• Monogamy: having one partner to disappoint.
• Polyamory: having multiple partners to disappoint.
• Relationship Anarchy: disappointing everyone in your life in different unique ways.

So someone asked the question of what is the difference between egalitarian polyamory and relationship anarchy. I've seen a few good answers, but figured I'd add my take.

New Relationship Energy (NRE) is something that a lot of people experience, regardless of if they're monogamous, polyamorous, or relationship anarchists.

So I probably have a few posts worth of thoughts on the concept of "friends with benefits". I've given the reasons I don't particularly like the term itself, but for these posts I'm using it, as it's well understood.

Still have the first of the Hang-ups posts in the development stage, and will post in the next few days. In the meantime, here's a part of a reply I made in a group that I thought might resonate here.

My Post: Who's the most important? — 2020-04-14 08:19

So, a discussion came up in one of the polyamory groups I'm in about what effects the isolation/distance is having on relationships, and libido. Some people noted a loss of interest in both, others noted a crazy libido and desire for contact with partners (both existing, and new.)

So taking the conversation back into a more serious direction for a moment, I'd like to discuss a common form of gatekeeping within the polyamorous community: The exclusion of people who are aromatic, asexual, demi-romantic, or demi-sexual.

So, a while ago, I had an idea about how maybe "threads of attraction" (i.e. platonic, romantic, sexual, etc.) are actually made up of separate strands of more basic emotional responses. I thought that maybe alterous attraction was caused by having strands from both the platonic and romantic threads wound together into a single thread. Well, after deciding that I was pretty firmly in the demi-romantic/grey-romantic spectrum, I've been doing a bit more research on the topic of attractions. All of it coalesced into a new revelation, one of those moments that makes me feel like Neo when he finally can "see" the code behind the Matrix. There are no threads! Only the strands are real! What we think of as platonic, romantic, or sexual attraction are just the most common collections of individual strands of emotional responses that humans experience. They are not the only configurations that may exist. Indeed for what may be a small minority, but still a statistically significant amount of humanity, we experience very different configurations of emotional attachment. The concepts of alterous attraction, and queerplatonic relationships fit into this theory beautifully.

So a bit of a follow-up on a few things I've written about, along with more self revelations, one of which has taken way too long to realize!

This is the first in a series of posts about non-traditional types of attraction, and how they fit in the context of relationship anarchy. First up, is one that I've experienced enough times that I'm starting to wonder if it's my default setting.

Random morning thought. I've talked about all the various kinds of attraction, I've talked about alterous attraction, and I've talked about modular personality traits. What if all the types of attraction aren't as separate as we think? Maybe the threads of attraction are made up of separate strands of more basic underlying emotional responses, and some combinations of those strands can have similar but distinctive properties, which we give different names to. Given this concept, alterous attraction might not be two threads that have become entangled, but a single thread with a combination of strands resembling both the other more common threads. I'm thinking these odd thread configurations are my default instead of the stereotypical threads of attraction. Damn, I'm going to have to contemplate this more later. Anyway, that's my rambling for the morning.

So in my break time this week, I've been working on a few things for this page. Some of it might work, some of it might not. I'm kinda just experimenting. I tried making some diagrams and charts, but they were boring. I might look at making some videos where I talk about these subjects in my usual awkward manner (I am far more comfortable behind a camera than in front of one, something I should work on!) Anyway, here's a little taste of where my creative outlets are going, a short poem about my own thoughts on alterous attraction set on a neat stock photo I found, using an interesting colour palette I hope doesn't murder the eyes of any colour-blind folx reading the page.

What makes a person? What underlying traits define our identities? Why do so many identities overlap with each other? How do we form relationships with other people? What are different frameworks with which to handle those relationships?

2020-01-01 08:48

A conversation came up in one of the groups I'm a member of, asking how people define the difference between a friendship, and a partnership. As a relationship anarchist, I think that can be really tricky, and the lines between the two can get really blurry. To keep things super simple, I would say a friendship is someone with whom I have a positive bonding connection with. Be that social, platonic, romantic, sexual, any combination thereof, or something else entirely. A partnership is a friendship with mutual commitment to grow together in the aspects of connection we share. This is why as individuals we can have friends-with-benefits (a phrase I don't particularly like, but am using here for ease of reference), while at the same time having platonic partners. It's not about the "level of intimacy" (another phrase I'm not super comfortable with), but about the mutual commitment. The concepts are not mutually exclusive. And relationships are not static, they change. A friend may become a partner, a partner may become a friend. You can find you have relationships that don't fit into any pre-conceived categories. That's all okay! In the end, I don't think there are any set-in-stone definitions that everyone can agree upon, so just enjoy all of your interpersonal relationships for what they are: unique!

So instead of talking about relationship structures (examples of those being strict monogamy, open relationships, swinging, or any of the many versions of polyamory) how about we take it a bit more meta and discuss relationship frameworks. What is a relationship framework you ask? Well, I think the best way to describe it would be to say it’s the way we internally view and describe all of our interpersonal relationships to ourselves (and how we try to explain said relationships to others, even if that’s a lot more difficult.)