I
spent a couple of hours after work recently with a sweet friend I
hadn't seen in a couple of months. We talked mostly, as is my wont
these days, about love, conversation and community. Since she is
polyamorous, I had the rare luxury of bouncing some of the criticisms
and doubts about the lifestyle of loving many people, off someone who supports that lifestyle -- usually I'm the one defending it against skeptics.
While
many of these criticisms and doubts are, I think, borne of
misunderstanding (or even fear), there are two that, from my
perspective, have some validity. So I asked Lea (not her real name):
How do I know that my passion for simultaneously loving a lot of people isn't a rationalization of either: - An
insecurity about losing love, such that I want to have some other loves
'in reserve' to 'fall back on' (the 'safety in numbers' doubt), or
- An
addiction to the hormonal rush of phenylethylamine, dopamine,
neopinephrine and oxytocin that accompanies 'falling in love',
overwhelms us during the first stages of new love, and which, in any
one relationship, mellows over time and is replaced with the more
contented but less ecstatic feeling from endorphins (the 'addicted to
love' doubt)?
I was willing to confess both insecurity and addiction, but Lea's answer was What difference does it make? Why does it matter why polyamorous people are driven to love many others instead of just one? So what if it reflects insecurity, or addiction, or both?
She's
right. What was making me defensive, I think, is that I've known people
who have kept lovers 'in reserve' because they're deeply neurotic,
perhaps as a result of devastating pain after loss of a love so severe
that they swore they would never allow themselves to suffer that way
again. And, I've known people whose addiction to love (not the same
thing as sex addiction, although some people can have both) has been
very hurtful to the people they 'drop' as soon as the euphoria of the
early-love hormonal cocktail starts to wear off.
But I know
myself well enough to know I'm not neurotic, or even particularly
insecure (I think we all have insecurities, but my big ego tends to
overcome my insecurities most of the time). And I think I'm sensitive
enough that I would not knowingly or deliberately hurt or abandon
anyone in the ebb and flow of my passion for them. I believe in
complete honesty in relationships, and not making promises or
commitments without being positive of being able to live up to them. I
believe we are capable of loving many without, in the process,
diminishing our love for any one.
Most of all, though, my passion for polyamorism is because it's just fun.
Most of us get too little fun in our lives. For so many, everything we
do is serious (even games, for so many, are such a terribly serious
endeavour!), and for so many, everything we do is work, struggle,
effort. Perhaps I'm lazy, but at this point in my life, and believing
what I do, I don't want to work that hard.
Love is conversation (from the Latin meaning turning with) and I love
moving with, exploring with, other people. Love is play, and I love to
play.
Just to be clear, my love for Lea, and hers for me, are
not erotic. She's too young for me and my 'paternal' feelings for her
would make any kind of relationship of that kind just feel entirely
wrong. She's an amazing young woman who has accomplished a remarkable
amount in her life strictly by her own wits, talents and character and
I am immensely proud of her. And she is remarkably courageous in her
exploration of love and her openness to it, and in that sense she is a
great inspiration to me and a sounding board for my thoughts and
feelings. She will forever have a place in my heart.
I said I
was through talking about polyamorism on this blog, but as I keep
saying, a principal purpose of my writing is to think out loud, to sort
things out in my own mind. I'm through trying to persuade people that
loving many others is a more natural way to live. But Lea's words, and
her own life experiences, have persuaded me even more that it's a possible way to live, one that need not be that difficult, and a joyful and healthy way to live.
If
you could see my smile, the one I show all the time, and which some
people recognize and others are blind to, you would know that I'm not
crazy, or dangerous, or wasting time that should be spent on more
serious, urgent pursuits. I've found my better way to live. Love,
conversation, community. Easy, responsive and responsible, sustainable,
and fun. The way life should be. You don't like that model, that's
fine, show me another that
works better. I'm listening, I'm paying attention, I'm open to
suggestion. Help me imagine the possibilities you see, and I'll help
you imagine mine. Playfully.
|
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
