of hope, of joy, of ecstasy; love, the defier of all laws, of all conventions; love, the freest, the most powerful moulder of human destiny; how can such an all-compelling force be synonymous with that poor little State and Church-begotten weed, marriage? |
   
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Sunday, September 7, 1997
I really made myself laugh this afternoon. I was walking down the hill towards Broadway, when I saw two young women about a half a block away, walking up the hill in my direction. I said to myself, "How stereotypical!", noting their black (dyed?) hair, their hipster sunglasses, their all-black attire. Then I realized what I was wearing: black denim jeans, black Freddie Baer t-shirt, black baseball cap, and sunglasses! Pluck the beam from out of thine own eye, indeed!
* * * * * * * *
I told someone I would write something about polyamory and me. I'd certainly never heard of it before meeting up with my current friends in Seattle. I first learned of it when some friends were having a big crisis, at a time when we were working on a convention together. I was worried and baffled. Problems on the convention committee reminded me of when the lesbian couple I lived with in college were splitting up. At that time I felt like the child of a divorced home: "How will this affect ME?" Of course, in the poly situation, it didn't affect me directly; I was just worried for my friends. It's distressing and destablizing when a couple that's regarded as a touchstone for the community, with many connections running through them, has extreme problems. Of course my negative feelings for change come into play here, since I like things to stay the same. People shouldn't be moving away; people shouldn't be splitting up or not getting along. And when I rule the world, things will be a lot different, let me tell you!
Finally the situation calmed down, after much discussion and crisis and renegotiation and discussion. You can't be poly successfully without a high tolerance for relationship talk.
Besides Jane and Luke, there are lots of other fannish poly people. (And lots that aren't.) That's one reason I lurk on alt.polyamory, the poly newsgroup; there's a high percentage of posters there that are known to me, which is one of the things I look for in a newsgroup.
So because of all this, I have thought about whether a polyamorous situation would ever be a good one for me. My joking response was yes, if I were the primary for four or five guys, all exclusively focussed on the wonderfulness of me!
My more serious response is probably not, unless it built from a primary commitment between me and one other. Or if three of us decided to form a committed triad. But these amorphous networks where A has a relationship with B (they live together) and a different relationship with B (they see each other a lot) and with C, and B sees D, E, and F at conventions, and C and E are also a couple, would be difficult for me to feel comfortable in. No wonder Freddie is surprised when she asks for the Seattle gossip and I don't know any. I'm probably closing my eyes to it. I probably don't see (or take as mere flirting) any overtures that come my way from polyamorous guys, since they aren't possible partners in my mind.
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