Have I been in love? I don't know anymore. Was it love or was it lust, was it love or was it need? Does there need to be two people involved for it to be love? What are the possible combinations and are they all love?
I have recounted all the loves in my life already and relishing them will not mean anything here and now as a few new names here or there will not mean anything to anyone. But I did recently have an offer of sorts. The offer was to possibly become part of someone's "polycule". What I get from her description a polycule is the series of connections that a person has of a sexual nature in a polyamorous relationship.
Everyone has something similar to a polycule, a flow chart of everyone's sexual history. Try to visualize that, the only way I could visualize it was with a four-dimensional model. Three dimensional models would look like a weave of mixing that would confuse too many people. Two demensional models only work if you are looking at the sexual history of one person. I would think the ideal relationship model would be two dimensional, two people one single lasting monogamous relationship, but how often does that happen?
The unfortunate reasoning behind my need to model sexual relationships comes from the very effective scare strategy of the condom producers used to increase their sales in the years following the outbreak of AIDS and HIV. The video featured a girl and reaching back into the past of her sexual relationships and all their sexual relationships until we met the bad guy who had HIV. The point they were making is that if not one of them used a condom, they all were infected with HIV and they were all going to die. This model works for all sorts of diseases from herpes to hepatitis, from HPV to syphilis. It is scary. It has guided my history to a few times and has made me a chronic condom user.
A polycule is something different though. It is a representation of all the linked sexual partners and can be best represented with a two dimensional model. Each person could have as many as they can handle partners but they remain stable with very little fluctuation. There are partners that drop in and off the map but it can remain quite stable over time. As I can see it, there is only one or two disadvantages to polyamory and the rest are advantages.
The first disadvantage would be the lack of protection from a psychopathic lover, that is a lovers with no sense of guilt or conscience, truthfully, no type of relationship can protect them selves from this kind of lover. That is the lover who has a STD and shares it with everyone they meet. The way I see it is that one psychopath can infect a stable longterm polycule all in one go. It can be mitigated through the use of protection with new lovers but not eradicated.
The second problem would be if you are monogamous and you fall in love with someone in the polycule. More of a problem for someone joining the polycule than for someone already there. I imagine that no one joins a polyamorous group if they are not already polyamorous. Meaning that at one point you are just in an open relationship and you meet someone who expands your possibilities a bit more and you become committed to more than one person. But joining with someone who is poly and is not poly themselves, it might be more of a leap.
Me though, what about me? I am monogamous, which surprises me most of all. I fall in love easily and often, well actually it takes a long time for me to actually feel for them, but when I do, it is forever. Usually, it is just me falling in love with them, it is unusual for them to love me back. I really like the idea of being polyamorous, but I can't do it, I don't think I can do it because I get tunnel vision and I can't see anyone outside of the person I am seeing or even with or walking beside. How do I handle being with someone who is dividing all there free time between more than one lover, of which I am only one of? The solution would be to divide my time between multiple people too or try to date other people while they are away. Try to date, remember the tunnel vision.
I talk to my friends, two friends mostly, GardnerGuru and WiseWoman of the Mountain. WWotM suggested to me first that it would go badly. WWotM is not a conservative prude either, she lives an alternate lifestyle, or did, and I respect her suggestions and advice. When I told GardenerGuru, she paused and told me the same thing then expanded upon it with detail. Both friends told me essentially that they thought if there was anyone they knew who were open minded enough to accept the lifestyle, it was me, but that it was wrong for me at this time because of my relationship history. If MPTR and Seventh had left me with a better confidence, if MagicEyes had wanted anything more than friendship, maybe. MPTR and MagicEyes both could have been stepping stones to being poly. MPTR being poly herself, if massively immature, and MagicEyes being some distance away, maybe would have helped.
I don't know. I wish that I were ready to have a poly relationship. I wish that I could see all the women that I love more often, as I still love them all. I wish that I could divide my time between all of them, but instead I divide by zero. I wish that I could date this new girl, because she is awesome. Truly. It is like she is my lost twin, mentally. But she is splitting her love already between many people. My friends say that I could love this girl eventually and if I do become her friend, it will happen eventually, as sure as the sun will rise in the East, but if I do, I will pine away for something that will never be what I want and for something I cannot have wholly.
But I will do it anyways, because my entire life up to this point has been about me pining after women who don't want my love. Why should the rest of my life be any different? If I continue to be friends, I will fall in love and if she wants to add me to her polycule of lovers, I will likely consent. I don't see how part of something can be worse than all of nothing, but perhaps I don't see the whole picture?
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