{"id":605,"date":"2012-01-04T13:53:03","date_gmt":"2012-01-04T18:53:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/?p=605"},"modified":"2012-01-04T13:53:03","modified_gmt":"2012-01-04T18:53:03","slug":"wheres-the-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/2012\/01\/04\/wheres-the-love\/","title":{"rendered":"Where’s the Love?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have a fundamental flaw that is of course so embedded in my personality, that I cannot recognize it. Maybe you can help.<\/p>\n

I fall in love with plain, vanilla women for about a year, sometimes less sometimes much longer. At the end, I find myself searching for someone who is as un-vanilla as I can find. I break up with my vanilla love and then join my kinky friend. Only to long for the love I gave up.<\/p>\n

Everyone ends up getting hurt. Yet the pattern repeats. Like the story of falling into the pothole. I would like to not even walk down that street.<\/p>\n

I think maybe I am poly and am unable to reach some kind of self-code of action. Is there some kind of test or description that fits poly. And yes, this is my shit and I do own it. But I sure as hell would like to get rid of it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The first question I’d ask is, “Where’s the love<\/em>?” No seriously. \u00a0 I’m not talking about sexual hots here. \u00a0Not to run it down (’cause it’s awesome<\/strong>), but I tend to be a bit unromantic when it comes to actual love. \u00a0“I’m gonna dump you for the kinky when vanilla gets too much” doesn’t taste much like love to me. \u00a0<\/em>Yes, yes, it’s not your intention<\/em>\u00a0to do such a thing, but you’ve a pattern of doing it, and that does speak of an underlying issue. \u00a0Think about what love is to you. \u00a0If it’s primarily driven by a perception of emotion, you may be calling something love that isn’t love. \u00a0 It’s an easy mistake to make. \u00a0I think most of us do, especially with the One True Love message we get from books, movies, television, songs, you name it.<\/p>\n

Now, to give you the benefit of the doubt, it is possible that your sexual desires and what you do best with in a living day to day situation has some differences. \u00a0That’s not too terribly unusual, and plenty of poly people live with it. \u00a0 However, if you don’t tend to enjoy vanilla sex, for pity’s sake, don’t date vanilla chicks! \u00a0There’s not much that’ll trump good partner selection when it comes to any relationship style — poly or otherwise.<\/p>\n

Now, maybe you like kinky and<\/em> vanilla. \u00a0Plenty do. \u00a0And poly is a good way to deal with that if you have a partner who is all one way or the other. \u00a0While I’m not a behavioral expert, I expect it’s not as binary as all that.<\/p>\n

Another thing you might want to think about: \u00a0Just because you have the hots for someone doesn’t mean you have<\/em>\u00a0to have a relationship with them. \u00a0That ties into the good partner selection thing. \u00a0For example, if you are into someone, but don’t want<\/em> an LDR, you don’t date someone on the opposite coast no matter how into them you are or how wonderful they<\/em> are. \u00a0Since this four paragraph letter is really all I have to go on, I’m making a leap here in trying any sort of diagnosis, but it does seem that it’s possible that you think if you have the hots for someone who is interested in you, that you have<\/em>\u00a0to have a relationship with that person.<\/p>\n

You don’t.<\/p>\n

I know everything from The Princess Bride on down will tell you that’s the way True Love works. \u00a0It’s also a big ole steamin’ pile of nonsense.<\/p>\n

As to the question about whether or not you are poly? \u00a0 I have no idea, but I do have one question to ask you: \u00a0How do you feel about your partner also being free to have other loves (even ones the same sex as you, if you’re mostly hetero). \u00a0If you’re not okay with that? \u00a0I don’t think poly would work out well for you in the long run. \u00a0And before I get a flood of people defending the One Penis (or Vagina) Policy in relationships, I stick to finding inequitable relationships distasteful. It’s one thing when the dice fall that way. \u00a0It can happen. \u00a0It’s entirely another when there’s a rule<\/strong> about it, and 99.99% of the time, it’s about someone not wanting to confront their own feelings of jealousy or insecurity.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have a fundamental flaw that is of course so embedded in my personality, that I cannot recognize it. Maybe you can help. I fall in love with plain, vanilla women for about a year, sometimes less sometimes much longer. At the end, I find myself searching for someone who is as un-vanilla as I…<\/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":[2,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ask-the-misanthrope","category-love"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605","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=605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/polyamorousmisanthrope.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}