Hey - my husband of 10 years and I are new. I actually hate the internet for anything personal but have never laid eyes or ears, let alone any other body part, on an actual poly person. If you are a real actual poly person reading this, hi.
So we each have a question (and our questions may tell you more about us than any longwinded explanation of how we got here).
My question: how do "we" identify each other in the wild? Do we even try? Given how pervasive mono is, isn't it more efficient to attempt to convert prospective lovers, than to try to identify and choose from among the perhaps five other poly people in one's tri-state area?
His question: he has never met a single poly person in all his life either (sidenote, we are both well-educated and well-traveled, and have more than average numbers of friends in creative lines of work). He wants to know: how do poly people become poly in the first place? Did most of you start out mono and have that not work, did you know it from the start of your sexual life (like one would know one was gay), or did more of you just fall in with a poly crowd? (and, I cannot resist chiming in with a snort: POLY CROWD, are you for real, we've never even met one and you think there are just crowds of them out there running around? ...or is the very reason we've never met any poly people because they're all huddled together in a crowd somewhere? is it like that Ellen Degeneres joke where she answers people who ask her if she has any loose change by saying "no, sorry, it's all in rolls")
I just asserted and he agreed that anyone who comes to consensual conscious monogamy or consensual conscious polyamory through serious and humanistic contemplation of the dynamics of love, harm, interpersonal ethics, and commitment is more emotionally mature than someone who just fell into anything for any reason other than thinking it through for him or herself. We do also agree that the relative scarcity of people who even try to think big issues through - rather than spouting something they heard somewhere that sounded good to them - is just depressing. He is worried that there are just as many poly a-holes as there are regular a-holes out there. I think/hope the ratio might be a bit different.
So, in sum: if you do actually exist, do you also think as well? Cause that would be really something. Especially on the internet.
So we each have a question (and our questions may tell you more about us than any longwinded explanation of how we got here).
My question: how do "we" identify each other in the wild? Do we even try? Given how pervasive mono is, isn't it more efficient to attempt to convert prospective lovers, than to try to identify and choose from among the perhaps five other poly people in one's tri-state area?
His question: he has never met a single poly person in all his life either (sidenote, we are both well-educated and well-traveled, and have more than average numbers of friends in creative lines of work). He wants to know: how do poly people become poly in the first place? Did most of you start out mono and have that not work, did you know it from the start of your sexual life (like one would know one was gay), or did more of you just fall in with a poly crowd? (and, I cannot resist chiming in with a snort: POLY CROWD, are you for real, we've never even met one and you think there are just crowds of them out there running around? ...or is the very reason we've never met any poly people because they're all huddled together in a crowd somewhere? is it like that Ellen Degeneres joke where she answers people who ask her if she has any loose change by saying "no, sorry, it's all in rolls")
I just asserted and he agreed that anyone who comes to consensual conscious monogamy or consensual conscious polyamory through serious and humanistic contemplation of the dynamics of love, harm, interpersonal ethics, and commitment is more emotionally mature than someone who just fell into anything for any reason other than thinking it through for him or herself. We do also agree that the relative scarcity of people who even try to think big issues through - rather than spouting something they heard somewhere that sounded good to them - is just depressing. He is worried that there are just as many poly a-holes as there are regular a-holes out there. I think/hope the ratio might be a bit different.
So, in sum: if you do actually exist, do you also think as well? Cause that would be really something. Especially on the internet.
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