I see this cute little bumper sticker every day, as I bike up the hill: “Don’t pray in my school and I won’t think in your church”. Ah, berkeley. =)
From a long chat with Shannon (and Tom) on the subject, I came away with a slightly clearer awareness of my feelings on the subject. Monogamy feels to me like it’s about control. Specifically control over your significant other. It feels like “I will break up with you if you have sex with anyone else.” Threats, ultimatums, conflict.
To me a relationship is about growth, connection, affection, attachment and understanding. None of which implies exclusivity to me. Yes, managing multiple connections/attachments is a messy business, fraught with emotional dangers. But, settling absolutely on the best-choice-available-at-the-time isn’t exactly the best plan either. Foreswearing all others, and “til death do us part” are separate issues, and I am far more gung-ho on the latter, but if I’m going to bother foreswearing all others, I feel like there ought to be some big payback for that, and I guess I don’t see it (for me, some exceptions may apply, we disclaim any warranty of guaranteed clarity of meaning, and reserve the right to change the terms of these preferences at any time without notice to the reader).
Gym, work, on better terms with Ro, debt to Ro is melting away from a variety of financial whatevers. Indian buffet for lunch, followed by 1 hour nap on the office floor. Home, and adventures in email, where I learned about ssh tunneling so I could use the computer club smtp server. Chatting & plan making on phone. Bike to meetup in oakland, where I stand around being mostly decorative. Bike to gaming at endgame. Play bang, get killed before I can make my first move. Take over someone else’s hand when they have to go. Get killed again before I can do much of anything. Even the dynamite I start does nothing for the whole game. Two four player games of puerto rico, one a successful use of the factory strategy (came in second by a few points), the other a wildly unsuccessful factory/harbor strategy (probably because I built neither factory nor harbor. Hmmm) where I came in last by several points. Bike to bart & then up the hill again. Dinner & conversations with the housemates. Yay lj.
Biking through the oakland hills with
Whee, eyes closing, bedtime.
Well, yeah, monogamy is all about control, but most people don’t realize that because they don’t plumb beneath the surface of society’s standard cognitive maps. But, even moreso — polyamory is all about control! Any sort of definition or agreement or system or ideal regarding personal relationships is a method of control.
And what we call “attachment” is really a complex of expectations we have for the people we want to keep in our lives (heh, more control).
Somebody might say, now, so what, what is wrong with trying to control the nature of my personal relationships? To which I’d answer, have you ever tried the alternative?
I don’t know if I necessarily agree with you… or, in fact, disagree with you. This might be my own twisted perspective here, but monogamy has always struck me as much about paranoia and insecurity as control.
You have the masses running around, soaking up messages, both conscious and unconscious, about how you’re supposed to fancy only on person. One person, out of six billion or so. We’re all blasted with media telling us how unfit, unattractive and unworthy we are; I mean, we have to buy -their- products to overcome that, right? It’s all interconnected.
You’ve got people feeling poorly about themselves. You’ve got society telling you to find one person and make a life with him or her. These issues coupled present a picture that basically illustrates, to me, that a lot of people are so completely insecure; so afraid that others will view them the way they view themselves. And then the paranoia comes in – “How can I find “that one great love” when I look/act/feel the way I do?” Then, when said people finally to meet someone, a fixation begins. But then, so does the insecurity. I don’t think it’s so much of an issue of trust, outside of perfunctory surface reactions. It’s more a questions of “If you don’t want just me, and me alone… then what’s wrong with me? What am I lacking?”, which perpetuates self-esteem issues, which prompts more zealous attempts at chaining someone to them to satisfy their own self-worth issues.
I don’t believe I have it in me to be monogamous, personally. I don’t think I’m “bucking the system” or anything.. but I do not have hangups about trust, or self-confidence. Sex to me is just sex. It can hold a deeper, more emotional bond, and has… but at it’s core it’s merely an avenue for me to enjoy myself and others. I can love someone so completely, so that if he has sex with someone else, and he was safe, I wouldn’t care. I don’t take it as a personal insult or something that I’m lacking as to why someone might not want -just- me. My p[ersonal view on a relationship is that I just want the other person to be as happy as they possibly can, without sacrificing my own happiness in the process. If I can’t provide everything for someone, that’s fine. One person in my opinion can’t be everything for someone else. They can be a lot, and mean a great deal, but cannot be the crux of someone’s external world, and shouldn’t be.
That was awfully disjointed and verbose. It’s 7:34 am. But I think I got my point across.
Not disjointed at all! You articulated my feelings on the subject as well. I think people enter monogamous arrangements when either they a) are so smitten with an individual that the emotional gratification of being around them is all they need or b) they grow weary of the “scene”, their curiosity is sated, and stable familiarity starts to look pretty good. I don’t see either of those happening to me anytime soon, but I’ve eaten my words enough times to know better than to make any spirited declarations.
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Btw, 24-year-old geeks named Brian kick ass, don’t they?
But of course. 😉
Being a monagamous person, and knowing why exactly I am such, I can give a counter-example. Yes, I am very happy with my boy and would not trade him for the world – but after eight years, I would not say that he is all I need emotionally. I need friends as well. However for me, there are things I cannot share with some/all of my friends, because I choose to reserve them for my boy alone. This is a conscious choice – we’ve talked before about poly relationships, knowing many people who follow that path (both successfully and not), and we feel that for us it could cause friction and uncertainty. Right now I am happy as I am with him. Yes, perhaps I could be happy with someone else – but I do not *like* short-term relationships, and there is no way to find out if it will turn into a long-term one without the short-term test. And I do not want to deal with it for the minor possibility (as I see it) adding another to our two.
And yes, some people are monagamous because they think they have to be. I choose to be so because it makes me happier, makes my life more stable, and lets me sleep at night. I don’t have to constantly think about reevaluating my emotional priorities.
Did that make sense?
Yes, it does. Your description sounds to me like the ideal circumstances–you already have a life you enjoy, so the snugglebunny is the whipped topping on the sundae so to speak. I think a lot of the motivation for wanting a relationship can be divided into either “I want someone with whom to share this happiness” and “I want someone with whom to divide this pain”. I wish people as emotionally grounded as you were in the majority.
You’ve analyzed very well why people seek control — underneath all that cognitive and emotional crap we each have a point of existential insecurity. Most people would do ANYTHING to avoid facing that point. And many who do face that point are broken by it, because they fear it so deeply.
Others face it, move through it, survive, and come out the other side feeling born again or otherwise enlightened and freed from all the defensive crap they fought so hard to build.
It feels like “I will break up with you if you have sex with anyone else.” Threats, ultimatums, conflict.
Any relationship is what you put/bring into it. You know and I – do you think we have any amount of threats, ultimatums or (major) conflict in our relationship? Do you think either of us would put up with it?
Yet we’ve been together for eight years, and I see no reason to change this ever. Yes, we’ve changed a bit and the situation has changed, but we’ve both made a conscious decision to change in ways that compliment each other.
I don’t know if we’ve “settled” for each other. I do know that years back I was dating someone and we both thought we would graduate college and get married. Seriously. Then we grew apart and he dumped me. If I ran into him again, I don’t think I’d even recognize him. Yet for that time he was my main emotional focus.
I dated others, and they didn’t last. Most of those people are still my friends, or at least casual acquaintances. But then I dated Marc, and things were just… easier. The relationship didn’t force me to bend over backwards to keep it going – it just sorta happened. If I got him a card, that was cool – if I didn’t and just told him I loved him, that was fine too.
I have my payback for forswearing all others – when I need him, he is there for me. Always. And when he needs someone, I am here.
This is not to say that if we had a third or fourth we would not be there for them – but we believe we’ve found a state of equilibrium that works just fine for us.
Course, we’re not getting married anytime soon – stupid tax laws ;P