What is the right action of the larger community when relationship dramas can destabilize and threaten an entire social network?\u00a0 — a very wise friend<\/p>\n
Pepper Spray.<\/p>\n
Well, okay, no you can’t do that.\u00a0 But hold that thought a minute.<\/p>\n
If you’re polyamorous and are lucky enough to have a social network in your city, chances are it’s pretty small.\u00a0 Even in the largest city, people who openly identify as poly are relatively rare.\u00a0 Being poly, there’s probably going to be interlocking relationships, dating and what have you.\u00a0 People, being people, are gonna fall in love, stay together and have great relationships, break up, be loyal, backstab, gossip, refuse to misbehave — all of it.\u00a0 The one thing you can count on people to do is to behave<\/strong> like people.<\/p>\n This means sometimes there will be Relationship Drama that might splash on your local community.<\/p>\n How do you handle it?<\/p>\n This is gonna be how you<\/em> handle it, ’cause I doubt like hell many people would choose my <\/em>method.\u00a0 I go away until it blows over because, well, I’m a recluse.\u00a0 Being at home alone with my knitting or writing is fun<\/em>.\u00a0 Going to a party that makes me feel like I am back in high school isn’t fun at all.\u00a0 To me, it’s an easy choice.\u00a0 It’s prying my ass out<\/em> of the house that’s difficult, even to see people I like<\/em>.<\/p>\n But, allow the person who sits in the corner watching everyone play Telephone to make a few observations.<\/p>\n Okay, I am going to have to break it to you: Relationships are not always forever and sometimes breakups hurt a whole bunch. If you’re not up for that, for heaven’s sake learn how to be before you start getting heavily involved in a poly community. Emotions can run high. Can you behave yourself when emotions run high?\u00a0 Relationships aren’t politics and they aren’t a war.\u00a0 You don’t need soldiers, minions or yes-men agreeing how wonderful you are when you’re in the throes of an emotional crisis.\u00a0 What you need is to steady and stabilize yourself.<\/p>\n It’s the stabilizing part that’s the important thing.\u00a0 Keep in mind that it’s never a war.\u00a0 People broke up and emotions are running high.\u00a0 Don’t try to be a hero, and keep any righteous indignation out of it.<\/p>\n Families, churches, and whatnot all have their own versions of interlocking loyalties and relationships blowing up a social structure. It happens. The question is: What do you want to contribute to? Do you want to contribute to growth, or do you want to contribute to drawmuh?<\/p>\n Even though it’s not unique to polyamory, wouldn’t it be cool if polyamory could set the example for Community in general?\u00a0 Imagine how much it would rock if you<\/em> were a contributing factor to the polyamorous setting the example for how to handle the pain of relationships within breakups!<\/p>\n If you don’t wanna see an ex, don’t go to parties where that ex is gonna be. Throw your own parties. You’re not obligated to hang out with a former love if it’s painful. Really.\u00a0\u00a0 I know you want your old social circle as well as not seeing your ex.\u00a0 Friend, it sucks, you might have to make a choice.<\/p>\n On the other hand, if what you want is vindication about how right you are and how horrible your ex is, get a grip and grow the hell up.\u00a0 We all have exes that we think are a waste of good protein.\u00a0 You don’t need outside confirmation here.\u00a0\u00a0 You know the truth.\u00a0 Get on with your life and your Evil Ex dig his own hole.\u00a0 If he’s not being ostracized as your sense of justice prefers, get the hell over it and move on.<\/p>\n If you fancy yourself a “community leader”, it’s still not your job to make sure that your widdle flock wipes their noses properly. Don’t go running from feuding party to feuding party trying to make everyone behave. It only makes things worse.\u00a0 You’re participating in and feeding some nonsense.\u00a0 Step back, disengage and encourage other people not to be personally involved in things that are Not Their Problem.\u00a0 You can’t make it all better.\u00a0 You can set a good example.<\/p>\n On a not-polyamory, not-misanthropic note:\u00a0 Gifts to food pantries around the nation are down as people are being hard-hit. <\/em>If you have some spare cash, try to make sure that you keep up with your donations.\u00a0\u00a0 For those of us lucky enough that the box of pasta or can of green beans is still a relatively trivial expense, remember that it’s not for everyone.\u00a0 Thing is, don’t stop at the holidays.\u00a0 People get just as hungry in January.\u00a0 Be a credit to your kink and give if you can.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What is the right action of the larger community when relationship dramas can destabilize and threaten an entire social network?\u00a0 — a very wise friend Pepper Spray. Well, okay, no you can’t do that.\u00a0 But hold that thought a minute. If you’re polyamorous and are lucky enough to have a social network in your city,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-polyamory-community"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1161,"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247\/revisions\/1161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}You knew the job was dangerous when you took it.<\/h2>\n
This isn’t actually unique to polyamory.<\/h2>\n
Even if it isn’t unique to polyamory, polyamory is only for grown-ups.\u00a0 So grow up.<\/h2>\n
You’re not responsible for making other people behave.<\/h2>\n