A Rant
I am back, and I am angry.
Today, I rant. I will come back and give backstory perhaps, later, but I need to get this out, and here is as good a place as any. Not everything is sweet and nice in the world of polyamory – I am in a minority, and sometimes I forget that. Before I set off on my new adventure I was maybe a little spoiled – everything was going so swimmingly, I got overexcited, I was showing off, perhaps, on here, and in person, and I missed a few signs that things were not as right as they could be because for the first time in my life I was feeling accepted for who and what I am, and it made me a little dizzy, and boy am I paying for it now.
The area that T and I have moved to is not like where we were before. The community is much smaller, everybody knows everybody, and attitudes are much more old fashioned. Everywhere I go I can feel this undercurrent of seething frustration where there are people wanting more but terrified to do anything about it. There are whispers of adultery, of forbidden fruit, nothing is open and above board, and everybody walks around in fear of what people will think. Into this I walk, naïve in some ways, because I am so upfront and honest about my sexuality, and my friendships in the normal course of events, that I don’t think about whether things are or aren’t what they appear to be. It never occurred to me for an instant until I was ‘warned’ by a number of people, that things like leaving someone’s house at 6am having been discussing philosophy over late night cups of tea could look anything other than innocent, or that it could matter. Let alone actually playing with someone.
And this is one of the things that makes me angry, because T has moved us here with the unvoiced assumption that I would play by these rules, which only became clear after we got here. That I cannot have a perfectly innocent cup of tea with someone of the opposite sex without ripples going through the entire community, that I am supposed to be circumspect and sneak around, and be discreet to the point of paranoia makes me feel horribly uncomfortable. This is not how I am as a person. In my mind it makes me appear far more guilty if I am looking around ever time I go in and out of a house to see who might be watching, than if I was skipping along openly and affectionately as is my usual wont. Half of the community is instantly a problem for me in terms of friendship, which is upsetting because I find, having grown up with mostly male friends that guys are easier in general to talk to. And god forbid anyone in the place should find out I am bi – nobody is safe!
And what does T think? What is the position of the man that I have thrown away my previous life for? Who said he loved me precisely because I am so upfront and honest and always myself. Who I have shared life with for four years, and was planning to grow old with. What does he think? He thinks I should play along, because he is scared about what these people will think of him, too. He admits that he was more bothered by things than he was letting on before we moved house, but was scared to tell me in case I was upset. Upset! How goddamned upset am I going to feel when I find out I have been misled, even by omission, by the person I ought to trust more than any other? By the man I wanted to marry, who I thought was right for me because he was fearless and intelligent enough to brave being a minority, to cope with less open minded people’s assumptions and ignore them as not mattering, and to understand and accept me as a person. I feel I am being surrounded from all sides, and undermined at the roots at the same time. This attitude is so insidious I have even started to doubt myself in the last few days and weeks, but I go over and check what is in my head and I am well aware that I have done nothing wrong.
I am angry because I have been nothing but open and honest all the way through. I have tried *so damn hard* to not hurt anybody, and it only seems to make things worse. I have tried to take the higher ground, the ethical route, and it just keeps coming back that it is easier to ask forgiveness than permission, because society is used to the hypocrisy of clandestine affairs, it is understood, and almost accepted, unlike polyamory.
I have been misled, pushed around, forced into dishonesty and sneaking around that is against all my principles, and I have been attacked from all sides just for being who I am, and I am sick to the back teeth and beyond
I am angry at T for wanting to put me in a position where I am sneaking around because he is bothered by what others think of it, that makes it so much worse in my opinion than being out and proud, and in everyone's faces. And most of all I am angry at society for being so damn pathetic, that they will hate and fear what they cannot understand and cause my beloved to act this way. They are all so scared, so jealous, so unwilling to examine their own rote taught assumptions about right and wrong, and ‘normal’ that at the same time as I am angry I pity them, but it does not make it right.
Today, I rant. I will come back and give backstory perhaps, later, but I need to get this out, and here is as good a place as any. Not everything is sweet and nice in the world of polyamory – I am in a minority, and sometimes I forget that. Before I set off on my new adventure I was maybe a little spoiled – everything was going so swimmingly, I got overexcited, I was showing off, perhaps, on here, and in person, and I missed a few signs that things were not as right as they could be because for the first time in my life I was feeling accepted for who and what I am, and it made me a little dizzy, and boy am I paying for it now.
The area that T and I have moved to is not like where we were before. The community is much smaller, everybody knows everybody, and attitudes are much more old fashioned. Everywhere I go I can feel this undercurrent of seething frustration where there are people wanting more but terrified to do anything about it. There are whispers of adultery, of forbidden fruit, nothing is open and above board, and everybody walks around in fear of what people will think. Into this I walk, naïve in some ways, because I am so upfront and honest about my sexuality, and my friendships in the normal course of events, that I don’t think about whether things are or aren’t what they appear to be. It never occurred to me for an instant until I was ‘warned’ by a number of people, that things like leaving someone’s house at 6am having been discussing philosophy over late night cups of tea could look anything other than innocent, or that it could matter. Let alone actually playing with someone.
And this is one of the things that makes me angry, because T has moved us here with the unvoiced assumption that I would play by these rules, which only became clear after we got here. That I cannot have a perfectly innocent cup of tea with someone of the opposite sex without ripples going through the entire community, that I am supposed to be circumspect and sneak around, and be discreet to the point of paranoia makes me feel horribly uncomfortable. This is not how I am as a person. In my mind it makes me appear far more guilty if I am looking around ever time I go in and out of a house to see who might be watching, than if I was skipping along openly and affectionately as is my usual wont. Half of the community is instantly a problem for me in terms of friendship, which is upsetting because I find, having grown up with mostly male friends that guys are easier in general to talk to. And god forbid anyone in the place should find out I am bi – nobody is safe!
And what does T think? What is the position of the man that I have thrown away my previous life for? Who said he loved me precisely because I am so upfront and honest and always myself. Who I have shared life with for four years, and was planning to grow old with. What does he think? He thinks I should play along, because he is scared about what these people will think of him, too. He admits that he was more bothered by things than he was letting on before we moved house, but was scared to tell me in case I was upset. Upset! How goddamned upset am I going to feel when I find out I have been misled, even by omission, by the person I ought to trust more than any other? By the man I wanted to marry, who I thought was right for me because he was fearless and intelligent enough to brave being a minority, to cope with less open minded people’s assumptions and ignore them as not mattering, and to understand and accept me as a person. I feel I am being surrounded from all sides, and undermined at the roots at the same time. This attitude is so insidious I have even started to doubt myself in the last few days and weeks, but I go over and check what is in my head and I am well aware that I have done nothing wrong.
I am angry because I have been nothing but open and honest all the way through. I have tried *so damn hard* to not hurt anybody, and it only seems to make things worse. I have tried to take the higher ground, the ethical route, and it just keeps coming back that it is easier to ask forgiveness than permission, because society is used to the hypocrisy of clandestine affairs, it is understood, and almost accepted, unlike polyamory.
I have been misled, pushed around, forced into dishonesty and sneaking around that is against all my principles, and I have been attacked from all sides just for being who I am, and I am sick to the back teeth and beyond
I am angry at T for wanting to put me in a position where I am sneaking around because he is bothered by what others think of it, that makes it so much worse in my opinion than being out and proud, and in everyone's faces. And most of all I am angry at society for being so damn pathetic, that they will hate and fear what they cannot understand and cause my beloved to act this way. They are all so scared, so jealous, so unwilling to examine their own rote taught assumptions about right and wrong, and ‘normal’ that at the same time as I am angry I pity them, but it does not make it right.
posted by Miss Scarlet at 4:12 pm
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