Making Yourself Become Polyamorous
by Alex Mead
2007
RD020407
Editor's Note: This was originally posted to the UUPoly listserve, in response to "Why do some people think they can make themselves become poly?" It is reprinted here with the full knowledge and consent of the author.
Hi. I'm Alex. I'm a storyteller/author from Buffalo, New York and I
successfully became polyamorous.
I was a very successful monogamist. Well, insofar as I was very
skilled at focusing all of my romantic energy on one woman to the
exclusion of all others in a completely sincere way. It was my fondest
hope that I would some day be rewarded for having that skill with a
woman who could appreciate and reciprocate it.
I was an unsuccessful monogamist insofar as I just couldn't seem
to find Mrs. Right. As a developing adult my needs kept shifting and
everytime I thought I had found someone to paint into my picture, I
would undergo one of these shifts and need something different. That's
all just circumstance. Having met certain people at different times or
having met different people at certain times I can safely say that I
could have lived a very happy and fulfilling life as a successful
monogamist.
But that wasn't how it went.
After the death of my mother --and the subsequent shattering of
my universe-- I became a very bitter person, highly dissatisfied with
humanity's ability --or more accurately lack thereof-- to relate to
one another and care about one another. I had all but given up
on people and especially female people and then... I met Heather.
I had the kind of instant connection with Heather that I had always
known in my gut was possible. Her capacity to care about others
is endless and all of the alarm bells went off and wouldn't be silenced.
She had special knowledge of all kinds of things beyond my ken that
I was very eager to learn of. She became the immediate focus of all
of my romantic energy and I very much wanted for her to agree to
marry me, start a family and fix the world with me. She wouldn't hear
of that though. She wasn't into marriage, and besides, her other
boyfriend wouldn't appreciate it.
??confuzzled??
Other boyfriend? How is that even possible. There's no such thing
as other boyfriend. Oh, but there was. Heather was a lot of things
that I had never heard of, very frightening things, but I could not
extricate myself from her no matter how many of these frightening
things she revealed. She was a Unitarian Universalist (UU), a polyamorist, and still,
nevertheless, the perfect woman for me.
I decided to become a UU. That part was easy. Once described
to me, UU was quite obviously something I had always longed to be
and just didn't know of its existence. Having learned of its existence
I quickly became UU and still am very UU (though she presently is
not (they had a falling out)). I figured that maybe, if I kept an open
mind for the things she was --UU and all that-- that she would keep
an open mind about monogamy. You know, could happen.
A very confusing year ensued with a relationship that was half-poly
and half-monogamous and simultaneously extreemly difficult and
impossibly easy. And then we went to Opus. Opus is a UU retreat
for UU Young Adult that meets once a year in North America
somewhere. Opus is an amazing place (in whatever place it happens
to be). I was surrounded by shiny happy UU young adults who had
the same level of concern for humanity that Heather and I shared.
There were beautiful women everywhere. And there were beautiful
men everywhere. And Heather liked some of each. And I became
an emotional jealous wreck, and at the same time, strangely
fascinated by all of these beautiful young women and Heather's
complete lack of jealousy irrespective of their level of interest in
me.
I had a very slow burning epiphany. If I could "become poly"
everything in life might gain a certain clarity. I mean, WHAT IF,
hypothetically, it's not Heather that's eventually supposed to
change and become monogamous, what if it's me that's supposed
to become polyamorous? There was a very beautiful young woman
with penetrating eyes that used to walk past me and rake her
fingernails along my back and give me the most meaningful hugs.
What if she wanted to love me AND Heather wanted to love me and
they both were okay with it? I tried to figure out what's so wrong
with that. I tried very hard. I focussed a lot of concentration and
spent a good amount of time trying to remember why that would
be wrong and I couldn't figure it out. So I stored the idea away
for further consideration.
A few months later there came the unfortunate day that Heather
and I had scheduled for breaking up. She was going to move away
and we had figured a break up made the most sense. That would
free me up to search for Mrs. Right. So we gave it a shot. We
communicated to one another how deeply we loved one another,
and how commited we were going to be to keeping up with one
another's lives, and how sorry and torn we were that it had to
end this way or end at all, and then we broke up. And that lasted
for about an hour.
Breaking up wasn't going to work for either of us. There did
not seem like any good option or workable option, so, in desperation,
I quickly divulged all of my Opus feelings and insisted that I could
become polyamorous if I tried. She was... highly skeptical.
There was no other option. Continuing on as half-poly and
half-mono was not working for me. Breaking up was not working for
either of us. It was something to try for lack of any other workable
options.
I put in a lot of "work" becoming poly. I looked it up on the
internet. A lot. I listened to a lot of other poly people and
discovered there were other ways to do poly besides Heather's
way, some of which actually appealed to me. I began to pick
and choose from the poly buffet out there and try to craft some
way of being poly that would work for me. As I absorbed all
of the kooky terminology and incredible personal human stories
out there my mind began to shift. Where there had previously
been one way of thinking, there gradually became two ways of
thinking. And I could translate between the two with more and
more ease as I practiced.
One day, it stopped being work. Because I fell for another
woman. I fell for her pretty hard. She was very much like Heather
except that she was monogamous. I found that I had these
amazing powerful feelings for her, and at the same time,
believe it or not, I didn't love Heather any less. It was AMAZING.
All that was left was to convert the new woman to polyamory
and we could all be set.
Yeah. Didn't work out quite that way. The new woman had
what we could call a "highly adverse reaction" to the very idea
of any of this. There were some angry words and the like.
She was very insistent that the solution was very simple, and
that I should just switch back, and become monogamous
again and have my happily every after. So I tried to find a
reason why I couldn't do that. And I came up with a reason.
Surprised me. But the reason was, because I'm polyamorous.
Have been ever since.
Alex Mead is an Author / Artist / Activist from Buffalo New York. Two of his latest
novels: "Relations: McEmpire" and "Relations: SMASH YOUR TV!" feature wonderfully
polyamorous characters and are available from AMProSoft Books.