Thoughts on this journey

I don't know if you've heard that what we called "platonic relationships" are actually counter to what Plato recommended? He said when you date, to fuck as soon as possible, because if the sexual chemistry isn't there, it's not worth going on with the relationship, as far as pursuing an adult relationship, I mean.

I just find that interesting. I think Evie has said more than once that that's how they do it in NZ!
 
Not sure how common it is with the younger generations, but most of my generation definitely used the third date rule, and quite often didn't even wait that long.
 
Pining a lot tonight for a relationship what's gone. Maybe the anniversary effect? It's almost exactly a year since our first date, after all.

Probably that, then.

For the occasion, this song's lyrics accurately summarize how I feel:

This caught me off guard since we fell apart
I'm not saying I'm scarred
But you left your mark on me that I can't shake off
I thought you were being honest
I thought I was being honest, but I guess I wasn't
In a permanent head rush, call you up at three in the morning
Tell you that I still want you (Oh)
But it went straight to voicemail
Why should I even bother? Why should you even bother?
We're not made for each other, we fell in love with the comfort

It's when I'm all alone
That's when I get to know myself better
All the sleepless nights
When my eyes are closed and
When I'm all alone, it's introspective
I realized you were right
When you said that I was hard to love
And you got it so right
When you said that I was hard to love
What I'd do to make this all right
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It's not ALL about just pining for Maple, btw: I had a nice first date tonight—reckon I'll see this person again—and have another first date a week from now. Aaaand a second date the weekend after that. So I am gradually meeting new, poly people, and taking things slowly feels good.

So there's still the voice in my head that's like, "Message her and see how she's doing?" but I remind myself: what good would that do? If she felt a desire to get back together, which is what I must admit that I want, she has my number.

Let me distract myself with other sources of dopamine 'til the feeling passes. 😜
 
A word nerd's hot take:
lifestyle | ˈlīfˌstīl | noun the way in which a person or group lives: the benefits of a healthy lifestyle.
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Polyamory is, literally, a lifestyle.

There's such a thing as specialization, where a word's meaning narrows over time in popular usage. An example is "doctor", which originally referred to a teacher (and is still used as an honorific for those who acquire certain university degrees) but has changed over time to usually refer to a person who practices medicine.

But "lifestyle" has a strange semantic narrowing that only seems to occur among practitioners of non-monogamy: Apparently, some swingers appropriate the general noun and refer to their practice of non-monogamy as "The Lifestyle". There are, of course, an enormous number of practices that could be described as lifestyles; elevating one of them to "The Lifestyle" is an arbitrary choice. People who enjoy fishing and spend their weekends rod in hand could as easily begin referring to fishing as "The Lifestyle".

Since this usage is so limited in scope, it's sort of obnoxious to see polyamorous people correct others' usage of the common noun "lifestyle" to refer to the practice of polyamorous relationships, claiming that since there's a fundamental difference between the lifestyle of polyamory and the lifestyle of swinging, and swingers have supposedly appropriated the term "The Lifestyle" to refer only to their lifestyle, that it is therefore somehow incorrect to use the common noun to refer to the lifestyle of polyamory.

To put that another way, if swingers described an instance of their relatively casual parter-swapping as "The Relationship", would you upbraid anyone who tried to describe their polyamorous bond with one of their partners as "a relationship"?

I'm sort of hoping your reaction to that example is "Of course not, that's ridiculous." ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Now that I've gotten that off my chest, I'll go sit on a dictionary. Thank you for your attention.
 
I guess I object to forms of adult relationships as being called "lifestyles" at all. Never mind comparing poly people and swingers. Take monogamy. What is a "monogamous lifestyle"? There is no such thing. You can be mono and have a million different way to live-- with kids or not, homeless or in a palace, ill or healthy, gay/queer/trans/non-binary or not, living together or not, loving each other or basically hating each other, gentle or passionate, happy or abusive, having sex or not, with involved large extended families or not, in the US suburbs or in a tiny African village, in the BCE era, the 1400s or the 2000s, etc., ad infinitum, and all of these marriages will appear quite a bit different, even vastly different, and involve different behaviors and activities throughout the days, weeks and years.

I do think that swingers and BDSM communities co-opted the term lifestyle and tainted it. In fact, the word "lifestyle" as a noun is rather new, relatively speaking, and it's actually kinda stupid. What is a "gay lifestyle"? What IS a "poly lifestyle"? There are many ways to live when you're gay. The are many ways to live when you're poly. There are even many ways to live if you're a swinger or kinkster. Sex itself is only required in swinging. The sex aspect is why they needed the euphemism of lifestyle.

I associate "lifestyle" with being coined in the early "mod" 1960s, with a sex and drugs and rock and roll, maybe jetsetter, "Eurotrash," overly trendy/fashionable, self-consciously groovy way of going. Something alternative, something that didn't pertain to a spouse, 2 kids, a 9-5 job, a house and a picket fence. Something where sex was done recreationally. If swingers feel they are better/cooler than others because they just don't fuck their spouse, they can have the damn word. Polyamorous people are more down to earth, at least in my experience and opinion (unless they are just NRE junkies, which is another topic).

I think a mere one-line definition doesn't do justice to the word lifestyle. It's pretty loaded. Gays got in a lot of shit for being seen as having a "lifestyle," often associated with an "agenda," when their "lifestyle/agenda" was just, wake up, drink coffee, eat, shit, shower, get the kids to school, go to work, buy and make food, get the kids to bed, sleep, repeat, just like pretty much any damn person on the planet.

This could devolve into a discussion, not so much of the mere word "lifestyle," as a discussion of how swingers live (with group sex with no feelings allowed) and how poly people live (with multiple loves that you date and have sex with, but one-on-one, usually). That seems to be more of a problem than one mere ill-defined word.
 
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