[poly] there's a hole in my bucket...
the problem with using passive labelling language to describe relationships, as i have once again discovered, is that unless you detail the label down into the realm of subatomically-miniscule accuracy, there are going to be things you miss communicating to those trying to keep track of what relationships you're including in which buckets, and who might therefore be surprised when a relationship placed in one bucket seems to carry attributes associated with different buckets.
for example, i use "casual lovers" to describe the bucket of people with whom i have sex without emotionally vulnerable intimacy; we're not moving towards the boyfriend/girlfriend kind of relationship. low or no prioritization, low investment. apparently in matthew's mind, this precludes activities like "just hanging out non-sexually for a couple of hours" and "being able to have conversations about things like books or movies", because when i did both those things yesterday with someone identified currently as a "casual lover", this indicated a change of some kind. i'm coming to realize that "casual lovers", for matthew at least, does not include the option of also being friends, unless explicitly denoted as including being friends.
this is a common pattern for us, and the more i think about it on the heels of last night's squeezed-in-between-other-obligations conversation, the more i think it's NOT an issue of changing the nature of the relationship from "casual lover" to something else, but an issue of my not-accurately-enough identifying the relational attributes i include in the initial bucket descriptor. i like choosing lovers with whom i can converse (intellect), whose company i enjoy for more than just sex (entertainment). sex may be the most common purpose for our getting together, and there may not be a whole lot of (or any) deep emotional intimacy backing up the time we spend together, but the casual sexual nature of the relationship doesn't preclude, in my mind, selecting for other enjoyable shared commonalities and the ability to pursue or discuss them like friends whenever we're NOT having sex.
apparently my consistent failure to articulate this internal selection criteria to matthew means that, whenever a casual lover "becomes" someone i would choose to hang out with (on an impromptu basis or otherwise) for non-sexual activities, there is a signal matthew receives indicating what looks like the nature of the relationship is changing, when in my mind, the relationship is no different and still falls quite firmly in the "casual" bucket. we haven't gotten so far down the discussion tree yet to determine whether it's a difference in the assumptive attributes and values we each individually apply to the bucket labelled "casual lovers", but since matthew and i are Two Different People, it surprises me not at all to realize that matthew might not consider his "casual lovers" to also be "friends", whereas i might. or do. or am likely to in future. if we're not selecting for different attributes up front, we're at least apparently applying different values to the label afterwards, it seems.
so i'm trying to at least identify, if not codify, the attributes i select for in lovers, in the hopes that i can find a way to communicate them more accurately for matthew's benefit. because, the humour of his mockery aside, i'm getting tired of having to constantly revisit these conversations every time he shows surprise that i might actually choose to be friendly (perhaps even be *friends*) with my lovers in the spaces of time between the mashing of fleshy bits. so i can only assume that the error lies in the one thing over which i have total control, namely communicating more accurately my understanding of the nature of the relationships in question.
for example, i use "casual lovers" to describe the bucket of people with whom i have sex without emotionally vulnerable intimacy; we're not moving towards the boyfriend/girlfriend kind of relationship. low or no prioritization, low investment. apparently in matthew's mind, this precludes activities like "just hanging out non-sexually for a couple of hours" and "being able to have conversations about things like books or movies", because when i did both those things yesterday with someone identified currently as a "casual lover", this indicated a change of some kind. i'm coming to realize that "casual lovers", for matthew at least, does not include the option of also being friends, unless explicitly denoted as including being friends.
this is a common pattern for us, and the more i think about it on the heels of last night's squeezed-in-between-other-obligations conversation, the more i think it's NOT an issue of changing the nature of the relationship from "casual lover" to something else, but an issue of my not-accurately-enough identifying the relational attributes i include in the initial bucket descriptor. i like choosing lovers with whom i can converse (intellect), whose company i enjoy for more than just sex (entertainment). sex may be the most common purpose for our getting together, and there may not be a whole lot of (or any) deep emotional intimacy backing up the time we spend together, but the casual sexual nature of the relationship doesn't preclude, in my mind, selecting for other enjoyable shared commonalities and the ability to pursue or discuss them like friends whenever we're NOT having sex.
apparently my consistent failure to articulate this internal selection criteria to matthew means that, whenever a casual lover "becomes" someone i would choose to hang out with (on an impromptu basis or otherwise) for non-sexual activities, there is a signal matthew receives indicating what looks like the nature of the relationship is changing, when in my mind, the relationship is no different and still falls quite firmly in the "casual" bucket. we haven't gotten so far down the discussion tree yet to determine whether it's a difference in the assumptive attributes and values we each individually apply to the bucket labelled "casual lovers", but since matthew and i are Two Different People, it surprises me not at all to realize that matthew might not consider his "casual lovers" to also be "friends", whereas i might. or do. or am likely to in future. if we're not selecting for different attributes up front, we're at least apparently applying different values to the label afterwards, it seems.
so i'm trying to at least identify, if not codify, the attributes i select for in lovers, in the hopes that i can find a way to communicate them more accurately for matthew's benefit. because, the humour of his mockery aside, i'm getting tired of having to constantly revisit these conversations every time he shows surprise that i might actually choose to be friendly (perhaps even be *friends*) with my lovers in the spaces of time between the mashing of fleshy bits. so i can only assume that the error lies in the one thing over which i have total control, namely communicating more accurately my understanding of the nature of the relationships in question.