Boner goggles?

I’ve identified in Holden something that acts as a sort of equivalent to beer goggles. Maybe I’ll call them boner goggles. (A frightening image.) In the same way that drinking lots of beer can make even the ugliest woman at the bar look hot, I’ve found that Holden’s attraction to a woman can make him see everything exactly as he wants it, not as things really are.

This happened with the woman he cheated on me with the one time it happened. His attraction to her led him to live in denial of how much he was leading her on, how much he actually wanted a sexual relationship with her, and how badly I was being hurt in the process. Not only was this woman actively trying to seduce Holden, she was saying terrible, cruel things to me every time we met and Holden was absolutely blind to it. I spoke to him directly about how his flirtations with her went further than I felt comfortable with, how I was afraid he was inviting trouble by acting like more than friends with her, and I asked him to back off and also to speak with her about backing off in her flirtation as well. I thought I was being pretty assertive and direct, but when Holden gets in that state, nothing short of a cold wet trout to the face will snap him out of it to see reality. Sadly, I had no trout at hand. He did talk to her and he did promise to back off, but she didn’t, and the temptation was just too much for him.

That is a most extreme case, but a more mild case has come up recently. Knowing what to look for now, I was able to head it off fairly early before any real damage was done, but it was HARD to get Holden to put on the brakes and step back to really look at the situation. In this case, Holden was developing feelings for one of our friends and when he talked with her about this, she was generally positive about it and didn’t flat out tell him to stop it or back off. However, they both knew and agreed that things should just stay as a friendship because none of the parties involved is quite ready to take the next step just yet. Holden saw her positivity as a green light to go ahead and ramp up his flirtation with her. He started pushing really hard for scheduling our next trip to visit. It just seemed like he was being really pushy and overbearing. When I got him to realize how he was coming across, he was pretty embarrassed. He was shocked at himself for how he had been so blinded by his own desires. We had a really good discussion about what I had observed in him and how he had responded when I had tried to point these things out. He told me he couldn’t promise it wouldn’t happen again. After all, it is easy to get swept up in the excitement over something new. But now that he’s really aware of it, and now that I know what to look for, we’re both going to try and do a better job of recognizing it.

I really admire Holden for being willing to face himself when he finds out he’s been acting badly. I hope I can follow his example when I get called out for being boneheaded.

-Grace

Poly Weekly 6-21-05

In this episode, Minx is interviewing her lover, Graydancer and his wife, Genevieve about something called New Relationship Energy (NRE.) This is a term I only just learned about. I guess it means the excited, giddy feeling you have when you’ve just started a new relationship with someone. This can be hard for an existing partner to cope with when their partner takes a new lover. It can be a time of heightened jealousy and envy, as well as exposing previously unimportant insecurities, or unearthing old ones that may have been quelled in the past.

In a hypothetical imagining of mine, I can see how I would react if Holden had a new love interest that I wasn’t involved in. He would come home with that goofy grin on his face, eager to tell me everything, and I would listen. But all the while I would be mourning the NRE that we will never have again. “He used to grin about ME like that. I wonder if he talked this excitedly about me to his friends. I wonder what I can do to make him that excited to see me again. What would it take to get him to daydream about me like he does about her?”

I try to put myself in Genevieve’s shoes. She decided to try polyamory because her husband Graydancer wanted to be polyamorous. I suspect her insecurity and jealousy were strong like mine when the idea first came up but they were very devoted to each other and through lots of talking and I’m sure lots of negotiating and probably crying, they figured out what they could be comfortable with.

Genevieve talked about the time it took for her to become acclimatized to seeing Graydancer with his other lover, Minx. She said it was definitely a shock the first time she saw them kissing, and that it took several years for her to finally get to be so comfortable with seeing the two of them relating to each other lovingly that she could feel totally happy for Graydancer and not feel jealous first.

I worry deep down that I may never get to that point. I worry that it will always cause me pain to see or even think about Holden being so affectionate with another woman. Just like there’s still a little voice in the back of my head that scolds me for not living up to my grandparents’ standards (“What would Grandpa think of this?” “What would Grandma say if you told her you did this?”) I feel like there would always be a voice in the back of my head chastising me for betraying the “true” meaning of marriage, of practicing moral relativism, and of making up my own rules just to make myself feel good regardless of “what I know is right.” The cultural conditioning for monogamy is very strong and not only will I have to get my own personal problems under control, but I’ll also have to come to terms with how I feel about the cultural perspective. When I think of it that way, I can understand why I should expect it to take several years for me to feel comfortable.

One thing that Graydancer said was that “our society doesn’t leave any room for that idea. We’re not used to seeing the person we love kissing someone else… and expecting to be happy about it. That takes a lot of practice.”

He went on to say that there are two big things to remember to make a priority when you’re dealing with NRE: time and attention. It’s important for the partner who’s taking a new lover to spend time and more importantly attention on his/her established lover to make sure they know how much they’re still valued and adored. That’s something I can see Holden being fairly good at, though it may take a reminder from time to time.

-Grace