Looking Overboard

Ok, so at the prompting of my friend Kevin, I've been listening to a whole lot of Savage Love podcasts. Which I enjoy because they're funny, despite the fact that the particular podcasts that Kevin directs me to are, for the most part, not really very informative on the particular situations that I find myself in. But he means well, and we love him for it.

There is one thing about the podcasts that has seemed to make a lot of sense to me, though, and it's centered around the concept of fluidity with regard to the openness of relationships. For a very long time, I've considered that most relationships that start out monogamous are better off staying that way, because at that point the first person to mention the possibility of opening up a relationship immediately becomes Public Enemy #1 and the relationship is doomed to end soon thereafter. Whereas, on the other hand, relationships that begin open stay open and succeed or fail of their own accord.

Apparently, according to the experience of Dan Savage, whose credibility, wherever it lies, is certainly better than my own... it seems that the most successful relationships are those that begin exclusively in order to create a security with both partners that shows them each that they are a priority for the other, and THEN they open up the relationship to others after they've successfully prioritized each other and feel more secure in one another's primacy.

Now, I've considered myself to be a long-standing believer that human emotions and affection should not be limited artificially, and therefore have remained pretty firmly on the side against monogamy in general. After all, if you care about somebody, why does that mean you should necessarily cut yourself off from being sexual, or even possibly caring, about somebody else, so long as you promise not to stop caring for your original partner?

I admit that one of the most attractive things for me regarding nonmonogamy is exactly the opposite of what most people accuse me of. Everybody who is monogamy-centric always says "you're just always looking for something better." This is really not the case, even at the times that I've been seeing multiple people at the same time. In fact, part of my PROBLEM has been that, once I fall in love with somebody, I become SO engulfed in my own emotional attachment to them, that I tend to lose myself in the process. Instead, a large portion of what I recognize to be an attractive feature of openness, is that if I assume that my partner is always going to be looking for something better, and because my self-esteem is low enough that I feel like they're pretty much guaranteed to find it within the week, then when they DO find something better, at least I can have some leverage for them not to immediately LEAVE me for that something better... I know, it's kind of self-defeating, but one of the few things I CAN say for myself is that I'm QUITE aware of what my issues are. Not that it seems to be helping me get OVER them very well, but whatever. That's why I blog. Because my therapist had no availability this week, and if I don't get shit like this out somehow, I do crazy things. Like lock myself in a bathroom at a queer wedding and text everyone I've ever been with telling them how much I miss them... I know, don't ask. And don't ask why I didn't make somebody take my damned phone away from me, either.

ANYWAY... part of the thing I'm really trying to work through right now is how in the world to resolve the situation with Barry. Barry, like so many of my other "relationships," is not REALLY a relationship. Yeah, I know, if I could have a dollar for every guy I ever cared about and was "with" without actually being "WITH" them, I'd be rich. There are really two obstacles that have made us pretty much say that a real relationship wouldn't work between us and therefore why we've never really tried anything. The first is that I live in Maryland, and he lives in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania very close to Maryland, but still... it's out of state and far enough away that we don't see one another very often. Even if we do share several text messages a day.

The other major obstacle comes from the fact that I've been very open and public about my stance regarding monogamy. He has been the same regarding his desire to have it. So here's the rub. Lately, after listening to these podcasts, and considering for a bit, I've realized that my own insecurities in the relationships... or non-relationships as most of them have been... have centered around the fact that, in private, those people I've been with have been very close, and very sweet, and we've had very intense personal connections. But in public, or even when anybody else was around at all, there'd been an almost nothing happening.

This has made me consider... maybe it WOULD be a good idea, at least for some indeterminate amount of time, to consider monogamy for the sake of proving a certain prioritization for one another. I admit that, given a monogamous relationship, I'd be able to be secure that I *do* matter and have primacy to the other person, because they are, in fact, sharing something with me that they are not sharing with anyone else, and also that they are making some sort of sacrifice for the sake of being with me.

Then, of course, my over-intellectual self steps in, and starts wondering about everything else, specifically with regard to Barry. Am I only thinking this because this is the largest obstacle between myself and Barry? Am I, instead of breaking out of one unhealthy dynamic of pushing people away through my insistence on complete openness right from the start, instead repeating another unhealthy dynamic pattern of simply paving over certain parts of myself in order to be accepted and loved by another person? Am I being so intensely focused on wanting to find a way to make things work with Barry only because of the fact that I have been feeling so lonely, and if so, is that really fair to him? Or am I over-processing this because I'm trying to find a way to justify my internal sense that I am doomed to forever be alone? And finally, even if we ARE able to work out this one obstacle, are we still doomed because of the distance?

The most trying thing, however, is the fact that I still have my insecurities. What if I mention the fact that I might be willing to try out monogamy, at least for a while, with Barry, and remove the largest obstacle between us, just to find out that the obstacle was more of an excuse for the fact that he pure and simple isn't really interested in a relationship with me? And would knowing that help me in some way, or would it set me back even further than I already am? After all, living with the illusion of hope sometimes seems as if it is a mixed blessing and curse in a lot of ways. Particularly given my current job prospects, having some sense that a ray of light can be coming seems to be pretty important to me right now. But at the same time, maintaining a delusion for the sake of moving on is never healthy, either.

Of course, the other problem is the fact that I've only very vaguely been talking to Barry about these concerns. On one hand, I feel as if it's important to have a discussion about a lot of this in person. But with both of our work schedules, combined with said distance, face-to-face time is rare. And we've already determined that I'm crazy enough that I can't keep on just bottling all of this in. At the same time, I also don't want him to feel as if he is somehow less because of the fact that things with Matt had just gone over so recently, too. Especially considering, had things not fallen through with Matt, it would have been particularly difficult to consider monogamy with Barry. At least not successfully. And it's hard to be able to give somebody the recognition that they are important and valuable of their own accord. I know as well as anyone, because I've been one NEEDY son of a bitch sometimes.

The fact is, I feel like I'm on a boat looking overboard at the ocean. On one hand, the water looks nice and cool, and pleasant enough to want to jump in and swim. On the other hand, this is a big fucking ocean, and I really don't want to drown in it...