One year ago today I had sex with someone other than Noah. There has been absolutely no sexual contact with anyone but him since that. In thinking about my history I realize that previous to this I had a period of “girls don’t count” monogamy with Tom that lasted three years, but as a few women reading this can attest… I certainly had sex with people other than Tom during that period. This is the longest period of my life I have actually been completely and totally monogamous. It’s kind of funny that I describe my relationship history as being “basically monogamous” but when I’m honest I notice that I’m not actually good at real and true complete monogamy. So this is interesting to me. There are a wide variety of reasons for this stretch of one-on-one attention and I’m not unhappy about it. I am very likely to continue this trend for quite some time to come. I’m curious how long this will last for me.
Noah’s history is not that different from mine. He has had longer stretches of monogamy than I have had, but it looks like he won’t beat his previous record with me. I’ve never had a partner break monogamy before just because they wanted to. In the four years I was with Tom he had sex with someone else exactly one time when I pushed it. Neither Stephen nor Phil would have broken monogamy. It’s weird having a partner who is as voracious, maybe more so, about sex.
I wonder what monogamy/non-monogamy is going to look like for us throughout our lives. I wonder if I will be monogamous during the whole breeding period. I am pretty certain he won’t be. It’s weird to think about being the monogamous one.
Of course, there are at least two kinds of monogamy. There’s sexual fidelity, but there’s also emotional fidelity.
Well, seeing as there is more than one person I am still intensely in love with, looks like sexual fidelity is what I’m talking about. Cause it’s not like I’m not tempted to shag some people till they can’t see straight… I’m just not doing it.
I was just thinking that there might have been other times in your life when you were reluctant to develop new ongoing relationships and that such reluctance might also qualify as a form of monogamy.
I was just thinking that there might have been other times in your life when you were reluctant to develop new ongoing relationships and that such reluctance might also qualify as a form of monogamy/fidelity.
It’s… I’ve been what I would call “conceptually non-monogamous/default monogamous” pretty much my whole life. While I was with the Lion, I was physically monogamous except for a few instances because he was uncomfortable with the idea of physical non-monogamy on my side, and I didn’t know how to deal with getting him over it.
Currently, with the new partner, we’re both poly in theory…in practice however, we’re too tired to go out most of the time, and the social circle we’re in by default isn’t one in which I want to play the politics of finding partners. (It’s weird to be in a geek circle where I’m on the unattractive side by conventional standards. Usually, while I meet lots of attractive people, they’re quirky-attractive, not “magazine attractive” which is not the case with LARPers here, but that’s such a digression.)
Anyway, I don’t think this really had a point, except to muse aloud to your musing.