Love, Actually

So here's the big fat love blog everyone's been waiting for. What do I think about love?


Can people marry, stay true blue, and it be happily ever after until the day they die? It happens, but it's not bloody likely. If you set yourself thinking that's how your marriage is going to be, you're going to be disappointed.

Monogamy is not natural for most people. Serial monogamy works for others.

The more I read about polyamory, the more I agree with it. Can you love more than one person at a time? Absolutely. Do you love your children exactly the same? Do you love your spouse with the same love you have for your parents? No. So therefore, it is quite possible to hold differing amounts of love for different people with no diminishing of the qualities of the other.

It's quite possible to be in love with one person (or more), and in like with others. And that if everyone is grown-up enough about it, to make a love triangle/decagon/tetrahedron, or any other shape they like.

That's pretty much it, in a nutshell. I know that I've led up to this blog like it's some big revelation. I know there's been other blogs I've deleted. I postponed writing this for quite a while.

Most of that had to do with some horror stories some friends of mine shared with me. A lot of new stories I hadn't heard before, shared in a coincidentally recent time frame of each other. Stories that involved beatings, rapes, emotional tortures and various physical abuses inflicted on them by the men they had been involved with, and for reasons circumstantial to each relationship, they were unable to leave.

Those stories shook me to the core and left me wondering where I stood on the issue of love. If these women had suffered through not just these traumas but blatant, rampant cheating, how could I possibly sanction polyamory?

It took a while to sort their traumas from the notion of informed consent. But with time, distance and fresh perspective, I have. 

There may be other sub-topics related to love I may share my thoughts on from time to time, but that's pretty much the bulk of it. I'll likely write more later, but for now, this is enough.

I nearly bit my tongue in two

I've reached the end of this day in a slightly pissy attitude.  I've been assaulted with some of my pet peeves here recently. Though "pet peeves" is really too light a word.

There are two things that really define me, besides my geekdom.

1.) I root for the underdog.
2. ) I'm allergic to hurting anyone's feelings.

This translates to my being passionate about feminism, civil rights, and LGBT issues. My actions don't always match though, as I'm ultimately lazy.

So anyway, recently a friend confided about being pulled over by the police, and given that there was no real reason, it probably had something to do with his race. Which I was thinking it, even before I was told, and was already angry about it.

Then today at work, a coworker and I were watching a program that featured a gay couple and their children.  He just started raving about how he couldn't watch it, and that it was nasty, he didn't believe in it, etc.

Meanwhile, I'm just sitting there, gritting my teeth. Wondering if I should call him on it, and tell him I find his reaction offensive. To tell him of the many gay and lesbian friends (and some family) I have. Some with children, some without. Some that have been together many years. Some that have been left suicidal because of the uber-religious backgrounds they've come from and feeling there is something fundamentally wrong with themselves but can't change it. And that insensitive louts like him don't help matters.

I ended up doing nothing. I have mixed feelings about it.  On the one hand, I made nice at work. Didn't get into a culture war with a coworker that I rarely have to work with. I didn't hurt his feelings and make him upset by calling attention to his asshat behavior. So I feel a little good about being professional.

On the other hand, most of me is going GAAAAHHHH!!!!  I sat there listening to him trash an issue I'm passionate about!? Maybe he really did need his attitude adjusted, and I could have been the one to do it, but instead I said nothing?  I didn't want to hurt his feelings by calling attention to the fact he was hurting mine? A great deal of me is utterly ashamed at my lack of response.

These are such tricky waters to navigate, and I'm not much of a captain.

So much of me wants to be a balls-out, in-your-face activist. There is a deep vein of fanaticism in me, and I wish I was brave enough to access it. I want to challenge people and stretch boundaries. I want to be a mother that will be a huge embarassment to her children when they are teenagers, but a woman they can be fiercely proud of when they're older.

I want to take outdated attitudes and stand them on their head. To confront other's hang-ups. To be that person that might make you uncomfortable, that might make you angry, but might also make you THINK.

But really? I'm just skeered. People like that are rarely liked and I deeply need to be liked. The families of people like that often experience ostracism. I won't do that to my family. I'm no role-model. I'm just somebody's nearing-middle-age, pasty faced mom.

So I just do what I can do. I ignore things in some settings. Gently correct in other settings. And I love. That is one thing I AM good at. I can find something lovable (or at least sympathetic) in darn near anybody. I leave you with that. Just love.