River
Active member
If someone is aromantic, I don't see how that person could possibly be polyamorous. Sure, someone who for whatever reason isn't into romantic love could have several sex partners or several domestic partners, but that person would not be polyamorous. Having multiple FWBs (or whatever you want to call those blurry line sexual friendships) isn't polyamory in my mind - it's just being single and uncommitted. Polyamory infers romantic love. It doesn't include love of all kinds, otherwise almost every single person in the world is polyamorous because almost every single person in the world openly loves more than one person.
This seems basically right to me. My only quibble might be the word "romantic," a word with many contending definitions -- and which some folks would prefer not to use.
For this reason, I think it would be nearly (or entirely?) impossible to write out a definition of the word polyamory which would fully satisfy everyone who would call themselves polyamorous.
By most definitions I've seen of "romantic love," I'm not convinced that the term would any longer apply to me, even. In my ideal world, I'd be free to form deeply loving, long term committed relationships with multiple persons ... in which an erotic element might be present. From the outside, these may look "romantic," but I'm not so sure I'm so much inclined toward--or vulnerable to--limerence any longer. That was a thing for my youth, I suppose.
Romantic love, as it is generally understood, seems to involve a lot of limerence -- at least for the first while. And limerence seems to involve a lot of what now seem to me to be highly unrealistic projections and expectations upon a person. This sets up the "lover" for an eventual letdown, or bubble bursting.
Real love is less dependent on a sort of temporary chemical high than limerence. Its a smoother and gentler high which comes with occasional lows ... and a lot of okayness.
EDIT:
I just had the thought that love without limerence can be just as pleasurable as the juicy moments in limerence, but it's a much softer burn or glow. Its gentler, calmer, steadier ... but just as lovely. Probably moreso. There are not a lot of pyrotechnics in it. It's like half a glass of wine rather than two or three bottles.
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