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May. 12th, 2005 09:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eorBehind the cut is long bit of text. If you're not interested in polyamory or the inner workings of one particular practice of it "nothing to see here, move along."
Last night![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
derien and I began one of our standard conversations. We have variations on this conversation in intervals ranging from six months to 3 years. Usually it comes to no conclusion and just kind of fades out, but last night it actually went somewhere. Not to a conclusion exactly, but a different tangent anyway.
It began as it usually does. This time it wasderien's turn to initiate the conversation. Sometimes it's me, but usually she takes the lead.
She said, "I don't know if I want to look for a girlfriend anymore."
"At all?"
"At all. I just don't think it's worth it."
"You don't think it's worth it?"
"What's the point? I'm happy with you. Why should I waste the effort when it never works out."
"Well, it is kind of like winning the lottery. You could buy a ticket every week for the rest of your life and still not win. But if you did win..."
"But what's the point really. It's not like I haven't been happy living with just you. Why bother?"
This is more or less how the conversation goes each time. Each party taking whichever set of lines they've been assigned for this performance of the play. Eventually the conversation ends usually with a mirrored pair of tired sighs. This time however inspiration struck me like a brick.
"When we got together we did so with two things in mind, the first was that we were only together for as long as it was good for each of us and the second was that we were looking for someone(s) else, right?"
"Yeah."
"Well, if we had gotten together with the idea that this is it, the two of us forever and ever, do you suppose 13 years later things would have turned out the same?"
Two logical reasons I came up with to entertain something that has nothing to do with logic.
1) The emotional ebb and flow caused by new potential relationships forming, growing, and eventually failing provide a stirring effect on our relationship. They mix things up and keep us from getting emotionally stagnant. We tend not to grow emotionally complacent.
2) The fact is most relationships fail. When we have a secondary relationship fall apart the first thing we say, to ourselves or sometimes each other, is "Damn, I'm glad I've got you/xxxxxx" (fill in the appropriate name here). We also see in each failure how well our relationship works. Whatever caused that relationship to not work is something that does work in our relationship. Each failure is a lesson in appreciation. We come out of it embracing our relationship to each other not out of sorrow for the lost relationship but in renewed awe at what we've got.
All this is rather academic. The ritual conversation is academic. Because when it comes right down to it I don't think either one of us really has the capability to stop looking. We become attracted to people because we like them. If we interact with people and like them it's often not a matter of consciously deciding, "I'm looking for someone."
Last night
derien and I began one of our standard conversations. We have variations on this conversation in intervals ranging from six months to 3 years. Usually it comes to no conclusion and just kind of fades out, but last night it actually went somewhere. Not to a conclusion exactly, but a different tangent anyway.It began as it usually does. This time it was
derien's turn to initiate the conversation. Sometimes it's me, but usually she takes the lead.She said, "I don't know if I want to look for a girlfriend anymore."
"At all?"
"At all. I just don't think it's worth it."
"You don't think it's worth it?"
"What's the point? I'm happy with you. Why should I waste the effort when it never works out."
"Well, it is kind of like winning the lottery. You could buy a ticket every week for the rest of your life and still not win. But if you did win..."
"But what's the point really. It's not like I haven't been happy living with just you. Why bother?"
This is more or less how the conversation goes each time. Each party taking whichever set of lines they've been assigned for this performance of the play. Eventually the conversation ends usually with a mirrored pair of tired sighs. This time however inspiration struck me like a brick.
"When we got together we did so with two things in mind, the first was that we were only together for as long as it was good for each of us and the second was that we were looking for someone(s) else, right?"
"Yeah."
"Well, if we had gotten together with the idea that this is it, the two of us forever and ever, do you suppose 13 years later things would have turned out the same?"
Two logical reasons I came up with to entertain something that has nothing to do with logic.
1) The emotional ebb and flow caused by new potential relationships forming, growing, and eventually failing provide a stirring effect on our relationship. They mix things up and keep us from getting emotionally stagnant. We tend not to grow emotionally complacent.
2) The fact is most relationships fail. When we have a secondary relationship fall apart the first thing we say, to ourselves or sometimes each other, is "Damn, I'm glad I've got you/xxxxxx" (fill in the appropriate name here). We also see in each failure how well our relationship works. Whatever caused that relationship to not work is something that does work in our relationship. Each failure is a lesson in appreciation. We come out of it embracing our relationship to each other not out of sorrow for the lost relationship but in renewed awe at what we've got.
All this is rather academic. The ritual conversation is academic. Because when it comes right down to it I don't think either one of us really has the capability to stop looking. We become attracted to people because we like them. If we interact with people and like them it's often not a matter of consciously deciding, "I'm looking for someone."
