So Prof and I have worked in a little bit of fun here and there, including the new experience of Prof attending a party with another sexy friend while I was out-of-town (more on that forthcoming). Other than that, it has been all vanilla, all the time. Oh, wait, there was one sexy night of a bit of exhibitionism, and although lovely, it was quite short-lived.
Okay, so maybe not all vanilla all the time, but certainly a drastic downshift from our regular social calendar.
As we have moved through this vanilla phase, I’ve realized just how busy an ethical non-monogamist’s life actually is. Even though we haven’t had the time to actively date, we are still building and maintaining relationships that mean something to us. Some are long-time friends we miss. Some are new budding relationships that have fantastic promise. And some are just fun messages from brand new hotties we haven’t met yet, but would love to find the time to meet.
Despite the fact that we haven’t been dating, we are still trying to keep up with all of these sexies and treat them all with respect and devote to them, the time they deserve. And, you know what? It is a challenge. Now, don’t take this as whining. It is simply an observation. We so enjoy cultivating fascinating and hot relationships, but having to take this time to step back from the frantic fun provides some perspective.
There is indeed validity in the monogamists questioning how in the world we swing/open/poly types make it work! And add in families, professional work, hobbies and the other minutiae that occupy our time and it is crazy. In a world where half of the couples can’t even keep their primary relationships together, who the hell are we to have awesome primary relationships and go trolling for more?
People debate the concept of ethical non-monogamy being a choice we make. Ahh well, when it comes down to it, Prof and I know it is simply how we are built. Individual people and discrete couples can decide for themselves how they roll. And we are all different, even within the swing/open/poly community, everyone does it their own way. There are some, perhaps many, who know that they could easily choose to be monogamous. That’s cool. Whatever works for you…seriously awesome. Among other things, it will leave you with a lot more time on your hands to reappropriate.
What Prof and I have realized is that is not us. We are ethical non-monogamists inside and out. Could we choose to change our behavior and remain monogamous? Sure. Absolutely. We are strong-minded people. The difference is, if we did that, we would not truly be authentically ourselves. We would be trying to be people that we are not.
So here we are, in the midst of trying to cultivate and maintain rewarding, authentic and often sexy relationships, and it feels frenzied and sometimes, we disappoint. But we do our best while being authentically who we are in all our imperfect, open-relationshippy glory.
We could certainly choose monogamy, but we choose to be ourselves totally and completely…our doing-the-best-we-can, ethically non-monogamous, ridiculously busy selves.
And it feels right.
