The poly test, and how to fail it

The Poly Test.

There is something I love to call the poly test. It is not an official category, just something I invented for all the folks out there who're unsure whether they are poly.

So when explaining the reasoning behind polyamory or open relationship, the first subject that will usually be touched is the one of multiple romantic interests: It is kinda pointless to give polyamory a thought when somebody just doesn't feel like he or she can love more than one person at a time. The mechanics of jealousy also change for most of the people that feel their partner could have sex with, but not love, another individual outside the couple. So loving more or just fucking more is also a relevant question.

Anyway, you're there talking about loving many and a certain comment often pops up, that goes something like “Oh, I've felt that. Maybe I'm poly”. This is my cue to enounce the poly test in its one-phrase-on-the-back-of-a-cereal-box form:
"Anybody can love many, not everybody can share."

If 'sharing' is the right term (you would need to own something in order to share it) I won't go into that here, this phrase just sort of illustrated the point quickly. It is my belief that pretty much everybody alive has the capacity to deeply love and care for more than one individual at the same time, and that it's a monogamous effort (constant or sporadic) the one that prevents such feelings from developing. This however does not mean that a person can effectively deal with knowing the love of his life has similar feelings for others. This is where the sharing comes in, even if just sharing one's own presence in the loved one's mind.

Be it that possession is possible or merely a reassuring illusion, the possibility to allow the loved one to love somebody else is where polyamory is really at, because it makes consensus happen and honesty possible. To be polyamorous, you must confess, and they must agree.

So how can you tell if you've got the grit?

Well, the test can be materialized in many ways. In truth any moment of knowing the other exists for your partner, another love, another interest, is a moment of reckoning, for it is the moment in which the mental comparisons begin and the sensation of risk appears. The risk of being less in any way. Hell just to think of it kinda gives your a hint already of the real deal, what it would be like.

“I'm interested in soembody”, “I have another boyfriend”, etc etc, she's met somebody, an old girlfriend has come back into town for him. And of course much more complicated places and scenarios are possible: meeting the person, going out together. All things that may have beneficial consequences for the relationship or make you go completely out of your poly head.

Each level has it's benefits to reduce the impact and allay your fears, or indeed increase them and worsen them exponentially. For most poly's, I hear, the initial levels of contact are enough for things to be neither too close and intimate, nor so impersonal that too much space is given to imagination to fill with ghosts and monsters. Finding the right spot for you to take the poly test is thus essential to getting good things out of it.

But I'm not gonna talk about the right balance. I'll tell you how to fail the poly test spectacularly.

How to fail it. 

 

Newflash: B is actually a cat. I mean, she does look and talk like a beautiful young woman but inside she's just a cat, she even meows. This is why from now on other ways to reffer to B will include all kinds of cat sustantives: Cat, kitty, pussy. Ok perhaps that last one will be reserved to other subjects...

When I showed up, B (the cat) was already in a relationship with M and with L. When i came into town I caused quite a rumble for L found in me a great reason for fear and doubt. His jealousy sparked fast and hard and a small crisis ensued. This actually reassured me of my worth inside the relationship, of my fitness to face what the others were offering. The marketing mentality was probably the first mistake I made, and I knew it was a big mistake to make, but at the same time, knowing I was the hot new stuff was too alluring and felt too good to not take that pill.

In the meantime, the poly test were many. Just developing strong feeling for B was already a poly test of sorts, since I already knew there was other people in the relationship and I was already being measured up and compared, even if unconsciously. I already knew the other boyfriends in person, so that test too had been passed a priori, it was kinda like homeschooling and then facing the class and exams mid-year, no mysteries or surprises. Watching them kiss, or cuddle, all this I faced like a true master in the matter, and being the favorite, there was a constant complimenting of my abilities and me in general. I had nothing to fear and as such I was too self-assured to doubt.

But time passed and you're the new kid only until a new guy comes along (or girl, alas). And my relationship with B moved on not without big fights that put all fireworks to rest for a while. I was brought down from the pedestal, and Lu got kicked out of B's heart, and then readmitted. He had changed and things were not gonna be the same with him anymore, possibly for the better. Although he was not a new face, my mistrust for how he had been kicked out the previous time was never gonna go away, and as such his presence irked me.

So then came the inevitable, I am even surprised it didn't happen before. A poly meeting in the Italian capital of polyamory, Bologna. The House of Poly greeted us with arms open and beds made, and as soon as the general, public meeting was over, we readied ourselves to stay over. According to the diagram things were kinda clear-cut: the master bedroom was used by fond enemies of ours Mr. Curl and Mrs. Hänchen (there are no enmities in the poly community, just people we love to hate), the couch that lay in the dining room would be used by L and M to have their loving wiles, a small bedroom built behind the kitchen (the House of Poly holds many wonders) would host a new addition to the group, a girl that goes by the name of Almond. Fair and cute she is, by the way, though with a tireless mouth that has a life of its own. And in another section of the house, separated by a door and some stairs, the studio was to be our bedroom, where I would hold the kitten (B) in her sleep.

Yes well, that was the plan, at least. We also went out. On bikes, nothing less, and to the disco! We danced all night, me and the kitten, along our host and master of the House of Polyamory, Emerald, and some other poly additions, who would stay over at Emerald's own apartment outside town.

Once we were all done blazing on the dance floor, we were given a lift back to the Poly House. As we walked in, however, a plot unfolded: M was asleep on our bed. Not in, tucked and cozy, but sitting on it, apparently waiting for us (or death, or destiny). And the gasping moaning that came from across the house could only mean Almond was getting better acquainted with our frenemies, a story on which I won't abound.

Almond and I had gotten close as well, we were talking much of late and when I met her, several encounters before, I was struck both by her beauty and her charming goofiness. So Kitten, seeing that M had been waiting for us, had to talk with him extensively. They needed to talk. A small crisis had erupted between L and M and the kitten had to smooth it out. It was then that Almond showed up.
Having apparently finished her job over at the Curl/Hänchen, she wanted to know what we were up to. Specially if it was sexual. I was indeed in the mood for love, but the evening had spun so magically around the cat, with the cycling around Bologna and the dancing (cats hate to dance and this one in particular). We were tipsy and tired and I just wanted to hold her in my arms and kiss the entirety of her skin.

In this scheme, Almond could not be allowed. But I didn't tell her right away, I just didn't find the strength. The kitten wanted to take some time to talk with L and M over at the dining room and in the meantime, I might as well caress Almond's fair and soft skin, to then gently excuse myself for not being able to go further, as the evening belonged, in my mind, to the cat. B said, “I'll be right back”, and went off with M to save the world of polyamory.

Then the unimmaginable happened. As I stroked Almond's hair and ran my nails on the shriveling skin of her naked back, I heard moans. Moaning I could have recognized anywhere and in any circumstance. Cat's moaning. Apparently the frail emotional need that had lured the cat away had just grown a hard-on.

I was shaken. I was waiting for the kitty, not certainly in bad company or without distraction, but still I waited. Instead she now moaned loudly and I knew that her pleasure was poignantly strong and that it was going to last long. Because M lasts for hours. I froze. I began finding it hard to think, my heart aching. Jealousy. I boiled with jealousy. Tipsy, tired, horny, the cold chill of jealousy poured on me with the cat's every loud moan of pleasure. I couldn't handle it, I had to escape it. Escape it at all costs.

“You need to leave, Almond” I said, my voice cold. She didn't understand. She asked if this had anything to do with her previous visit of our frenemies. “No, I'm sorry. It has nothing to do with them, it's me. You need to leave.” She began putting her shirt back on, “Uhm... quickly?” she asked somewhat tense. The tenderness of her apprehension soothed me. “No, I'm sorry, take your time.” She dressed up and hopped off the bed. As soon as she was out of sight, I realized I had to solve my problem as quickly as possible. I had to leave the house. The kitten's moaning could not be quelled with a door or wall, she's a loud one.

To my misfortune, however, I was in a dire position. The studio happens to be on a mezzanine 3 meters above the ground. The easy way to get off of it and onto the exit door is quite simply to take the stairs. But the moaning of the kitten were so clear I feared they were closer than expected. That they came from the bathroom, perhaps, which I'd inevitably have a peek into if I climbed down the stairs. The horror of such a vision chilled my blood, as I already sustained the pain of the moaning with unease. No, the stairs were not an option. A second mezzanine was built right next to the exit, a meter from the one I stood on. Jumping on it left only the problem of a one and a half meter high jump to the floor. I got dressed for a cold night, jumped to the second mezzanine, then tried to slide down from it by stepping on two chairs which lay beneath, one turned upside down on top of the other.

One broken chair later, I exited the House of Polyamory.

The night was dark and the air freezing, I began shivering after a few steps. “I just failed the poly test” I told myself as I quickly paced away from the house, to produce heat but also to escape cleanly. I had left the cellphone behind, the last thing that I wanted was somebody calling me “Where are you, are you out of your mind?” sinking me deeper into my shame. The frenemies would know and scorn “So he went nuts and jumped down mezzanines to leave the house, can you believe that, how quaint!”

I hoped the cat wouldn't notice I left. I hoped they wouldn't notice anything at all, I hoped I could be all by myself for at least an hour. Well, that's about what I had, I told myself, for M wasn't gonna be done in at least an hour. The pain refreshed. The jealousy. I began crying. The sense of failure, the sense of entrapment. The unwanted resentment against M. Against myself.

I walked for about a mile. I went to the fringes of the city, which lay close by. Alone in the empty brightly lit streets, I spoke loudly to myself. Scolding, interrogating. I tried to put my thoughts in order, to clean my heart of remorse, to calm down. To quell jealousy. To quell jealousy, to kill it. To allow myself to understand why I hurt so badly, what made me need the cat so much. Need her mine. Need her at my disposition that very evening. To have her for myself, instead of somebody else. What fed my sense of possession, what made me feel so dispossessed, so crossed.

It was the romantic expectation. Monogamic in a sense, perhaps. The perfect evening, the perfect night. They do not include other people, there is no metamour when you turn off the candles on the table of the dinner for two. I though this was a night for us, when they were right there. They were supposed to have their own thing going on, M and L, but they were still there, and were entitled to change their mind at any given time. And so they did, and I just didn't get the fax. Nobody warned me.

“I gotta get back,” I told myself at last “if the kitten realizes I'm not there and have left the cellphone behind, she'll go completely berserk.” Few minutes later, I walked back into the Poly House. In a wink of fate, they were not done, but were finishing up. I had to hear her moan little more, before it was all over.

I got back into bed and as the kitten came back up the stairs of the mezzanine into the studio to sleep with me, she didn't notice anything odd. She excused herself for taking so long. I couldn't hold back. I thought it would be best to wait until the next day to talk things out calmly, but tired as I still was, and very emotional, I began telling her I had just walked in from the freezing cold of the Bolognese night.

Lack of communication, misunderstandings, biting more than you can chew. That's how you ensure a spectacular failure of the poly test.

I'm Léunar and I'll be taking that exam again soon enough.
Happy poly testing.

J.E.S.U.S.

I like J, I'm not gonna lie about it. I mean, I'm lying to her about it almost every day: whatever it takes to keep her mono head at ease. But I'm attracted to her, all the more now that we've become closer and that we're supposed to spend all of this time together. But hell, she's one serious mono demographic, she's the kinda girl that really needs to have things clear in her mind in a completely unobtrusive way. No ambiguities, no shades of gray. We're friends or we're not, we like each other or we don't, no attraction, or it cannot be, it's the law of friendship! So I lie, and I've always been good at it and I'll even say I'm amused by it, I get a kick out of it. But it does make me laugh sometimes, the sheer ridiculousness of every little scene put together. I mean, I'm just into her, it doesn't really mean anything in real life. She'ld freak out to know so, but it's not like she's in any danger. I do like her lips and would like to approach her mouth and kiss her, but I wont. And perhaps feel her up, and yes, fantasize about it every now and then, but this is what life is all about, fantasies and fantasizing. And this doesn't mean that I'll pick a moment or other to take advantage of her, or that I'll spot her vulnerabilities or get her drunk at a party to later take her home and confess all passionate love with a hand that undoes her bra in the back. Firstly because it's not something she wants. And secondly, because I don't passionately love her, I'm just into her and friends should be able to deal with that.

E is a different kind of woman, she's older, wiser. What really drives me nuts about her is that she's all experienced and stuff. Hell knows if this is real experience, but she's got that air to her, of a woman who's been around the block a few times and can tell you stories. Not old, just in the know, and not even all that powerful or imposing, if anything I often find her shy and indecisive. But perhaps hard to impress and with beautiful disillusioned eyes, like she expects nothing from you and is just trying to have some fun before she dies. Sharp, and dark somehow, like she won't take your shit. I like that in her, just short of demanding or princessy. But you stop being a princess with age, it seems. You either grow into fully obnoxious queen or quit the act. She just seems fair to me.

S is among the strangest I've ever encountered, she's beautiful alright, but she has a background that makes little sense. She's a second generation hippie, but she's not unapologetic or fiercely independent, she has a bit of both, a bit of everything: jealous of her own space but in need of care and company, devoid of jealousy in relationships but possessive, clear-headed but feral. Contradictory. I don't like contradiction for it's own sake and as such I'm not sure I'll like S for much longer, but she has mixed all of the above with a hectic lifestyle where she's never available, so it might be a while before I actually realize I'm not longer interested in her.

I was just in Toronto for a short vacation. It's like being in the States but not, it's nicer somehow. And yet, in the bottom, it's kinda the same. I must however say that there are several things that I did not expect to see and learn and I was quite surprised by them. People there is really big on cultural differences and you'll hear a lot about white people and their privileges. I guess this makes sense given the clear and 'recent' invasion of white colonialists, whereas if you wanted to state who's the rightful owner and privileged oppressor of the territory comprised by the Italic Peninsula you'd have to review an eternity of occupations, colonies and massacres. What most interested me about the multicultural issue is how at some point in time (probably thousands of years ago, if ever), the cultural group in power (won't call it white people since russians and east-europeans are probably not feeling all that privileged) stopped teaching empathy and began teaching tolerance. Empathy is not only anti-hegemonic, it's completely anti-capitalistic. It requires the investment of time and effort into something that will generate diversity while at the same time strengthening the bonds of a society, creating solidarity and even kindness. All of which are horrific prospects for a society built upon hierarchic differences and a vertical structure of power. Tolerance, instead, solves the problem. It means not understanding anything about the immigrant other, but simply not complaining about his or her existence. Thus all groups representing other cultures can be exploited productively while at the same time keeping a peaceful environment where business can thrive. White Canadians are not just tolerant, they're also empathic, more so than most white americans. The model is still however, that of empathy.
Something completely different that stroke me about 'white people' is how they're picky. They love their personal space, and it's amazing that for the same cultural group that invented and celebrates sex positivity and polyamory, being touched by somebody else can be so discomforting or having somebody else too close can happen so easily. The opposites that meet in them are so far appart from one another, openness to all romantic and sexual encounters and closedness to all non-romantic and non-sexual human contact. They are so weird, white people.

I'm léu and this has been a vacation reentry account.
Merry working polymers to you all!

The labyrinth of despair

I know we suck as a Live TV, i apologize. I told you some time ago i had had a fight with Bea and then i was already having another one before actually saying I had survived the first one. Well, things have been hot as hell ever since, and it’s not just the summer.
Our problems didn’t actually stop, or they did but only to resurface.
Underneath, however, certain things, unbeknownst to the lot of us, were actually coming together, certain forces were accumulating, going somewhere, and gaining momentum. In other words, I saw a series of fights come one after the other, with me as the center of hatred, and figured they were independent form each other and wouldn’t mean anything in the long run. That problems were being addressed as they surfaced and sooner or later, we’ld kinda have gone through most of them and that we would then stop fighting. But as fights stopped with me, they began somewhere else, with L. And I just thought it was part of the same dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s process, that issues that came to light with me could also lead to useful discussion and
friction elsewhere. All beneficial and constructive.
I was wrong. As me and B stopped fighting, L and B began a fight that opened up before them like the majestic gates of an ancient labyrinth—shit that had to come from Greece or Mycenæ. And as they walked in, I thought I saw a confident gaze in their eyes, even optimistic. Only later did it dawn on us that only one of them would make it out.
I don't believe this to be something that happens exclusively with B and L in this specific context. I realize as i write, that every time we enter a fight with one of the partners we are actually walking into this kind of maze. A labyrinth of despair, complex and daunting, where there are in fact many ways to escape alone but very few to walk out together. And still, the objective is to escape, like in any other labyrinth. It is merely our obsession with what we've had and would never want to lose what makes us irreverent towards the labyrinth itself. Disrespectful before its ancient walls. Like any labyrinth, it has much to teach us, and like all labyrinths, it pits us against ourselves. And we're tough foes.
When defeated, the labrynth quickly lets go of us, but whatever we shared with our partner when entering its dark tunnels is no more.
Small quarrels are probably not comparable to the scenario of near apocalypse that i here portray, and indeed not all minor disagreement will show us the end of the world. But every now and then, and perhaps unexpectedly so, the gates of the labyrinth reveal themselves and we are not forced but compelled to enter.
When B and L entered the labyrinth they did not do so unknowingly. Perhaps they suspected... but they couldn't know for sure. I do believe they could feel the blood of the fallen reeking from under their steps and they knew this was a place where one comes to change. So it comes to mind that maybe that's what they wanted. They wanted to change, or not stop changing, they wanted to follow the flow of what they had, and called relationship. When this flow became a waterfall, there was nothing they could have done.
War broke out.
Now, for good or for bad, I don’t speak to M much. It’s not something I do Intentionally, I’m just not good at bonding with males and M is a quiet kinda dude, so of course he doesn’t make it any easier for me. Anyway, our mutually confortable silence has only been broken once, as M asked me if I wanted help to get things back on their feet with B, during the first fight. This war was not another exception. We didn't talk to each other at all. Not once, not one word. I figure we were both too busy feeling horrified with the display of bloodshed we were witnessing. Either way, I didn't like it how we abandoned each other. We didn't have any business talking it out, perhaps. But I couldn't help but wonder if this could not be done better by actually picking up the phone and giving each other a distress call (Over a flashy red lit-up 80's telephone, if you want).
Or maybe this conflict, this war, was something we had to stay out of, it was not our quarrel to quell.
But of course we were there anyway, we could hear them fighting next door, though in a distorted and childish kind of way, like your parents yelling in the next room, where the specifics escape you and all you get are the occasional “all your fault”.
Nobody will ever know what happened. The first diplomatic incident, kind of like for the Second World War, was a proxy incident. B was not feeling in the mood for sex, but Venice was all romantic and such, and we had some conservative fun. Then B told L and M she didn’t want to have anything to do with sex anymore, and then I told L and M the kinky Venice story.
L called foul arguing a double standard, B said she hadn’t exactly meant a few things she had said. Or she had but not in the way L had understood them. The rest was one misunderstanding after another. A carnival, a whole World Fair of mutual incomprehension. In conversations with us (for I know M had the same job I did at the time: HQ adviser) they
said all kindsa contradictory stuff. They contradicted not only each other in what had been said and suggested, but also themselves. In a matter of a week none of them were making sense anymore, and the more upset they got, the less precisely they could put together an argument.
So they panicked. They were so pissed off at each other that panic is the only thing I could describe things as. Few days later, all diplomats were called in, and the war had ended. Everybody lost, ties were severed, all messaging pigeons to be seen flying anywhere the no trespassing zone would be shot at upon sight. It was a nightmare. And not because they were all stressed up and shit, but because WE had to put up with their shit.
And... well the story of this conflict sort of extends itself like a Star WArs Saga (books included), so suffice it to say, that the axis did realign.
B and L are no more. B and M are still around and so are M and L. B and me are having potato chips as we speak, and L and me just put the italian polyamorous website in third place on the Google ranking.
Uhm... everybody is full of questions. Nobody's asking them, but I know whoever is not 30cm under sand somewhere in the coasts of Sardinia is asking themselves a thing or two. How are L and M gonna meet now, when B is part of the house's cats army? And what about me and L are we still gonna be bff's? oh and, why should we care about yet another Spider Man movie, that's just like the previous one?

All this and more, we ask, but while answers escape us, we can only set the kettle, and brew fresh love flavoured iced tea.
Post-apocalyptic polymers to everyone.
I'm Leu, and I'm still standing :p

What a tangled web we weave...

I don't think I have ever had to look into lies in such detail. What they are, what they mean. What is a lie, what counts as lying, where do you even draw the line?

Well, this is not relevant as a simple exercise of ontology but as a very practical problem I had with B. See, B has an issue with lies. Actually, saying it's just an issue is putting it mildly. Because the problem isn't lies per se, but abandonment. In her world, people just... leave. They disappear one jolly day, they're out the door saying they'll go pick up the paper, then four months go by without a sign of life and on the day of Christmas, they show up with some old-day hysterical ex, tons of denied guilt and no concept of self-worth. I guess the issue is not the part where you find out somebody you love is a nitwit, the part where you figure you could have spared yourself the trouble. The problem is it usually took a lot of trouble and anger and angst and pain to withstand all of this nitwits and she could have just spared herself the whole lot. B can't call it quits when she ought to and it's only when the mister Charmings of the world really fuck up that's she's forced to dump'em.

Back in the beginning (what, two months ago?) every now and then I felt like she'ld be looking at me through the corner of her eye and thinking, “Are you gonna leave too? Show me your hands, no tickets for Guadalajara anywhere?”

Leaving is not properly my style, I always prefer breaking up. I'm hinduist about this, shut down the life support, kill the fucker, life yields to death, which yields to new life. There is not point, I argue, in pumping blood into a decaying corpse: if the relationship is not working all that well and we're running out of ideas, pull the plug for christ's sake, put us out of our misery. We'll call it a day and go home to rest. Only this way, may we meet again at some Copacabana beach resort ten years from now and pick up where we left off over pina coladas.

But B, she got dumped in masterfully imbecile ways and all of them included a great deal of information retention. Meaning they were not lying, they just weren't mentioning that the cab was waiting outside. Now this is a tricky one in it's own right: information retention... also known simply as secrets. You know what they say, not saying is not lying. Well, B. doesn't go for that, if you oughta know then somebody oughta tell ya and whoever doesn't is hiding information that is relevant to you, that's freaking vital and without which you can't chose chocolate from vanilla.

She somehow managed to find well over an army of lying mothers. I can't even say they were all straight-out mitomanous schizo's, they just didn't know themselves all that well and what was true one day wasn't true anymore the next. That's how she got abandoned a few times over and that's how she grew up to be the paranoid freak of nature she is now-a-days, [grin] so I don't wonder how come, I'm just deciding if I can abide.

I'm not a lier. But I can lie. Fuck, I'm really good at lying. And I can't help but noticing that I say this with a certain pride, and perhaps I do, but not because I feel like I'm on top of my game. I simply think there is no point in expecting the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth out of somebody. And I don't.

Now I should probably mention that the Quad includes L (hey, it's no secret). He's a radical honest, a person who, according to the wikipedia, believes all stress in peoples' lives comes from lying. He thus embodies a philosophy according to which the best way of answering the question “Do I look fat in this?” is “Yup”. The idea is both simple and charming: no lies, no white lies and no retention of information, no secrets. Ever for any reason. Needless to say, L and B got it on like a house on fire. Never could he possibly even conceive mischief without immediately telling B everything, and she's found the Discount Store of Reassurance in this.

Well, I wasn't very good at playing ball and we had a fight, B and me. Yes, we did survive, but the fight was about lies and secrets. I didn't lie, I withheld information. Information I decided was none of B's or anybody else's business, you know, that thing people call personal stuff. She did not agree, though then again, in her mind, there is nothing on this earth that is none of that cat's business.

Well, I, for once, have another good use  for lies. Of course I could go all Freudian about this and mention that the unconscious can never be entirely confessed, nor should such thing be attempted, for you would risk facing the tabooic horrors. The fact that you'ld gladly fuck your own mother, for once, and so on.

But no, although I very seldom lie, I have a better reason for secrets, which is partly freudian, partly just what I think: I think lies and secrets feed intimacy. They are the very essence of it.

Intimacy is that thing that happens when nobody else is part of something that only you or you and somebody else is a part of. Intimate problems are the problems you don't tell anybody out of shame. Well, let's imagine we put shame out of the way. Let's pretend it doesn't exist. By doing so, we could theoretically be open to everybody about everything, we could simply open up completely about everything we are and everything there is inside us. Let's imagine we do so as well, we walk naked through the streets and tell everybody the truth about everything. No secrets, no lies.

Intimacy has thus been virtually annihilated, it cannot exist where there are no secrets. Sharing something intimate with somebody, somehow means that such a thing will be unique for both of you, regardless of whether it's sexual or anything at all for that matter. But uniqueness is not enough, the very way you look at the girl sitting next to you at the bus cannot in anyway be repeated identically, yet it's not intimate just because it will never happen again in the same way. Prehaps if you 'make it' unique, giving it that weight of uniqueness inside your mind. But again, every memory you have is in fact, unique, and still this does not make it intimate. Intimate must somehow appertain to the unspeakable self. The veiled one. And intimacy cannot be shared but with a person with an intimate self. Intimacy could, apparently, not be established with a radical honest, for he has no veiled self, no hidden impenetrable intimate. He or she has no limits, so indeed it's a mystery whether such a person even has an inside and an outside. In theory, radical honests couldn't even tell the difference between themselves and the rest of the people, for the flux of information, of memories and knowledge, which is basically what we're made of, is not contained in any way.

I love establishing intimacy and am quick at it wherever allowed. But it is unmistakably intimacy, for it exist behind a veil that can, perhaps, promptly or eagerly be confessed. But it will be confessed, I won't just talk about it, I will utter it in a certain silence, the one used for secrets revealed. With whom I want to, and as for the rest, these secrets I will protect with silence. And where needed, with cunning lies.

My name is Léu, and you didn't hear it from me.

Happy polymers!

Don't fight the inner poly

First fights are always memorable, and they're also very revealing. They're as telling as your first kiss or your first fuck. People is completely diverse at fighting and curtains won't always match the tapestry. Some people who's calm will come at you yelling with fists in the air, while some who're really loud will merely give you a sullen look and a deadly silence. Some people will fight to the last man while some will be willing to negotiate from the very beginning (my heart goes out to the latter, of course). Partners should always ask themselves first and foremost what the point is, what they're meaning to defend and what they're willing to forgo:

• I just can't believe you would do that!
• I'm sorry, I didn't know it bothered you so much, I'll never do it again.
• Oh... ok, and well, if you cold stop doing this other thingie...
• No way, are you nutts? Fuck you for asking me such a thing!

So what happens when poly people fight? Well, poly people will fight just like normal people, i guess, they will go to war or just have a few jabs at each other, or take hostages and what not, the issue isn't so much the one-on-one. This meaning that if you relate with your partner but don't relate to his or her partners, you'll have yourself a pretty lame show (and this is good, don't get me wrong).

When they're a network, however, a triad or a quad... Oh that's a whole different game. When you're in active relationship with any of the other partners, when you either relate with them amiably, or you're even involved with them in some way, that'll multiply the complexity of the affair exponentialy.

So, this is of course not about network relationship's fights in general, it's merely about what it's like to fight with B. Now, just like two weeks ago I couldn't have been able to conceive myself in the middle of a poly relationship (and a network one at that), just one week ago, I could have never imagined myself actually fighting with B. Well, it was dumb to assume it was impossible, I just didn't exactly know how it could play out. Like with many other things about her, it's been a bit surprising.

Let me say that this event is brought to you Live by the Association of Love Flavoured Ice Tea. Where there's love, there's Ice Tea. This show is sponsored by Talk to your partner and Make-up sex Condoms: When it's time to stop fighting, it's time to start the revolution. Back to the ongoing fight between Léu and B.

The actual reason of our fight, my dear readers, is none of your damn business. Or spelled differently, I'll write about that later. Suffice it to say that the fight is happening in the worst scenario imaginable, with B on vacations with L. That's right, she's on a romantic trip and I had the touch to put in a quarrel just in the middle of everything—hate me for eternity, people, for I have no heart whatsoever. Furthermore, they're in fucking Paris. I know that if I had a single fan left, that was the door closing shut after him.

The second interesting aspect to this fight is of course the consequences of all this: Poor to no communication, impossibility of presence unless I took an airplane right now (it's not lack of romanticism, I've thought about it), trying to fix it over the Internet, shitty Skype, and of course, my two beloved partners being able to think of a quadrillion better things to do in Paris than fighting with me!

And here's where the poly really kicks in. A poly fight when you're in a triad or more, is kinda like fighting with your girlfriend when you live at a students house. Before you know it, best-friends-forever will be knocking at your door, and they mean business. They say they wanna help and they do, but it's not only your best interests they keep at heart but your parnter's and theirs as well, a torn house affects them as much as it will affect you and your partner. You will have to include them, for they are technically already neck-deep.

You negotiate. It's a mini United Nations model, I give you back the territories taken during the war of 73' but i gotta show my voters something, so what have you got? I talk to L, he talks to B, B talks to M, M comes to me, “what's it gonna be?” I consult with L who's walking with B along the Champs-Élisées. And B, she's keeping me in the cold, dark waiting room, I can't have a meeting with her, a chat, link, phone call or otherwise, we haven't spoken even to actually quarrel verbally, like mankind has ever since the day insults were invented.

Just for the record, I don't like to fight. I think it's pointless, stressing and not even that much fun (thought this depends on who you fight with). I would like to leave it all behind as soon as possible, but B's taking her time and I must give it to her, time and space kinda being what this fight is all about, and I must preach with my example.

Weather I'm getting floored or not, I really can't tell: Poly fights more than any other should end up in civil discussions, mutual agreements and joyful polymers. Whether I'll actually get to talk to B before the second coming of the Christ—and whether that will solve anything at all—is still to be seen.

I'm Léu and I miss her like hell,

Feisty Polymeres to you too!

Hey, new guy...

So you wake up and it's all happening.

At the beginning you fail to realize at all, you have the impression you're just getting together with this cute and crazy chick of waist-long hair and no sense of fashion. And who wouldn't? She spills high-brow hip jargon like a broken coffee vendor machine: polyamory, compersion, NRE, non-monogamy, radical honesty, ethical sluttery, threesomes and quads, butterflies and unicorns.

You're all pumped up, need I say more? Your eyes open wide like you're watching a trailer of paradise. Coming this summer: Heaven. "This girl puts the awe in awesome", you think, "she's on fire like an Iraqi oil field during the Gulf War!"

And perhaps it couldn't come at a better time. You've been poly for a while, or so you say. Some five years using the funny word and at least another five trying to do something that was equivalent. “Ready? I was born ready!” But let's be down to earth here: in a decade of dreams, have you learned anything from trying, other than how to fail and survive failure?

Are you really ready, hot shot?

You're gonna get a run for your money, that much I can tell you right now. Your girlfriend, if you can call her that, she follows this blog that's called “Everything begins to make sense”. At the beginning that's you ten times over, “Hell yeah, this is what I'm talking about!” But by the time you hit the first weeks in, this phrase really starts ringing a bell inside your head. Everything begins to make sense. No. No, it's quite the opposite. As a matter of fact, it's the perfect opposite: Everything is stopping to make sense, nothing is making sense anymore.

Reality is decomposing before your eyes.

You feel like a conscript sent to 'Nam. Few months of confined boot camp and then one day they thrown into the Asian jungle just so you can discover the text book was a hundred years old way before you picked it up. Nothing looks like in the exercises, nothing feels like in training. It is all horrifyingly new.

You're not prepared for this, you never were. If you do well, you had it in you, 'cus whatever this is, 'You ain't never seen shit like this before'.

You couldn't blame yourself either, it's just called being mono. You were monogamic 'til yesterday, face it. You were keeping up monogamic relationships because you 'had to', thinking “one day I'm gonna take me a poly girl and poly will be my new name”. But so far you've only been saying that on Facebook. You know you can be attracted to other women while being very in love with one woman and you think that's as poly as it gets. But that's just mono. Loving any amount of women, different among them, and having mixed and diverse feelings for them, all exceeding friendship, while at the same time being happily in love and in a stable relationship with one woman you 'had to get together with' reluctantly, is still just what every other monogamic person on the planet can do and often does. Many monogamists will deny this, but they do so to reassure themselves about the impossibility of such identical feelings popping up in their partners' hearts, which would threaten the relationship and themselves. The truth of the matter is, however, that everybody can love many. Not everybody can share.

But you know this, don't you, cowboy? You've read the manual, you know how it works. “No panic,” you tell yourself, “it's all cool”.

Then you look into her eyes and you realize that if done right, this could be the biggest thing you've ever put together, the brightest star in your night sky. And if you don't, you won't have anybody to blame but yourself. There will be no evil ex coming back from the grave to snatch you away, no better looking, bigger-cocked stud to make her think twice about you, and no passive-aggressive fits of jealousy to gut the relationship either. Hell this is not even about her, about losing or keeping 'amazing her'. That's why the people that fail at poly don't just call it a day and go home. They go fucking postal, and they go postal because that sad little trembling figure in the center of the stage... is you. If you fail, it will be one of your biggest failures ever. Ever! And if that doesn't make your stomach turn, then just take another look at her, her deep eyes and soft skin, her wide smile and cat-like demeanor, and you'll be dashing for the toilet in panic.

You fuck this one up, and it'll haunt you. But hey, at least you couldn't say I didn't warn you.

I'm Léu, and I'm the new guy,
happy polymers.