This is a story of crashing and burning.

I’ve made a lot of realizations today. I’m not doing great. I’ve lost my hope that I will find what I want in poly. Worse, I’ve lost my hope that I will find what I want in life. 

I think that polyamory is an outlet for me, a way to attempt to satisfy a hunger. I am so hungry for connection, for intimacy, for the ecstasy of that moment when desire and love collide. I feel like there’s a hole inside of me (for once, no pun intended). Somebody punched a hole in me at a very young age and I’ve been trying to fill it ever since. I’ve been trying to fill it with a sense of being loved, wanted, and worthy. 

Why is it that filling that hole seems impossible? Why is nothing ever big enough to fill it? (Look, I know these innuendos, while unintentional, are hard to ignore–but I swear, I’m being serious right now.)

I feel so empty. 

I could leave it at that, but since I have at least a few readers now, I won’t leave you wondering what the hell happened to put me in this dark place.  

First, through absolutely no fault of his own, Oliver sort of broke my heart a little. That feels ridiculous to say. I don’t think I was in love with him– I think I was in love with the idea of him, and what he represented. But my all-consuming crush on him is over now. He’s still amazing and I know our friendship will only get better and better. It’s just that the reality of the situation has become clear, and I realized that I was deluded to think anything could actually happen there. 

Because as it turns out, Oliver and Shelby were never actually considering being polyamorous or exploring beyond friendship with me and Romeo, or even Romeo and his ex years ago. That was part of a narrative that Romeo’s ex, who I’ll now be referring to as Agatha, created. Agatha crafted this story of what the dynamic between the four of them was, and Romeo absorbed it more than he realized. When he told me that they were considering exploring poly years ago, he thought that to be true. Last night, Oliver kindly but firmly made it clear that this was never the case. They have no intention of ever being poly, and they have given it a lot of thought. It isn’t something that I can hope for anymore. 

Oliver isn’t the only one who’s hurting my heart today. I’m questioning a potential future with Atlas now, because he’s becoming less and less responsive and I know how this story ends. I can tell when interest in me has faded. I can tell when I’m being strung along. It is ridiculous to feel so sad about this? Probably. I’ve only known Atlas for a few days, and spent less than two hours with him in person. Sure, one of those two hours was highly passionate, but that shouldn’t be enough to give me feelings, should it? I don’t feel like I have any right to feel crushed by the prospect of him rejecting me. Which only makes it more pathetic that I do. 

Oliver and Atlas were the only two people giving me a sense of excitement about the future, and the possibility of finding that thing that I’m looking for. I feel like I’m back to square one, again, and this time I’m seeing that there may not be anything beyond this. 

Either it’s all about sex, or not about sex at all. Either I have to reject people because they are so clearly not what Romeo and I are looking for, or we get rejected by the few who do check our boxes. We haven’t found it yet, and I am losing hope that we will. Worse, I am realizing that my search for this ineffable something may be a lost cause, because even if I did find it, it wouldn’t fix the pain that never fully goes away. 

I’m struggling knowing that it’s quite possible that I won’t be able to have a satisfying poly relationship in the way that we are limited to exploring right now. The connection of two people to one is never going to be as strong as one-to-one. But I also don’t want to explore without Romeo and leave him feeling all the negative ways that would make him feel. It isn’t worth the cost, especially knowing that the prize could easily not be what I actually need at all. 

I don’t know what I need, and searching for it feels so defeating. 

I believe that polyamory is a powerful tool for self-discovery and self-growth. Right now, I’m in a stage that feels like I’m crashing and burning. But at least I know one thing, from everything I’ve been through in my life; I’m a phoenix, and when the burning is done, I’ll pick myself up and start again.