About seven or eight years ago, I was unemployed over a summer. Well, not so much unemployed as I was looking for “Real Jobs” through a temp agency and being what’s now called Virtual Assistant[1] intermittently, and cleaning up the code on websites for clients. This left me time to kibbitz with my then-wife in OLQ’s office, work on the PolyFamilies site and noodle around on polyamory discussion groups.
I forget off the top of my head exactly what sort of idiocy was going on at the time. Whatever it was, it was redundant even though I’d not spent even a decade on polyamory forum. In a fit of frustration, I shouted, “Goddammit, I’m starting a column on PolyFamilies called, ‘You’re all fucking idiots!’”
The Goddess of Giggle didn’t stop typing on what she was doing, but just asked, “So, when is your period due?”
“Sunday, why?” I snapped before I mentally switched gears. “Okay, but even so, it’d be a great title for a column.”
The rest of OLQ really didn’t agree with the idea of You’re All Fucking Idiots as a title for a column. I suppose they thought it wouldn’t scan or some such. But I never really let go of the idea.
When I finally did launch a biweekly column, I called it The Polyamorous Misanthrope. It was a nod to a writer I both admire and am terrified of. Her name is Florence King, and she lives in my hometown of Fredericksburg, VA. She used to do a column for the National Review called The Misanthrope’s Corner. Pistol? Yep, that lady is something else.
But in the spirit of the column title I hold in my heart, I want to reiterate that the Polyamorous Misanthrope is dedicated to the idea that you can be polyamorous, make good choices for your life and not let being poly mean you’re cutting a swath of chaos and destruction into the world around you. Being “in love” is not an excuse for being a jerk, you have no business sacrificing the care of your kids to NRE and you can live consciously and build the good life that you want with the people you choose to have in your life.
Far too often, people do use being in love as an excuse for terrible behavior. What I’d love to see is the polyamorous community setting an example to the world for what good relationships and conscious lives can look like. Many do, and you know what?
You’re not fucking idiots. You’re awesome. Thank you.
[1] Back at the beginning of the century, I think it was still called desktop publishing or “Typing and formatting documents out of your living room.”
Fantastic.
*applause*