...my ideal relationship would be to live as a solo poly, living alone (as i already do) in my awesome cabin shack, with the options of spending time with him as suits us both; as well as with J (my ex), and also with anybody else, male or female, who moves me to do so, who intrigues me, or with whom i feel myself developing a bond or connection...and for anybody i am connected with in any way to feel free to do the same.
we would all spend time connecting regularly, keeping abreast of what's goin on with each other, what's in each other's heads/hearts/guts, hanging sometimes together as a group and sometimes in smaller intimate groups or one-on-one....
i love playing house - but only for a few days at a time, max! i feel i need as much alone time as i do time with anyone else, and as much time with one of my closest partners as i do with another. there's no one at this point with whom i want to have that "primary" committed relationship, even with the option of having other lovers or partners.
i found a line in "Opening Up" (Tristan Taormino) that pretty much sums up how i feel right now:
"i consider myself to be my primary partner. this is a very real label for me, not something that i adopt while waiting for 'The One' to come along. i am my own husband and wife."
i want and need love, support, encouragement, cuddling, sex, intimacy, shared vulnerability, and a lot of other very human things as much as any of us does...but i don't feel like one human can (or i should expect them to) meet all of my needs, and i don't expect myself to be able to meet all the needs of anybody else. we all connect in different ways, and each touch different parts of us, nurture different aspects of each of us....
i'll ramble if i'm let. thanks for listening!
I can relate to this a lot. But, there is another factor in my case, which is bisexuality.A little more about gender and why I retain these romantic notions about some balance:
I feel like I thrive in both large and small lateral groups. I find that I do not do very well in hierarchical groups at all (I'm the star you're the fan, you're the boss I'm the worker, I'm the boss you're the worker, etc.) But in peer groups, whether large or small, I feel like I really thrive.
However, when I am in large peer groups and for whatever reason I find myself with a significant gender imbalance, people seem to take leave of their senses and act like idiots (sometimes, not an act). In a large peer group that is predominately male there is generally one monocultural type of idiocy, perhaps best labeled as "typical made idiocy". And likewise, when I find myself among a predominately female group things generally devolve into "any one of a million subtly nuanced forms of complex idiocy".
Whether the differences from male to female are more biological or more socialization is irrelevant. The fact is they're there. And I find that groups that tend toward gender balance are more likely to have the mix of skills and personalities to meet problem solving head on and enjoy the benefits of diversity.
I do recognize that both gender balance and fidelity are my own personal preferences. And believe-you-me I am well aware, sometimes we fall in love with people and the love becomes way more important than our personal preferences. But the actual homework assignment was imagine your ideal relationship. And if I won the relationship lotto and found myself in a situation similar to what I initially described I would be a happy camper.
That's all
Time to see what happens if I add a new post to this long-dead thread.
You sure you want to know?
People have disappeared in the middle of the night and never been heard from again, for far less heinous offenses than OMG THREAD MINING OMG
The moderators will probably let you think up your own punishment THIS TIME.
Tee-hee, the last post before yours was only this past August. That's not really long-dead. It's just been a few months. Sometimes people resurrect threads that are a few years old, and that's fine, too. If you view a particular forum and sort threads by number of replies, you will see that many of the really long threads go back quite a way in time.Time to see what happens if I add a new post to this long-dead thread.
Such a person, who can love two members of a preexisting couple equally, be loved by them equally in return, integrate seamlessly into their lives without significantly changing the life they've built together, not want to get involved with other people, and suffer no feelings of insecurity or jealousy around being the "junior" member of the new triad... THAT individual is the mythical creature, in my eyes.
Since you and Pidge aren't thinking of being involved with both of you as a requirement, merely as a preference... well, I'm no judge or arbiter, and as I stated above this is a term which doesn't even have an agreed upon definition to begin with!... but I'd say you're NOT "unicorn hunters". Nevertheless, since you're engaging in behavior that is at least somewhat similar, it's probably good to be aware of the trope and of the associated pitfalls, so that you can be sure to distinguish yourself from people who really are hunting unicorns, and to avoid said pitfalls.