As I sit squarely in the middle of the season that triggered my last bout with depression, I came across this Facebook post I wrote towards a lull in the depression.  It's interesting reading it again almost 2 years later.  Although I think I have pulled out of the depression itself, I have not, in fact, gotten past my self-doubt of my character judgement, and I wonder how much of my inability to trust my own judgement has interfered with my ability to date and meet people in the past couple of years (really, this year shouldn't count, since I'm also not meeting people because I refuse to date in person, which, on top of my prickly online personality, means guys don't generally stick around long enough for me to consider them worth dating):

REALLY long rambling.   Basically, I'm just doing some introspection out loud.

My last several breakups have severely undermined my confidence in my ability to judge character and make good partner choices.  First was the guy who managed to date 2 feminists and then go full on misogynist "but misandry!" after we all broke up (his choice to breakup, btw, he's not doing some incel "the feminists dumped me, therefore women suck!" thing).

Next was the guy who abused all his other partners and I didn't see it.  Then was the guy who ghosted me and I gave him another chance, only to have him ghost me a second time.  Before that second ghosting was a casual partner who ghosted me once, I gave him a second chance, and he also ghosted me again.

Then came the dude who was so terrified that I would find someone to replace him that he dumped me for his ex-gf, because that makes sense.  #HeLiftedMeUpAndThrewMeDownCryingPleaseDontHurtMeMama

So in the middle of my depression, I'm having a serious self-esteem issue over my ability to make good choices for myself.  Which leads me to questioning and probing at some of my patterns, trying to identify and recognize them.  I noticed one pattern several years ago, but couldn't really identify it.  I could tell *something* was a common thread, but not quite sure what. I think I may be zeroing in on it.

I have different kinds of attractions to people.   I'm sure others do too, but I'm interested in mine right now, to troubleshoot, not trying to identify some Grand Unifying Theory Of Attraction that other people might also feel.  The most obvious is sexual attraction - we have a chemistry where we feel drawn to each other, aroused, can't keep our hands off each other, etc.

And I have an aesthetic attraction to someone where I just find them so pretty that I have to keep looking at them.  For most of my life, I mistook this as sexual attraction.  This partly contributed to my early confusion about my orientation.  I thought I was bi because I found some women so aesthetically attractive that I felt I had to keep looking at them.   But, it turns out, at least in me, the aesthetic attraction and the sexual attraction are two separate axis that may or may not cross and when it comes to women and femmes, they do not cross.

I can have an intellectual attraction to someone where we click really well on intellectual interests and pursuits.  I get excited just thinking of the conversations we could have together.  I also discovered something that I'm starting to call my Fascination Attraction.  I have noticed that there are a few people in my past who I felt drawn to in a unique way.   I felt a kind of fascination with them that wasn't really any of the above attractions.

It's kind of similar to the fascination that some people might feel when looking at a particularly interesting insect.  Some people find insects gross or creepy or weird or scary or whatever.  Some people find insects beautiful.  But some people don't find them to be either, they just find them *fascinating*.

And, of course, it's not purely aesthetic for me, but chances are that the person I feel this attraction to isn't necessarily *conventionally* attractive.   Not that they're *unattractive* - I mean, they often are considered attractive - just that, well ...

Let's say that the Avengers is a lineup of what counts for "conventionally attractive".   If you look at the whole cast, there's actually a pretty decently diverse range of appearances, given that it's still Hollywood.  I've seen a handful of different Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic/Good/Evil charts using Avengers characters.  There are quite a few archetypes in that cast.  But, because it's Hollywood, for all their diversity, they're still *conventionally attractive* within their archetypes.

So, let's say that the people I feel this Fascination Attraction to fit a description more like "interesting".   Even given the range of Avengers-attractive, they might be more aptly described as "interesting" *even if people also happen to find them aesthetically attractive*, if that makes sense?

That's really my type, if I could say that I had a "type" at all - interesting.   I like people with interesting faces.  Sometimes that falls under the category of "conventionally attractive", sometimes it doesn't.

So, I have this Fascination Attraction.  I'm not entirely sure what is drawing me to this person, because it's not aesthetics *even if they happen to be conventionally attractive* and it's not intellectual attraction *even if they happen to be intellectually stimulating* and it's not even sexual attraction *even if we happen to have sexual chemistry*.

I don't really know how to describe it, except that it's recognizable to me as this kind of attraction.  I can go through my romantic and sexual history and pick out which of my previous partners I felt which of these attractions for that drew me to them initially (over time, as I get to know someone, my attraction tends to be more nuanced and pull from several different directions).

But the point of identifying all these different types of attractions is to recognize patterns associated when I act on the different types of attractions.

For instance, when I act purely on sexual attraction, I tend to find out after the fact that we have radically different political views and I might regret either getting to know them better or having started a sexual relationship.  Like my mechanic, for instance - the homeopath conspiracist who thinks cigarettes won't kill him but chemotherapy will and that David Hoagg is part of a troupe of "crisis actors" who fake mass shootings.
 Like, sure, he was a good fuck back in the day when we were sleeping together but holy shit! I still haven't decided which is worse - finding out just how much of a barking moonbat he is or knowing that I used to get naked with him now that I know his bizarre ideas.

So, when I feel an instant sexual attraction to someone, I probably ought to rein in the hormones a bit and ask myself, do I really want to fuck someone who will very likely turn out to be my opposite, politically speaking?  Or am I willing to have the sexual experience and just go out of my way not to get to know him, so that I don't have to deal with that knowledge if he turns out to fit squarely in my Sexual Attraction : Wild Beliefs bell curve.

This Fascination Attraction, now ... that's an interesting one.  See, when I have casual sex with someone with wildly divergent sociopolitical views, I don't feel anything particularly strongly, except perhaps some embarrassment in some of the more extreme cases.  But with the Fascinators, that's where the roller coaster rides seem to happen.  Extreme highs and lows.  More regrets.  More "I wish I had known that up front" thoughts.  More "maybe I shouldn't have" or "maybe I should have gone more slowly" or "maybe I should have taken the other option".

I'm not yet sure if this is consistent across the board.   I have to do more plotting of my history chart to see if the correlation is steady or if there are any exceptions.   But with my recent self-doubt, it makes me very nervous when I find my interest in someone hitting that Fascination Attraction button.  I feel drawn like a moth who knows exactly what will happen when I touch that flame but I go anyway.

So I hit the brakes and pull back, and then I second-guess my second-guessing, and down goes the spiral.  With my depression and my recent painful dual breakups, I find myself less inclined for emotional attachments and more interested in casual relationships or hookups, but that leaves me open to the Fascination Attraction, which I am now second guessing because of the depression making me doubt my ability to judge people well or make good choices.

And 'round it goes.

I'm really kinda anxious for this whole depression thing to fuck off for a while.   It's making me lonely and driven to pursue finding partners but also to back away from potential partners because I assume I'm going to fuck it up by choosing poorly.  Catch-22.

https://www.quora.com/For-straight-women-would-you-rather-have-a-man-be-too-nice-or-too-agressive-when-approaching-you-for-a-date/answer/Joreth-Innkeeper

Q. For straight women, would you rather have a man be too nice or too agressive when approaching you for a date?

A. There is no such thing as “too nice”.  There is genuinely, sincerely nice, there is not nice, and there is passive-aggressively not nice masquerading as “too nice”.

I want someone who treats me like a human fucking being. I want someone who recognizes my humanity, who respects my agency, and who gets to know me as a person first so that they can treat me the way I want to be treated, not according to some rule book that says “all women want / like / should be treated…”.

That’s not “too nice”, that’s the absolute bare minimum, the bottom line, the lowest bar for “decent human being”.  You can’t go overboard on recognizing one’s humanity and respecting one’s agency and treating one as an individual.  You can’t be “too” of that.

Being a doormat, being passive-aggressively meek in order to curry favor, and being “aggressive” and ignoring boundaries are all just different ways of not doing enough of all that.

https://www.quora.com/In-a-polyamorous-relationship-how-does-your-wife-or-husband-differ-from-your-other-partners/answer/Joreth-Innkeeper/comment/84318016

Q. From your PoV, what changes would you like to see to the current legal requirements and benefits to marriage that would make life easier or better for you?

A. I would like to see there be absolutely no legal benefits, punishments, consequences, ties, connections, or anything at all based on *romantic* relationships.  I want the government out of the relationship regulation business.

I would like to see all the possible and existing benefits, requirements, etc., available as regular civil contracts, to be entered into by anyone who can otherwise enter any legal contract, and to have a few different “package contracts” with some of the more popular benefit/requirement combinations lumped together in ready-made contracts.

And then these would all be legal for anyone to enter into with whomever they choose.  They would not be reserved for romantic partnerships, they couldn’t be broken based on whose genitals touch whose (or don’t touch whose), they would be regulated based on relevance to the contracts’ various contents.

That would make my life much easier and better than one giant suite of benefits and requirements (which differ from state to state) that I can only enter into with one person who is obligated to be in a romantic relationship with me in order to provide those benefits that have nothing to do with romance, and for which the government can nullify if some government agent thinks we aren’t sufficiently “romantic” enough or doesn’t like what we choose to do with our own genitals in our spare time.

https://www.quora.com/Do-polyamorous-people-have-a-partner-that-they-love-more-than-the-other-others/answer/Joreth-Innkeeper?ch=1&share=406a3090&srid=B7tY

I really fucking hate this question.

Q. Do polyamorous people have a partner that they love more than the other/others?

A. Do people with multiple kids have one kid they love more than the others? If we’re being honest, then yeah, some parents probably do. But they would generally be considered bad parents by everyone else if they ever uttered that out loud, even though we really can’t help having the feelings that we have.

But do parents of multiple kids love each of their children *differently*, since each child is a different, unique, individual human being? That’s probably more common, and also not considered to be bad parenting.

Some people who call themselves “polyamorous” do put limitations around the amount of feeling they have for various partners, most notably those in hierarchical relationships (where the “primary always comes first”). These are generally considered by other polys to be people who are unsafe to get into relationships with because, as already established, we can’t help our feelings, so we know right up front that our feelings are not safe with them as we will be discarded if we ever catch feelings.

Other people who are polyamorous develop qualitatively different kinds of relationships, and hence have different sorts of feelings, for different partners. We can’t “rank” them into who we love the “most”, we just love people differently in the same way that most people love each of their parents differently, or love their sibling and their best friend “equally” but “differently” from each other.

Our feelings and our relationships are built on the unique combination of ourselves and the other person. There is no other relationship in the world that will ever look exactly like any given relationship because it’s made up of the people in them, and the people are unique individuals. Therefore, the feelings that go along with that relationship are a completely unique blend of a variety of emotions that will never be replicated with anyone else.

In addition to that, emotions and feelings change and flux over time. “Love”, for whatever definition anyone uses (which, incidentally, is *also* unique and individual), waxes and wanes and is influenced by and affected by all sorts of other feelings. How anyone feels on the first week of a new relationship and how they feel 10 years in is going to look and feel different. Which feeling is “more”? Well, the intensity and passion was probably “more” that first week, but the security and comfort is probably more 10 years later.

Each poly person loves in their own way, and each relationship they have is unique to those two people in that relationship. Just like monogamous people. So there is no way to answer a question about how all polys “love”, or do anything, really.

I, personally, do not have any partners that I love “more” than anyone else. I love people differently. A partner that I have been with for many years might qualify as someone that I “love”, while a person I just started dating is probably too new for me to say that I “love” him, so when those are the circumstances, you could possibly say that I “love” my long-term partner “more” than the new partner.

But the new partner still has the *potential* to also reach those same stages of love if given enough time and we wind up being compatible in those ways. The longer-term partner isn’t defaulted as the one I love the “most”, it’s just that this relationship happens to have lasted long enough, and we are compatible in the right ways, to reach that level of deep, intimate, all-encompassing love, while the newer partner isn’t there *yet*.

Sometimes a newer relationship hasn’t yet reached that stage, so in the snapshot of that moment in time, I might “love” one more than the other, but that newer relationship will grow into that stage eventually. Other times a relationship never quite reaches that stage, as we find out that we are not compatible and we break up before getting to the “love” part.

This is not a yes-or-no question. It’s both yes, no, and, to quote Marissa Tomei “nobody can answer that question, it’s a trick question”.

To single poly people out by asking if they love one person more than another is to imply that nobody else does, when the reality is that love can maybe be qualitatively described but we have no measuring tools for determining quantity of love. It’s not something that we can measure.

Love between different people looks different from each other. Some love feels strong, some love feels soft, some love feels deep, some love feels gentle, some love feels hard, some love feels like a liquid that seeps into every nook and cranny and some love feels like a solid mass crashing into everything and taking up all the space. And an awful lot of the time, love looks like all of the above, but at different times and in different moments.

Which one of those loves is “more” than the others?

Q.  I’m interested in your comment that a person should introspect and possibly speak to a therapist about why polyamory isn’t right for them. I’ve tended to think of mono/poly as an orientation like straight or gay - do you see it differently?

A.  Polyamory is both an orientation and a description. It can be the type of *person* someone is, and it can also simply describe the *structure* of the relationship that a person is in. You do not, necessarily, need to be in a relationship that matches, exactly, your orientation. I’m not a swinger, for example, but I am in a relationship with someone who is, and our relationship structure more closely resembles a swinger relationship than a poly one.

There are some people, like me, who cannot be anything other than poly, and some who cannot be anything other than mono - meaning that it doesn’t matter how awesome the people around them are, that person simply does not develop romantic feelings for more than one person at a time. The switch for desiring other people just shuts off.

Most people are somewhere in the middle. They might have a preference, but could, under the right circumstances, be happy in a healthy relationship of either type. But the catch there is “under the right circumstances”. Because of the way that monogamy is perpetuated and revered in this country, most people are monogamous not because they’re “hardwired” that way, but because they have some serious insecurities and biases and assumptions about love and relationships and about themselves. These traits may go so deep that the effort to undo all that programming may simply be too much effort to bother trying to deprogram them, so *effectively* there is no real difference between this person being “naturally” monogamous and being trained to be monogamous.

But sometimes these traits can be unlearned. IF the person wants to unlearn them. It takes effort, and most people just don’t want to put in the effort. You can see it when people say “I couldn’t do that, I’m just a jealous person”. Jealousy is just an emotion, and dealing with jealousy is a skill that anyone can learn. Nobody says “I could never be in a non-monogamous relationship, I’m just an angry person”, even though someone with anger management issues most definitely would have trouble maintaining healthy relationships of any sort.

But jealousy holds an almost magical place in our culture of being an immovable, inevitable, overwhelming force that revolves around insecurity. Insecurities fight for their existence. They will convince you that you can’t live without them, that your very identity depends on having them.

It goes something like this: I don’t like pickles. I don’t want to learn to like pickles. Because then I will want to eat pickles. And I hate pickles. So that would suck.

So the reasons *why* someone does not want to be in a polyamory relationship matters. If the reason is “I simply don’t fall in love with anyone new once I’m in love with someone”, then they’re naturally monogamous. But that sort of monogamous person can actually be in a healthy poly relationship and be happy in it. We even have a term for that - mono/poly relationships. Just because their relationship is open, it doesn’t mean that anyone is *required* to have other partners.

If the only reason why they’re mono is because they don’t fall in love with more than one person, but they have no issues or insecurities or jealousy or anything about their partner, then a mono person of this sort can be happy in an open relationship where they don’t have any other partners, but their partner does.

But if you ask people why they don’t want to be in a poly relationship, you will get a range of answers, some of which include things like “I’m just a jealous person” and “I believe a woman owes her body to her husband” and “I just think you should care about what your partner does with other people” and things that reveal some deeper issues with bodily autonomy, agency, possession, misconceptions about what love is and about the role that sex plays in love, and a variety of other things.

These kinds of issues make for unhealthy monogamous relationships too, btw. So even if the person goes through therapy and ultimately still decides that they would rather have a monogamous relationship, working out these kinds of issues is still an important process.

www.quora.com/How-long-does-it-take-to-move-on-from-a-friendship-relationship-that-ended-badly-and-abruptly/answer/Joreth-Innkeeper

Q. How long does it take to move on from a friendship/relationship that ended badly and abruptly?

A. As long as it takes.

This may sound flippant, but it’s true. There is no magic formula that will let you predict how any given person will “move on” from any given breakup. There are far too many variables.

It’s kinda like how Ian Malcolm describes chaos theory in the movie Jurassic park:

The person, the breakup, all their life experiences up until that point, the specific things going on in their life at that same moment like work or family relations, hell, their hormonal balance at that time, who else they have in their life to support them through the breakup, their diet, everything in their life current and past adds up to how any given person will handle any specific breakup.

It will take as long as it takes.

www.quora.com/Do-friends-with-benefits-really-work-in-real-life/answer/Joreth-Innkeeper

Q. Do friends with benefits really work in real life?

A. Mine tend to work out pretty well. It takes two people who are on the same page and reasonably emotionally mature - basically everything that Franklin Veaux said in his post.

Every time I’ve ever gotten into a casual relationship when one of us had an agenda for turning the relationship into something else, or when one of us merely *hoped* the relationship would turn into something else, the relationship was a spectacular failure with drama and shouting and slamming of doors.

But my current mechanic is also a coworker and a former FWB.  We have worked together for years, and back when we first met, the chemistry between us was really high, so we started sleeping together.  Neither of us wanted anything else from the other, so our FWB relationship went on for several years.

Eventually we both just had too many other things in our lives to devote any time to each other and we faded away.  We remain friendly coworkers, and since he works on my model of car as a hobby (he has 3 of them himself), he continues to offer his mechanic services to me.  In fact, I’m due over at his house next week to fix the front axle.

A dancer friend of mine and I both went through a tough breakup at about the same time.  So we turned to each other for a quick rebound fling.  Neither of us wanted anything more from the other, and we both knew we were not ready for any kind of emotionally romantic relationship, but we both missed feeling desired.  So that’s what we got from each other.  It was fun and what we both needed in the moment.  We are still friends and we still dance together.  We may or may not hookup again in the future, and we’re both OK with either possibility.

I am involved with a performer who is married with children.  He has an open marriage and likes having casual sex partners when he goes on tour but has no interest (or time) in a more interconnected sort of relationship.  I work in entertainment and always had a “groupie” fetish but never acted on it because I see it as high risk activity.

One day, I got hired to work his show.  I had always been a fan of his for his personal and political opinions, not just his performance, so I was delighted to get the chance to meet him in person and discover that he’s as genuine as he seems and that he liked me too.

With our similar values, I felt that I could trust him to give me that “casual sex with a famous person” experience without the whole drug use / lying / cheating / out of control crap that so often goes along with it, and he felt that he could trust me to enjoy a no-strings-attached hookup with him without demanding more than he was interested in.  So we started sleeping together whenever his tour takes him into my town or my work takes me into his town.  This has been going on for about 4 or 5 years now.  We have a date scheduled for next month.

I have 2 coworkers (people who work in the same venues that I work in, but who do not work for the same employers) who are FWBs.  We get along on worksite, but we don’t really see each other outside of work.  Occasionally we will sneak off during a break to make out somewhere on site.  Both of these have been going on for probably 8 or more years.

I could keep going.  I’ve had an awful lot of FWBs.  I like those relationships.  Because of my freelance work and all my hobbies, I go through frequent busy periods where I just don’t have time to maintain relationships that resemble “normal” romantic relationships.  I also like the fun and excitement of flirting and I enjoy the sexual tension that comes with casual sex partners between friends and coworkers.  I’ve learned a lot about myself through these relationships and I have some good memories.

Most of my friendships either remained intact or faded naturally as some friendships do.  Some of them exploded in a haze of sparks and drama.  Those were always with people who had other expectations, some of which were subconscious but sometimes they knew they wanted something different from me than what was on the table but “settled” for the casual thing.

So, yeah, FWBs can “work”, depending on how you define “work”.  Some of mine are ongoing, so if longevity is your marker for success, those would qualify.  Others served a specific purpose and we went back to being friends afterwards, so if accomplishing a goal is a marker for success, then those would qualify.  Others were fun while they lasted but we eventually outgrew them and faded away.  If bringing joy and happiness for a while and then quietly turning into fond memories to look back on in later years is a marker for success, then those would qualify.

I've made a lot of really bad relationship decisions in my life. And I've made some decisions that resulted in bad things but that genuinely couldn't be predicted would result in the bad thing, so it's not unreasonable that I made that decision at the time.

There aren't that many relationship decisions that, if I were given the key to real time travel, I would really go back in time and change that decision, because I have no way of knowing what the consequence would be, and sometimes I at least learned something or had some good memories in addition to the bad ones.

But I seem to be wracking up the regrets lately. Of the very few relationships that I would genuinely go back and time and erase, the majority of them were among my most recent relationships.

I would erase my time with my abusive ex-fiance back in college. I don't know if I would erase my time with my stalker, but I think I ought to have erased my time *after* my relationship with the stalker, where I maintained a friendship with him for like 10 or 12 years later. Those are way back in my past.

All the rest? Among my last handful. Not all of my last handful, but all the ones I would take back are *among* my last handful.

I clearly need to rethink how I get into relationships and why I make the decisions that I do. After my last abusive ex, my self-esteem took a pretty big hit because I felt that I couldn't trust my own judgement when it came to potential partners. The fact that I don't seem to be getting any better at it even with awareness of the problem isn't helping me at all.

www.quora.com/Has-someone-ever-left-you-midway-in-a-relationship-without-even-explaining/answer/Joreth-Innkeeper

Q. Has someone ever left you midway in a relationship without even explaining?

A. How do you leave a relationship “midway”? Isn’t leaving pretty much the definition of the end, not the middle?

But if you mean, has someone ever surprised me by ending a relationship with me when I thought the relationship was going well or at least not at the point of ending it, and didn’t explain to me why they were leaving, yes. Several times. It’s called “ghosting”.

When two people go through a painful breakup that both are aware is a breakup, and one of them chooses to cut off contact with the other after the breakup, that’s not ghosting. Ghosting is when one person chooses to end a relationship when the other person has no indication that the relationship was problematic enough to make the other person want to leave, and the person doing the ghosting cuts off all contact and leaves no explanation. I have 4 examples I’ll talk about, but they’re not the only examples in my life.

The clearest example I have of someone doing that to me was when I had just started dating someone. We had been dating for only a few weeks, but he had already started saying that he loved me. He called me one night to say that there was a death in his family and he needed to go out of town (only a few hours away) to handle things. He would be back in a few days. His last words to me were “I love you baby, and I can’t wait to see you again.”

This was back in the MySpace days, where blocking people wasn’t an option and their profile showed anyone who visited when they last logged in. So I could tell that he was regularly logging into his MySpace, so he wasn’t lying dead in a ditch somewhere halfway between my town and his family’s town where the funeral was.

Eventually, I camped out in front of his house and waited for several hours for him to come home from work. When he did, I confronted him. He gave me all kinds of bullshit excuses and promised we could work things out. I left that night knowing that I would never hear from him again, and I didn’t. I still don’t know why he did it.

I wasn’t asking him to get back together, I asked him why he would say what he said and then disappear. He tried to give excuses for why he hadn’t contacted me, but they were obvious as he was saying them that they were excuses. So I let him say them and I let him give me more false promises to call me and “work things out”, and I just left.

Another time, I met a guy who was quite a few years younger than I was, but he developed a crush on me. I figured, why not? We opted for an FWB relationship, but he kept having these intimate, vulnerable talks with me after our booty calls, so I developed feelings for him. He seemed to have feelings for me too.

Then he stopped responding to my calls. Just dropped off the face of the earth. Nobody seemed to know where he went, at least, that’s what people said to me.

Nearly 10 years later, he messaged me out of the blue. Still a little hurt, but hey, 10 years is 10 years, I answered. He wanted to talk on the phone, so we did. He said something about being young and immature and having family issues that overwhelmed him so he moved out of state to escape everyone. But since then, some shit had gone down that made him grow up fast. Now he was back in the area and he wanted to be friends again.

He started calling me while working his night job, and I would often fall asleep on the phone from talking for hours at a time. Eventually, he came to see me and talked about trying a real relationship with me, not just the FWB we had before. I expressed my doubts that he could do it, but he insisted he could. He also wanted to explore some kink with me, knowing that I was experienced and he had none.

We had one make-out session, which I ended by saying we really needed to discuss what kind of relationship we were going to have and what he wanted from a kink relationship with me. He said he was really excited about exploring something, but he didn’t even know where to start. So I suggested we go to a local kink club and a regional conference where he could be exposed to a variety of options and other people who might have some ideas or suggestions.

He sounded excited about that. We made plans to go, which he canceled on. And then he never responded to another text or phone call or online message again. So he ghosted me twice.

About 3 or 4 years later, he re-friended me on Facebook. I accepted the friend request but I didn’t message him. A few months after that, he sent me a message apologizing for disappearing, saying family shit overwhelmed him and he had to escape so he moved to another state. I said something like “huh, imagine that?” He asked what that meant and I said that was the same thing he said last time he ghosted me. He said something about his life being kinda dramatic. That’s the last thing we said, over a year ago.

The most recent example was someone else who did it to me twice. Many, many years ago, we met and had this amazing chemistry that he seemed to fight. But then one day he came over and said he was done fighting, we should be together. Then, literally in the middle of having sex, he got up, said he couldn’t do this, and left, half-dressed. He didn’t return any of my phone calls and the one friend of his who I knew would only say that he “moved to Texas” (he didn’t, as I found out later).

A few years later, we ran into each other again. It was awkward and uncomfortable and I got out of the encounter as quickly as I could. A couple years later we ran into each other again. It was slightly less awkward, but he apologized and said he was immature and frightened and didn’t know how to handle it. He wanted to be friends again.

Dubious, I gave him my number. We didn’t really keep in touch much. I invited him to a handful of social events, he would never go, I stopped inviting him.

Then, a few years after that, one day I just decided to invite him to something because I was inviting *everyone* in my address book. That thing he attended. So I invited him to another thing. He attended. Suddenly, we were talking to each other. After some very intense conversations, I decided that 10 years was enough for him to have grown up, to feel real remorse, and to be ready to try again.

So we did. This time, things were going well. We got along great with each other. We were open and intimate with each other. We both happened to suffer from a depressive episode at about the same time (unrelated to our relationship) and we were instrumental in each other’s recovery.

3.5 years into our second try, he started getting “busy”. When he used to spend 2 long weekends a month with me and constantly text me throughout the days apart, we very slowly started seeing each other less and less. I brought it up, he promised he was “working on it”, nothing would change, I’d bring it up again, he promised things were “getting better”, nothing would change, rinse, repeat.

Almost exactly a year after I noticed and started commenting on the problem, we had a Talk about it. I told him it was not acceptable to me anymore that he go 3 or 4 months without us seeing each other, given that we only lived a few miles apart. Since spending several days at a time seemed to be so taxing for him I offered him the option of one date night a month where it was focused time together. He turned that down and opted instead for our regular “weekends” together.

We never had another weekend together. Almost overnight, he stopped responding to texts, phone calls, and online messages. Finally, one day, I had been having things shipped to his house because things got stolen off my porch in my neighborhood and his neighborhood was safer. Something I had ordered weeks prior arrived at his house, and he texted me to let me know it had arrived. He offered to bring it by.

Having read the writing on the wall this time, I had all of his things that he left at my house packed up and ready. I didn’t plan to break up with him, but I was going to be prepared if he decided to break up with me. I was still hoping for some kind of answer and a change in his behaviour. Depending on how he handled the conversation I was going to make him have when he dropped off my package, I would either hand him his things or I would quietly unpack them after he left and not even let him know I had packed them..

He chose to come over when he knew I had only a few minutes left to get ready for work. I asked him “so, are we still dating or what?” As soon as he started with “well … you didn’t do anything wrong, it’s just that I’m not fulfilling you, and …” I interrupted him and said “yeah, I figured that’s what you’d say,” and went into the other room to get his things and dropped them at his feet.

I told him that ghosting me was the absolute worst way he could have chosen to break up with me, given that he had done it to me once before and I only got back with him on the condition that he would not break up with me in that way again. He protested, saying that he never ghosted me. I pointed out that he stopped responding to all forms of communication for weeks and he only deigned to speak to me when a package arrived. That’s ghosting.

He said that he just didn’t know what to say or how to do it. I pointed out to him that I’m writing a book on how to ethically breakup with someone and I already have an online document titled my User Manual which gives instructions for exactly how to break up with *me*. Of literally anyone in the world, I’m one of the last people anyone should be confused about how to break up with me. I come with instructions.

I have no doubt that if he hadn’t needed to get my packages to me, I would never have heard from him again unless I chased after him.

So then, while I’m still nursing my hurt feelings over this breakup, a friend who I’ve had a thing for asks me out. I tell him that I’m not in a position for a big-r Relationship because I’m on the rebound and he’s never been in a poly relationship before, but perhaps we could talk about a fling. He says it’s an emotional connection or nothing - no casual sex for him.

So we talk and talk and talk, and eventually decide that we might try some kind of relationship and see where it goes. We have a couple of good dates, and our last one is really hot and heavy. We have so much chemistry between us! We continued texting on the way home and through the night when we got home. I have texts from him that night telling me how hard he’s falling for me and how safe and loved he feels with me.

Literally the next day, he texts me to say his ex wants to talk, do I mind if he goes out with her? I’m poly, so although I’m concerned about an ex, I say he can. He texts me that night to say he wants to have sex with her, do I mind? Again, I’m concerned, but as I’m also working on another FWB of my own, I say OK and thank him for telling me.

The next day, radio silence. He doesn’t respond to any of my messages. The day after, I message him to ask why the radio silence. I can see that he checked the message. After a long pause, he messages back to say that he’s getting back together with the ex and she “won’t have it”, meaning she won’t let him date me too. He has since blocked me from contacting him.

So, yeah, I’ve had lots of people ghost me, or break up with me at points in the relationship that I felt were “midway” or when things were going well, or at least when I felt that things were not at the end. I find it to be one of the most cruel ways to end a relationship with a person and I am permanently scarred from all the times it has happened to me.

This latest one happening on the heels of the one prior to it has triggered my depression again, so now I have to have people check in on me to make sure I’m OK. And all for someone I didn’t even want to get involved with in the first place because I didn’t think either one of us was ready for a relationship.

When people give you that aphorism “when someone tells you who they are, believe them”, believe them. There were plenty of signs, but I keep giving people the benefit of the doubt, and I pay for it every single time.

https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-of-the-basic-standard-rules-of-dating-concerning-seeing-more-than-one-person-at-a-time-Is-it-acceptable/answer/Joreth-Innkeeper

Q. What are some of the basic standard rules of dating, concerning seeing more than one person at a time? Is it acceptable?

A. There are no “basic standard rules of dating … more than one person at a time”. Everyone does it differently.

However, there are some basic standards of *ethics* and those apply regardless of how many people you’re dating.

1. Don’t treat people as things. Other people are autonomous, sentient beings with their own agency. They are not supporting characters in the story starring You. They do not exist for you and you are not entitled to them or anything that belongs to them. Even in the context of a relationship. They are people and they are their own person.


2. Be honest with them about your desires, boundaries, limitations, and expectations. And in order to do that, you will need to also be honest with yourself about these same things.


3. Give other people the information they need to give informed consent to anything they do with you, including enter into a relationship in the first place. This is related to #2 because giving this information with people requires you to be honest about what you can do, what you’re willing to do, what you want to do, and what you can’t / won’t / don’t want to do.
   
   This includes the type of relationship you hope to have, in this case - dating more than one person at a time. They need to know that this is the deal, have all the information necessary to make their own choices and decisions, be free of coercion to make said choices and decisions, and then to agree on a relationship structure with you. If they can’t say “no”, then a “yes” is meaningless. So they need to be able to freely say yes or no to everything, and for that, they need information.


4. Build relationships on empowerment for the people in the relationships. The people in the relationships should always be more important than the relationship itself. The relationship is not a sentient being, although sometimes it feels like our relationships can run away from us and they take on a life of their own.
   
   But they’re not. The relationships should exist to serve the people, the people should not exist to serve the relationship. So empower your partner(s) to have control over their own agency and to have an equal say in their own relationships with you.


5. If you do choose to see multiple people, you need to treat *every single one of them according to these standards of ethics*. It is not ethical to respect your partner’s agency, be honest with them, give them the info they need, allow them the space to consent, etc. while not doing all of these things with someone else. Always keep the locus of control over the relationship between the two people in the relationship.
   
   Yes, even if you have “a relationship” of 3 or more people. Because you don’t. If there are 3 people who are all relating to each other, you have 3 separate dyadic relationships and one 3-person relationship dynamic. Each dyad is its own relationship, so the two people in that relationship ought to be the only two people with the power to control the relationship that they’re in. Relationships can be *influenced* by other people, because everything is “influenced” by everything else. But where does the *control* lie? Who has the most control? If it’s not equally shared between the two people in that dyad, then it’s not ethical.
   
   Some people will try to give you a list of “rules”, such as safer sex rules, One Penis Policies, couple-centric attempts to “protect the primary” or “protect the existing relationship”. None of those are “standard”, they’re just common newbie attempts at managing emotions. The more experienced people who practice some kind of ethical non-monogamy tend to know better and tend to structure their relationships based on a foundation of ethics as I’ve started laying out above, rather than a list of rules dictating behaviour to make people “behave” in a relationship.

“The people in a relationship are more important than the relationship” and “don’t treat people as things” are the most important axioms in building ethical relationships. From these two principles, the other ethical standards follow - respecting people’s agency, relating with consent, be honest, empower your partners, treat all of your relationships ethically not just the one that started first, etc.

If we could make this the standard of *all* relationships, instead of seeing it as a fringe standard for a subgroup of relationship types, I think we’d have a whole lot more healthy and happy relationship partners than we do. Monogamous relationships benefit greatly from following standards like these, and polyamorous (and other ethical non-monogamous) relationships can’t be done without them.

But they’re really not specific to just being involved with multiple people. That’s why they’re *ethical* standards, not open relationship standards. But if you want your open relationships to be ethical, then follow the ethical standards.