DAY 130

I went to another munch, this time, surrounding the theme of rope play. There was no actual rope play happening, just people with a mutual interest meeting up and getting to know each other. I went with a guy friend who is highly interested in that, and me, who is more curious, rather than keen. I am yet to find out if I even really like to be tied up yet. I would actually really like to go to a poly-specific munch, because I’ve fully accepted now that polyamory isn’t just something I do for my partners, but for me as well. I do think it’s time to fully embrace that aspect of myself, which, despite having dated twice that way, didn’t fully feel like it was a permanent fixture in my identity, but I do feel that way now. The idea of belonging to someone, or being stuck with one person for the rest of my life actually makes me feel deeply sick to my stomach. It’s always made me feel trapped, and when someone traps me like that, I actually can’t stay with them any longer. I end up sort of expelling myself from the entire relationship, and look for all the reasons why this is a terrible idea. I did it when I first started dating as a teenager. I’d date this boy for a week and then freak the fuck out. I’d be full of this really intense anxiety until I had absolutely no choice but to get out in order to breathe properly again. I did this to a number of victims, not just one. And when I realized I was a bit broken in this way, I avoided dating boys for a long while, because I was terrified of hurting any more, poor, innocent guys with my indecisiveness.

I don’t understand being monogamous at all. I mean, I do, for the concept, but emotionally, the idea of agreeing to it it truly terrifies me. The most monogamous relationship I had was when I was 17 and lost my virginity to a boy 2 hours away. And it was great because even though he was my boyfriend, he was far away enough that I never felt suffocated by him. And every relationship after him has been either one where the guy cheated on his girlfriend with me, or was polyamorous with me. That’s it. So the concept of being with one person feels like a violation against my own comfort zone. Monogamy is as new to me as polyamory is to people who married their high school sweetheart 20 years ago.

I was willing to give up polyamory for J, a year ago. His idea, not mine. And then, he decided to fuck someone else quick on his trip to Toronto, right before we were about to get serious. He didn’t have to be this monogamous person with me, but because it’s what he wanted, and I wanted him, and I’d already been committing to it, being fully head over heels in love with him already. And he decided to sabotage the whole thing by fucking a total stranger just to “impress his friends.” The heavy trust issues I got all could have been avoided IF he decided that poly was the way we should do this. I wouldn’t have felt so crushed by it if he didn’t feel like he needed to sneak in some strange pussy before we started dating. He also fucked me immediately after sleeping with the stranger, and told me two fucking days later about the stranger, not giving me the option to need space and time to think about it first. 

I don’t want to sacrifice my polyamory for anyone, ever again. I was willing to give up so much of myself for the temporary happiness he was bringing me, despite this feeling that I would eventually want to convince him we need to open up our relationship. I kept that in the back of my head. Maybe in a few years when we are bored, we can date other people again. When all these crazy “I need you” hormones dissipate and I start checking out other men.

But before the monogamy could begin, J fucked off. I wasn’t the girl I was when we first met, who was skeptical, and busy, and in love with someone else. When all of that fell away, and I fell in love with him, I was 100% sure he was everything I could ever have wanted. I opened up my schedule to revolve around seeing him as much as possible. I’d broken up with my boyfriend a month earlier, so my heart was open and ready for him and only him. I was just not the same girl. I stopped being the me he liked when he first met me, and started being someone who needed him to feel any kind of happiness. I was addicted to him. It doesn’t help that I did a lot of Molly when we hung out, which only increased my addiction to him tenfold. Instead of taking a normal amount of time to fall, like with C, which took 6 months, I loved J in only a few short weeks, shortly after Valentine’s Day when we spent insane amounts of time together. I’m talking 5 out of 7 days a week.

I never want that sort of thing to ever happen to me again. I mean, not the addiction part, because biology dictates that sort of thing, and you have no control over that. But the part where I halted everything else in my life to feed my addiction to him. I was far too many steps ahead of him already, and anything outside of my experience with him felt like an obstacle in the way of being with him. Texts from anyone but him just irritated me. Anytime we were in a group together, I’d wish everyone else would just fucking disappear so it could be just us. When he was being an asshole, I’d excuse his behaviour because having his approval was far more important to me than him having my approval. None of this was healthy, and it was more distressing for me than it was pleasant, because my life wasn’t interesting without him. I wasn’t making it interesting without him. That was my fault.

I never want to do that to myself again. I am a strong, creative, ambitious person with a thousand goals and dreams that have nothing to do with being in a relationship. One man entering my life should never mean dropping it all to be with him. But at the time, I was lost, and broken, and looking for a place in the world. And because of that stupid biological honeymoon phase you go through when you first fall for someone, he became my only source of happiness. And I didn’t know for sure then that monogamy wasn’t for me yet, so I agreed to it. I’ve always been a very adaptable person, having moved a ton in my life, but the one constant I’ve always had is that nothing ever stays the same. Monogamy isn’t something I am capable of being adaptable about because it’s an act of asking yourself to never change your mind about them. To always feel the same way. That’s not possible for me. A lot of people will make the promise of not changing their mind about their partners through marriage and commitment, but I’ve already reached the maturity level to know that changing my mind is always a possibility, and I can’t promise to love someone forever, because that requires foresight which no one on the planet has. I would just be lying, to keep this person feeling safe. And I think a lot of people do that, because you want this person to trust you. And one would always hope that they can feel the same about someone, but based on my experience, that’s just not the case for me. And that fact alone really scares me out of “forever” commitments. Polyamory is a value system that recognizes how love is always evolving and changing, and that you don’t have to promise someone the rest of your life in order to have a meaningful love. And the end of a relationship isn’t a failure. Your love is never wasted on someone, regardless of duration.

I’m really glad that I’ve finally come to accept I am always going to be a polyamorous person. Polyamory isn’t just a status you use to define a current relationship, but it can be a value that you have in order to feel right in the world. I just don’t think I’ll ever feel right being monogamous, because being monogamous is it’s own kind of hard. I admire people who are able to do it, really, but it’s not for me. And I should never date anyone who can’t deal with that. It’s not something I’m willing to compromise on again. My love is shareable, and abundant as fuck, and it would be a shame not to give it out when my heart calls for it.

Two of my friends have an open poly marriage and it’s obviously not perfect or easy, but they admitted that they could never go back. And as hard as it could be sometimes, monogamy would be much harder because it’s not who they are anymore. It’s almost like, when you get a taste of poly life, you don’t really want to go back, because once you realize you’re capable of loving multiple people, you can’t lie to yourself and try to shut it off. A and R tried to go back, and look how that turned out. Lies, cheating, bullshit.

Getting back to the munch, I ended up meeting this really interesting woman who admitted to opening up her marriage and starting to explore sexually with other people. She was full of interesting stories and this confidence that I really admire. She just came over and sat with us and just started opening up about her first experience with a true Dom, and it was fascinating. I also got to learn about electrical play, which… YES. I have to try that. Apparently if you hit a certain nervous on a woman’s body, instant orgasm. I am soooo, so curious about that.