Secondary vs Satellite vs Sine
There's a bit of ball-tossing that comes up every once in a while for a replacement word for 'secondary', with respect to poly relationships. I don't mind secondary, and find it pretty neutral and useful, but I can understand if people don't like it. After all, I really dislike one of the replacement terms: satellite
Rationally, I get why people like it: it removes the implied ranking of primary/secondary, it’s geeky and space is cool! I am not judging other peoples’ choices of terminology. I just get this really visceral emotional loneliness in response to it.
A satellite never actually comes in contact with its planet. It’s thrown out there into the vast emptiness of space, kind of attached to the primary planet but not really. It's held out at a distance. It can’t get closer without disaster, but can’t break away either. It’s left hovering in an awkward limbo on the edges.
There is contact in my relationship(s). I’m not in a yearning state of constantly approaching but never making contact. I’m not an asymptote to a relationship, I’m a damn sine wave. Some times it’s a high frequency, other times it’s slow and lazy, but when I intersect with the other relationship line, we‘re both right there, together in the same place. And we’ll come back together again.
And the Math metaphors can be expanded!
Parallel = Primary
Sine wave = Secondary, tertiary etc depending on the frequency of the wave
Perpendicular = one night stand
Asymptote = Unresolved Sexual Tension
Transversal = in more than one relationship
This entry was originally posted at http://verbs-not-nouns.dreamwidth.org/27585.html. There are <
> comments there.
Rationally, I get why people like it: it removes the implied ranking of primary/secondary, it’s geeky and space is cool! I am not judging other peoples’ choices of terminology. I just get this really visceral emotional loneliness in response to it.
A satellite never actually comes in contact with its planet. It’s thrown out there into the vast emptiness of space, kind of attached to the primary planet but not really. It's held out at a distance. It can’t get closer without disaster, but can’t break away either. It’s left hovering in an awkward limbo on the edges.
There is contact in my relationship(s). I’m not in a yearning state of constantly approaching but never making contact. I’m not an asymptote to a relationship, I’m a damn sine wave. Some times it’s a high frequency, other times it’s slow and lazy, but when I intersect with the other relationship line, we‘re both right there, together in the same place. And we’ll come back together again.
And the Math metaphors can be expanded!
Parallel = Primary
Sine wave = Secondary, tertiary etc depending on the frequency of the wave
Perpendicular = one night stand
Asymptote = Unresolved Sexual Tension
Transversal = in more than one relationship
This entry was originally posted at http://verbs-not-nouns.dreamwidth.org/27585.html. There are <
> comments there.