The Yeti's back in town...

Hi, Poly People!
It's been some time (months?) since the last time that I contributed anything to this board, aside from one or two words (literally) in the thread "Word Association Game". I've looked in now and then, but have usually been too busy with other things in my life to write anything else here, or even read other people's threads very extensively. Added to which are the following reasons:
1) Limited time on Internet.
2) No more all-night Internet sessions (which was when I could really let loose on here in the past).
3) My limited time on Internet has been largely dedicated to the new "obsession" in my life: The Spanish Revolution, aka 15M. [For those of you who haven't heard of this at all, here are 3 video teasers (one subtitled in English, another with a song in English, the 3rd a "Message from Anonymous to world leaders")]

Right now, I've been doing some catching up on my favourite thread on here: "the story of a secondary", but I've still got over 4 pages to go...

I'll post this in bits, so upload this now and continue...
 
OK, so - for those of you who don't know me - an explanation about the title of this thread:
I coined the poly use of the word "Yeti" for myself on here

And what's moved me to start this thread is something that happened to me recently in regard to my status as Yeti.

More in next installment. I want to take a pause to send a PM to a friend to let her know that I'm on here again...
 
OK, so a bit of background. Sorry, but this is going to be a bit complicated (and embarrassing in parts).

1) The 15M (Spanish Revolution) movement decided to March on Madrid, the country's capital. There were (I think) 7 main branches of the March, starting off from different corners of the country. Probably only a few dozen people in each branch started off, but they gathered extra marchers along the route, so that several thousand walked into Madrid from different directions all on the same day. Added to these were people who couldn't take time off from work to march, but bussed in for the big demonstration in Madrid on the weekend of 23/24 of July.

2) Due to several other commitments (including the need to look after my vegetable garden and work for my local city's chapter of 15M), I knew from the start that I wouldn't be able to stick with the March from beginning to end, but REALLY wanted to be on it for the beginning few days and for the last few, entering Madrid.

3) On the first phase of the march, I was wearing a badge with a polyamory design (but with a black background), and a woman from my local city, someone I'd come to really like (and found attractive) said that she really liked it, asking me if I'd give it to her.

4) I said that she shouldn't wear it just because she liked the design, only if she was in harmony with the meaning of it. So - of course - this led to my explaining polyamory to her... which led to a longer conversation on the subject.

5) She liked the THEORY of polyamory, but had a LDR [long distance relationship] with a jealous man. They were even contemplating marriage. And this isn't your usual LDR. She lived in Spain, where they'd lived together for 5 years, until he returned to his native Argentina. We're talking 2 continents here! He was trying to convince her to move there, and his parents were backing up his plea. She was planning to fly out for a visit... and see how it went from there.

6) We felt a great deal of affection for each other (at least, I did for her and she seemed to for me); we were spending hours together, walking along the road from town to town and talking about intimate (among other) things; and as I wrote earlier, I found her very attractive. Anyway, the subject of a possible sexual relationship between us came up.

7) I explained that polyamory doesn't include cheating, and that she'd have to deal honestly with her boyfriend and his jealousy if there were to be anything sexual between us. She promised to bring it up with him.

8) I'd already explained (right from the beginning) that I'd be dropping out of the March after a few days, to rejoin it later. By the time I actually did drop out, my vegetable garden had gone for 2 weeks (in a hot June) without watering. The morning I caught the train back to our city, she pleaded with me to stay with the March. I begged her not to make the parting any more difficult for me than it already was and she ended up accepting that I had to go back.

OK, another break and I come at this from another angle (introduce another player)...
 
OK, this is going to come in short bursts: I've got 20 minutes until my time on-line runs out, and a demonstration to go to for the rest of the evening. Tomorrow I go back to my mountain hide-away and Internet disconnection for (probably) another week.

So now I need to quote 2 clichés, one a maxim and the other a cinematic cliché:

a) "You can't teach an old dog new tricks."

b) The plot: The young would-be (gunslinger?) admires the older legendary one... until he decides that the legend is a has-been, washed up. To prove his own superiority, he challenges (and shoots down) his erstwhile hero.

a) Well, you can teach an old dog new tricks IF that old dog really wants to learn them and puts in the effort... but it's not easy.

For about 25 years, I wanted a unicycle. I'd practiced (wobbling quite a bit) on a friend's, but moved away and lost my chance of a borrowed unicycle.
Then, 2 years ago, I was given a unicycle. Because I live in the mountains, without a smooth, regular, horizontal space big enough to practice on, my practicing has been seldom and sporadic. When I started camping in the city square (sort of like a sit-in, but with tents and 24/7) as part of the 15M campaign for a truer democracy in Spain, I saw it as a great opportunity to practice on the unicycle. The unicycle became very popular with other protesters. I would support some of them as they pedalled... and one try was enough for many of them. But there was one young man (early 20s, I'll label him L) who'd had some previous unicycle experience and was keen to improve. He'd borrow the unicycle for long periods and rapidly got better than myself.

[I've had the "5 minutes to go warning" and don't want to risk losing what I've already written, so...]
 
Back for an unexpected bout of Internet, without knowing how long I'm going to be on here before somebody shows up to give me a lift to where I'm staying tonight. I'll just see how it goes...

Alright, I've named the young man L, so I'll name the woman S.

While camped in the city square, the idea started growing on me that L was trying to impress me. He seemed to seek me out to ask me unnecessary questions, ask my opinions about ideas of his, call out to me every time he'd improved his performance on the unicycle. This (flattery?) soon began to bug me.

I should point out that, although I'm not the oldest person in the local chapter of The Spanish Revolution, I'm in perhaps the oldest 6 percentile. And I was the oldest of those actually camping overnight in the square. (Though I only found that out a few days ago: 2 guys that I thought were perhaps older than me turn out to be 9 and 11 years younger, respectively.) I was treated as something of an "older brother" or "uncle" by SOME of the others. But not - by anybody else - in this cloying "Look at me! Look at me!" way that L was treating me to.

This interest in impressing me started to seem like L was trying to outdo me. He would get involved in activities that I was involved in, and try to do everything better than me. As I've written, his prowess on the unicycle soon outstripped mine.

On the first few days of the march to Madrid, this one-upmanship, this rivalry, this "anything you can do, I can do better: I can do anything better than you" attitude REALLY started to get up my nose. I started considering him an arrogant show-off. And yet he was still treating me - at least superficially - in a friendly way. (In a way that seemed pretend-friendly to me.)

[How much of this is just jealousy - on my part - of his youth and his abilities? I really try to be honest with myself and keep coming up with the answer: "not a lot: there are talented young people that I admire... I just don't admire people (of any age) who rub my nose in their talent; I just don't appreciate sham friendliness".]
 
So L and S and I were all on the march to Madrid. I was growing closer to S and more peeved by L. And then I dropped out - temporarily - to tend to other matters back home...

When I caught up with the march again, 3 weeks or so later, S seemed to be avoiding me. I had in the meantime decided (for reasons that have something to do with ESP) that I was no longer interested in a sexual relationship with her [the "necessary magic" just wasn't there], but wanted a close, warm friendship with her. I was willing to turn her down gently if she did put the move on me, but not expecting her to do so...

What I ALSO wasn't expecting was her apparent loss of ANY interest in me. In fact, she seemed to be avoiding me. The only exceptions were when she had somebody else to introduce to me. It seemed to me that she was both using these people as a buffer to avoid any possible intimacy (of a platonic - or any other - kind) with me AND pretending to her friend (the one that she was introducing to me) that I was a great guy and that things were just hunky dory between us.

When I've reached the level of intimacy and affection that I had with her on the first phase of the march and then find that she's acting in this superficial way with me now, well: it's a bit of a blow.

Oh, yes, and I noticed that she and L were spending a LOT of time together. MUCH more than they had before.

Since returning from Madrid, it's become obvious that they're in a sexual relationship.

[Got to go! To be continued (next week)...]
 
[I’ve gone back to a tactic of several months ago: I’m typing this out at home, will store it on a USB memory stick and copy it into the thread the next time I’m on-line. This means that I feel less pressure to finish what I’m typing in a hurry, but also that I can’t re-read what I’ve already posted.] The earlier allusion to the cinematic cliché of the young gunslinger gunning down his erstwhile hero is a bit off-centre, because I’m not a gunslinger (speaking figuratively). I disdain macho posturing and “gunning down” rivals.
But I WAS (still am) very popular in the 15M movement [ironically, largely to do with my more “feminine” side] and that’s something that L seems to be trying to outdo me in, on 2 fronts: by getting involved [and noticed] much more than he ever did before [which I could approve if I didn’t suspect his motives], and by attempting to decrease my popularity with others (e.g. by making snide remarks about me).

S continues to greet me, hug me, etc. in the presence of other people, but evades closeness when others aren’t around. L has progressed to openly criticising me and accusing me of various faults. But he does this in a “joking” way, so that if I defend myself, he can say: “But I was only joking. Ease up!” And if I don’t defend myself, I’ve “admitted my guilt” by my silence. On at least 2 occasions, S has been present when he’s been doing this and it hurts me that someone who once declared eternal [platonic] love to me doesn’t come to my defence when L is attacking me. [Not that I need her to defend me – or that it would do any good – just it bothers me that she doesn’t care.]

So, several thoughts have been bouncing around in my head:

1) Did S bring up the subject of polyamory with her Argentinian boyfriend during a ’phone call? / Has she decided to leave him in favour of L? / Or is it just a case of old-fashioned cheating?

2) Did the talks about polyamory between S and me in the first phase of the march pave the way for her present sexual relationship with L? [Put ideas into her head?]

3) If I hadn’t insisted on honesty towards her boyfriend, would she have been willing to start a relationship with me?

4) Does she prefer the macho male attitude of L to my role of wimp who walks away from power games? [In which case I REALLY read her wrong before!] Or is it just that he’s great in bed?

5) [I think that this is the one that bothers me most (and bounces most)... because it’s the one I think most likely, and the one which would lead to most future hearthache for S.] Was much [even most] of L’s interest in S another facet of his determination to outdo me in every possible field? If not, why the relative lack of interest in her until he’d noticed that I WAS interested? Even if my interest was much more weighted toward friendship and his toward the typical man-woman thing.

6) [This is another one that bothers me a lot, because it questions my own position in this.] How much of all this is jealousy and sour grapes on my part? It’s true that I had already decided against getting involved sexually with S, but am I jealous of L for getting what I didn’t?

At any rate, the Yeti continues to observe Human emotional interactions and wonder about it all...
 
3) If I hadn’t insisted on honesty towards her boyfriend, would she have been willing to start a relationship with me?
This is – I think – one (just one) of the reasons for my being a Yeti [see another thread of mine: “Polyamorous and celibate”]. My insistence on the ethics of polyamory, and the VERY few women I come across who accept the two ideas of more-than-one-lover AND only-when-these-ethics-are-being-practiced.
PLEASE, before anybody jumps on me for suggesting that women in general have trouble with polyamory and its ethics (something I’m not suggesting at all), read that other thread, and pay attention to that phrase “the VERY few women I come across”*, which also plays an important role... as do my timidity and the fact that few women find me attractive anyway (in that way).

* I’ve been coming across many more women than I usually do [up in my mountains] since becomming involved in 15M and spending much more time in the city. BUT most of these women are young enough to be my daughters. And some are even young enough to be my granddaughters.
 
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Hey Mr. FFR,

I kept meaning to reply here and kept forgetting. I just wanted to let you know I've been readinh and say it sucks you were treated that way! Don't get too hung up on this one woman who was clearly either confused or just flighty. :p

I can see how living in an isolated place would make finding a poly-oriented partner especially hard!
 
Thanks for your comment!
Last night after the weekly 15M assembly (held in a central city square), I was feeling worn-out and fragile. I wanted to go up to a friend and tell her: “I need one of your hugs” (there’s a lot of hugging in this revolution). But she was sitting next to S. I didn’t feel like hugging S after the recent insincerity between us. But neither did I want so obviously to AVOID hugging her… or be put into the position of rejecting a hug if she suggested one. As I’ve already written, S has hugged me when there are other people around, but I don’t feel that she’s being sincere. Imagine the scene: “I need a hug… no, not from you, thanks.”

I stood around, hoping that one of them would move away from the other. But it wasn't happening and I had things to do, so I left the square without my hug:(. (That one: I'd earlier had hugs from others:). But sometimes every hug helps. And the one I wanted to ask for was drom a particularly nice person.)
 
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