It's a Texlahoma Story

This is interesting. I think that the whole question of societies expectations about who we call on to help when things go wrong is interesting.

I think I'm in a very good position work wise. I've had my job a long time and it's skilled enough that I'd be hard to replace.

My take is that if I think something is important enough to be spending my time on, then that's all that is important. I spent close to a decade being single and having no one dedicated support person. During that time I got and gave support as I felt appropriate and would not expect my employer to be questioning me or deciding for me what is important. I wouldn't dream of asking anybody I manage what relationship they have to somebody important to them either. That is up to them.

My work is enormously important to me. I love my job and it is a high priority in my life so I always make up time I take off and tend to be flexible about being available to deal with work related emergencies.

I've taken hours off in the middle of the working day before to go and help a close friend out with a sick dog. Sometimes I leave work early because I need to go and meet with organisations I volunteer with. I've had friends take time out of their working days to come and help me with emergencies I'm having.

This all seems pretty normal to me - but I'm not normal. I'm a total weirdo :D. Plus I have a life and job that allows me to be that way without any problem.

You are the normal, okay one. We all take on stuff from the society we are part of. Fitting in is important for all of us. You have no need to be ashamed of feeling like you need to fit in. It makes you human, not weak.

IP
 
InfinitePossibility said:
This is interesting. I think that the whole question of societies expectations about who we call on to help when things go wrong is interesting.
...

I've taken hours off in the middle of the working day before to go and help a close friend out with a sick dog. Sometimes I leave work early because I need to go and meet with organisations I volunteer with. I've had friends take time out of their working days to come and help me with emergencies I'm having.
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I *try* to do that stuff too... Although my work has strict licensing stuff about the ratio of adults to children in the buildings, so taking off on short notice isn't really an option.

Both Dag and Andy work for the kind of IT companies where you're technically supposed to go to an office every day, but work-from-wherever is an option if you need it. I do notice a big difference in how people use that with family vs non-family. Pretty much anything related to spouse/kids is just, I have my phone, don't schedule me for in-person stuff. (Even situations like my nanny is out sick and I need to stay home with the kids today.) Friend stuff, people tend to actually take official paid personal time. Why???

I think we're all just conditioned that way - that it's normal to need to do stuff for your immediate family, and work will get that, but beyond that you're asking too much.

We all take on stuff from the society we are part of. Fitting in is important for all of us. You have no need to be ashamed of feeling like you need to fit in. It makes you human, not weak.
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I do feel guilty about it, though... Like I'm contributing to something akin to bisexual erasure ... Non-traditional family erasure?

When Andy hurt his foot and ended up in the hospital for weeks a couple years ago, EVERYONE stepped up to help me. Not just with visiting Andy and such - I mean offers to walk my dogs, get groceries, shuttle relatives to and from the airport, on and on. And not just our friends. Colleagues of his I'd never met were calling me up to ask what they could do. Everyone realized I was busy with Andy AND had temporarily lost my helper person. It was wonderful, and much needed.

But. You know who was in the same boat as me? Stephanie. She was shuffling between her mom's hospital room and Andy's. Plus she had been relying on Andy to be her support system while her mom was sick, and now he was stuck with his foot in a weird contraption and doped up on pain meds. You know who noticed that Steph needed help? Nobody. (Not even me, although my husband was in surgery every other day, so I cut myself a little slack!) The wife got outpourings of support and offers of help... The friend-girl was expected to cope somehow on her own, if she occurred to anyone at all.

Situations like that do cause me some guilt. Not only because they happen, but because I ... Not take advantage of them, exactly, but don't object. I just take it as more evidence that marriage - or at least, official, known-to-all partnership - is incredibly important. I could challenge that norm, or do my part to change it, but instead I just reap the benefits.
 
GirlFromTexlahoma said:
I *try* to do that stuff too... Although my work has strict licensing stuff about the ratio of adults to children in the buildings, so taking off on short notice isn't really an option.
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Yep. It is harder for stuff where you have to be there. I work in IT too and I do need to be in the office to do my job - but out of a 7 hour working day, it isn't massively important which 7 hours I work or even if I do 7 hours on any given day. So long as it all balances out over time, it's fine.

Situations like that do cause me some guilt. Not only because they happen, but because I ... Not take advantage of them, exactly, but don't object. I just take it as more evidence that marriage - or at least, official, known-to-all partnership - is incredibly important. I could challenge that norm, or do my part to change it, but instead I just reap the benefits.
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I understand the guilt but I think it isn't something you should feel guilty about. You haven't set up those dynamics and even if you do benefit from them, it isn't something you have control over.

I also hate that the world works like that. I'm always lecturing people who refer to me as my partner's other half/better half. Or who ask where he is if I turn up at a social event. Or who think that inviting him is the same as inviting both of us.

IP
 
InfinitePossibility said:
I also hate that the world works like that. I'm always lecturing people who refer to me as my partner's other half/better half. Or who ask where he is if I turn up at a social event. Or who think that inviting him is the same as inviting both of us.
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Awww, I love that stuff. When people treat me and Andy like we're one person. In fact losing that is my number one big scary fear about poly.

I don't know why I need that exactly - something to do with belonging and fitting in, I'm sure. But I've always sought that out, always had a boyfriend, best friend, or group that I was with constantly. "Where's your other half?" and "Where are the rest of you?" are phrases I've heard all my life, referring to whoever my closest person/people were at the time. And those words always give me the warm fuzzies :eek:

It's weird that I worry poly could mess that up - isn't it just more people, more belonging? But I think our monogamy-centered culture assumes that romantic relationships aren't "real" if you're with more than one person. So I fear that Andy having other relationships could diminish my connection to him in others' eyes. Plus, there's the reality that we don't date together, so having other relationships means spending time apart, and making friends who associate us with our other partners, not each other.

I know Andy and Steph have a whole circle of friends who think of them as a pair. I'm ok with that... It's Stephanies's circle, not mine, and if Andy is her plus one, that's fine. But if people invited Andy and expected him to come alone or bring Steph as a date? That would crush me. I'd feel ... Forgotten. Erased. More than that, I'd feel like my love and bond with Andy had been forgotten and erased.

It bugs me that I place so much importance on crap like this, on the couple stuff. I want to be secure enough to not give a shit. Maybe someday.
 
GirlFromTexlahoma said:
It bugs me that I place so much importance on crap like this, on the couple stuff. I want to be secure enough to not give a shit. Maybe someday.
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It's really unusual not to give even a little shit about how you're perceived. The majority of cultures have relationship hierarchies with a pair at the top, even polygamy. The classic: mistress shunned from the funeral even though she probably was the closest person to the deceased. Polyamory is radical and it's amazing that the idea even exists, really. That you're married and each of you has a GF/BF is a heroically chosen way of life, every single day.
 
Today has been an all around cruddy day :(

Dag is stressed the fuck out over kid/school stuff ... Big school events this weekend and testing starts soon. Neither is easy with a special needs kid :cool: I haven't even gotten a single "miss you" or "love you" text today, just a bunch of panicky updates on the various situations. God that sounds whiny and selfish. But we had a marathon sex date last night - sex, food, sex, sleep, sex, tv, sex - and I tend to get clingy and needy when we have a night like that and then he goes home.

Plus I feel useless in general to him today. I try so hard but I feel like I have no clue how to support him with this stuff, not having kids myself. I mean, I have been through high stakes testing issues with dozens of client families, but I have no idea how it feels as a *parent* instead of a professional. Anything beyond listening and making sympathetic noises turns into open mouth, insert foot. Ugh.

Andy has the sads today because it's the anniversary of the day he proposed to his first fiancé. To be followed in a few days by the anniversary of the day she was killed by a drunk driver on her way to work. And he decided to go out to their old work place today to stroll down memory lane. Bad, bad idea.

Yet another situation where I feel awkward and unhelpful. YHP (fiancé) obviously predated me on his life, she'd been gone for years when I met him. So reminiscing is a Stephanie job. On the one hand, soooo glad he has her, and other friends who knew YHP, to lean on right now. On the other... Once again I feel like hugs snd sympathetic murmurs are all I can do. There's really not much difference between the support he's getting from me, and what he's getting from the dogs :rolleyes:

Also, Prince :(
 
I've been having weird thoughts the past couple of days. This thread about money and dating http://www.polyamory.com/forum/showthread.php?t=78600 totally threw me for a loop. I have such contradictory reactions to it.

I honestly had no idea that men paying for everything was still a thing, at all, under any circumstances. So my first reaction to reading women's comments that they are used to men paying for all their dates was shock.

Followed by, "Oh, they must be so pretty!" Followed by, "Fuck, I pay my own way, I must be a cave troll!" :cool: Weird, huh, but I can't quite get my head around some guys generally preferring to pay. No, it must be that all guys are willing to pay to be with a pretty/sexy/cool woman, but not an ordinary one like me. That's where my brain went. That if I were hotter, no one would ever let me pay for anything.

I get the idea of one person paying for more if they have more money, or the policy that whoever asks, pays. I understand that in a lot of relationships, you no longer have my money or your money, just our money (Andy and I handle money that way). But the idea that men pay for all the dates because they are men... :confused:

It just reeks of men buying women, somehow. Icky. I always offered to split checks on the first date, said "my turn!"on the second, and if I made it to a third date without a guy saying yes to either of those, I just snatched the damn check.

And yet. Even though one side of me rebels at the idea of men being expected to pay, because of what that implies about power and relationship dynamics... Even though I never wanted guys to pay for dates, and was annoyed when they did... another side of me is still downright envious of these ladies who never lift their wallets. Not because they're spending less money than me, but because of what it seems to imply about their status and desirability.

Then that sends me into a tailspin of self doubt, because nobody is paying for my company. I know it sounds crazy, I know I am completely and totally overreacting. But somehow my perception of my own value dropped when I realized other women are getting treated right and left, and I'm not.
 
GirlFromTexlahoma said:
Even though I never wanted guys to pay for dates, and was annoyed when they did... another side of me is still downright envious of these ladies who never lift their wallets. Not because they're spending less money than me, but because of what it seems to imply about their status and desirability.
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I'll tell you what you already know, ok? THAT'S NONSENSE! :)
First, I don't remember anyone else then KC saying they are invited, and she agreed she just doesn't have the money.
Second, if you are not so much against men inviting you, they will invite you a little more.
Third, if someone is invited all the time, there must be allways other reasons besides their atractivity, like imbalanced financial situation, or men showing off because the money really doesn't matter to them.
Fourth, you have two great guys who desire you :)
 
It's also an age thing. I'm in my mid-50s, and I'm used to men picking up the check. When I date men who are around my age or older, they are usually quite established (last year, I went out on dates with a CEO, a CTO, an antiques dealer, and someone who sits on the board of a large organization), and they would have none of it if I offered to pay for my dinner.

I also mourn the days when, if I am out at a bar, a guy who wanted to meet me would send a drink over. I would do the same thing if there was someone I would like to meet. No one even knows what a turned-over shot glass means anymore.
 
Thanks, Tinwen. I know I'm being dumb about it ... It's just one of those things I *know* is irrational but can't quite let go :eek: Part of it is just being surprised and needing a little time to work it into my brain.

My only dating experience as a single woman was college - I was broke, so we're the guys, and group activities were the norm anyway. Dinner dates were a special occasion-only type of deal. By the time Andy was making real money, we were into joint checking territory.

nycindie said:
When I date men who are around my age or older, they are usually quite established (last year, I went out on dates with a CEO, a CTO, an antiques dealer, and someone who sits on the board of a large organization), and they would have none of it if I offered to pay for my dinner.
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It's weird but the more money the guy made, the less comfortable I was with him paying the whole bill, even once or twice. I think because Andy and my non-monogamous guy friends complained so much about the wannabe "sugar babies" who are all over so many dating sites. I didn't know Dag's income when we first met, obviously, but I knew he had a job title on par with Andy's and was well into the sugar baby target market. So I was nervous about looking like I was just dating him for free booze and shopping trips.

Actually, the whole sugar baby thing may be coloring my outlook on this... The way that men (especially married ones, who maybe can't offer the relationship escalator) trade money for a girlfriend. But only a pretty, young, sexy girlfriend. I'm simultaneously grossed out by that system and hurt that I don't "make the cut".

No one even knows what a turned-over shot glass means anymore.
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Including me! What does it mean???
 
GirlFromTexlahoma said:
. . . Andy and my non-monogamous guy friends complained so much about the wannabe "sugar babies" who are all over so many dating sites.
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Most of the time, I date men whom I've met in real life and we clicked somehow. It's been over a year since I went out with anyone from OKC (and since then I've shut down my profile). I don't do Tinder or any other online way to meet guys for dating.

GirlFromTexlahoma said:
Actually, the whole sugar baby thing may be coloring my outlook on this... The way that men (especially married ones, who maybe can't offer the relationship escalator) trade money for a girlfriend. But only a pretty, young, sexy girlfriend. I'm simultaneously grossed out by that system and hurt that I don't "make the cut".
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Yeah, that system sucks and I wouldn't make the cut either. I'm attractive and can give off a sexy vibe but I'm also middle-aged, overweight, and far from fashionable.


GirlFromTexlahoma said:
Including me! What does it mean???
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When a bartender turns over a shotglass in front of you, it means that someone wants to buy you a drink. It generally also means they are interested in meeting you. They wouldn't normally send an actual drink over (unless it is an occasion where they want to send over a bottle of something). Plus, if you already have a cocktail in front of you, to set another drink down would be stupid. Hence, upside-down shotglass. When they do that, the bartender will point the person out to you and you can accept the drink or not. If you accept it, then the bartender will pour the drink when you are ready for another cocktail, and will take the shotglass away. For the bartender(s) on duty, the overturned shotglass signals to them that you have a drink coming that is on someone else's bill. When you go to drink the cocktail that was bought for you, you would raise your glass as if to toast them, as a thank-you. At that point, usually, they might come over to talk to you. You would not go to them, but wait for the drink-buyer to approach.
 
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I can't give off a sexy vibe to save my life :rolleyes: I'm probably what most people would call conventionally attractive, but in a very boring, girl-next-door way. I get called cute and pretty, not sexy or hot. That's ok with me, though, well, it's ok 99% of the time. I'm slow to get sexual with people so it kinda works to my advantage that I don't bowl guys over with sex appeal.

That shot glass thing ... It sounds so... Glamourous :D Dating in my single days was hanging out with a huge group of people in your dorm, crushing on one of them, and eventually getting drunk enough to make out one night. The next morning, you'd either pretend it never happened, or you'd become an official couple. No actual "dating". And dating as a grown up married lady was all online for me. Endless coffee dates and the occasional happy hour. Lots of scanning rooms and panicking because I couldn't find my date - only to realize he was standing right next to me, and just looked nothing like his pictures :cool:

I'm still pondering the whole who pays thing. It's like my logical, feminist self is at war with the more old-school side of me. I know I wouldn't be happy if my boyfriend paid for everything. But I kind of want him to want to.
 
This is probably going to be a disjointed, rambling post... I'm trying to process a bunch of random thoughts about relationships :confused:

Interesting article linked here

http://www.polyamory.com/forum/showthread.php?t=78606

that suggests people who are flexible thinkers and tolerant of ambiguity are better suited for poly. I am neither of those things :cool: I try, I do, but my brain likes nice, neat categories, and simple systems and rules. Maybes and possibilities and undecideds give me panic attacks.

Does that make poly hard for me? Day to day, no. But it makes the *theory* parts of poly hard for me. There is so much I read about poly that I quite simply can't fit into my brain. It's like looking at an advanced physics equation if you've never even taken algebra, and have no idea why there are letters mixed in with the numbers. I think, and I think, and I think some more... And it still doesn't make any sense to me.

Non-escalator relationships are still the number one mind fuck for me. My world has a category called Life Partner, and a category called Friend. There isn't anything in between. No matter how well someone explains their non escalator relationship, I'm still thinking, "Soooo, yeah, a friend you have sex with. Cool." I cannot, for the life of me, discern the difference between a close FWB and a non escalator boyfriend/girlfriend.

I completely get having multiple life partners - it's not something I need or want, but I understand it. Triads, quads, vees, whatever, who all share homes and finances. Or, poly people who split their time equally between two or more separate partnerships, sharing an entangled life with each partner, having two homes. But my brain seizes up when anyone talks about having two equally important partnerships even though they only share an entangled life with one. It's not even that I think the entangled partnership is necessarily more important. It's worse than that. I can't see the non-entangled relationship as a partnership at all.

And that frustrates me, a lot, because there are people on this forum who are solo poly or in non-escalator relationships, and I *want* to understand and support them. But my brain fires up it's rigid categorical system and fucks everything up. Solo poly = un-partnered = single. Single with lots of close, loving, romantic friendships. Even though I *know* that's not the lived experience of solo poly folks.

I started thinking about this more today, reading yet another thread on the problems with a primary/secondary model. Which I feel like I inadvertently create in my relationships. I don't actually see Andy as my primary and Dag as my secondary. I see Andy as my husband/partner in life, and Dag as a close friend, with frequent benefits. The idea of a "secondary" relationship doesn't have a space in my brain, you're either life partners, or... not. But I can see how, if others see non-escalator relationships as partnerships, that would feel like I was viewing them as secondary.

I'm not, though. Friends aren't "second" to partners. They're two different things. When someone asks me if my relationship with Andy is more important than my relationship with Dag, my head explodes. It's like someone held up an apple and a soccer ball, and asked me which one was the better fruit. Well, only one of them is a fruit. Yes, the apple makes a better snack than the soccer ball. But it's not *better* than the soccer ball.

My day to day poly-ish life coasts along smoothly. Everyone seems happy. But I worry. I worry that Andy and I are looking at things with one framework, and our other partners could be seeing things differently. Andy hears Anna-Louise say she doesn't ever want to live with a partner, and he takes that to mean she doesn't want anything more than friends-with-benefits, ever. I know Dag plans to stay married, so I assume he doesn't expect more than friendship and sex from our relationship. But... We are basing those assumptions on our very rigid Life Partner / Friend categories. What if these other people have more fluid frameworks in their minds?

I try to think about this stuff, and I give myself a headache. Because I think, ok, what if Anna-Louise does want something in-between FWBs and life partners? What would that look like? For Andy to be there for her in a crisis? Hmmm, no, that falls under friend stuff. For Andy to pay half her kids' college tuition? Noooo, that seems like life-partner stuff. I honestly cannot come up with any concrete examples of in-between :confused: which is why I just have those two categories, I guess.

So much brain spinning, still unable to understand what it actually means when someone says they don't want to be just FWBs, or to be secondary, but they don't want a full escalator partnership. Still straining my brain to get a glimpse of how poly looks and feels to others.
 
So I totally blew it with a cute guy tonight :cool:

I was out running, and he was walking his dog. I'm a total dog slut, so I stopped running and knelt down for doggy kisses :p Aaaaand we start talking, and he's CUTE!!! and funny, and introduces himself... At which point I screw everything up by saying "we live over there" and "our friends' house" :( I could see the guy's face fall, he stopped flirting, and then he was just all "have a good run". Blech. Why can't I break the "we/our" habit??? It's not like I would hide that I'm married - I mean I was wearing my rings - but damn, it was fun to flirt for a few minutes. And who knows?

Maybe I should just run in my "It's not cheating if my husband watches" t shirt ;)

*****************************

My guys are so weird about food. I bought some extra sharp cheddar cheese last week, Andy's fave, but he never touched it. When I asked him why, he says, "I thought that was for Dag." :confused: It's CHEESE. It's for everyone. Yes, Dag and I like to make up fruit and cheese plates, but we don't need the whole giant block of cheese.

And then when Dag was leaving tonight, he was hungry and looking for a snack for the road. He looked at the fruit bowl on the counter, and went, "Mmmm, bananas!" I said, "yeah, Andy's been taking them to work for snacks." Dag looked all sad and said, "Oh, well, I don't want to eat his bananas." Seriously? Again, it's just a banana. There's a grocery store 2 miles away where I can get like 5 for a dollar.

You can share me, but not food... I dunno, boy brains are weird :D
 
GirlFromTexlahoma said:
You can share me, but not food... I dunno, boy brains are weird :D
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Nope, makes perfect sense. You're not a limited resource / don't run out. They were both trying to be considerate of each other - not take something the other guy was planning on eating.
 
I finally got around to reading the keynote speech from the Rocky Mountain Poly Living conference. (http://polyinthemedia.blogspot.com/2016/04/building-poly-movement-my-keynote.html) Most of it was about the changing media and cultural perception of polyamory, which I freely admit I don't care about, except in a very general "discrimination is bad" kind of way. I do have multiple relationships, but I don't plan on ever being an evangelist or even "out". So I'm not really part of the poly "movement", though I guess I support it? I mean, I fully support the Black Lives Matter campaign despite being white.

Anyway.

I was mostly skimming the speech, whatever, but this jumped out at me...

4. Expand that to not just "knowledge and consent," but well-wishing and good intention for all involved. The defining aspect of polyamory, I'm convinced — the thing that sets it apart and makes it powerful and radical and transformative — is in seeing one's metamours not as rivals to be resented, or even as neutral figures to be tolerated, but as, at minimum, reasonable friends or extended family even — for whom you genuinely wish good things. (And beyond that, of course, there's no limit to how close you can become.) This is what differentiates poly from merely having affairs: a sense that at least to some degree, “We’re all in this together.” When this happens poly becomes a generalization of the particular magic of romantic love — into something wider, more widely applicable, than the dominant paradigm of a couple carefully walling away their particular love from anything to do with the rest of humanity.
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Ummmm. Well. Hmmm. I'm always saying I'm not really poly ;)

I don't have any negative feelings toward my current metamours, I think they're great women. I think Andy and Dag see each other as "reasonable friends".

But I don't think any of us have the "we're all in this together" feeling, except maybe the Steph-me-Andy vee. (And that comes from decades of friendship, not any romantic connections.)

And I certainly can't promise to "genuinely wish good things" for any and every person my husband or boyfriend happens to date. I might like them. I might love them. I might tolerate them. Or, I might hate their guts. I would try very hard to accept any relationship my partners' entered. I wouldn't try to talk them out of dating someone unless I felt it was an unsafe or abusive relationship.

If I had a metamour I couldn't stand, I'd do my best to be civil when necessary, avoid them as much as possible, and confine my hateful ranting to this blog. But relationships and friendships and love aren't transitive. Someone isn't necessarily my friend and/or my family just because my partner is dating them.

I know there's no "One Twu Poly" and this is just one guy's speech. On the other hand - one guy's speech at a major event, being re-blogged all over the web. I'm just struggling with the idea that "well-wishing and good intention for all involved" is really the defining aspect of polyamory. Because if it is, I'm going to need that Veto thingy - the world is full of people I don't wish well and apparently my partners shouldn't date them :cool:
 
I'm with you. You've read my blog, so you've seen the issues I had with Highlight, along with the fact that I have essentially no interaction at all with Stella. I do consider Franki family, but I don't know whether that's just because she's far away and so isn't any type of threat.

I wish good things for all three of them, because I tend to wish good things for everyone. Bad things suck. But I don't wish Highlight or Stella any more good than I would the cashier down at the grocery store. And, unfortunately, because of certain things I don't actually like Highlight, even though I tried to. I've told Woody that if he and Highlight get back together, I'm only willing to be in the same space with her for things like the parties he throws a couple of times a year, and even then I'll be making sure to stay in a different part of the house from where she is.

So if you're "not really poly" because you don't want to be all best-buddy with your metamours, I guess I'm not either...
 
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