Me and Polyamory

It's amazing how a lover can point something out to you that you've been avoiding even if you didn't realize you had been. So for a long time now (about a year or two) I've been thinking about Polyamory and how it relates to me. For the longest time I've been saying that it's not my thing and that I couldn't handle it. After some things said to me in a conversation I was in Saturday and talking to her last night I realized I've been running from the idea for a while. "Honey, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but you're poly" That one sentence put a lot of things in perspective. As some of my friends know I've been talking about poly for a while now and asking questions wondering what I'm missing about the whole thing trying to understand. If I'm honest with myself I was really hoping for some simple answer. To be fair, there is no such thing. The main reason she said that to me is that:

1.) I currently have three lovers that I get together with on occasion two of whom are poly themselves and one who is ok with me having other relationships.
2.) With the exceptions of a few times I've not actually been monogamous(the women I have been monogamous with are still in my fb friend's list though)
3.) As much as I would say I couldn't handle it, as long as I was aware of it upfront I actually have had no problems with it.

Honestly, she wasn't the first person to have ever suggested that to me over the last couple of years but she is the first to make me realize what I had been doing. I can't put my finger on the reasons why I've been trying to run from the idea of poly. Maybe it's because of sociaty, maybe it's because I tend to be stubborn, or it could even be that I've always had an idea in my head of what relationship I'd have and that does not fit. Then again (and this is the real reason) it could be all three. You know it's amazing how easy it is to lie to yourself. I guess it's because of all the people we know in life the one person we want to trust more than anyone is ourselves. Of course that's the one person we shouldn't trust.

One of the hurdles I've always claimed I had was jealousy, if I'm honest with myself in reality it's envy. Admittedly it is a thin line between the two, but there it is. I've always been envious of my friends who seem so happy in their relationships and I've wanted that happiness for myself for a long time. I've always tried to tell myself that I was going to find one person that would be everything to me as far as a relationship goes and in all honesty that is pretty much impossible. No one person can be everything to someone. As one or two people I've been involved with in the past have told me, there is no way anyone can actually live up to that sort of pressure. Hell, I can't even live up to that sort of pressure. I've come to realize that it is impossible for me to be someone's everything as I've come to realize, I don't want to be. The thought that it was what I wanted goes back to believing that that's what I was supposed to want. While I do believe that I can find true love I also realize that a.) I fall in love rather easily, b.) I'm ok with someone I'm with having other partners as long as they are upfront about it, and c.) I've got to stop confusing jealousy with envy.

Now while I'm able to admit this to myself(and I guess the world now) I'm not going to just start trying to form a relationship with any and every woman I can. I'm not ready for that at all. However, when I am ready to start dating or looking for a relationship again I'll be honest about this upfront. Both with myself and a potential partner. Does this mean I'm going to look for more than one partner when I start dating again; no, but I also won't be so closed off to the possibility of being involved with more than one person.

I realize this seems like a big backpedal or contradiction after one of the posts I made a couple of months back but looking back I realize I was ok with it then and I just used it as an excuse for not feeling as strong as I thought I should have felt.

As I said at the beginning of this post, it's amazing how a lover can make you realize something about yourself you didn't want to admit before. It's funny how admitting this has made me feel a lot better about my relationship past as well as be a bit less stressed about my relationship future. Alright, well I'm off to bed as I'm getting sleepy. All of this introspection is tiring after all.