9/2/1999
All righty, then. I've been doing a fair amount of thinking in the past couple of months. About relationships and relationship styles and all that fun stuff. I tend to be a fairly thoughtful person (that is, I think a lot, though I also like to think that I'm thoughtful in the sense of considering others. But that's not what I'm talking about right now. Annnyway...), especially about things that seem important to me. And since I tend to prioritize relationships, whether romantic or platonic or what, I tend to think about them a fair bit.
So I've done, and, I think I will continue to do, this polyamory thing. But I haven't actually gotten around to trying monogamy. Some people think of themselves as "hardwired" polyamorous; the converse, of course, is that a lot of people think of themselves as "hardwired" monogamous, too, though most monofolk don't bother to think about it, so probably wouldn't use those terms. In any case, I don't think I fall into either of those categories. I don't think I'm hardwired one way or the other, really. It's all in the programming. And it does seem like I should give monogamy a shot just to see what all the fuss is about.
It's not that I have anything against monogamy, exactly. In the right circumstances, I think it has a lot going for it. Coming from a poly perspective, it does seem somewhat limited, but, then, it certainly has some advantages, too. Scheduling would be easier, interpersonal stuff would likely be less complicated and messy, and it would mean having your partner's entire romantic attention focused on you. Not, mind you, that I'm knocking poly, here, either. I'm just pondering the relative merits of each system.
The complicated thing about "dabbling" in one or the other is that it means doing so with another person's (or people's) feelings. When you get right down to it, I suspect that if I were to get involved in a monogamous relationship and fall in love and all that other good stuff, I would likely be happy to stick around in that kind of setting. That's what I mean when I say I'm not hardwired one way or the other. I think I can be happy in either kind of setup.
So how do I approach new relationships. "Hello, I'm open to being open or closed in my future relationships."? Who the hell knows. Of course, I haven't, at this point, met anyone who makes me try to imagine having this conversation with him, so it's rather a moot point at the moment. But a time will come when it's not. And what then...?
Back to my politics page.
© 1999 Rosa L. Carson