Liquid Nonsense

Life has been really good these last couple weeks. Work has been fairly interesting, albeit taxing. My one physics class is semi-interesting at times, but overall I'd be much happier not taking it. Serves me right I suppose for putting off a 100 level course for nearly 4 years.

I suppose there's been a lot on my mind lately. Not in a bad way, but more of a "huh, I guess I never really thought about it," way. For instance, Phil and I had an interesting conversation the other night on the notion of polyamory. It's been one of those fringe things I had thought about before but not one of those things I had *really* thought about. According to OkCupid (you can stop laughing now):

Poly Curious Congratulations! You scored 77% Polyamorous!

You might be poly curious, if there is such a thing. Bet you didn't think that could be the case! Either way, you might want to do a little more soul searching before jumping headlong into a serious poly relationship. If you're in one already, then you might be making good headway. Don't forget to have time for yourself now and then, and especially don't forget to sit down with your partners for a good chat now and then! You'll thank yourself later!

My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 59% on Polyamory

Link: The Are you Polyamorous Test written by dieppe on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

I find this result to be rather interesting, but more or less accurate. I suppose I could be classified as "polycurious," but for the time being I suspect that curiosity ends at the intellectual level.

Open relationships? That I could handle. The idea of having multiple sexual partners but a single committed boyfriend is largely appealing to me. I'm still growing on the sexual landscape and figuring out a lot of boundaries and what I really like. College saw some exploration, but most of it was relatively benign I think. Having an emotional investment in one individual- a single guy to sleep with at night and to wake up with the same man would be great. Other times, open to experiment and try different things with different men. Some people have a myriad of sexual interests and I think that's awesome. Not to mention the possibility of threesomes, foursomes, n-somes(?).

Polyamory? I'm not so sure. Knowing my emotional state of being, this would probably be very difficult for me to maintain. By extension, this is really just the previous situation with emotional interests. What makes this so different? For consistency's sake it would almost seem silly to not have a problem with a signifcant other having extra-relational sex and then to have a problem with emotional commitments to these people. This isn't a motivation of jealousy, at least I don't think so. I think this is probably more of simply not wanting to share the title of "boyfriend" (if such a term is even still applicable). Does that even make sense?

I'm willing to bet this is strongly connected to my personality. I have a tendency to extend myself to great lengths for those important to me. Truth be told, I have a fierce sense of territorialism. Not in a possessive sense, but in a protective one. If this life were nothing but a fantasy novel, I would not be the king, I wouldn't even be a public facing figure. I would be the defender of the faith. I would be the king's retainer; I would be the knight charged the a purpose to protect the sovereignty. When it comes to making emotional commitments to others in a deeply intimate sense, I think I would feel largely divided. If I am filled with X units of love, I feel like I'd be giving X/n of them to any single individual rather than experiencing nX all around (hooray for symbolic logic!). When the war breaks out, I'll be by my king's side so I can do my job.

However, from the other angle, perhaps life could be more like Robert Heinlein described in "The moon is a harsh mistress." A society largely male centric practicing polygamy with the authority largely entrusted to the women. The story paints a beautiful world emerged out of a harsh prison-like setting that truly works. Reading that book was probably the first time I ever really thought about polyamory because all the characters are real enough, and likeable enough, that it just worked.

This ramble session of mine though doesn't really do the subject that much justice. Too many variants of the same idea exist to really treat each one individually. If I were consider those that I've heard of though, the "primary/secondary" model I think would be the only one I could succeed at. I'm still not *really* sure if I could handle my boyfriend actively being in another relationship simultaneously, but knowing that I was his primary, knowing I came first, I think I could manage.

Of course, this is ALL theoretical and the open model is definitely the most comforting. I just wanted to get some of my thoughts down to look back over later. Comments from friends would be appreciated, especially if first hand accounts are available.