These past few months have been a very enlightening experience. For one thing, I’ve discovered that less than 1% of people on online dating platforms are actually decent humans. This isn’t a scientific number, however based on the number of people I’ve connected with in proportion to the number that hasn’t ended with my mistreatment… I think it’s a pretty decent guesstimate.
Because of my experiences, I no longer believe that I will find what I was hoping to find in these past few months. I have been hurt over and over again, and I have reached a point where I can’t do it anymore. My trust in new people and my belief in the general goodness of all people has been eroded. And so, I’m done searching for a new partner. The time has come to stop actively dating and looking for that final relationship that I believed would satisfy my poly heart.
My final breaking point, other than the most recent Bottom of the Barrel connections and the infamous Tucker, was Alister and Adelyn.
I was so excited and hopeful about them. Our connection was brief, but powerful. I hadn’t ever felt so optimistic about any other couple. And that is the reason that this one hurt so very much. I thought that they were the light at the end of a very long and dark tunnel; but as it turns out, they were just as bad as all of the other people who have hurt us on this ill-fated journey.
Part of it was just an unfortunate factor that was revealed after we met. There was a health issue with both of them that was a sexual deal breaker for us. But another part of it all falling apart was a hurtful comment that was made by them about me and Romeo’s parenting choices. To be told by another mom that she feels “distressed” by a very valid parenting approach of ours triggered my mom-guilt severely. I felt utterly judged. Yet still, I was willing to move past it and remain friends.
The thing that left my head spinning was how after we let them know that we couldn’t pursue a sexual relationship with them, but would like to remain friends if they wanted to, they didn’t respond. They deleted our chat and disconnected from me on the dating app, without a word.
Everything that I thought I felt was clearly a lie. That we could be discarded so quickly because we weren’t able to comfortably pursue a sexual relationship with them– that sent a clear message. Our “friendship” that we thought we were building was fake. For them, it was all about sex, and their supposed care for us was not genuine.
I would never cut someone off with such callousness. Even when I have been treated terribly, I have had the decency to tell them why I no longer wanted to talk to them– or at least tell them that I no longer wanted to talk to them. Alister and Adelyn didn’t feel we were worth even the effort of a goodbye.
Aside from my plethora of horrible experiences, I have come to understand that what I was looking for is simply not realistic. Kameron actually helped me realize that, without intending to. He shared that he felt he would not be able to develop the level of emotional intimacy I was looking for in the current configuration of me only dating with Romeo. He feels that he needs one-on-one time together to develop a more meaningful relationship. As always, he was kind and respectful and in no way tried to pressure me to change my boundaries. It meant so much to me that he would even take the time to tell me how he was feeling, instead of being like so many of the other guys who just ghost.
His feelings resonated with me. I realized that I, too, am struggling to find the level of emotional connection that I want without being able to spend time with a person individually. I was attempting to compensate for that by having individual text conversations, rather than only group chats, but it just wasn’t enough.
The realization that my search efforts are futile was a very defeating moment for me. I am so thankful for Romeo pushing himself to be supportive of my polyamory. But I know that if he tried to push himself further, he would not be able to find happiness in our marriage and would only be suffering for my sake. I would never want that for him. The only logical conclusion at this point is to let go of what I wanted, and accept what I have.
Despite the hurtful experiences I’ve been through, I’m thankful for the poly relationships I have now.
If Benny and our polycule couple Gerry and Nadine are the only relationships we’ll have gained from this journey, then that would be worth it. Gerry and Nadine are wonderful, loving people and we are lucky to have them in our lives. My continued search for poly relationships had nothing to do with them lacking in any way. I’m just very poly! And I wanted more connections. But now I must accept that this vision isn’t meant to be.
I will continue to allow things to play out with Kameron, as well as a newer guy who I’ll call Alaric. Plus, I have a few open casual conversations with other individual guys, with whom I will continue to see what happens.
As for Benny, there may actually be something evolving there that is way closer to what I’ve been actively searching for than I ever realized. You see, Benny lives far away, but our connection is a once-in-a-lifetime kind. I know that the few times each year that we are hopefully able to see each other in person will be so special. I also have hope that someday, we may be able to live closer to each other.
But the thing that makes all the difference with him is that he’s very textually available, which allows us to continue to build our connection even from far away. And even more importantly, he’s emotionally available. In his case, having a mostly virtual long-distance relationship actually might be enough to fulfill me in the way I was hoping for.
The connection that we’ve built over the last several months is beautiful. At first, it was a typical poly flirtation, with us trying to figure out what we could or would want to be to each other. We got to meet him and his wife, Clementine, in person and we all got to meet each other’s kids. That really helped cement our friendship, for me. Since then, it has continued to deepen to the point where we both freely express our love for each other and we talk about being part of each other’s lives forever.
But more recently, there has been a shift. For the first part of our relationship, once we established that being poly partners wasn’t realistic due to our distance, we focused on our platonic connection. We developed a level of emotional intimacy that is exactly what I’ve been looking for in a poly partner. But I didn’t see it as sexual or romantic– mostly because he clearly didn’t see it that way, and I was happy to keep things platonic due to (again) our distance.
But then something changed. I mentioned something about wondering about the nature of our connection, because it is so unique and hard to describe. We both sort of came to the conclusion that we’re not completely platonic, and that if we did have the opportunity to be physically intimate, we would take it. But I still felt like he was drawing a line in the sand, because he emphasized that he wouldn’t necessarily want or expect it to be a sexual thing.
Emotional and physical intimacy without sex is something that I’ve always struggled to understand the concept of, but now I think that this is the difference between romantic and sexual connection. They often go hand in hand, but sometimes they can be separate things. Benny has helped me understand what that looks like a lot more.
But as it turned out, talking about not seeing me in an overtly sexual way actually led him to start thinking about me that way. And from there, things have continued to blossom in a different way than before.
Through all my struggles lately essentially searching for a “boyfriend,” I never realized that he might actually be right in front of me already. Our relationship isn’t in the form I had imagined it would be, being that we can’t be together physically other than very rarely right now. But in every other way, he is exactly what I was looking for. When I decided to give up on my search last week, I thought that it was basically the end of my poly journey. I never thought that accepting the end of one phase could actually be the key to finding what I wanted all along.
Is Benny my boyfriend? I don’t know yet. But I know that I want him to be. (And Benny, if you’re reading this, I hope you don’t mind me essentially asking you to be my boyfriend in the form of a blog post. It’s very on-brand, though, isn’t it?)
I’ve often found inspiration in the metaphor of the phoenix. I love the idea that when one thing burns to the ground, something new and possibly completely different can take its place; and that new thing can be just as beautiful, or even more so, than the original.
As such, there is a great deal of poetic beauty in the idea that I am once again coming to the end of one “life” so that I can begin a new one. One where I am poly with stable relationships, with people I love. It’s different than the excitement of dating and new crushes, but it’s actually so much better in the long term.
I started this post in a very negative place. But as I’ve written, I have processed, and as I have processed, I have realized that this isn’t the end of my poly journey. This is the transformation.
I will never not be poly. It’s who I am, regardless of my relationship status. I am poly because I have an abundance of love to give, and I crave deep connection with other people. And you know what? I have found that. I have found it in different ways than I imagined, but they are actually pretty amazing nevertheless. I’m ready to accept this new direction and step into the life that’s being offered to me, with the people that the universe has brought into my life for what I truly believe are good reasons.