downsides to polyamory

[MonoVCPHG]

Originally Posted by saudade

~ Having to talk about every damn thing. 90% of the time, it's great. We're so up front and clear with each other, and I love it. Once in awhile, though, it feels like we're expliciting things to death (not a word, I know...).



How about you?

Being polysaturated - feeling like everything we do in our social circle is hyphenated with "poly".

Poly brunch, poly picnic, poly camp, poly everything....A) I'm not poly, B) No one walks around planning mono-meals, mono-movies etc. I like to feel a bit blended and walking around with a sign above my head won't help. There seems to be a lot of politics involved for some people. "You can't do this unless you talk to that person"..it's like replacing one set of social rules for another. It also comes off as discriminatory and excluding which I understand because people want a safe environment to just be who they are.


It's gotten much better however...I'm feeling much more grounded.....now I think I'll sit down to a supper of poly-nesian quisine

[saudade]

First, @Mono:

Being polysaturated - feeling like everything we do in our social circle is hyphenated with "poly".

Dude, I would love to feel poly-saturated... I think it's all a matter of degree/dosage? If you lent me one of your poly events a month, maybe we'd both feel better.

And now, the one problem I forgot:

~ The whole 'closet' issue. I'm in the process of coming out to K's and my entire extended family so that we can have our wedding without worrying about shocking anyone when the bride starts dirty-dancing with her hair stylist... or her dress-maker... or the emcee... or the best man!

Seriously, though, it's rough figuring out how far out of the closet to get with whom. I just want to live my life without worrying that someone'll try to take the kids I don't have yet, or get one of us fired... Ugh. (Cheers to living in an urban, progressive patch of America and minimizing the risks!)

[classycaveman]

Just a thought, as the biggest complaint seems to be lack of time, there is another poly...

Polyphasic sleeping. I experimented with it during university and it actually works really well, if you are strict about sticking to the schedule. What you do is take 20-30 minute naps every four hours during the day, rather than sleeping in one big chunk at night. You end up with about 5 or 6 extra hours of time.

It's very tricky, you have to be very strict about getting your naps when it's naptime, and you probably can't do it if you work 9-5, but it's great if you can make it work.

If anyone's interested, here's a good place to start looking for info:
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/200...yphasic-sleep/

Also, one to add to the list: Trying to get a date with someone who you know is interested in you but is just too damn busy with all her other partners! ARGH!

[redpepper]

sleeeeeeeeppppp, for me a huge one... that and absolutely no alone time, EVER. good thing I hate to be alone.

there is one other for me that I struggle with and that is guilt. Of course this stems from my up bringing and is brought on by my family almost daily. I fight it quite often and it is one of the reasons I don't want to ever be alone. As soon as I spend time alone it seeps in.

Other than that I have all the other negative symptoms mentioned here

I hear you Mono about "poly" everything. I think that is largely due to who we hang out with. Some of the people we hang out with sometimes like to schedule everything and make sure we are all moving along nicely in our poly journey so to speak. It's just not our way Mono, that's all. Some people like to have their lives scheduled that much, we don't.... but I think we have balanced that with other things now, at least more and more anyways. that comes from normalization I think.

[twig]

Originally Posted by SchrodingersCat

I would say adding a partner more than doubles the issues. You still have your own issues as an individual, plus their issues as an individual, plus your mutual issues as a couple.

Theorem: the number of issues for n people in a poly arrangement is multiplied by 2^n - 1

Schrodinger, your math isn't quite right. I would agree that that adding a partner more than doubles your issues. By your formula moving from single to just one partner would only double the number of issues. You should make n=2 a special case and apply 2^n-1 to n>2.

I wonder what happens when you add imaginary partners. Are they represented by i/ You would start having trigonometric issues.

If you haven't guessed I'm a math geek.

[saudade]

This whole math angle is funny enough that I'm going to start a new thread rather than letting it overtake the current one:

http://www.polyamory.com/forum/showt...6900#post26900

[CielDuMatin]

A short story - my OSO and I were taking an ecotourism vacation in Mexico, near the border with Belize. We met a wonderful lesbian couple and spent evenings together, solving the problems of the world.

One evening we got into talking about the challenges of being "out" as a lesbian couple in a relatively conservative society (I don't remember where they were from). They said that we probably wouldn't be able to relate to it, though. Up to that point we hadn't mentioned poly, but we brought it up right then. They had never heard of it and joked that we had "out-alternatived" them! There then followed a lot of Q&A about poly. Once the general flow took a pause, the two of them reflected a little and the one said

"Wow, you get to be with two women!"

and the other:

"Yeah, but you've got to be with two women!"

In a lot of ways this sums up a lot of the positives and negatives of my relationship.

[Ariakas]

umm as a currently mono partnered poly person I would say the other difficulty is finding partners ...(or in the case of most people I interact with, letting those partners find me)

[EugenePoet]

Finding partners, yes...or finding yourself talking to a really sweet single woman who likes you a lot, and which whom you share virtually every major interest, and knowing that she's hardwired mono.

[LovingRadiance]

Originally Posted by MonoVCPHG

Being polysaturated - feeling like everything we do in our social circle is hyphenated with "poly".

OMG, I am "poly" and guess what Mon-I SO feel that way sometimes!
Sometimes I just want to BE, not TALK about what that is that I am be-ING!

Just to be able to have my loves and enjoy our relationships without having to spend all of my time explaining poly to some "un-exposed" person or whatever!!!!!!