Polyamory Observations # 7

I had occasion through a good part of my adult life to participate in many, many potluck meals. Potlucks are a common social phenomenon among Quakers (at least the ones with whom I spent time).


Over the years, I came to develop some interesting sociological theories about potlucks and human behavior. One thing that I came to believe quite strongly was that there is an inverse relationship between the quality of a potluck meal and the number of participants. To put it plainly, people seem to feel a diminishing level of responsibility to provide a quality contribution when they know there will be a plethora of food on the table. If there are likely to be 150 different dishes brought to a gathering, then the effort invested in many of them will be less than can be expected if there are only going to be 8-12 participants at the event. I believe it is about how visible people feel. That single factor changes the level of investment.

Some people like those great, big, random, sort of sloppy, not too interesting, nothing to write home about kind of potlucks. They enjoy that sort of meal where you can count of five varieties of brownies, and a half dozen bags of chips, and a whole mess of pasta salads, and more pans of lasagna than you can shake a stick at. For me, I'd rather have eight or ten dishes that people have considered carefully and invested some effort and energy into. The sort of unique and interesting offerings you get when friends are actually sharing with one another on a level where they know that everyone knows who brought what.

Which is a long, meandering way of bringing me to where I need to be to talk about where my mind has been these last few days in terms of my thinking about polyamory, and the way that we do it -- or at least the way that it seems that I do it.



Because, I do think that it is clearer to me than it used to be that there are levels to polyamory practice: there is the macro-level where we can see poly groups doing whatever it is that they are doing. People tend to describe these dynamics in terms of their geometry, or in terms of how the whole group relates together. Hence we get descriptives like "quad," "triad," "web," "clan," etc. Then there is a relational level that relates to how partners interact. Sometimes these dynamics are labeled as primary, secondary, tertiary, etc. The one level that gets very little attention, and about which I've found hardly any information is the individual level. No matter how else we talk about it, polyamory involves individuals, and each and every one of those human persons is going to bring to the practice of poly a set of wants and needs and desires -- as well as a whole range of style and personality factors that will impact how they do poly.

I know there are people who approach polyamory in much the same way that some people do potluck suppers -- the more the merrier. They gather up various relationships and form connections every which way. When you try to get a fix on the connections and interwoven relationships, it is a little like browsing the groaning tables -- a little of this and a bit of that. There are wives and husbands and boyfriends and girlfriends and primaries, secondaries, and tertiaries all over the place. The social calendars for these folks have to be something to behold.

I'll be honest, I get uncomfortable even thinking about that kind of polyamory. I'm too shy. Too slow to connect. I like to get to know the people around me and then I like it to stay that way. I don't like change and I don't like strangers and I don't like uncertainty. I know, with a pure, clear, unwavering certainty, that anyone who comes into the relational dynamic from outside is going to make things unstable and messy. The minute a new person appears on the horizon, I can feel the energy shift, and I get edgy -- like a cat in a thunderstorm.

That's me -- just the way I am. I am prone to swirling doubts. That's where I ended up this last weekend. And, when I am in that place, I am painfully aware of how far my reactions fall from the "ideal" of "more love makes more love" poly that is SOLD in the happily ever after books that get written on the subject.

It isn't that poly is "bad," or that I'm bad at it. It is just that there are times when it is difficult, challenging, scary. Whatever they tell you in those cleverly written books on the subject, it is very rare that everyone in a poly relationship falls in love with a new partner at the same time, feels the same intensity of affection for everyone involved in a relationship, is as secure about every part of every relationship, is as interested in forming new connections as everyone else, feels as secure about themselves as everyone else does, etc... All those "mismatches" can make poly feel less than "wonderful" on any given outing. It doesn't mean that poly is a bad idea or that I'm bad at doing it. That's the thing that I have to remember... because when I'm feeling shaky and scared, it is easy to get into believing that I'm the one who is out of place, doing it wrong, needing to rethink.

As Himself tells me, if we were doing monogamy, and things were tough or stressful or challenging, I'd probably never question "monogamy" or its underlying validity. I'd likely simply suck it up and tough it out because, after all, it is the way it is done. Poly doesn't have that same status, so it is easy to question it; blame it; know with a guilty certainty that it must be the reason that things feel difficult.

It is hard. To do this in front of so many eyes. It feels like whatever I say, however I experience this carries weight far beyond my personal sense of it all. When I get the jitters, I end up feeling like a fraud, a failure, a fake. In those moments, I desperately want to go hide. To not have to struggle and stretch and reach for whatever is coming next while I am so aware of having an "audience." Maybe, once I figure it all out, it will all feel better.

swan