Not Quite Poly, Not Quite Swingers: Finding Our Place in the Alt Lifestyle Community

Traditionally Monogamous, Ethically Non-monogamous, Polyamorous, Swingers…

Straight, bi, hetero-flexible, pan-sexual, gay…

The labels get more creative and more varied in their use the more the conversation about sexuality and relationship styles expands. I love that people who do not fit the binary codes of one side of the spectrum or the other are finally finding a voice and a way of identifying themselves. I love that this conversation is happening all around me. I love that the ‘expectations’ and norms seem to be shifting in a way that allows for people to be their true selves and love in their own way.

I HATE all the side-taking and opposition bashing that seems to come with deciding what to put on your “jersey.” Relationships are NOT sports and this is not a competition. The words and language that people are using to identify their preferences should not be used as labels to decide which team they are on in some cross-town high school rivalry. That is the thing I see unfolding in the comments on articles like “Am I Insane for Wanting a Traditionally Monogamous Relationship?” and “I'm In A Happy Polyamorous Relationship.” There seems to be a need to vilify the “others” rather than praise people for having the courage to buck the system and acknowledge that they don’t fit in any of the boxes that most of us grew up with. 

Boys can wear pink and play with dolls. Girls can be mechanics and be the primary financial support in an otherwise “traditional marriage.” People can choose to have multiple partners of any gender and work within the boundaries of their own creation rather than the ones we inherited by more fearful generations past. How long will it take for us to stop viewing the world through the tribal lens of “us versus them?”

My husband and I are part of a group intended for people in alternative lifestyles to meet socially and find a place to belong. Our friends identify as poly, swingers, BDSM kinksters, bi, straight, pansexual and all variations and combinations of the themes. The conversation this group has been having a lot lately is one of spectrums and fluid identity. We use labels to express our lifestyle and preferences to others so that they can react appropriately. These labels are a practical necessity in any interaction. Until very recently the accepted identities were limited to married or single, gay or straight. OkCupid offers the option of “available” that is neither single nor married. Facebook even has an option for “In an Open Relationship” now. Poly people are coming out of the “Sister Wives” closet and it’s great.

When we introduce ourselves and talk about our lifestyle it usually opens with the line that we are “not quite poly, not quite swingers” and then we go on to clarify our own places on the spectrum of identity and relationship style. It’s always an interesting conversation when we acknowledge that despite the openness and alternatives to the norm that the group embodies, people still walk in with certain preconceived notions about each other and we don’t fit them. We look like the most hetero-normative people you could meet. My husband is active duty with the armed forces and has the G.I. Joe meets Prince Charming good looks that are the definition of masculinity. I have long red hair, painted toenails, love wearing dresses and being a bit of a Princess. I identify as strictly dickly, and he’s the hetero-flexible one in our marriage. We came into this not as an outside endeavor, but as a shared experience. Also, we only date men.

There have been some odd looks at these discussion groups when we talk about our relationship style and preferences.  Others members have blatantly ignored our boundaries and pressed invitations to events that are not our thing, but that can happen in any social setting regardless of relationship type. Recently an acquaintance from an event we attended found us on OkCupid and said he was surprised to see that we were looking for men. He then asked about the date we were with the night we met that walked in on my arm and came home with us at the end of the night. Despite seeing me between the two men all night, the idea that the guys also interacted was just beyond him. And then he went on to say that he thought we’d be a good match.

We have had some fun dates with men that are truly pan or bi-sexual and lavish equal attention on us both. We have also had dates with men that were way more into my husband but identified as straight on their profile. It seemed like I was the accessory to their closeted desires that made it okay to fool around with another man. And of course, we get the OkCupid messages from downright homophobic guys that just see my picture and don’t bother reading anything about who we are and what we are looking for. When I explain that it’s a package deal, they get all kinds of freaked out and sometimes say derogatory things that result in a “fuck off and block.”

We’ve yet to find as good a fit as the first boyfriend-ish guy we were involved with as a triad of sorts for a few months, but we aren’t giving up hope of finding another unicorn. In the process we have made some really cool friends, some we can even cuddle up to without expectation. There are never too many hugs in our book!

Finding that line between friendship and flirtation is a new endeavor in a group where there are so many varieties of relationship styles. Finding that we are an anomaly in a group that is based on accepting the alternative lifestyles can be uncomfortable, but we are making our place in a community that allows us to be exactly who we are, even while we are still figuring it out for ourselves. Hopefully, the rest of the world can start looking at those labels, not as defining boxes we should live within, but ways to better understand those who do not live and love the same way we choose to.

In the meantime, we are accepting that we are ‘too weird for the normal and too normal for the weird’ and that is more common than anything we’ve found yet.

My Own Elephant

PSYCHOphancy: So, apparently there’s an elephant in the room.

That post was like hearing my own voice in so many ways.

There are things I sometimes simply don’t or can’t put words to. Things in my head that I don’t let fall out because once they are out there they are REAL. They are scary and dark and I have fought the darkness of The Black Hole my entire life.

Last night I was dreaming about being in a psyche ward. It wasn’t like the one in Texas, but a longer-term care facility of some kind. I woke up filled with the same heavy that The Black Hole brings… heavy in my chest, my limbs, my head. I slept way later than I should have and could have stayed in bed longer had my grown-up voice not ordered me to do otherwise. It’s been creeping in on me all month, but I keep pushing it away and getting up. Today I plan to clean the bathroom and revisit the recipes for the treats I’m making for discussion group this weekend. That’s all I can do when I feel it coming- act normal until I start to feel normal again.

In Texas, I hadn’t found the strength to fight it. In Texas, in 2005 I found myself sobbing on the floor of the hallway in a crappy, roach-infested heap the ExH and I had just rented. He was away at school, My Kiddo was still in Colorado and my only friend in the same time zone was a former neighbor from Germany who lived an hour away and worked 12 hour shifts at a local prison. I’ve never exactly been suicidal, but the truth is that while most people look for reasons to live, I’ve always needed reasons not to kill myself.

In that moment, the last reason I could find was my precious Husky who was laying with me on the floor, comforting me when nothing else would. I thought how awful it would be for him to be alone with my body so long he would eventually have to eat me. Morbid, right?

I picked myself up and drove to a Dr.’s office where I showed them my journal. At the Dr.'s request, I then agreed to drive myself across the street and check in to the psyche facility.

For three days I was there, drugged into a psychedelic stupor. My most vivid memory was of the night they gave me something that made me hallucinate that I had giant Mickey Mouse hands. I was still aware enough to know I was tripping, just like in my early 20’s when I would drop acid and watch Teletubbies. I calmly walked out to the nurse, told her of the side-effect of that evening’s meds then was escorted back to my room and tucked into bed like a child.

It didn’t get better for years after that stay. I did the therapy thing but had a therapist that I was able to derail into what ever conversation I wanted to have on any day. One session was spent just discussion the housing market in the area as we were looking at buying a place. He was the same therapist that recommended I buy a puppy training manual and use it as a guide for “training” my husband into better behavior. No joke!

It wasn’t for another year or so that I was put on Prozac by the Gynecologist who later agreed to the hysterectomy I’d needed for years. That seemed to work, but at that point in life things were so messy that there was no medication strong enough to keep my crazies at bay. When ExH and I decided we were getting divorced at last, I lost my health insurance and access to meds.

Fast forward past the years of struggle with a boyfriend and his baby… fast forward through the food banks and the poverty. Fast forward through the jobs in a psyche facility, then a rehab center and into the call center gig where I was rapidly promoted into a place where I could afford our little apartment, all the bills, and real groceries. Fast forward to life now.

I have an amazing husband, and a comfortable life. The Anxiety Monster rears its head less and less for me these days, but it hasn’t left my world. It attacks My Mr. in the same situations it used to attack me. The Happy Campers don’t work as well or as quickly for him as they did for me, and he doesn’t like how my Xanax makes him feel. I don’t blame him. I reserve the Xanax for major things like the dentist and the mall.

We talk about everything, even when it hurts. We are enmeshed in each other in a way that is a tremendous comfort, but also in a way that means one of us has to be aware of the crazy ball and keep it in check or we could end up spiraling down together. We are cut of the same cloth and all that it comes with.

All of those things make it necessary for us to have outside people, and at the same time, those are the things that make it so hard to find outside people.

I’m not giving up. Today I have a bathroom to clean. Tomorrow I have to pull myself out of bed early enough to eat breakfast then go skating. The little blue-haired ladies can shake their head and give me the stink eye all day long. They don’t know how bad the pain is or how hard it is for me to just stay upright when I start to see stars and sweat profusely. And fuck them for not seeing that no matter the struggle, I refuse to lay down and die.

Fuck them all!

Crossing the Digital Divide (Making Friends)

Someone once told me that in order to make friends as an adult you have to all but force yourself into someone else’s life. We all have jobs and families of our own, so making new social connections tends to fall pretty low on the list of other “grown up” priorities. As a young Military Spouse in Germany during the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, we made connections with other wives that were in the same place we were- on the home front of our generation’s war. We made friends with the wives of the men our husbands were deployed with and communicated regularly to keep each other informed of their safety while nursing our own hearts in our camaraderie. We scheduled coffee dates, but knew we could pick up the phone at any time and just chat about the day to day life stuff we were dealing with.

We had small kids and some friendships started with small talk at the bus stop that eventually led to coffee and cards during the day. We adopted each other as family, and thanks to social media many of us are still given glimpses into each others’ lives all these years later.

Later in life, as a single, working mother of a teenager there were different ways of connecting. I went back to the Open Circle (a Pagan-based church of sorts) I had attended with my ex-boyfriend and forged new connections with people, even as the structure unraveled from the core. People could simply invite you out for dinner, over for a beer after work or to a friend’s backyard barbeque where you could meet other people. Making friends in single-land was easy because I was still looking for a partner and determined to not just sit at home alone.

Around the time of my own life shift back into married-land, the changes in social media and how people connect started to dramatically shift as well. In my mother’s time, you had to go out to a bar, or hope to run into a confused cutie needing assistance checking the cantaloupes in the produce aisle if you wanted to meet other people. Even then you had no idea about what they liked or didn’t like, beyond cantaloupe and corn flakes depending on their grocery cart contents. You had to gamble the odds that they were single, available, and interested in your gender. You had to hope they liked the same kinds of movies and wanted the same white picket fence or dark, Gothic dungeon that you did. You had to feel things out, and then get to know if they were a Bible Banger, a Prancing Pagan, or an intellectual agnostic that would look at your crucifix or hippy crystals with scorn once you made it past the first date and back to your place. You were flying blind, but because that was the only way people kept at it and sought out their friends and lovers face-to-face.

Online dating and social groups such as MeetUp have changed the way people make friends. While we still hope to start up a conversation with the cutie singing karaoke like nobody’s watching, or that the bartender might actually want to make friends and not just tips, the convenience of getting to know people online seems to lessen the likelihood of those sorts of organic meetings. Why take a chance when you can view in-depth profiles, or only go to events with other people who share your interests before you so much as shake a hand? It feels part lazy and part contrived. And at the same time, OkCupid and MeetUp are making for better relationships. One study showed that couples who meet online have an increased success when compared to those who meet organically in public places or through friends.

I guess the question is how to cross that digital divide into genuine friendship. With dating sites it’s generally easy. As a female I seldom have to do more than visit a profile and once they see I’ve seen them they send me a message. I get a lot of the “Wow! Ur so pretty!” messages but occasionally they’ll show me they did more than see my picture pop up before contacting me. As a female in a monogamish relationship where we only date men and only date together the “pretty girl so pretty” messages are clear indicators that the guy contacting me is not going to meet us in person. When we get messages that are addressed to the two of us that’s a sign that they did more than see boobs and hit send. Those are nice. But like any digital contact, it’s easily dismissed unless you take the next step to meet in person.

The other side of the coin is when you do meet someone in person and offer that contact information to connect online. There have been a handful of cool people we met while out and about that we thought would become real-life friends. We took that step of being “friended” on Facebook or FetLife, but beyond an occasional ‘like’ on a post, there has been no further contact.

Successfully crossing that digital divide can be done. I met my husband on OkCupid, and when we decided to go the monogamish route we met someone we were involved with for a few months the same way. We’ve met people at MeetUp events that have since become friends on Facebook and FetLife, and we continue to chat online as well as make (and follow through with!) plans to do things in real life. The obstacles that are killing us are distance and time. All of the people we’ve connected to live at least 45 minutes away, and the only time we are both off work is the weekend. We fill our calendar with trips to NOVA, events in DC and shows in B’more every Saturday and most Fridays. Our weekends are awesome! But here it is on Thursday night and I’m lonely for the days when I could just drop by a friend’s house for a cup of coffee without needing to pencil it in.

A Tree on the Hill *Trigger warning* (Teen Suicide attempt)

A good friend of My Kiddo hung himself last night. He made a phone call before he did it and some of his friends found him hanging from a tree on the hill where they would go hiking. They say he was up there somewhere between 5 and 20 minutes before the kids found him and cut him down. He's in the hospital and still hasn't regained consciousness.

As a parent and of a teenager who has shown signs of depression, this terrifies me. As the parent who found out because she told my husband when he got home from work rather than talking to me all day I'm double stung right now.

She's torn up over wanting to be there with him. And she blames me and my choice to move us out here with The Mr. last year for her not being back  "home" with her friends.

The Mr. took her out for dinner and I'm working right now. I'm glad it's slow, but I could use a little distraction myself.

I don't want to write about her friend in the past tense... but being that we've been gone for almost a year all of my memories of him start with 'he was...' He was the kid that came with us to Renaissance Festival and assured me that if any older guys tried hitting on My Kiddo that he'd step up and tell them she was underage. He came in a full-on High Lander garb with face paint and a sword he couldn't bring into the gates. He was on the color guard team with her- one of only 2 boys. He was one of the kids that was always welcome in our home and always respectful without being schmarmy and over-doing the Eddie Haskall routine. I don't think he's 18 yet.

I had just a brief moment with My Kiddo where she let me hold her and cry. She doesn't let me 'mommy' her often and I had to all but force her to let me embrace her. She just kept saying that she couldn't imagine him not being here anymore.

Logan, please stay with us.