[poly] perilous poly moments
i have historically taken a very hands-off approach to a primary partner's other relationships (casual or otherwise). i expect to know they exist, i expect to be notified about date scheduling, i expect to remain the primary priority and be respected as such (by both my partner and his lovers); other than that, i generally don't want to know details about what's going on, and i generally prefer not to have the evidence of his other relationships get in my face1. it's a comfort issue that makes retaining friendships easier for me when the lovers are all part of a shared social circle, especially when they may have been my friends to one degree or another before they become his lovers.
so it's all new ground then when the primary partner hooks up with someone i *don't* know from a hole in the ground, who is not only an unknown to me but new to poly as well, who hangs around a lot and doesn't go away, and who, with exposure, becomes someone whose company i find i just generally don't enjoy (nothing to do with having sex with my partner; it's a basic personality issue i have with socially inept and insecure people who talk incessantly about themselves in self-aggrandizing terms, name-drop as a means of proving their personal merit to older or more established people, interrupt other conversations to talk about themselves some more, and whine about entitlement issues. i think people who know me at all, even if only through the written forum of LJ, can likely understand why i might have a personality conflict with someone like that.) in short, this weekend i found myself having to deal for the very first time with a ClingOn.
matthew has apparently acquired a FanGirlTM. someone he knows through a particular context that only rarely and peripherally includes me, making it easy for him to be visible as an "invisibly-attached" man. this weekend was a second catch-as-catch-can kind of hookup for them, our first night at the event after i'd bailed early with a migraine (the first being about a month and a half ago, at another camping event i wasn't attending). there were a couple of actions on her part early on in the weekend that triggered some discomfort for me, but i figured that between the newness of the situation and my russian-rouletting migraines that i might be being a little on the sensitive side. after five days on site and an extra day at home to think about all of the body language and behavioural patterns i'd had five days of constant exposure to witnessing, however, i realized what i was seeing. matthew's fangirl is crushing, and i think pretty hard.
after we got home from the event, matthew and i talked extensively about my observations and concerns, where i figured i was actually being rational and where i was reasonably sure i was dealing with internal triggers of my own Stuff, my fears about dealing with someone who is new to poly relationships, my fears about dealing with a just-turned-24-girl-with-crush (a topic about which i have some seriously intimate knowledge), the risks i perceive in following certain paths, the need to be exceptionally clear and consistent in drawing and defending boundaries against crush-driven expectations, and the generally unpredictable nature of crushes. we revisited his general availability and intentions, and i learned that he has no (or almost no) experience dealing with women who are crushing on him, which at least in part explains why he missed the signals that were clear as day to me, and why he did a couple of things that made me raise the "I'm not sure that's a good idea, Dave" eyebrow.
i'm reasonably sure it's a crush and not a stalking-in-the-making, but crushes can be difficult things to predict, especially after any degree of consummation (and let's face it, consummating with matthew is unlikely to ever be the kind of experience that drives someone away in apathy, tedium, or disgust ;-). at least matthew and i are now closer to operating from the same page; i've been able to state my concerns and the observations that fuel them, we've come up with some initial management approaches. there's still the rough patches that go with any poly relationship about managing additional lovers whom your primary can't stand, and the event-specific complications of how to hang out with your lovers without bringing them into the encampment where your i-can't-stand-your-lover primary partner is also hanging out, but we'll worry about those in short order now that the major issues are on the table. for myself, the double-whammy of having to deal with someone new-to-me/new-to-poly AND someone who i don't much care for who is ALSO hanging out in my space a lot, makes for a difficult experience in which i grit my teeth a lot and try hard not to respond with the 10lb Sledgehammer of Cluefulness whilst simultaneously piss-marking my territory. i spent a lot of time in my Big Girl Panties this weekend.
i've long held the belief that virgins should never lose their virginity to other virgins; a skilled partner who can help someone make the most of a new experience is something i think everyone doing something for the first time wishes for. it's doubly (even triply) so for intimate and vulnerable activities. but when it comes to things like sex and kink and relationships in general, i'm like a lot of people when it comes to the idea of being the ground breaker for novices: they're more likely to be a lot of work and trouble, and quite frankly, i don't have the emotional overhead to want to be the one to do that work or with for them, let alone dealing with the impact of managing their newness in all its glory and goriness on my own relationships, particularly my primary. so i'm less than comfortable at the assume-the-worst-case-position implications of matthew getting involved with someone who is both that young socially2 and that new to our lifestyle, especially now that i know he's also not used to crushing fangirls and all their attendant potential emotional complications.
there's still a lot of ground to cover, some of which we'll have to cover before pennsic, should matthew decide he's going and especially should he go with me for any portion of it (since the fangirl is now also thinking of going, and my expectation based on observations is that matthew's going to wind up with a Pennsic Puppy if he's not careful and explicit). and we still have a few weeks to see what, if anything, changes in her attempts to engage matthew between now and then. he's made it clear to me what his intentions are, but crushing fangirls and fanboys are notoriously selective in their hearing; whether or not that same information has been accurately decoded on the other end is unknown. we'll see. we're doing what we can on this end with the information we have available to us at the moment; we'll deal with changes if and when they are required.
1 - there is an exception here for the obvious cases where we might be *both* dating someone as a couple, but that's still a mostly-theoretical exception, with only one case so far, that didn't really go so well eventually, fitting that description.
2 - note, i did not single out the chronologically young; age has far less to do with the source of my issues than social aptitude. i know some remarkably mature young 20-somethings, and some remarkably immature 40-somethings. my problem with the fangirl is less her age and more her social graces, or lack of same.
so it's all new ground then when the primary partner hooks up with someone i *don't* know from a hole in the ground, who is not only an unknown to me but new to poly as well, who hangs around a lot and doesn't go away, and who, with exposure, becomes someone whose company i find i just generally don't enjoy (nothing to do with having sex with my partner; it's a basic personality issue i have with socially inept and insecure people who talk incessantly about themselves in self-aggrandizing terms, name-drop as a means of proving their personal merit to older or more established people, interrupt other conversations to talk about themselves some more, and whine about entitlement issues. i think people who know me at all, even if only through the written forum of LJ, can likely understand why i might have a personality conflict with someone like that.) in short, this weekend i found myself having to deal for the very first time with a ClingOn.
matthew has apparently acquired a FanGirlTM. someone he knows through a particular context that only rarely and peripherally includes me, making it easy for him to be visible as an "invisibly-attached" man. this weekend was a second catch-as-catch-can kind of hookup for them, our first night at the event after i'd bailed early with a migraine (the first being about a month and a half ago, at another camping event i wasn't attending). there were a couple of actions on her part early on in the weekend that triggered some discomfort for me, but i figured that between the newness of the situation and my russian-rouletting migraines that i might be being a little on the sensitive side. after five days on site and an extra day at home to think about all of the body language and behavioural patterns i'd had five days of constant exposure to witnessing, however, i realized what i was seeing. matthew's fangirl is crushing, and i think pretty hard.
after we got home from the event, matthew and i talked extensively about my observations and concerns, where i figured i was actually being rational and where i was reasonably sure i was dealing with internal triggers of my own Stuff, my fears about dealing with someone who is new to poly relationships, my fears about dealing with a just-turned-24-girl-with-crush (a topic about which i have some seriously intimate knowledge), the risks i perceive in following certain paths, the need to be exceptionally clear and consistent in drawing and defending boundaries against crush-driven expectations, and the generally unpredictable nature of crushes. we revisited his general availability and intentions, and i learned that he has no (or almost no) experience dealing with women who are crushing on him, which at least in part explains why he missed the signals that were clear as day to me, and why he did a couple of things that made me raise the "I'm not sure that's a good idea, Dave" eyebrow.
i'm reasonably sure it's a crush and not a stalking-in-the-making, but crushes can be difficult things to predict, especially after any degree of consummation (and let's face it, consummating with matthew is unlikely to ever be the kind of experience that drives someone away in apathy, tedium, or disgust ;-). at least matthew and i are now closer to operating from the same page; i've been able to state my concerns and the observations that fuel them, we've come up with some initial management approaches. there's still the rough patches that go with any poly relationship about managing additional lovers whom your primary can't stand, and the event-specific complications of how to hang out with your lovers without bringing them into the encampment where your i-can't-stand-your-lover primary partner is also hanging out, but we'll worry about those in short order now that the major issues are on the table. for myself, the double-whammy of having to deal with someone new-to-me/new-to-poly AND someone who i don't much care for who is ALSO hanging out in my space a lot, makes for a difficult experience in which i grit my teeth a lot and try hard not to respond with the 10lb Sledgehammer of Cluefulness whilst simultaneously piss-marking my territory. i spent a lot of time in my Big Girl Panties this weekend.
i've long held the belief that virgins should never lose their virginity to other virgins; a skilled partner who can help someone make the most of a new experience is something i think everyone doing something for the first time wishes for. it's doubly (even triply) so for intimate and vulnerable activities. but when it comes to things like sex and kink and relationships in general, i'm like a lot of people when it comes to the idea of being the ground breaker for novices: they're more likely to be a lot of work and trouble, and quite frankly, i don't have the emotional overhead to want to be the one to do that work or with for them, let alone dealing with the impact of managing their newness in all its glory and goriness on my own relationships, particularly my primary. so i'm less than comfortable at the assume-the-worst-case-position implications of matthew getting involved with someone who is both that young socially2 and that new to our lifestyle, especially now that i know he's also not used to crushing fangirls and all their attendant potential emotional complications.
there's still a lot of ground to cover, some of which we'll have to cover before pennsic, should matthew decide he's going and especially should he go with me for any portion of it (since the fangirl is now also thinking of going, and my expectation based on observations is that matthew's going to wind up with a Pennsic Puppy if he's not careful and explicit). and we still have a few weeks to see what, if anything, changes in her attempts to engage matthew between now and then. he's made it clear to me what his intentions are, but crushing fangirls and fanboys are notoriously selective in their hearing; whether or not that same information has been accurately decoded on the other end is unknown. we'll see. we're doing what we can on this end with the information we have available to us at the moment; we'll deal with changes if and when they are required.
1 - there is an exception here for the obvious cases where we might be *both* dating someone as a couple, but that's still a mostly-theoretical exception, with only one case so far, that didn't really go so well eventually, fitting that description.
2 - note, i did not single out the chronologically young; age has far less to do with the source of my issues than social aptitude. i know some remarkably mature young 20-somethings, and some remarkably immature 40-somethings. my problem with the fangirl is less her age and more her social graces, or lack of same.