Painful possibilities - Polyamory

I'm going to preface this entire blog with: For those of you who either don't know, or are going to gasp in abject horror now? Skip the lectures, the sanctimonious glaring, or the judgments. If you don't know what "polyamory" is, go check it out. If the entire idea here freaks you out completely? Just stop reading now, and pretend you didn't see any of it, and go on about your business.

For me, *this link* is going to be the more helpful piece of information, and the one I'll be referring back to, while I'm writing. So I'm still walking along the path of 'what if' and possibilities. Practical and impractical conclusions, and the random things that dart around in my brain during the day and more often in the middle of the night, when I can't sleep, and can't make the spinning stop.

Which leads me, once again, to here. I can see how this world is appealing, especially as it's the path I've traveled before and was reasonably happy there. When I was younger, without understanding exactly what I was doing, I now grasp that what I was, and how I behaved, was polyamorous. And I was happy. The way I love, how I love, is based on being happy for myself, and a distinct lack of jealousy, because what I ultimately tend to want? Is to have the people I love the most, be happy. Something in me is hardwired in such a way as to be able to share, and look at my partner be happy, and as long as I'm also loved, I am still happy and content.

The trouble, right now, that I'm having with everything that's going on inside of me, inside my head, is that I'm single. And from what I grasp, what I understand, about me, about polyamory, about things in general, is that in the long run if I were to get involved with anyone right now that isn't also completely single in the way that I am?

Someone might get hurt. Several of my friends have been wounded recently, because people they care for, have found 'primary partners', and they've been left behind. And I sit, and I watch, and it leads me to give grave consideration now, to what it really means, to become entrenched into that world, as a single woman, being mixed in as a secondary partner. Yes, my feelings would be what they would be. That is true, on all levels. I have no doubt of that.

But I also know, that in some way, at some point, were I to meet, and develop feelings for someone who is 'single' in the technical sense? What would happen then? Would I also be left having to make a choice, to become part of a core relationship? And does that then put the same types of rules and restrictions on me, that are on some of the other already partnered people? I understand that to maintain your core relationship, your base loyalty is to that partner. That makes perfect sense to me. The core remains strong, to nurture, and you branch out from there.

Except, I have no core relationship. I am, and will continue to be, a secondary to anyone I become involved with. Which, for right now, is fine, and precisely what I want. But somewhere down the road, that might not be the case, and I don't like damaging people. I don't like seeing the pain in the eyes of people I care about, and knowing that I put that pain there. And in order to develop something more, something deeper, who ultimately would my loyalty be to?

I don't know. And I wish that I did know, because that would be easier for me. I can see both sides of the coin. Because of my ultimate views on marriage, I'm not in any fashion in a hurry to settle down.

I feel...conflicted. Confused, and twisted up inside. The easy solution here, would be to simply go, and continue dating in the monogamous world, except that isn't really an answer for me either. I tried that, and it backfired, and failed utterly. I was unhappy, and kept searching for something that wasn't there, and it's the emotional ties that I kept forming, that made me feel as though I was constantly cheating that tell me this choice is correct.

I seem to be going around and around in a circle. There's no easy answer for me, and not really anyone I can just sit down and say "please, give me the solution". I want there to be.

I want it to be easy. I wish I could be less complicated, and just fall in love, and want to get married and have babies, and do all the things that everyone always wanted me to do. But that isn't me. And now, here I am. Still confused, and alone, and not sure which way to turn, and which way to walk, or how to find my way.

And that hurts, and it's difficult.