finalfallenfantasy

[finalfallenfantasy]

the older I get, the more the technological changes I've lived through as a millennial feel bizarre to me. we had computers in my primary school classroom; I first learned to type on a typewriter. I had a cellphone as a teenager, but still needed a physical train timetable. my parents listened to LP records when I was growing up; meanwhile, my childhood cassette tape collection became a CD collection, until I started downloading mp3s on kazaa over our 56k modem internet connection to play in winamp on my desktop computer, and now my laptop doesn't even have a disc tray. I used to save my word documents on floppy discs. I grew up using the rotary phone at my grandparents' house and our wall-connected landline; my mother's first cellphone was so big, we called it The Brick. I once took my desktop computer - monitor, tower and all - on the train to attend a LAN party at a friend's house where we had to connect to the internet with physical cables to play together, and where one friend's massive CRT monitor wouldn't fit on any available table. as kids, we used to make concertina caterpillars in class with the punctured and perforated paper strips that were left over whenever anything was printed on the room's dot matrix printer, which was outdated by the time I was in high school. VHS tapes became DVDs, and you could still rent both at the local video store when I was first married, but those shops all died out within the next six years. my facebook account predates the iphone camera - I used to carry around a separate digital camera and manually upload photos to the computer in order to post them; there are rolls of undeveloped film from my childhood still in envelopes from the chemist's in my childhood photo albums. I have a photo album from my wedding, but no physical albums of my child; by then, we were all posting online, and now that's a decade's worth of pictures I'd have to sort through manually in order to create one. there are video games I tell my son about but can't ever show him because the consoles they used to run on are all obsolete and the games were never remastered for the new ones that don't have the requisite backwards compatibility. I used to have a walkman for car trips as a kid; then I had a discman and a plastic hardshell case of CDs to carry around as a teenager; later, a friend gave my husband and I engraved matching ipods as a wedding present, and we used them both until they stopped working; now they're obsolete. today I texted my mother, who was born in 1950, a tiktok upload of an instructional video for girls from 1956 on how to look after their hair and nails and fold their clothes. my father was born four years after the invention of colour televison; he worked in radio and print journalism, and in the years before his health declined, even though he logically understood that newspapers existed online, he would clip out articles from the physical paper, put them in an envelope and mail them to me overseas if he wanted me to read them. and now I hold the world in a glass-faced rectangle, and I have access to everything and ownership of nothing, and everything I write online can potentially be wiped out at the drop of a hat by the ego of an idiot manchild billionaire. as a child, I wore a watch, but like most of my generation, I stopped when cellphones started telling us the time and they became redundant. now, my son wears a smartwatch so we can call him home from playing in the neighbourhood park, and there's a tanline on his wrist ike the one I haven't had since the age of fifteen. and I wonder: what will 2030 look like?

[finalfallenfantasy]

So I was told that Human Planet had a segment about pigeons in the Cities episode that I might be interested in and I was honestly so underwhelmed. I haven’t finished the episode so maybe there’s more pigeon stuff but I feel like all I saw was more Birds Of Prey Are The Only Cool And Acceptable Birds and pigeons are Trespassers In Our Urban World Who Shit On Everything And Are Useless On Top Of It. Which isn’t true and I’m so tired of this being framed as some horrible burden that humanity must face. Pigeons are the victims here, not us. 

Hate of pigeons didn’t start until the 20th Century. Before that was about 9,900 years of loving them. The rock pigeon was domesticated 10,000 years ago and not only that, we took them freaking everywhere. Pigeons were the first domesticated bird and they were an all-around animal even though they were later bred into more specialised varieties. They were small but had a high feed conversion rate, in other words it didn’t cost a whole lot of money or space to keep and they provided a steady and reliable source of protein as eggs or meat. They home, so you could take them with you and then release them from wherever you were and they’d pretty reliably make their way back. Pigeons are actually among the fastest flyers and they can home over some incredible distances (what fantastic navigators!). They were an incredibly important line of communication for multiple civilisations in human history. You know the first ever Olympics? Pigeons were delivering that news around the Known World at the time. Also, their ability to breed any time of year regardless of temperature or photoperiod? That was us, we did that to them, back when people who couldn’t afford fancier animals could keep a pair or two for meat/eggs. 

Rooftop pigeon keeping isn’t new, it’s been around for centuries and is/was important to a whole variety of cultures. Pigeons live with us in cities because we put them there, we made them into city birds. I get that there are problems with bird droppings and there’s implications for too-large flocks. By all means those are things we should look to control, but you don’t need to hate pigeons with every fibre of your being. You don’t need to despise them or brush them off as stupid (they have been intelligence tested extensively as laboratory animals because guess what other setting they’re pretty well-adapted to? LABORATORIES!) because they aren’t stupid. They’re soft intelligent creatures and I don’t have time to list everything I love about pigeons again. You don’t need to aggressively fight them or have a deep desire to kill them at all. It’s so unnecessary, especially if you realise that the majority of reasons pigeons are so ubiquitous is a direct result of human interference.

We haven’t always hated pigeons though, Darwin’s pigeon chapter in The Origin of Species took so much of the spotlight that publishers at the time wanted him to make the book ONLY about pigeons and to hell with the rest because Victorian’s were obsessed with pigeons (as much as I would enjoy a book solely on pigeons, it’s probably best that he didn’t listen).  My point is, for millenia, we loved pigeons. We loved them so much we took them everywhere with us and shaped them into a bird very well adapted for living alongside us.

It’s only been very recently that we decided we hated them, that we decided to blame them for ruining our cities. The language we use to describe pigeons is pretty awful. But it wasn’t always, and I wish we remembered that. I wish we would stop blaming them for being what we made them, what they are, and spent more time actually tackling the problems our cities face.  

I just have a lot of feelings about how complex and multidimensional hating pigeons actually is

[finalfallenfantasy]

To Don’ts Pt. 1: Monogamy Advice

So you know how we all have to-do lists? No? Just me? Ok, just a few of us. But here’s the thing about to-do lists: we might should have to-don’t lists too.

I can only speak from my own experience, but I figured I’ll post some ideas of to-don’ts here

1. Don’t ask one partner for advice on whether to go monogamous with another partner or not. S did this recently, saying he needed advice about his new partner. I’m used to that, because people seem to think I have my head screwed on straight when it comes to relationships (God knows why, I’m just fumbling in the dark like everyone else), but then he said he’d never felt this way about anyone since he was 16. Ok, fine, that’s hurtful but honest. And obviously something I needed to hear, as I’d been feeling that way about him as well as M recently. I felt like the method wasn’t great but it was better I learn this now rather than later, when I’m fully invested in a serious relationship.

It turned out the advice he needed was because he was ‘scared he might go monogamous’ as his new partner is vaguely nonmonogamous but not into polyamory. I’m gonna make a sweeping statement and suggest it might be good to never ask one of your partners for advice on going monogamous with another partner, unless you are ending the relationship right then and there, and even then it’s callous at best.

I still gave the best advice I could, and left it there. Since then I’ve been unable to connect emotionally with S at all beyond a kind of tired irritation, and I feel like this may be the end of what had been quite a lovely romance. I’m just not interested in waiting around to see if a relationship gets terminated due to a third party. S understands both M and me in all the ways we constantly fight over, and has been wonderful in helping bridge those gaps with us, while I’ve provided emotional support and M has sparked creativity and music with him, but while M isn’t too bothered by this, I am. I’m also not sure I want to be in a relationship with someone who felt it was okay to put me in a position of extreme hurt and confusion and expecting me to provide all of his emotional support through it. I don’t like what people who behave like that inspire in me.

[finalfallenfantasy]

Interconnectedness (We All Have Metamours)

In a monogamous relationship, you only have to worry about two people, right? Wrong. In-laws, friends, coworkers, children... There are so many connections our partners will have, even if they’re the most isolated lone wolf howling out there.

Essentially, we all have metamours. Of a sort. And unfortunately, sometimes we won’t like everyone in our partner’s life - sometimes we just have to sit with gritted teeth through that monthly family dinner and get on with living.

In polyamory, and ethical nonmonogamy, we have many more of these connections - after all, we have multiple partners, with their own multiple relationships, families and friends.

Right now, I’m in the fortunate position of being friends with all my metamours. Even my long-distance partners have suddenly developed relationships with my friends. No one ever accused this group of lacking in incest.

Unfortunately, just because I love all my metamours and am good friends with most of them doesn’t mean I don’t sometimes dislike them being my metamour as opposed to just my friend.

Take P for example, from my previous post. P is great. I love him. But there’s a reason we never had a relationship, and it wasn’t lack of attraction. He’s controlling, he’s narcissistic, he’s manipulative on good days and psychologically abusive on bad ones. I love him. And I admire B for loving him in the way she does. I admire him for trying to grow and change. But goddamn if I don’t wish they weren’t together sometimes. When I’ve seen him shouting at her, just incandescent with rage, when he’s broken up with her only to get straight back together, as some kind of punishment, when I’ve seen her messaging him with chewed lip and stonefaced... I wish they were hundreds of miles apart. But they aren’t. And simultaneously I’m glad about that. Because they love each other very much, and they have the ability to be amazing good influences on each other, and they are both growing so much together.

This extends to my telemour, P’s other partner F (who also briefly dated M). I worry about her greatly when I think of her, and I just hope she’s doing as well as she seems. She’s a pretty magical little butterfly and I hate the thought of her hurting.

Another of my metamours has a reputation for emotional abuse and manipulation, and it worries me greatly that S has recently started seeing him, and so intensely. They’re becoming very primary and S has even considered monogamy with him. I’m worried, yes, but let’s face it, primarily I’m jealous. I’m insecure and scared that I’ll lose him, that I already have lost him. But that worry still exists, and it niggles.

Because here’s the thing: we can’t control who our partners date, no more than we can control who their friends are. If we try, we’re doomed to failure and what’s worse, we’re assholes. Except in very specific cases, veto and controlling your partners’ relationships is a Class A nope in my opinion, though I can see why newly nonmonogamous couples may wish for these things at first.

And sometimes, we just have to grit our teeth through those monthly polycule dinners and get on with living.

[finalfallenfantasy]

Metamours and Telemours

I have a lover, B. B is great. She’s beautiful, loves animals and kisses like a demon.

B is also starting to see my nesting partner, M. This is lovely. But there’s a catch.

B has a longterm partner called P, who has been friends with M for many years. To me, this is the ideal setup - a lover dating a close friend? How great to know right from the out that my meta has my best interests at heart as well as that of my partner, and how nice to immediately start out from that position of trust! For P, this is the opposite: he views it as a massive sign of disrespect to get involved with close friends’ partners, and has a hardline ‘no friends’ rule.

B and I have been seeing each other for a few months, and recently she became interested in M too. Knowing this was an issue for P, she struggled to talk to him about it and didn’t act on it (P can be quite controlling and angry at times - prior to dating B, myself and a few others have made jokes about his ‘One Penis Policy In All But Name’)

P abruptly broke up with B recently, and she came to see me and M in tears. The four of us present all helped comfort her, and with M, that took the form of them playing some for the first time. B and P spoke in the ensuing days and he was very angry. He stated he felt it was unacceptable and B would have to choose between ‘us’ (M and me, as he views us as a unit I guess) and him, and that he had only never made a move on me after we flirted last year because I was dating M.

I personally feel that no one did anything wrong that day - by terminating the relationship, P terminated his say in B’s sexual and romantic relationships, and M and B have been respectful of his wishes throughout his relationship with B.  However, I can see how we could all have done better. - I should have made clear to P from before my time with M that I would not be participating in a relationship with him due to impossible incompatibilities, so he wouldn’t be wondering ‘what if’ this whole time. - B should have been honest with P about her feelings for M - P should have helped to foster an environment where B felt safe and able to express those feelings - M should have spoken with P about his feelings for B - I should have been more encouraging of this to happen, without helicoptering M and I started our relationship very soon after his last relationship ended. It was very unexpected for both of us, and it felt utterly right. We hurt his ex partner quite a lot by embarking together (it’s all healed now) and spent a lot of time together questioning whether we could justify that. In the end it’s been worth it. I do not believe we did anything wrong, either.

But... does that matter? While I believe completely that these actions were not wrong, they may have been ill-advised or maybe lacking in compassion, but when we love and are attracted to someone - NRE, if you will - it can be very hard to focus on anything else.

Should B and M have paused to consider P in this equation? If I’m honest, I’m not sure they should. It had felt final at the time, and they had no way to know he would suddenly turn around and want to be back with B. But also if they had it would have been a lovely, caring and noble thing to do. What they did was baseline absolutely fine, what they could have done was above and beyond. And we can’t all be that all the time, or even want to be. Especially not when someone has just hurt us very much.

You have to work out what’s right for you, and be as compassionate as you can, when you can, to whom you can (including yourself).

I’d love to hear any responses to this, though! Please give your opinions if you have any!

[finalfallenfantasy]

Growth Pt. 2: Why Do I Want To Punish My Partner?

Second try... Tablet deleted the entire post. This is part 2 of the ‘Growth’ post. Part one can be found here https://polyamoroamer.tumblr.com/post/170957617097/growth-pt-1

So apart from organising myself, I’ve been trying to recognise and tackle my issues head on while I’ve been travelling. A recent issue with M has helped me to highlight some problematic beliefs and patterns I hold, and I wrote myself a list:

- I check for messages from you too often, and feel disappointed - I expect you to reassure me when I say I’m feeling insecure, and I feel hurt - I want to punish you when I feel neglected - I expect you to want to speak with me/show care as much as I want you to and am willing to for you - I think that not responding when I say I’m feeling insecure means you don’t care - I think you should ‘just know’ what hurts me or what can help reassure me - I think that you messaging group chats I’m in whilst not responding to my request for reassurance means you’re either flaunting not caring or are just a hopeless idiot Obviously some of those are ok things, like wanting reassurance and not wanting to be ignored, but I feel like I need more reassurance than I would like to, and definitely more than M is capable of giving given his adhd, dysgraphia and bipolar disorder. Some of them, on the other hand, are not great. Take the desire to punish - I looked at it and worked out that there are two basic wants leading to this: - Revenge - you’re hurting me so I’ll hurt you and you’ll see how bad it feels - Control - hurting me is not enough of a deterrent so I’ll make you feel bad so you quit it So I’m either being vindictive or I’m being controling. Not great. But these also aren’t Bad Feelings - I’m firmly of the opinion that Bad Feelings don’t necessarily exist - it’s all about how they’re acted on. Feeling hurt, angry, jealous, insecure, neglected or frustrated is natural, but behaving badly as a result is not helpful and just continues the cycle of unhappiness.

Of course, the expectation that someone should ‘just know’ is rampant in society, and while I feel I’ve been very proactive throughout my life on not allowing myself to pull this thread, that doesn’t mean I don’t still sometimes feel frustrated that someone doesn’t automatically get stuff I see as basic. So, to be proactive, I’ve decided to work on: - Not checking my messages so often when I feel ignored - Finding ways to reassure myself and feel more secure, when partners meet new lovers and in general - Finding ways to communicate my thoughts and feelings, especially negative ones (which I struggle with) directly and without aggression, passive aggression or punishment. It’s a long road, and it’s not a straight line, but slowly, surely, I’m becoming the person I want to be.

[finalfallenfantasy]

Growth Pt. 1

I decided it was time to solo polyamoroam for a while again. My relationship with M is no less intense or ‘nestingy’, but for a month and a half I am delightfully solo. The difference this time is that I have a very close, intense relationship at home whilst travelling. The even bigger difference is I am happy about that. I look at where I am, who I’m meeting, what I’m doing, and feel utter joy. I look at returning home, and to whom I will be returning, and once again I feel sheer joy.

I’ve made the decision to be largely celibate while I travel this time, which is a big shift - I usually have the most sex with new people whilst on the roam, but this time I want to use the time to focus, to write and to work out a) what I want in life and b) how my relationships will interact with that.

Recently things with my lovely girlfriends have amped up a little, both my long-distance gal Z and local lady B. They’ve also been getting closer with M, and there is a separate blog post on the way with regards to B and her situation on the way.

S and I are taking a period of not much talking - another blog post - and will be deciding what form our relationship will take on my return home.

I have also met someone, C, who makes my stomach do backflips, and I’m very cautiously approaching this. Unfortunately he bears such a strong resemblance to a guy that led me a merry dance most of last year that I’m unfairly wary of him, though it’s probably also just the intensity of the feelings too. I’m very gently hopeful that this might blossom into something very special, though.

My friend F and I have been kissing more since NYE, which has been very pleasant, and he seems as committed as I am to it, which is not much right now - we just think each other cute and want to kiss. I’m not sure how far this relationship will go beyond that, and I’m very happy with that.

(Things with H are still great and the same as always - just didn’t want to leave him out!)

This time of travelling is giving me much-needed space to think about how much time and effort I can honestly give to each of my partners, and I’m pleasantly realising just how easy the time management could be, provided no mass migration to my hometown occurs. I got so nervous I actually drew up a list of partners, lovers and love interests, and how frequently I realistically think they will want to see me.

It looked like this, but in a table:

Nesting: M? Local: B, M? H? Short-distance: H? F Long-distance: Z, C, S

The question marks are just because those folks fit into more than one column (ie H is at uni and comes home for long holidays, and M is both nesting and local) I worked out it’s probable that my local partners will want to see me maybe once a week (M more frequently as we virtually live together), short-distance would be maximum once a fortnight, more likely monthly, and long-distance partners would want once a month or two, because we’re all busy bees. And suddenly it didn’t seem so daunting, managing all this. I am a good texter and find it easy to message everyone at least once every day or two, or however frequently they want me to, to stay in contact and reassure them that I love them.

Of course, these are things that I will discuss individually with each person, but going into those talks knowing that I can find ways to do this and not leave anyone feeling neglected or stressing my life out untenably has been a huge boost.

Along with this, I have done similar lists with my duties in daily, weekly, fortnightly and monthly lists, and been finding that really, my life is full, but pleasantly so, and that I, with practice, should be able to do all the things I want to and learn all the things I want to, if I’m gentle and determined.

[finalfallenfantasy]

Polyamoroaming: Polyamory Whilst Travelling

I think many people come to polyamory through travel. It’s hard, when you’re flying solo, to restrain yourself into a monogamous, long distance relationship, where one or both of you is having wonderful, eye-opening new experiences, seeing the world and all its beautiful people. It’s hard not to flirt with that sexy European backpacker in the bunk next to yours, hard not to join in with the tribes of young travellers going wild in local bars and getting laid. It’s hard to keep up regular correspondence with spotty wifi and no phone.

When I first left the country alone, for a year of travel, my last monogamous partner and I agreed six months beforehand that we would break up when I left, and we spent our final month travelling together in Europe. It was quite beautiful, and we are still very close friends now. He’s one of the most important people in my life.

After that, I started having brief, on-the-road relationships and flings, as well as my first one-night-stands (well, usually two- or three-night-stands...). Eventually I met a boy (G) who stayed in contact with me, and I him. We messaged and called whenever we had time, which admittedly wasn’t often, but at least once a month. This became my first ever polyamorous relationship, with all of the cockups and monogamy issues that often come with them. I fucked up and hurt him, he fucked up and angered me, and eventually two years later we went down in flames (it was quite dramatic and stupid and movielike, as he liked his life to be) and now we’re friends, online and in person.

I had several of these long-distance polyamoroaming relationships - the boy I hand-wrote a letter to every month, the boy I was almost willing to go monogamous for, the person with whom I share all of my dysphoria stories, the man who thought he was a king, the woman who believed him...

In truth, these relationships are the easiest I have ever had to sustain. They have also been the ones to end in the most silly, overdramatic ways. The lynchpin here is communication. When you have a very floaty, no-strings-attached relationship, particularly a long-distance one you don’t have a longer-term home with, it’s all too easy to let necessary communication points slide by the wayside. What were their boundaries? I never knew til I had crossed them, causing tears and hurt. What were mine? I made out with a boy on a night out with G and made him feel excluded and disposable. C fucked me when I got back before telling me he was now in a monogamy. A was so besotted with our mutual partner K that he forgot I existed.

That is not to say that one shouldn’t have relationships like these, by any means. This kind of relationship was the stumbling route towards more conscious polyamory and a very healed sense of self and sexuality for me. If I hadn’t fucked up on G, I wouldn’t be so careful now with my boundary discussions. If I hadn’t been cheated with C, I wouldn’t be so on it about meeting partners’ other partners before engaging sexually or romantically with them. If A hadn’t emotionally blanked me, I wouldn’t be so firmly able to know where I feel the acceptable line lies for attention and care.

Of course, when one is travelling with a partner, the dynamics shift. M and I found we largely didn’t encounter any attractions or potential interests, or at least we didn’t meet many mutual ones. However, those we did meet still taught us about how we could behave better towards both them and each other.

I met a beautiful man in a bar and told M I fancied him, upon which M quickly joined to my hip and was much more openly affectionate than he normally is, putting paid to the flirtation as the other guy quickly read it as ‘stay away’ signals. I spoke with M about this and it turned out he was showing me more affection to reassure me that he was ok with the attraction and he supported it. Another crossed-wire examined.

A mutual friend told M she found him attractive, he told me and I gave them some space, and they kissed before we never saw her again (not deliberately, I hasten to add!). Positive reaffirmation of giving each other space for other dalliances.

We spoke a lot about how to organise it should one of us want to go home with/bring home someone else, though it never came up. I think this may be a vital part of travelling as part of a polyamorous duo or trio - being aware of what and where things are feasible. As M and I were living in a tent a lot of the time, bringing someone back would not be possible without rejigging our tarp setup, and going home left the other in a potentially vulnerable situation. As a result, we worked out that if one of us went home with someone on those nights, we would both go and one would probably sleep on the couch or similar.

It’s time for the tl;dr:

Solo polyamoroaming: don’t neglect communication with your travel partners, no matter how casual you feel the connection is when you aren’t together, or you may get an explosive surprise at some point. Many people who date polyamoroamers are monogamous and just looking for a regular fling. That’s fine, just reestablish your boundaries when you both meet again in person.

Duo or trio polyamoroaming: DON’T NEGLECT THE COMMUNICATION. Think about and talk about potential situations, from flirting to a full-blown fling. Where are you camping? Where are you sleeping? Are you safe? Are you allowed to sneak another person into that dorm or private room? How lax is the security at that hostel? (I once had no end of trouble with a security guard at my hostel - the other volunteers were allowed to bring their ‘conquests’ back, but as a female I was steadfastly banned).

Most of all, love each other, have fun and stay safe.

[finalfallenfantasy]

Summery Summary

In short, H and I are still together but haven’t seen each other in 3 months as I have been travelling with M (3 months without a single night apart, running from forest fires and scary people, listening to endless psytrance, experiencing severe libido disparity and camping with tweakers...) phew that was a ride!

P[rior to this, over the summer, M and I found ourselves in a very unusual situation: four people are romantically/sexually interested in both of us. We may have accidentally encountered a unicorn ranch.

Z, I have been interested in for some time, and thought it was case closed, unrequited, but it turns out that shein fact feels quite the opposite! And she also fancies M. Exciting stuff. She lives a fair while away so it’s unlikely that either of us will get much alone time with her, but we’ll try to create those spaces when visits occur - it’s important she gets to know M and develop that separately from her connection with me, if she wants to :)

S, we met at a festival and fell head over heels for together and it’s mutual! Again, long distance so we’ll probably mostly have trio time, but we’ll all keep trying to create one on one time for each other when it’s wanted.

B we have both known for some time and she and I have had occasional interactions at festivals and clubnights, and are finally making plans to meet up for a date :D she also has started expressing interest in M, which has been obvious for a while :P about time!

Y is a really cool person I’ve known for a couple of years and who abruptly expressed interest in both myself and M at a festival, and whom we both like and admire very much, and are interested in pursuing a service role with, which is new to both of us (we separately came to the conclusion that we want to make them happy and please them platonically and sexually, but also aren’t sexually inclined toward them ourselves).

The strange thing about all of this has been how our short-term feelings for each of these wonderful people has matched exactly. I don’t expect this to continue at all, but it’s been a funny beginning, in a nice way!

In other news, F has recently shown interest in rekindling her and M’s relationship, and I couldn’t be happier for them!

M and I have both hit poly satedness (but hopefully not saturation) at the same time. Very neat. Very strange. Though that doesn’t stop me flirting with beautiful Italian waiters or M having pleasant snuggles and potential gentle romance with his ex.

[finalfallenfantasy]

So much for weekly posts.

Sorry about that.

[finalfallenfantasy]

‘Maybe we should break up then’

Just a reminder that even this sentence isn’t definite!

Back in January after the whole First Hurdle event, several weeks after I was still questioning every day why I was with M, when he could be callous, uncaring, unappreciative, disinterested, ungrateful, took me for granted, was completely unsuited in every way, I couldn’t trust him and him tocuhing me still felt weird and yaddayadda.

In a late-night blergh session (like an honesty session but unplanned and with more crying and hurt and sadness and anger. Not as much fun) I told him that that was how I was feeling (the questioning not the list of insults) and after a few seconds of silence he said maybe we shouldn’t be together. I nearly decided ‘actually you know what, if that’s the only answer you can be bothered to think then yeah, we shouldn’t be.’ but instead I asked ‘is that what you really want?’ and we talked a lot further into the night.

Now with a lot of work, growth, tears and laughter on both of our parts, we’re looking at getting handfasted next summer. That’s a long way to have come in only a few months. There’s always hope.

And if you don’t know what to say, ask a question.

[finalfallenfantasy]

The First Hurdle

My initial idea, many moons ago, for this blog, was to write daily or weekly or with whatever frequency about the daily and not-so-daily happenings between M and H ad me, and our other partners/love interests/metamours, but the focus was always more on my own side of things, mostly because I wanted to be able to look back and see how far we’d come. Because we are growing. So much.

The first thing that really made me want to start this blog was M starting a relationship with a lovely person called F. F was someone I really wanted to get to know better and become better friends with, so when it turned out M was interested in her it felt in some ways like winning a lottery.

Being new to a polyamorous relationship set in the same location for a prolonged length of time, I was a little nervous and a little jealous, but also excited - would our fledgling relationship (a month or so) withstand a new person so soon? Why couldn’t we have had a little more time to indulge our NRE before another began? Was this proof I was a rebound? Could this be a sneaky and wonderful way to get to know F better? Will M stop wanting to spend so much time with me? Wow, this is the first time in several years that M is able to act on his polyness, I’m so happy for him! I can’t wait to see how we grow through this and develop more together and separately!

I spoke with M about all of these feelings, and we decided that we should have a boundaries chat, but unfortunately kept putting it off due to general lifeyness.

Finally, M met up with F to tell her his feelings, and they spent a pleasant few hours in one another’s company at a mutual favourite cafe.

The next morning, M and I had our boundary talk.

We’re still learning and exploring but the boundaries we set then were:

1. We will use condoms with all partners until everyone gets retested and the matter is discussed, as feels appropriate. 2. We will have showers between sexual partners (now it’s festival season we’re starting to think of workarounds!) 3. We will be honest and respectful of each other’s time as far as possible. If I say I’ll be somewhere, I’ll be there, if I say I’ll do something, I’ll do it. 4. We will be honest. If I feel like something is going somewhere quickly or slowly or will be a very deep connection or a more fleeting one, I will communicate that, and if it changes I’ll tell you that too. I will also try my best to let you know before things turn physical (beyond widely perceived ‘safe for public’ activities) with another partner (within reason eg. if I might be about to have a one night stand and you’re asleep and don’t pick up the phone then we’ll talk about it later) 5. I will do my best to introduce you to my lovers and potential love interests as soon as it is possible and feels right.

So just over half of those are poly-specific :P 3 and 4 are generally good things to do in any relationship (being honest and respecting time commitments).

So far, so good, but later that day I stopped hearing from M, he never showed up at my place that evening and I found out the next day he’d stayed at a friend’s house with F. When we met the next day it turned out they’d had sex at said friend’s house. It struck me as funny for a few minutes when I realised that wasn’t me I could smell on his beard, but that’s the bit I still remember the keenest 8 months on.

We talked a lot and tried to work things out over the next couple of days, and I asked M to tell me when he was seeing F beforehand for the next little while to help me rebuild trust in him again. Unfortunately, the New Year’s Party he and I were planning to go to together wound up being abruptly difficult for him to get to and I didn’t hear from him until I called as the bus we were meant to get was about to leave, and it turned out he was with F preparing to drive up to the party together.

My ex (also poly, and a good friend) was at the party and noticed as I got off the bus that I was not in a good place, and I spent almost two hours being That Guy crying on him before M showed up. M and I talked a lot (and cried a lot) and agreed to enjoy the party together, then spend the next two or three days at M’s house with some MDMA and just settle in for a days-long honesty marathon.

That episode, and the few weeks after it, was the most hurt I’ve ever been in a relationship, which may well mean I���m very lucky. It’s something that still greatly affects my trust in M, and is something we’re still working through many months later. (Also thank god for H - if he wasn’t such a relaxing, chill presence, I would have been so wired all the time I’d have burnt out completely)

If there’s anyone worrying about being ‘the only one’ or that it’s ‘bad’, I think it’s probably pretty normal to still be insecure, hurt and angry many months later, as long as you’re honest and working on it and it’s not eating you up all the time. I don’t feel upset by it constantly, it’s just the occasional time (like now) where thoughts like ‘you steamrolled through almost all our boundaries on the same damn day we talked about them?!’ or ‘how can I trust you not to do that again when you did it so soon?’ or ‘did I make a mistake in choosing to trust someone who pulls shit like that?’ materialise and bother me.

And also: just because it hurts like hell now doesn’t mean you can’t get through it. When F transitioned her and M’s relationship to a platonic one, my first thought was genuine sadness for him. It can turn around completely. If you want to enough, you will find a way. If you don’t, there is no shame in that either. Just be honest with yourself.

Also, food for thought: ‘you never have to feel guilty for crying, as long as you are crying honestly, because it’s what you feel, not because of what you want to inspire others to feel’?

[finalfallenfantasy]

No Promises

Hey y’all. So, while this is intended partly as a window of life into a polyamoroamer lifestyle, it may not always be a clean one. I am bound, at points, to post problematic things or say ridiculous stuff in moments of high emotion, and I’m kind of okay with that. If it helps someone else to feel like they’re either not alone or at least they’re not as bad as me ( :P ) then that’s cool. And if it helps me to get it out that’s banging too! :D there will probably be things y’all will want to call me out on occasionally, and please do. But please also remember to be compassionate and respectful as well as honest :P I will try to!

[finalfallenfantasy]

Partners

I’m a very lucky polyamorist at the moment, as I am in a very special position of dating two people who have been friends for nearly a decade. In effect, I came into their relationship rather than any other configuration. H and M share a great deal of love and friendship with each other, and being in a relationship with me has not dampened that at all. I am very blessed to be in a situation where jealousy between my partners is virtually nonexistent, and they are as comfortable with each other as they are with me, probably even more so.

I adore watching them together - one thing I value the most in both of my close relationships is how much we laugh together, and watching H and M together is a delight as they spend so much of their time together laughing too.

Even when recently I nearly started dating someone else, that person was a very close friend of both H and M too, and both of them were so welcoming and warm and loving to C, me and our potential relationship. Sadly C and I decided to not continue down the romantic route, as he is quite firmly monogamous but the support and love of both of my partners was one of the most heartfilling, warming things I have ever experienced.

I often ask myself what I could ever have done to deserve this, or what’s waiting around the corner to stop it, as it feels like one person can’t possibly be this lucky  <3 I try not to think that, though - it’s enough that right now, I am loved so warmly and well and that I love so much too. I don’t hope it lasts forever as I don’t believe that’s a real life fantasy, but right now it’s wonderful and I am so, so grateful.

(And if it does last 5ever that’s pretty neato too :P )

[finalfallenfantasy]

A Bit of Background

I currently have two close partners, a long-distance datemate and various connections around the world, romantic sexual and platonic. Not to forget my best friend, whom I consider my platonic life partner.

H and I met last summer through our performance activities, and have been in a relatively casual but deeply fulfilling relationship for nearly a year. He was my first festie fling and it turned into a longterm relationship - funny how that works! I remember quite vivdly lying in a netting hammock in a geodome staring at the stars together and thinking ‘how funny we live in the same place. I wonder if we’ll meet up again’. Got my answer there!

We see each other maybe once or twice a fortnight, sometimes more, sometimes less, and, for better or worse, don’t have much of a culture of talking through issues as we rarely encounter them (in fact, I don’t believe we’ve ever had anything that direly needed conversation beyond a quick ‘hey, this ok?’ ‘yeah it’s cool’). It’s been very unusual and somewhat refreshing to have this relationship, as I normally overthink and dwell on every aspect in a relationship, and this one just allows me to float along and enjoy what we have when we have it, and not anguish over what we don’t. It’s a great freedom in many ways.

Some months after meeting H, I encountered M properly for the first time. We’d been aware of each other’s existence within the friendship group we share with H for some months (I’d always found him attractive but in that vague ‘he’s in a mono relationship and I have no interest or desire in doing anything, but he’s pretty to look at’ way). In November we met more soundly, at a friend’s house on the night of a rather momentously bad political decision (no subtlety here). I realised that night that the attraction was definitely mutual, and gathered that he and his partner must have separated by that time, though I had no idea when or how. It turned out that it was that same day, but by the time I knew that we were already embroiled in a bit of a friendships and relationships drama and it was too late to hold off for a while, even if we’d decided to.

In some ways pulling together to support each other through the anger of M’s ex and our mutual feeling of ‘shit we should have thought that through better’ created in us a very strong foundation for our relationship, probably more so than if we hadn’t gone through all the rigamarole at the beginning. Even at the time I knew ‘this will either break us before we begin or we’ll have the strongest possible starting base for this relationship we could have ever been given.’

There’s a lot to be said for being forced into positions of radical honesty.

[finalfallenfantasy]

First Post

I‘ve been considering starting this blog for a long time, more or less since I met my anchor partner, as we have had many mountains and valleys to cross in the brief time since we met, and I feel like they may be familiar topography to many polyamorous folks, who may want either solidarity, company or to be able to offer or receive advice, comfort and celebration.

Recently I spoke to my counsellor about this fledgeling idea and she was very supportive of it, so I finally spoke with my anchor partner and decided to go for it. Here we go!