For the record, I have not had sex with any of these women.
For the first time in many, many years, I’m thinking about being monogamous. Don’t worry ladies; it’s not going to happen. Thinking about being monogamous for me is like contemplating suicide or the priesthood or becoming a certified yoga instructor. It’s nice to think about sometimes, but I know I’m never going to do it. What’s significant here is that I’m thinking about it at all, which puts me in a very different headspace than I’ve been in for most of my life.
Right now, I’m just not all that motivated to have sex with anyone beside my partner. Now, don’t get it twisted. If some strange fell into my lap, I’d hit it. That’s just how I roll. But when I think about the time and energy it would take to cultivate a new sexual relationship, even a casual one, I just think about spending that time with my partner instead.
I know what will probably happen: if I go too long only having sex with one person, I will eventually fuck someone else just to prove to myself that I still can. I know that sounds pathetic. It’s also honest, and not admitting it won’t make it any less true. For better or for worse, being polyamorous is part of my identity, both my public persona and the way I see myself. For example, I’ll be teaching my Polyamory 101 workshop in Rhode Island this February.
I’ve been in relationships with intensely private people, people who didn’t want to be associated with the radical-sex side of my life. I’ve been relationships where the other party was cheating on their significant other. I’ve been people’s dirty little secret and I’ve had people who were my dirty little secret. I know what it’s like to see someone socially and pretend I’m not sleeping with them.
Now I’ve met the woman I want to spend my life with and we are totally public and open. It’s strange for me to be able to say that, four months in. I’ve had long affairs with people where our mutual friends never knew (or never acknowledged that they knew) about us. Quiet as it’s kept, while I was off sleeping with everyone and her sister, I was often secretly jealous of couples (poly or not) who were genuinely in love and telling the world about it. Now I have that and the fear that it may implode in six months is not enough to keep me quiet about it.
I still hear the voice in my head that alerts me to every opportunity to sleep with someone new, at the moment I’m just not listening.
David, I feel where you're coming from. It's hard to think of sleeping with someone else when you are really into the person you're with. In fact, sometimes it can seem downright silly to spend the time to cultivate something else on the side when you've got someone great right in front of you.
I say, just let it sit for a while. No need to pass up rare opportunities for strange, but also no real need to actively seek them out.
It's funny, even though I'm new to the whole poly thing this reads like I could have written it. Just add that the partners outside of the relationship I'm currently in are ones I've been involved with for quite awhile so they aren't exactly new.
Dear David,
You may only want to be sexual with one person right now, but you will always have many loves.
One of them,
Kendra
There must be something going on in the Universe, because I'm finding myself very much in the same kind of headspace. The funny thing is, I connected with my current lover because he was exploring being poly, when I still wasn't so sure about it myself. Now that we're together and I've embraced poly as a concept, I'm lacking the motivation to get out there and try to cultivate any other relationship. I guess the way I'm looking at it today is, being poly simply means he and I have the option to have another lover, if the possibility presents itself in an appealing enough way… It doesn't mean we're required to.
And by the way, my beautiful, brilliant Wraith… you were never a "dirty little secret" to me <3
Stacy