A very nervous hello

B

BDaemon

New member
Found this place through a couple of links, trying to find places with more activity that I could hopefully use as a sounding board.

HELLO. I'm a late-20's lady who's been very (admittedly) timidly trying to assess her situation when it comes to relationships. My whole life, I've had a lot of close, personal relationships with my male friends.....who make up 90% of my overall friendships. My actual relationships have never exactly evolved past initial infatuation....pretty much because, well.....I felt limited. I've always felt something beyond friendship for a good chunk of the men in my life, and only being "allowed" to dedicate myself to one was, well, a bit suffocating. It eventually always led to the (although amicable) dissolving of the romantic relationship.

In the past year I've done a lot of introspection about myself and how I view my relationships with the people I care about. I've been questioning if monogamy is right for me, or maybe I haven't found the right person(s) or perhaps both. Either way, I've been researching a bit and trying to come to terms with who I am and what's right for me. Am I poly? I'm I just uncertain? I'm not sure. All I know is that what I've tried in the past hasn't worked, and I'm honestly kind of scared I might not ever find what can.

So yeah, this is all very new to me and I'm more than a bit nervous, and I guess I just wanted to find a place that I could try figure some things out.

Thank you. :eek:
 
Greetings BDaemon,
Welcome to our forum. Please feel free to lurk, browse, etc.

Obviously the input you'll receive on Polyamory.com will be a bit biased in the pro-poly department, but that doesn't mean it won't be a valuable way for you to assess in your own life. Read and learn; I think the Life stories and blogs board would be especially helpful to you in your objective to take a closer look at poly and open relationships.

Society at large puts a lot of pressure on us to be monogamous, so you have to figure you will encounter some internal and external resistance if you decide to venture down the non-monogamous path. Don't be afraid to try that path if it's what your heart desires.

If you have questions we can probably supply some answers, and I for one will be following this thread in case you want to ping me here.

Good luck in deciding the way you want to approach love and romance!
Sincerely,
Kevin T., "official greeter" :)

Notes:

There's a *lot* of good info in Golden Nuggets. Have a look!

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Note: You needn't read every reply to your posts, especially if someone posts in a disagreeable way. Given the size and scope of the site it's hard not to run into the occasional disagreeable person. Please contact the mods if you do (or if you see any spam), and you can block the person if you want.

If you have any questions about the board itself, please private-message a mod and they'll do their best to help.

Welcome aboard!
 
Welcome! I hope you find the help you need in discovering who you are. Poly has been a big change for me, and it has certainly shifted my life in ways I didn't expect!
 
Thank you for the welcome!

Yeah, the concept is a bit overwhelming, though I think the idea that I might be poly and having to figure out how to pursue it without ruffling feathers or simply being known as "that chick who wants to date all her guy friends because of X" is the daunting issue. (I'm more concerned about the latter.....I've actually had friends use the term polyamory and make it sound synonymous with "girl who can't settle" and "tramp")

There's a lot of things I want to explore, more introspection to be had.....and yes, people who I am specifically interested in trying something out with who may or may not be a tough sell to.

Either way....can't hurt to learn! (I think, unless you have paddles here............this suddenly got very kinky @_@ )
 
The idea of "The One" is an outdated social construct. It may have suited our purposes at some point in human development, but I'm not even sure about that. I think it always was more of an ingredient in a larger control tactic. So don't feel bad for questioning whether it's a concept that works for you. The fact that you're even thinking about it means it probably doesn't (work for you).

Eh. Girl who can't settle. Besides being vague, my first thought is "Settle for being unhappy and limited by society's constructs? You bet I can't!"

Tramp? Well, that's just slutshaming. Nuts to that.

I can't promise that all your friends will accept you for being you. Sadly, we live in a culture where people are ridiculed and ostracized for being different. A lot of people feel threatened by polyamory, for a lot of reasons. They perceive it as threatening their way of life, just like they do of gay marriage. They seem to be under the delusion that what I do with my partners has any effect whatsoever on what they do with their partners.

But truth? Any friends who turn their back on you for having a different relationship preference, aren't friends at all. One of the greatest things about coming out as different is that you get to ditch all the posers.

And I promise, we only paddle with consent and negotiation. My safe word is watermelon.
 
Good post Schrodingers!
 
BDaemon said:
Yeah, the concept is a bit overwhelming, though I think the idea that I might be poly and having to figure out how to pursue it without ruffling feathers or simply being known as "that chick who wants to date all her guy friends because of X" is the daunting issue.
Click to expand...

Interesting you want to date ( I read that as "have sex with") all your guy friends. Once you start practicing polyamory, you may find just having 2 or 3 sex/romance/love partners is enough. Fantasy can be wild, reality is generally different.

Having so many partners you're doing nothing but setting up a date, getting ready for a date, traveling to a date, having a date, recovering from/processing a date, setting up/getting ready for the next one, can be exhausting and ultimately draining and crazy-making. One also needs time for work, family, chores, self care, hobbies, etc.! But you will find your own balance, should you really start pursuing this love-style.
 
Magdlyn said:
Interesting you want to date ( I read that as "have sex with") all your guy friends.
Click to expand...

I read it as she was concerned other people would think she wanted to date all her guy friends. You know, like how if you come out as gay, it threatens all your straight samesex friends because now you OBVIOUSLY want them.
 
Magdlyn said:
Interesting you want to date ( I read that as "have sex with") all your guy friends. Once you start practicing polyamory, you may find just having 2 or 3 sex/romance/love partners is enough. Fantasy can be wild, reality is generally different.

Having so many partners you're doing nothing but setting up a date, getting ready for a date, traveling to a date, having a date, recovering from/processing a date, setting up/getting ready for the next one, can be exhausting and ultimately draining and crazy-making. One also needs time for work, family, chores, self care, hobbies, etc.! But you will find your own balance, should you really start pursuing this love-style.
Click to expand...

*I* didn't say I did want to date all my male friends at all. I was saying that I'm afraid that the people around me would think me possibly being poly meant that. I have plenty of guy friends whom I love platonically, but I feel no sexual interest in whatsoever. I'm actually pretty sexually reserved. =P
 
BDaemon said:
*I* didn't say I did want to date all my male friends at all. I was saying that I'm afraid that the people around me would think me possibly being poly meant that. I have plenty of guy friends whom I love platonically, but I feel no sexual interest in whatsoever. I'm actually pretty sexually reserved. =P
Click to expand...

Oh, sorry for my misunderstanding. So, you don't want to have sex with all your male friends? Not that there's anything wrong with that. I guess your friends don't know you're sexually reserved and won't actually "date" (screw) all your male friends?

What kind of advice do you need? Do you want to "come out" as poly to all your friends? Are you not sure what poly is? Read The Ethical Slut. Read around here on this board. There are as many ways to do poly as there are people practicing it. Personally I've got 2 great lovers and that's plenty for me.
 
No, I have a very good idea of what poly is. Like I said, I've done my research. Like I said, I'm just kind of testing the waters here and trying to figure out what works right for me.

I honestly don't think the idea that I may or may not be sexually reserved even factors into what people would initially think of if I ever brought up the idea of me being poly. To use Schrodingers analogy, if a person comes out as homosexual but follows it up with "but I'm sexually reserved", how many people who would normally be squicked out by that would suddenly go "Oh hey, that makes a total difference on my fears that they might want to jump me or people I know!"? I'm going to say.....not many.


But yes, I joined because I wanted to read of other people's experiences and maybe gain a bit more introspection on my life and if poly truly is what I'm more oriented towards. So far so good!
 
Yeah, people will have their tendencies to jump to inappropriate conclusions if they hear you're going to live polyamorously. They'll just have to find out by experience that you're still the same old you.
 
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