Fluidity: Growing-up Poly Part VI

This is the sixth in a fifteen part series that I originally wrote for http://LookingThrough.us. If you haven’t checked the site out, please do—and if you feel the desire to write about your own poly experiences they are always looking for guest bloggers!

~~~~~~~

At some point, I think around the age of fifteen, I found myself in a group much like the one I had for Truth or Dare years before. There were four girls and four boys—the girls are a bit of a blur, mostly because I hadn’t yet gotten brave enough to explore my bisexuality, but two of the boys I liked, one I really liked, and one I can’t actually remember. We weren’t exactly a free-love commune, but the lines connecting the boys and girls were very fluid. Over the course of the year that we were “together” we explored various boy/girl combinations on a regular basis, but we never formed exclusive relationships.

I spent the rest of my teenage years in groups with varying levels of fluidity. I tried the serious boyfriend thing a couple of times, but I always ended the relationship when I found someone else I wanted to sleep with—usually before the fact but, sadly, sometimes after. I thought that if I entered into a relationship it had to be monogamous, and when I just couldn’t do monogamy I left because it never occurred to me to ask my partners to try non-monogamy. As a result I had very few serious relationships, and none that lasted more than a few months.

I came to believe that I was either too cool, or just too cold, to really love, because I just didn’t seem to approach love the same way my friends did. I didn’t dream of meeting the one man I would spend the rest of my life with (and I certainly didn’t expect to meet him in high school). I didn’t have the same level of fixation for one boy that my friends were able to maintain. I had crushes, sure, and I could pine along with the best of them, but no matter how much I wanted someone there were always a few more someones who had my attention. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the knowledge, or experience, to realize that this wasn’t really a flaw in my character—I just thought I wasn’t capable of loving someone enough to be monogamous. I hadn’t yet figured out that I didn’t have to choose between partners, I just had to choose partners who wanted the same things from a relationship that I did.

Growing-up Poly: Part I

Growing-up Poly: Part II

Growing-up Poly: Part III

Growing-up Poly: Part IV

Growing-up Poly: Part V