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One of the benefits to polyamory is the ability to explore and express multiple facets of your personality through relating to other people. This isn't really as pop-psychy as it sounds. How many of you ever discovered a new interest, hobby, or passion because someone you dated was interested? I mean, something you carried with you even after the relationship ended, or, if the relationship didn't end, something that became a genuine interest of your own and not just something you do because your partner likes it? How many of you learned something new about yourself because of a relationship? How many of you changed in some significant way because of a relationship? That's what I mean by expressing multiple facets of your personality through relating to other people.
When I was 17, I began dating a guy who introduced me to pewter miniature painting. I had never even heard of Dungeons and Dragons, let alone any other RPG, I had no interest in learning what those geeks in the back of the classroom did after school, and I hadn't even fathomed the idea of an entire subculture of people who used math and fantasy to create entire other worlds, sometimes representing their characters as small, pewter figurines, and an even smaller subculture who specialized in painting those figurines.
But I am introverted, creative, nocturnal, and detail-oriented. So my high school sweetheart introduced me to his passion of painting miniatures. I was hooked from day one. It was the perfect hobby for me. We stayed up all night long, watching horror movies, bent over the table in his parents' back room with fluorescent hobby lights clamped to the table, hardly even speaking to each other except to show off a particularly tricky paint job successfully pulled off. I began spending most of my paychecks on miniatures, paints, and paintbrushes. When we broke up, I kept up the hobby and it is still one of my greatest passions. In fact, the name "Joreth" comes from the second figure I ever painted.
Before that boyfriend, the only thing I knew about comics was that they printed them in color on Sundays in the newspaper. It never occurred to me that anyone could dress up in a costume for anything other than Halloween, and I was supposed to have outgrown even that years before. And action figures were those awesome toys for kids that my parents never let me play with growing up, but that's it. He brought out my inner geek. And I was forever changed because of my relationship with him. Not only was I a changed person, but his influence has forever influenced all the relationships that came after him.
After my high school sweetheart is the guy who introduced me to Goth nightclubs, which, to this day, remains the only non-ballroom and non-country bar I will willingly attend, and where I can feel that oh-so-sweet surrender and just *become* both music and motion. Then there was the guy who taught me how to orgasm during penetrative sex. I don't think I need to explain what a life-changing event *that* was. There was the guy who became a lover during a particularly rowdy session of wrestling and rough-housing, as we had been prone to do for our entire friendship. That particular kink is probably my strongest kink to date, the one I feel the most desire for, the one that I feel the strongest sense of loss when I can't express it. I knew, before him, that I enjoyed rape play, but I didn't really understand what was going on in my head during it, nor did I understand how to express it in a healthy manner. Through him, I worked out some of my anger issues and learned how to experience rape play in a healthy way.
Franklin has taught me so much about dignity and compassion, and is the first person to ever manage to keep up with my voracious appetite for self-exploration and self-knowledge. He introduced the concepts and community of BDSM to me, explored with me all those other kinks I didn't even know I had, helped me refine my communication skills, and turned me on to science and skepticism when I had previously believed in all manner of woo, including alternative medicine and water molecule snowflakes. He is the first person to admire me for my inquisitive nature & devotion to self-analysis, instead of merely tolerating those traits (and growing tired of the work I require in a relationship of introspection and communication).
Everyone I have ever been in a relationship with has explored some aspect of who I am that no one else ever has, and never will. That particular combination of facets to my personality that are expressed when I relate to a partner's personality is unique to that partner. Oh sure, there is plenty of overlap. I've always been stubborn, no matter who I date, and I've always been an avid reader, and I've always liked well-done steak. But some people bring out the social butterfly in me, some the creative side, some the practical side, some the dancer, some the teacher, and some the student. I am always me, with every relationship, but I am never every single aspect of me at full simultaneously.
Just like we all show particular sides of who we are when we're around our family, versus our coworkers or friends, we also do that with our lovers. It's not necessarily a deliberate hiding of certain aspects of ourselves, it's just that certain people bring out certain parts of us more strongly than others. Have you ever said or heard "he just brings out the worst in me!" or "she's so good for him, she brings out his best side"? That's what I'm talking about.
Serial monogamists have the opportunity to experience and express more of themselves as time passes, with each new relationship. But polyamory gives us the opportunity to experience and express those sides of ourselves *simultaneously* within a single time period of our lives. This is *actually* what is meant by "meeting needs". But that phrase implies that we all have this list of 100 needs that someone else is responsible for fulfilling, and that we can just mix and match people until we get them all filled, sort of like building a Franken-Partner - the perfect mate out of 3 men, for example. And that's really not what it's about.
My partners do not perform a job service of Activity Partner or Person To Talk To or Man Who Does Stuff For Me. If I have a "need", and a partner is not "fulfilling" it, getting someone else to do it doesn't make that "need" go away with the person I am not getting it from. Each relationship must meet the "needs" of the participants all by themselves. The thing of it is, though, is that not all relationships "need" the same things. I "need" communication with my partners to feel as though our relationship is healthy and to satisfy me. It doesn't matter who I am dating, if I do not feel as though we have quality conversations, it does not feel like a romantic relationship to me. Having one partner who doesn't talk to me cannot be fixed by getting another partner who does.
But each relationship might have its own level of discussion that makes me feel like it is a Relationship. And each relationship might have its own topics that make it feel like a Relationship to me. And through those discussions, I get to express a slightly different aspect of myself than I would with anyone else. I get to develop who I am into a rich and complicated tapestry of Me, filled with nuance and shading and depth, where conversation never feels stale because the next time I have a conversation, I will have become a slightly different, more nuanced, person due to my recent conversations and experiences with other people.
Relationships influence who we are, and we become new people from our experiences. That is one of the benefits of relationships - all types of relationships. As Franklin likes to say, that's a feature, not a bug. Of course monogamous people are also affected by their various relationships - even life-long monogamous people grow and change through the experiences with their platonic friends and family. But there is a *unique* way in which romantic relationships encourage and enhance these kinds of growth experiences - not necessarily better or worse, but different than non-romantic relationships and, to those of us who enjoy romantic relationships, it's a very special feeling.
The ability to experience that kind of growth-supportive relationship more than once in a lifetime is awesome and amazing. The ability to experience that kind of relationship more than once *simultaneously*, without requiring the ending of one relationship to experience another, is something that I can't even come close to describing how awesome and amazing it is. The ability to grow in so many different directions, to *become* through an intimate relationship is just one of the many benefits to polyamory.
When I was 17, I began dating a guy who introduced me to pewter miniature painting. I had never even heard of Dungeons and Dragons, let alone any other RPG, I had no interest in learning what those geeks in the back of the classroom did after school, and I hadn't even fathomed the idea of an entire subculture of people who used math and fantasy to create entire other worlds, sometimes representing their characters as small, pewter figurines, and an even smaller subculture who specialized in painting those figurines.
But I am introverted, creative, nocturnal, and detail-oriented. So my high school sweetheart introduced me to his passion of painting miniatures. I was hooked from day one. It was the perfect hobby for me. We stayed up all night long, watching horror movies, bent over the table in his parents' back room with fluorescent hobby lights clamped to the table, hardly even speaking to each other except to show off a particularly tricky paint job successfully pulled off. I began spending most of my paychecks on miniatures, paints, and paintbrushes. When we broke up, I kept up the hobby and it is still one of my greatest passions. In fact, the name "Joreth" comes from the second figure I ever painted.
Before that boyfriend, the only thing I knew about comics was that they printed them in color on Sundays in the newspaper. It never occurred to me that anyone could dress up in a costume for anything other than Halloween, and I was supposed to have outgrown even that years before. And action figures were those awesome toys for kids that my parents never let me play with growing up, but that's it. He brought out my inner geek. And I was forever changed because of my relationship with him. Not only was I a changed person, but his influence has forever influenced all the relationships that came after him.
After my high school sweetheart is the guy who introduced me to Goth nightclubs, which, to this day, remains the only non-ballroom and non-country bar I will willingly attend, and where I can feel that oh-so-sweet surrender and just *become* both music and motion. Then there was the guy who taught me how to orgasm during penetrative sex. I don't think I need to explain what a life-changing event *that* was. There was the guy who became a lover during a particularly rowdy session of wrestling and rough-housing, as we had been prone to do for our entire friendship. That particular kink is probably my strongest kink to date, the one I feel the most desire for, the one that I feel the strongest sense of loss when I can't express it. I knew, before him, that I enjoyed rape play, but I didn't really understand what was going on in my head during it, nor did I understand how to express it in a healthy manner. Through him, I worked out some of my anger issues and learned how to experience rape play in a healthy way.
Franklin has taught me so much about dignity and compassion, and is the first person to ever manage to keep up with my voracious appetite for self-exploration and self-knowledge. He introduced the concepts and community of BDSM to me, explored with me all those other kinks I didn't even know I had, helped me refine my communication skills, and turned me on to science and skepticism when I had previously believed in all manner of woo, including alternative medicine and water molecule snowflakes. He is the first person to admire me for my inquisitive nature & devotion to self-analysis, instead of merely tolerating those traits (and growing tired of the work I require in a relationship of introspection and communication).
Everyone I have ever been in a relationship with has explored some aspect of who I am that no one else ever has, and never will. That particular combination of facets to my personality that are expressed when I relate to a partner's personality is unique to that partner. Oh sure, there is plenty of overlap. I've always been stubborn, no matter who I date, and I've always been an avid reader, and I've always liked well-done steak. But some people bring out the social butterfly in me, some the creative side, some the practical side, some the dancer, some the teacher, and some the student. I am always me, with every relationship, but I am never every single aspect of me at full simultaneously.
Just like we all show particular sides of who we are when we're around our family, versus our coworkers or friends, we also do that with our lovers. It's not necessarily a deliberate hiding of certain aspects of ourselves, it's just that certain people bring out certain parts of us more strongly than others. Have you ever said or heard "he just brings out the worst in me!" or "she's so good for him, she brings out his best side"? That's what I'm talking about.
Serial monogamists have the opportunity to experience and express more of themselves as time passes, with each new relationship. But polyamory gives us the opportunity to experience and express those sides of ourselves *simultaneously* within a single time period of our lives. This is *actually* what is meant by "meeting needs". But that phrase implies that we all have this list of 100 needs that someone else is responsible for fulfilling, and that we can just mix and match people until we get them all filled, sort of like building a Franken-Partner - the perfect mate out of 3 men, for example. And that's really not what it's about.
My partners do not perform a job service of Activity Partner or Person To Talk To or Man Who Does Stuff For Me. If I have a "need", and a partner is not "fulfilling" it, getting someone else to do it doesn't make that "need" go away with the person I am not getting it from. Each relationship must meet the "needs" of the participants all by themselves. The thing of it is, though, is that not all relationships "need" the same things. I "need" communication with my partners to feel as though our relationship is healthy and to satisfy me. It doesn't matter who I am dating, if I do not feel as though we have quality conversations, it does not feel like a romantic relationship to me. Having one partner who doesn't talk to me cannot be fixed by getting another partner who does.
But each relationship might have its own level of discussion that makes me feel like it is a Relationship. And each relationship might have its own topics that make it feel like a Relationship to me. And through those discussions, I get to express a slightly different aspect of myself than I would with anyone else. I get to develop who I am into a rich and complicated tapestry of Me, filled with nuance and shading and depth, where conversation never feels stale because the next time I have a conversation, I will have become a slightly different, more nuanced, person due to my recent conversations and experiences with other people.
Relationships influence who we are, and we become new people from our experiences. That is one of the benefits of relationships - all types of relationships. As Franklin likes to say, that's a feature, not a bug. Of course monogamous people are also affected by their various relationships - even life-long monogamous people grow and change through the experiences with their platonic friends and family. But there is a *unique* way in which romantic relationships encourage and enhance these kinds of growth experiences - not necessarily better or worse, but different than non-romantic relationships and, to those of us who enjoy romantic relationships, it's a very special feeling.
The ability to experience that kind of growth-supportive relationship more than once in a lifetime is awesome and amazing. The ability to experience that kind of relationship more than once *simultaneously*, without requiring the ending of one relationship to experience another, is something that I can't even come close to describing how awesome and amazing it is. The ability to grow in so many different directions, to *become* through an intimate relationship is just one of the many benefits to polyamory.
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no subject
Date: 2/10/11 12:39 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2/10/11 03:51 pm (UTC)From:You also really articulated something that often bothers me when people try to describe polyamory. I'm not with multiple partners because I have different "needs," each partner is fulfilling to me in and of themselves and they sometimes fulfill different needs, but that's not why I am with them. I didn't decide, "well, my current partners don't do X and I want to do X so I better find another one." I have always felt uneasy when others describe polyamory that way and here you have articulated it beautifully!
Thank you!
no subject
Date: 2/10/11 05:16 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2/10/11 05:22 pm (UTC)From:It is always important IMO to remember that the benefits within poly are benefits because that dynamic works for us. For a non poly person, these would not be benefits at all, they would be detractors. Just as we would not experience the benefits of monogamy as we are poly, they would not be benefits for us.
Also, I come more and more to belive that, with rare exception of hermits and shut ins, we’re all poly. We all sustain multiple relationships of varying dynamics simultaneously. I think the more we all understood that, the less monogamists would fear and the less polyamorists would fuck up their first attempts because they try to re-create the wheel and lose all perspective.
no subject
Date: 2/10/11 10:18 pm (UTC)From:This part is ringing something for me. Thank you for bringing it up. I think it's something I need to meditate on for myself.
no subject
Date: 3/20/11 02:13 pm (UTC)From:This is beautiful. Really really beautiful. I don't think I can actually say anything useful without being horribly smooshy, but I loved reading it, and it says a lot of the things that I'd have liked to say. Thanks for posting! :)