I Am Polyamorous

I don't like the word 'polyamorous' any more than I like the word 'girlfriend' or 'relationship'. It's a label, a box, and I'm claustrophobic. I use the word only to make what I'm about to say comprehensible. I've fallen in love many times. I've never fallen out of love. If we do the math, we are left with me loving multiple people at the same time. 'Polyamorous' seems as good a word as any to describe that.

When I read about polyamory, I don't like what I see, in the sense that most of it feels different from my own experience. I don't have a choice in this. Love happens to me, I have no control over it. Obviously I can choose how to proceed, choose what relationships I engage in, but none of that changes the fact that I love multiple people at the same time.

What's important to understand is that these feelings are indistinguishable from each other: my love for one is not greater or smaller than my love for another. I always compare it with a mother being asked which one of her kids she loves more: an impossible answer. I may like a person more at any given time, but the love is always constant.

My experience with 'poly-' or open relationships is extremely limited, and for good reason. I don't even want to be in a single relationship, let alone several. I don't have a need for labels, people can be just people. Things can go completely undefined, for the rest of my life, it simply doesn't matter. Lots of things do, but that isn't one of them.

In spite of all that, I am in a relationship right now. I love my girlfriend very much, and we do all sorts of couply things. I have been completely honest with her about everything and will continue to do so. In the past, other girlfriends have been understanding up until the point that they weren't. I'm hopeful my current one will be different. I did it for her, because she needed a boyfriend. It's been worth it.

What about the future? Who knows. In a perfect world all the people I love would be in my life. The reality has been that they systematically disappear. I know that I will never deny my own feelings, because they are pure, and beautiful. They have guided me to do wonderful things for wonderful people. I have this dream where it all works out. Sometimes, I wish that I wouldn't wake from it.