That was the best sex/meal/evening I ever had!
Ever said anything like that? Ever said anything like that to a lover what wasn’t included in on said activity? What kind of reaction did you get? Maybe none. Maybe one that wasn’t so nice. For any human being that ever has the slightest bit of insecurity (and to be honest, I’m hard put to think of someone who has none at all), sometimes there is a little “Am I really good enough?” going on in the back of their minds.
People like to feel special and unique. Fortunately, they are, which is really cool. But it means that comparisons can be pretty insensitive and unproductive, possibly even a little untruthful. It’s best to avoid them. While I wouldn’t encourage untruthfulness, it might do you good in your relationships to decide if comparison really is going to be the most loving thing to do.
This isn’t to say you need to pretend you didn’t have a great meal or a really good time, either. Truthfulness is good. You can say, “I had a wonderful evening,” and be truthful without making an implied negative comparison about someone that, in theory, you love.
Part of the fun of poly, I think, is that you can appreciate a partner for exactly the person they are without feeling the need to compare or worry about the whole, “trading up” thing. People are unique. Each and every relationship is unique because relationships are made up of those unique people. Celebrate that. It really is part of the fun of being poly.
I’ve had lovers that were extraordinarily well-hung and liked the whole pounding you to the mattress thing, I’ve had lovers that were super hot to look at, lovers that were fantastic at cunnilingus, lovers who were amazingly sensitive about catching cues, lovers who were into some really delightfully kinky stuff, lovers whose idea of a good time was junk food and movie, lovers whose idea of a good time was a political debate, lovers who wanted to go out and party until you dropped, lovers who enjoyed a combination of all that…
Each person is a unique human being, and enjoying that time for exactly what it is without making the comparisons is probably the loving way to go.
Comparisons will surely happen if what you’re in love with is specific personality traits that a person has, rather than a holistic picture of the person.
I think some people are mainly into a narrow set of personality traits that “push their love buttons”. For such people, comparisons are inevitable because they’re always looking for the strongest button-push they can get, and all the other personality traits a lover may have barely show up on their radar.
At the other end of the spectrum would be people who don’t really have any specific preferences regarding personality traits (I’m talking about personality traits as distinct from character traits, btw). They’d be interested in each lover for totally different reasons.
Probably most people are somewhere in the middle, having preferences that “push their buttons” but also appreciating the other details that make each person unique.
And perhaps there are some people for whom it’s that very uniqueness in each person that pushes their buttons.
Completely unrelated to this post:
Things you might like to know.
I very recently discovered Google Reader. I have subscribed to three comics and lolcats. I’m still new.
Google Reader makes recommendations.
Today, you were the feed Google Reader recommended to me. ~grin~ Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to grab a screenshot.
But I thought you might like to know. Google’s got yoru back. 🙂
If you’re using Google as your newsreader, all you have to do is scroll down to the very bottom of this page and click on Entries (RSS) and it’ll add The Polyamorous Misanthrope to your feeds.
I notice you have an LJ, so you can also get it through the polymisanthrope feed.