Polyamory Support Group

[Henry]

Great news everyone! I'm single again.

Joshua Bowling has been in the news because he married a siamese twin. As a self-attesting polyamorous person, I have the following questions:

(1) What are thoughts on this relationship?
(2) Is it in fact a polyamorous relationship?
(3) If #2 is a no, would you date a polyamorous siamese twin;
(3) If #2 is a yes, if her sister was also polyamorous would that be even better?
(4) If #3 is a yes, is a pair of polyamorous ERE siamese twins the holy grail of polyamory?

[7Wannabe5]

Since you asked this question on the Polyamory Support thread, my first question would be what do you mean by saying you are "single again" within the context of polyamory? The reason why I ask is that I think there was only maybe one 2 week period in the almost 10 years since I declared my practice polyamorous in which I felt myself to be 100% unpartnered, and that was due to the fact that I had a fit of grouchiness and broke up with two of them simultaneously. Even though my current physiological shape/healthscape is such that I'm de facto celibate, I would say that I still have maybe a total of 3/5ths of a partner if I add up the contributions of men who are still circling. For example, if I needed/wanted ride to colonoscopy, help with installing air conditioner, a loan of money, a hug, some sex, empathetic listening, declaration of affection, I still have it pretty much on tap from one or another of my semi-ex-poly-partners and/or my second ex-"husband." I've actually been rather pleasantly surprised at the extent to which my cuckoo-bananas thought that polyamory was kind of like the Rule of 3 for resilience in permaculture planting choices has been borne out as true.

Also, within the context of the practice of polyamory, I would answer that the only thing I strictly would "need" from a romantic partner would be "romance", and at this phase of my life, my "need" for romance is quite low. I would note that my strict definition of "romance" would define it as something other than simple affection or sexual infatuation. For example, the polypartner whom I lived with for around 3 years off and on, was somebody with whom I had a simple affection boyfriend/girlfriend type relationship that was never very romantic. For example, we would hold hands when walking around in public together, and we had sex, but we were never very passionately engaged. This was in large part due to the fact that he was still very much in love with the woman he had left his marriage to be with who subsequently dumped him, and I was already involved sexually and/or romantically involved with two other poly-partners when I met him. So, our relationship was based on the level of availability we had for each other. IOW, if I had been primarily looking for a "romantic" partner, I would not have chosen to enter into a relationship with somebody who was still passionately attached to an ex, but because I was already in a very "romantic" relationship with another poly-partner who was not available in other ways (because he was married) I had a space available for another partner who was available for simple somebody-to-go-out-with-on-the-weekend boyfriend/male-companionship type role/behaviors.

Anyways, there's one face of "romance" in which it is just the sort of delightful thing that makes life worth living, and in this sense it can be a very healthy deep "want." However, the other face of "romance", as ertyu self-aware explored in his post above, has a whole lot to do with ego gratification and/or ego butt-hurt. I think that eventually age, in both the sense of advanced perspective and experience, can get you to a place where you are both secure in your belief that you are "lovable" no matter what your current relationship status, and also rather philosophically "so what?" to the extent that you currently aren't. IOW, you see "being lovable" as both core truth and choice.

One further note I might make on "romance" with the context of polyamory is that there is usually something very future oriented about "romance." In simplest terms, if/when you are "in love" with somebody, you are also likely engaged in thoughts/plans of a possible future with them. In conventional monogamous relationship context, this could likely involve hopes of furthering the relationship up the usual ladder of importance/commitment. Therefore, a responsible practitioner of polyamory will also take into consideration how the structure of their practice might allow for the possibility of a future for any/all "romantic" relationships vs. the alternative practice of "playing the field" as a conventionally single person. This is especially at issue if you are open to the possibility of monogamous contract. IOW, I consider it to be a bit of a romantic "cheat" to declare yourself polyamorous to your polyamorous partners with whom you are romantically engaged , but also "possibly monogamous" to your monogamy-preferring partners with whom you are romantically engaged.

[Jin+Guice]

@sodatrain: I am on FIREdating. The next closest woman is almost 300 miles away though. I would be willing to travel for the right person, but the people on there don't look like the people for me. I'll for sure let y'all know if I meet anyone from the site though!

I'm also still very fresh out of this break up and not looking for serious relationships right now.

@ertyu:

I get what you are saying and I mostly agree with it. I welcome any perspective so please don't be discouraged from continuing a discussion in this direction. However, your answer is in almost total opposition to the light-hearted romp through possibility I had imagined. The upside of this is I can extract some interesting answers to my question.

Things one could get from a romantic relationship:
1) Finally finding...????
2) Someone to help you hide from yourself
3) Counterpoint:

And it feels good to be known so well
I can't hide from you like I hide from myself
I remember who I am when I'm with you
Your love is tough, your love is tried and true blue

4) Self-discovery
5) Uncovering mommy issues (roleplay/ kink gold!!!!)
6) Uncovering daddy issues (roleplay/ kink gold!!!!)
7) Uncovering childhood neglect (roleplay/ kink gold!!!!)
8) Uncovering and inferiority complex (get in the cage!!!!)
9) Impressing other dudes
10) Social status
11) Money
12) Gifts
13) Someone who makes you feel special
14) Someone to distract you from your insecurities
15) Free therapy
16) Grasping at your fading youth
17) Unpacking your problems by observing the problems someone brings out in you




I realize I should answer my own question. Here is my partial list:
1) Sex
2) Dates
3) Romance
4) Someone to get dressed up with and take places
5) Roommate
6) Confidant
7) Emotional intimacy
8) Emotional support
9) Logistical support
10) Someone to sleep next to
11) Makeouts
12) Dance partner
13) Conversation partner
14) Someone to do projects with
15) Attention




@Henry: I'm gonna answer all your questions, so always assuming the answer is what you said it was even though they conflict.


(1) What are thoughts on this relationship?


I'm for it.

(2) Is it in fact a polyamorous relationship?

I don't have enough information to answer this.

(3) If #2 is a no, would you date a polyamorous siamese twin;

Yes.

(3) If #2 is a yes, if her sister was also polyamorous would that be even better?

Yes.

(4) If #3 is a yes, is a pair of polyamorous ERE siamese twins the holy grail of polyamory?

Yes.


ETA:

@7:

I meant need in the therapy sense where a need and a want are pretty blurred and the line is not really that important. I'm also open to possibility, so though you could get a ride to a colonoscopy from a friend, the fact that you sometimes get it from a lover means it's on the list.

I am single again in the sense that I have 0 partners. My last girlfriend and I we were basically monogamous by most non-monogamy/ polyamory definitions, so I wasn't stockpiling much more than possible interest from other people.

I personally practice hierarchical non-monogamy and my preference is to have one main partner, which can end up being very monogamy-esque, though monogamy-esque is not my absolute preference. I would entertain different situations, but this seems to be the current preference of my heart, so I think part of me would always be looking for one person to focus on and other situations would be due to a lack of adequate suitors. This is of course subject to change at any time.

I think by most understandings of the word single I am still currently single. Somewhat in the spirit of the question I am asking, non-monogamy thinking makes this status almost impossible unless you are totally celibate and totally a-romantic since basically any date or flirtation satisfies some romantic need.

[Henry]

I would think there are economic advantages to being in a polyamorous relationship with polyamorous siamese twins even if they are not ERE. But if the polyamorous siamese twins are ERE, I could see some serious compounding. For instance, you are at some polyamorous event and you run into a pair of swinging siamese twins. And you bring up ERE and they say they have never heard of it, but it sounds interesting. So as opposed to non-conjoined twins, they only have to buy one of JLF's books because they are for the most part a perpetual book group. Now it's bad for JLF because he loses a book royalty but considering he's already NY times famous and set for like a hundred lifetimes by now it's really not a big deal for him. But for the siamese twins it's a real savings and a taste of what a future ERE life could mean.

[Jean]

@7w5
you make polyamory sound like either some form of barter prostitution or just plain classic friendship

[7Wannabe5]

@Jean:

Yeah, I can see how it might seem like that. One reason for that might be that I'm not a terribly romantic human, and time goes by differently when you get old, so I haven't been "in love" with anybody for around 6 or 7 years now, but that doesn't seem like that long ago when you're my age. I was "in love" with one of my poly-partners for a while, because he made me feel like this:




When you are in love with somebody, then little things which are of no apparent value otherwise gain salience and poignancy. The way he wears his hat...etc. So, I would suggest that there is a clear difference between the needs that you may list or find to be often be fulfilled in "romantic" relationship vs. what you need in order to feel romantic in relationship. Why do we fall in love with one person and not another? Sometimes it seems like we may follow a pattern, but objective studies tend to suggest that we don't. i think it's 80% a matter of priming our own receptivity and then 20% left to chemistry. IOW, when we want to fall in love again, we will generally find our angel, but the devil is in the details.

[Jin+Guice]

FIRE Dating update:

The only person who talked to me ghosted me after I said I found talking about asset allocation boring and wanted to instead talk about what we wanted the freedom to do. This is the most hilarious possible result to me. I swear to god I am not making this up.

Also the closest female to New Orleans on the website is 278 miles away.

[ertyu]

I mean. "So, what seems to be forefront on your mind right now's boring, let's talk about what -I- want to talk about" -- what did you expect???

[Frita]

Hm, @Gin+Juice, FIRE Dating seems like a broad category. Being able to save money, invest, retire, and do some spreadsheets seems like low hanging fruit. Is there some mechanism to screen people out?

OTOH you effectively did that by being honest and suggested a topic that may have been a shared interest. The right person would have appreciated it.

[Jin+Guice]

Lol, @ertyu I agree with you, but I'm not mad at it for the reasons that @Frita said.

@Frita, no one on FIRE Dating is talking to me, so I'm a pretty thirsty heaux for talking to anyone, so not screening at all, but I imagine this will lead to getting ghosted a lot. I have no expectation except entertaining myself and trying to maintain my own personal boundaries and standards for myself (including but not limited to: don't entertain myself at someone else's expense), so I am fine with this result.

I found this one funny because in my real dating life I feel like talking about the stock market/ asset allocation is the absolute worst thing that I could do *and* @7w5 has said she new some dude who "just wanted to take a woman to dinner with whom he could talk stocks with."

This was ultimately a great result for both me and the asset allocation person if our goal is true romance as I could tell you with 15 seconds of looking at her profile that we are not long-term compatible.

[lillo9546]

@7w5
you make polyamory sound like either some form of barter prostitution or just plain classic friendship

The beautiful thing is how you manage to find so many possible partners.
After 30, especially for us men, it's really not easy

[7Wannabe5]

The beautiful thing is how you manage to find so many possible partners.
After 30, especially for us men, it's really not easy

Yeah, I have to say that I am actually pretty befuddled myself by the fact that it seems to be just as easy for me to find/keep possible partners as a semi-decrepit, too-chubby 60 year old, as it was when I was in a fairly fast turnover phase of serial monogamy as a much more fit 21/22 year old in the 1980s. In fact, it is actually so much easier for me to "keep" partners at my current age/phase within current overall market conditions, it's more like I almost can't get rid of them. I keep attempting to restructure some of my polyamorous relationships as just-friendships, and then I am continuously surprised when one of my "dear old friends" once again attempts to hit me up for sex. The reasons why I am continuously surprised are:

1) I thought we agreed to just be friends moving forward.
2) I believe myself to currently be objectively unattractive by conventional standards. (No worries. My core self-esteem remains intact.)
3) I believe my partners to be attractive by conventional objective standards.
4) My partners are clearly free and able to pursue new partners.

Therefore, my conclusion is that the general dating/mating market must be terrible for men right now. IOW, I agree with your perspective that it's not as easy for men. However, I don't think it is any easier for young men than old men once they are beyond the age to date in high school or college campus environment.

Scott Galloway is a podcast guy right around my age who I've been following lately. I find myself nodding in agreement with about 80% of his commentary, but one note he made that has me somewhat puzzled was "For men 50 is the new 30, but for women 40 is the new 60." However, it kind of makes sense if I put it together with one of his other comments which was something like "40 is the age when women start only taking vacations with their female friends." IOW, his take might be that women are checking out of the possibilities to be found within a conventional, monogamous, heterosexual relationship at a much earlier age than their male peers. And I think this is true and reflected in the dating market, but Galloway isn't taking into account the exception to this rule which is the minority of older women like me who are trading in conventional heterosexual relationship possibilities for unconventional heterosexual relationship possibilities rather than "taking vacations with female friends", although I must admit that even I am tending a bit more in that direction in conjunction with my peer group, and to the extent i am still choosing the companionship of men over that of my female peers, it's mostly because I do enjoy sex and it's generally less expensive for me to hang out with a male partner than a group of female friends.

If I was younger, so more likely to still be naively romantic and/or in family formation phase of life, my motivational landscape would lean more heavily towards one significant relationship with a man. The financial benefits that late life marriage to one of my more affluent male partners might bestow aren't enough to tempt me into what otherwise seems like a cushioned cage.

[Jin+Guice]

The beautiful thing is how you manage to find so many possible partners.
After 30, especially for us men, it's really not easy

This is not my xxxperience. I am 37 and was just single for 8ish months and had almost limitless options for partners. I blame ERE.

[7Wannabe5]

@Jin+Guice:

Well, the applied strategy of ERE combined with the natural nerd charm of an eNTP is going to be almost unstoppable. Kind of like, "Oh, yeah, I see what you are doing there with that "money on tap" plan. Brilliant! Uh, yeah, I'm going to take a bit of a time out from the "money on tap" march to the sea across the hot sand with heavy weights and all, and use this fantastic Tinker Toy Set that is ERE and some left over odds and bods from all the not yet completed projects I have lying around to hack up a bit of a creative side project. Ta Do! Behind Door #1, may I now present for your delectation, Sex on Tap!

[Jin+Guice]

@7: If only it was sex on tap. More like people who want to date me on tap.

[7Wannabe5]

@Jin+Guice:

Gotcha. Yeah, it's gotta be a level up from just Sex on Tap whether you are eNTP male with ERE powers or eNTP female with ERE powers, because Sex on Tap for any female seriously does not require ERE level strategy, Scott Galloway says that the three Ps of modern masculinity are Protection, Provision, and Pursuit. And I would agree that if/when I have my practice of polyamory functioning at highest level, the three P's would be towards what I have on tap, except "on tap" is too passive and central, like I keep my partners in a barrel in the middle of my kitchen. "Orbiting" would be closer, but that makes me seem most massive, which although occasionally literally true (sigh), not appropriate as analogy, so I'm going to go with "making vasopressin influenced rounds."

Hmmm, what do you think the 3 (pick a letter) s of modern femininity would be that might describe what ERE powers and/or the practice of polyamory allows you to "have on tap" or "pick better descriptor." ? If I go with conventional sexual dichotomy theory, I might hazard, Affection, Appreciation, Applied-Aesthetics/Appearance, and/or Amusement.