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.

Operational Distance

Just sharing a little something I learned for myself...


Me and B work perfectly with each other when we talk and can touch us... so many things are unspoken, yet understood and I can show my love in many ways... but when we are separated by long distance, we fail to communicate equally well.

You might encounter this yourself if you hold relationships with people over long distance... being in person is always greatly different then being in person... I have people I enjoy greatly online, exchanging jokes, wisdom and advise, yet are nearly unbearable in person... so it goes both ways.

Ready for POLYDAYS!

Lately I've been trying to blog, but i found myself stuck.

I have zillions of drafts dated before Pleistocene that should be corrected and published, or at least i should translate the older posts. I'd really like you guys to know how I spent Carnival with Thomas, or how're my studies going, or tell you about my new “crushes”, but for a reason or the other, i always end up delaying.

So I ended up accumulating a huge backlog of posts, and I don't know if or when I'll be able to publish everything. It's the story of my life: I've never been able to deliver my drawings in time at the high school, except for when I stayed up untill late the night before.

I' m not even able to respect the bottom lines i set up for myself, and I'm always late at dates. It's a reality, unfortunately...

Not only blog posts, but even important decisions will be delayed untill september.

Now I just want to enjoy my holidays with Moreno, just like i enjoyed my brief trip to Bavaria last week. I'll blog about it too, sooner or later...

I want to spend time with the people I love, without planning things too much.

After september exam session, I'll be able to take a breath and relax a bit, but I'll also have to decide what to do with my poly-life: what to keep and what to “throw away” of these last months, how to behave with some people I like, and how to protect ourselves from our detractors (and we're starting to have a lot of them... so it means we're doing an excellent job!).

I'm actually dating 6 persons in total, be them lovers, friends with benefits, or life-long partners. And it's a very big number for me. I'm not sure i can dedicate the right amount of time/energy to everyone, and I don't want this people to be unhappy. But I also don't want my lovelife to take time and energies from other aspects of my life.

Love should add energies to our lives, not take them away!

There's also another person i'm starting to like, but for now everything is just so vague!

I don't know if I'm liked back and if I'm strong enough to accept a refusal, and even if i was, I don't know if I'll be able to give enough to this person, be it as friend, lover, partner or wathever. I don't even know what their expectation could be on “us”.

But we're getting to know each other for now, and it feels good.

I'm sure the future will tell us the answers we need.

Considering how am I “special” at socializing, it's already a miracle that I'm able to actually *talk* to someone I like, so everything else is coming will be more than welcome!

I want to reassure our readers: if you don't hear from us, it means that our life satisfies us and it's full of interesting things that distract us from blogging, so we're happy!

In these months we've been through wonderful moments and others more problematic ones, and now we can finally take a relieving sigh.

We've had to cope with some unpleasant people, people that, unsatisfied of their own lives, were trying to make us feel unfit, just as much as they are.

But obviously their attempts failed miserably, and we know now that what makes us strong, besides the fact that we're so united, os our will to never compromise about whart we are.

We always try to be ourselves, no matter if we'll be judged for that.

I've found myself feeling compassion instead of hate for that people that judge us and that clearly fear people's judgement.

They keep lying, they keep trying to look like what their listener mostly likes, but in the end nobody really knows them, nodoby trust them, no one can love them or get close to them.

To shield themeselves from society, they lose themselves. They're not individuals anymore. They can look good, even polite and nice to others or well-educated, but in the end they're just empty shells.

I keep having the feeling that certain people put themselves in a cage, and i can't do anything to help them open their eyes. All i can do is hear their silent scream coming from deep within.

So I've decided to stop thinking of them too much, and I want to take care of people that love me as I am instead.

That's all for now, enjoy your Polydays, I surely will!! :*

b

T talks Sex

Sex, making love, fucking, doing it...

We all have slightly different understandings of the word, different emotions connected to it and different understandings of what it means... Sure technically, we all know it means that the sex(es) touch, but emotional different feelings are attached.

Take the time and ask your (potential) partner(s) "What does sex mean to you?"

We are lucky in our poly-something, that we are all very different sexually, yet not so much unlike each other. Some of us like men, some of us are into kinky things, some of us are into other kinky things. Because we have such different ways of "doing it", I for one don't feel jealous, because I know my way of expressing my love is special and one of a kind.

I can't speak for the others, but I'll elaborate my own view of sexuality.

Sex is something intimate and personal, something I could not do with someone I do not like as a person. I've turned down the "drunk, sloppy and slutty" sex more than once, because I cling to my strange view of morals and emotions... I wouldn't enjoy it.

Sex is in the head (no, not like that, pervert). Your brain is by far the most sensitive sexual organ. If you’re going only by physical pleasure, hell, I would be far more effective if you just Do It Yourself. I personally enjoy playing with the mind as much as the body... mentally training someone, for example (always use the same gesture or word when you allow them to orgasm or do something nice, soon that word will also trigger the response) or playing with your fantasy (tell your partner in very fine detail everything you will do to them, talk about how you will enjoy it... and then let them beg for it).

I also reflect all the pleasure of my partner onto myself... as I am not very sensitive, it is rare for me to ever orgasm before or more than my partner, but even if I don't reach the physical highpoint, I am far more satisfied than I would have been achieving dozens of orgasms on my own. When I look down at a partner who is nearly passed out, smiling and panting, I am proud and joyful, both for her and myself.

To achieve that kind of joy in sex, communication is key. We all make mistakes (if a man says he doesn't - run, run and don't look back, girls!), but we can learn from them. I tend to talk about it, after the scene is over, go into detail about what you enjoyed, asking what kind of grip feels best, what she would like more off...

Talking about sex is hard. Even if you just did it, had that moment... for a girl to say "I want you to pull my hair and fuck me like a ****", it takes a lot of trust and intimacy to admit your kinks, but also keep the respect for each other. The fear of losing your partner’s respect when you admit your kinks most likely keeps many girls in doubt if they should admit their desires... the same obviously applies to many men.

Maybe you think that your partner has no hidden desires... Maybe it is true, but I for one know many people who have those desires, especially the kind of "wait till marriage" Christian girls (here I go using clichés), who are very kinky, even shockingly so, but also plagued by guilt... which arouses them even more in their kink. Everyone acts shocked about sex in public, even though they all did worse in their own private time, right?

Sadly, as being poly, you have to face the fact that everyone thinks you did it for the (awesome) sex or some kink thing. It is rare that we have -more-than-two-somes- and no, we don't have any more sex than the average monogamous couple. We most likely have a harder time, since there is no cheating and you need to take the time to explain your relationship to the other person, to inform your other partners and talk about it in detail... and honestly, nearly everyone that even hears pol--- *jumps out the window*.

The typical responses are "I'd be too jealous" from women and those who take the time to actually listen to me explaining that everyone is jealous, but jealousy is based on insecurities and you actually deal with it. Then they continue with "It's just not for me.". It is their choice and I respect that.

Didn't even get the chance to go into detail about the D/s or M/s side of our relationship yet, but that’s something to look forward to, right?

Dedicated to my beloved pet.

Exposure...

In terms of exposure and being able to "show off", relationships and sex go hand in hand, don't they? Sex just has a added layer of intimacy:


~With friends: "I sure love my girlfriend"
~with close friends: "And the sex is amazing!"


Maybe it happens for the same reasons... being able to share your joy with others, makes it even better... maybe it enhances your status, maybe it helps your self esteem, maybe your just comparing dick size? Regardless, it is joyful...


However, if you plan to be poly (or have really naughty sex) you have to be careful... very few people will act shocked or question you more, some even not react at all and then gossip about you. I personally think that nearly each person has done more "kinky" things in the bedroom than they pretend to be shocked about in public.


Just keep in mind that not everyone will be able to just share your happiness, many people have the need to judge critically... it is natural and, in my opinion, okay. You can dismiss something as unfit for yourself, for your own person. However, only in rare cases should one judge for others.


I and my partner(s) have choosen to expose ourself and face that critic, infact I do get many weird looks and questions (So you don't take it in the butt? No, I don't!). You have to know for yourself - and discuss with your partners, if your willing to expose yourself like this.

Emotional Outsourcing

To make poly work you need so many diverse emotional skills... you need to be able to put yourself into the mind of others, you need to both be emotionally attuned to your surroundings, but also keep a cold, clear head and think logical, you need to be sensitive, but also have a solid skin...

I doubt any single person has all the skills it needs to understand, know and deal with the many issues of any relationship and partner(s). BUT you are afterall, not alone. Humanity didn't become the dominate kind because we all can do everything, no, we know how to cooperate, to use the skills of those with talent for a goal...


Why not do the same in a relationship?


I personally, rather recently, got stuck - emotionally, logically maybe, about a certain situation and I was unable to see anything but my own viewpoint and only reinforced it. Poor me, life is so horrible and everyone is unfair. B however - once I started to listen - shared her insight, the completly different viewpoint, highlighted with the skills and feelings she has... I am more of a cold thinker, logical to the core, emotionally crippled and distanced... I can tell her when she falls in love with the wrong kind of person... but she can could see me better then I could see myself.

By respecting her words and understanding that she understands things in a different and maybe more accurate way, I found the strength to say "Sorry", a word so hard to say that I'd rather salt my own eyeball.

You are not alone, accept the insight of your partner(s)

Rules

One of our readers wrote in, asking b for some advice, I will be talking about a part of her message:


"....I was wondering if you guys have any rules in your poly relationship to prevent hurt feelings, or feelings of anyone feeling left out or not included..."




As my previous entry maybe made clear... feelings will get hurt, boundaries will be found and extended and things might happen that you could never have planned for. But you can prepare, right?


The first part would be communication, communication and more communication. Something I recently said to bea was the following "Never assume anything". Cultures, mindsets and feelings are all different... women, men, Europeans and Asians, coffee drinkers and book readers, shade lovers and snowmen makers, we are all many things and not one of us is like the other. Even if you love a person for many years, even if you think you know what they think, respect them by talking with them and still asking for what they think.


My grandparents have been married and living with each other for over 60 years now. They still surprise each other! It is so easy to assume you know, so much more easy to think you know that your partner would agree or feel like that and then just go on, instead of seeking to talk about every detail, but you should...


When starting or adding, have a long talk with the new person and ensure that person also has an open talk with your possible other partners or share what you desire to share about your history and who is still important to you. This is one of the big mistakes we stumbled into when getting started... I was unaware there were non-active partners and loved ones, which was quite the shock when it came up.


Start at the very basic. Tell each other who you love in this world, who is important to you and what expectations you have. Really go as far as saying:
"So this is what I think polyamory means and that is in detail what it means for us."


I recommend really going though a "pretend" partnership, both for your new partner and yourself "What if I meet a person in a coffee shop that I like. Can I kiss/flirt with them there, without having to tell them I am poly? Without having to ask for your permission? What if more happens?"


Have your partner describe what he or she thinks about the way either of you can find and engage with others, if it all and how you will manage each other's problems and the conflicts that might be created while living with each other.


Me and b had a long talk about rules... we concluded to stay without, as they don't solve or remove the insecurities that create the desire for such, but I personally would recommend a starting couple to have that talk as well "If we had rules, which ones would it be?" or maybe even set some rules, they give a good framework, a starting point.


With enough communication, love and effort, your relationship can work trhough every problem, all the obstacles you will face on your adventure, and make your bounds even stronger.


Going from my own experience, here are some topics that should be discussed in detail, where you should make clear how important it is to you and what expectations you have.


-What is our relationship, our commitment to each other and our long term ideas?
-How much do we publicly expose this relationship? (Friends, Facebook, Community?)
-In detail, when and for what do you NEED to inform me and what things should only happen with my consent?
-Do we have primary and secondary partners and what the hell does that even mean?
-Finding and suggesting ways to deal with any issues, emotionally (jealousy), physically (no sex due to illness for example) and financially.
-Commiting to openly talking about your feelings, wants and needs.