I have been having a pondering. This time the pondering is about “perfect” and standards for partners. Bear with me as I ramble…
A few years ago I wrote in a post to a local bdsm mailing list talking about how I felt like Tom was trying to push me into a mold to be the partner he wanted. He already owned clothing, shoes, collars… how convenient that they were all my size! It seemed like he had been auditioning people to find someone to fit into his perception of perfect. At the time I wrote fairly extensively about how much that hurt me and I felt devalued because he didn’t love me for my individuality, he wanted just a body to fill his fetish items.
A lot of time has gone by since then though. Do we still own the pairs of shoes he had pre-me? Maybe. I’m not sure. I know we talked about getting rid of them because of how hurt I felt by their very existence. (He passed these shoes through several partners.) But I actually think they are still in a box in a closet somewhere in the house. They stopped being important. I stopped worrying about the “slut of the day collar.” I have been with Tom for 4 years. I have 30+ pairs of shoes, most of which were purchased because he might like them. It makes him smile and it makes him hard for me to wear them–so why not? We have a collection of collars more extensive than any single fetish supplier I have ever seen. Dude, we are really into collars. These days I barely ever wear one. I would be hard pressed to remember the last time I wore a collar. They stopped being significant between us when the M/s went away. Although I have put my foot down about him doing D/s play with other people, he is free to use collars with them, well as long as he uses the collars that pre-date me. He can’t use my collars on anyone else and I would never ever put his collar on someone else. It wouldn’t feel right. So, does this mean I have just “gotten over” feeling upset by his fetishes? Have I *gasp in horror* grown up? Please Lord, say it isn’t so!!!
I have been thinking about this because I spend a lot of time in the car. Berkeley is a bloody long drive on Monday nights! One of the many odd day dreams that has occupied my mind is the concept of a “perfect” partner. Given that I’m trying poly (so far really successfully) I almost feel guilty for trying to imagine “the one,” but hey–I’m human. I have been kind of designing this person in my head using personal ad speak. If I were going to place an ad looking for my perfect partner, what would I ask for? I need someone who can talk. I would like someone who is very handy to have around because I admire that in a person. I want someone who can play and be silly in Disneyland. I want someone who wants to travel with me. I want someone who is really really smart in ways that I am not so that we can share our various areas of expertise and further enrich one another. I need someone who can be Dominant, well… at least in bed. [I’m learning that Dominance elsewhere in my life is not quite as important as I once thought. hm.] I need someone who is patient with me. I need someone who can handle the fact that I wake up in the middle of the night very upset and I need to be coaxed back to sleep sometimes. I need someone who can be my Daddy when I am very upset. I need someone who understands that I like chasing Bright Shiny Things and chasing those things don’t mean that I want to leave or that I won’t come home. I need someone who wants sex! Who wants to initiate sex! Yay sex! (This is a harder requirement than one might think.) I want someone who wants to tie me up! I want someone who wants to beat the snot out of me! (This is a harder requirement than one might think.) I want someone who will dance with me. I want someone who will think I am the greatest thing since sliced bread, oh except when I’m being a dork. But I’m ok then too. I want someone who is confident enough in themself to call me on my shit. I should not be allowed to indulge in my penchance for picking on people. I know I do it, I try not to, I do it anyway sometimes. Someone should love themself enough to stand up to me about it. I will really respect you more for it. I want someone who wants to go to bdsm conferences with me and show off. I want someone who wants to dress me up and have me look pretty. I want…
Hey wait. So far I am describing an amalgamation of Tom and Noah and DA. hm. Maybe I should stick with poly.
Does this mean that I am bad though? That I have ideals that I want people to live up to? Am I being controling? Am I just trying to fit a body into being what I want instead of liking the person for who they are? Or have my ideals come about because of liking the people I have in my life? I’m not sure how marriage and kids will fit into this though. I’m kind of scared to think about it. Deliberate community is a concept I’m thinking about more and more. It is tweaking my neurons. Let me tell you, 5 years ago I would never have believed I would be interested in this crazy hippy shit. oy.
Even for monogamous folks, their partners do not live up to their ideals every minute of every day, you know… They just work those things out, and get “stuff I can’t get from partner” from friends, rather than lovers… I tend to think that the choice between mono and poly is a matter of degrees, since even the mono folks have to decide what level of intimacy is OK with others. (Is kissing a friend OK? Is casual nudity around friends OK? Etc…)
As for ideals — of course it’s not bad to have them, as long as you recgonize that your partners will probably disappoint you from time to time, and as long as it’s not often, and they’re apologetic, you should forgive them and not hold them to a standard than higher than what you can live up to yourself. As for whether your partners create your ideals, or vice versa, probably a little of both; as we grow to love people, their traits seem more attractive. *shrug*
Also regarding ideals — what you describe is, I think, not so terribly uncommon in our community, at least to a first approximation. (I mean, you have three of ’em, right? And I can think of a few others who would at least fit most of that description.)
Some, perhaps even most, but certainly not all of my ideals have changed over the years. It probably helps (or doesn’t help depending on how you feel about these things) that if I put thought into it, I can find something in just about anyone. Also I believe in complimentary rather than perfect when it comes to matchmaking.
Having an ideal partner (aka “knowing what you want”) is definitely not manipulative, and not bad. How do I know? Because I do it, so it’s obviously the perfect thing to do — duh! 😛
I can understand feeling a little weird about somebody having an existing extensive collection of fetish stuff and putting you into it… For starters, having predicted your size suggests a really strong physical type, which always makes somebody feel a little emotionally ignored. But, y’know, knowing a lot of what he wants in a partner? Not basically a bad thing. Knowing that you’re kinda what he wants? Also not basically a bad thing. It’s all in how you think about it. Or how you spin it, depending 🙂