love and loyalty outside monogamy
I love you, guys! I didn’t expect such a warm response to this topic. If you don't know what I am talking about, it's this first part about polyamory that I wrote the other day. But its great reception means I owe you the second part, so let’s begin.
Polyamory. Part 2
After the divorce, I went through multiple stages of accepting my new self. My body was different. My mind was different, too. One of the first things I did after moving to my own apartment was quitting porn. Went complete cold turkey. As a result, masturbation reduced to the point that I started questioning if I am doing more damage to my body than not.
Because of that, one interesting thing happened. My brain recalibrated its expectations of sex, and the levels of “normality” went back to its original, intended by nature baseline. Suddenly, women became more attractive. Black, Asian, Arab, Hispanic, flat breasts, big breasts, small butts, big butts, hair, no hair — all of that stopped making any difference. In addition, I started questioning my sexuality as well — what if I am interested in men too? After all, does butt play imply enjoying dicks? And if so, who am I to blame?
I started going on dates. My first date was gender-fluid, leaning more towards identifying as a boy. She and I — or should I rather say he and I — had an instant connection. After drinks and snacks, we wound up in my apartment. Not a week before could I imagine myself in this situation — in a company of a person whose gender I am still confused to name correctly, having a fucking amazing sex. They — for fuck’s sake, I can finally use this pronounce in the intended way, to make me seem less like an ignorant douchebag — were pretty, although not exactly my type. They were a little bigger than I would normally prefer. A little weirder. And a little more boy. They were very attractive nonetheless. After that evening, we saw each other for another month before things finally fizzled out. I closed this chapter with one obvious conclusion — fuck the normality. Fuck standards and fuck expectations. I am not attracted to anyone in particular. I am attracted to people.
I went on more dates. Some great, some ordinary, and some plain boring. Around the same time, I did a lot of reflection on my marriage. In my mind, I would go through our past conflicts, deconstructing each other’s behavior step by step. Why did I react in a certain way? Why did she say what she said? It slowly started to come together — I simply didn’t see things the same way as she saw them. Cheating, while still considered a serious relationship offense, now didn’t have to lead to a breakup. What if she (or I) made a mistake? What if I got drunk and couldn’t quite control myself for an instant? In the end, even if I had feelings for this other person, it wouldn’t make me love my main partner less. Or would it? And likewise, if she met someone else, I would have preferred to know what it was that she liked about this other guy. Was it at the expense of my own flaws or simply because she had an instant crush, without it turning into anything more serious?
Relationships gained a whole new level of complexity to me. Instead of black and white, I saw black, white, and a vast space of gray in between. Was that binary hierarchy mine to begin with? Or was it meticulously constructed by my friends and parents, distilled through the environment in which I grew up? I had more questions than answers, but I needed to move on with life.
This brings me to last year, when I met J.
This is part 2 out of many. Found it interesting? Read the next part here.