GGG- What it means to me.

[MJontheMend]

Wait, didn't you tell us you were "naturally monogamous" and wouldn't have any fun at all with multiple boyfriends? Or was that someone else?

Well, I did say that and I do think it is true in a way but something has to give. I experienced mild anxiety when I was dating multiple men (even though I wasn't having sex with any of them)but I've been thinking about it and I think a lot of it was either option paralysis or subconscious primitive fear that somebody was going to get angry at me for doing something "bad". Also, I do think it is true that I can only be "in love" with one man at a time so generally my sex drive chemicals link up with my "in love" chemicals and cause me to be sexually monogamous. However, that isn't always the case. I have been strongly sexually attracted to men with whom I haven't felt "in love" (my rich young Republican f*ck-buddy who looked like Cary Grant comes to mind) and I have felt "in love" with men to whom I never would have been sexually attracted otherwise (my overweight, sloppy, vague/nerdy 50-something year old Physics professor in college comes to mind.)

Anyways, sexual attraction can be fleeting as can feelings of being "in love". Of course, as we all know or have learned, there are ways to revive or keep these feelings active or at least cycling in a LTR. Now, if we define "love" as a verb that means to treat somebody in a loving manner, it is clear that we can all be loving or reasonably expect to be treated in a loving manner consistently in a relationship even though we can't expect to always feel "in love" or demand that our partners feel that way towards us. Here's the twist. Generally, people define "commitment" as "long-term monogamy". People who choose to engage in a polyamorous lifestyle simply break-up the concepts of "long-term" and "monogamy". Commitment is defined as something like "the desire to grow old in somebody's company" and "monogamy" is discarded. So, for instance, in theory, you could lovingly co-parent and reside with one partner for 30 years, have warm and affectionate sex with another partner for 5 years and have a hot, torrid affair with a third partner while on vacation in Italy.

Of course, the potential problem with such arrangements is the natural human tendency towards jealousy or possessiveness in relationships. So, one would have to practice feeling compersion rather than jealousy. It seems to me that differentiation and compersion are actually related concepts. However, I do wonder if it is possible to experience passion and compersion simultaneously. Of course, passion means "suffering" so if you want to be happy you are probably better off with compersion.