How I Discovered I Was Polyamorous

And wrapping up our week of sexual identity talk, I thought I'd tell you how I discovered I was a polyamorous person - especially since it's a label I only realized applied to me last year for some reason. Sometimes I'm a little slow...

Back when I discovered I was bisexual, I started to think back over all my schoolgirl crushes and I realized something incredibly surprising: every single crush I had was on a couple! I'd always thought it was weird that I went for guys who were "taken" but though I knew I greatly admired the girls they were with, I never labeled it was a crush because that sort of thing wasn't allowed and never even crossed my mind, to be perfectly honest.

In kindergarten, my first couple crush was on the two people who were my best friends for a while: Sarah and Sean. They were "dating" which meant they sat together for coloring and silly stuff like that, but I was totally into them in a way that seems way too mature for my age now that I think about it. I was really into these people and it kind of crushed me when they started pulling away from me.

Later on there was Katie and some guy I forget the name of, Melissa and Brian and Eric and... whatshername. Then my parents pulled me out of the creepy Baptist school and started homeschooling me and I didn't really have any crushes on the people I knew for a long while after that.

Back when I had just outed myself, I thought these feelings were indicative of the fact that I'd been bi my whole life without realizing it, but now I think it also shows I've been poly my whole life without realizing it. Because the very definition of polyamory is "the non-possessive, honest, responsible and ethical philosophy and practice of loving multiple people simultaneously."

My first experience of polyamory was also my first experience lesbian experience. I was dating the man I would later marry and he knew about my interest in girls and was a type that encouraged rather than discouraged this (and yes, I've dated the other type... once). So when my friend at the time suggested doing something with me, I accepted. Though she and I were alone together the first time, two or three other times we involved him in the proceedings as well and it was fun, nobody got hurt and she and I remained friends tho nothing else, because while I liked her but I wasn't in love with her.

That girl eventually got kind of crazy on me, so I was more hesitant the next time I got involved with a girl (who just happens to be my girlfriend now, p.s.) and I waited one year after she expressed interest before doing anything about it. Then one night we were snuggling under a blanket watching The Hunger together and during the lesbian sex scene, we started feeling each other up and then some kissing and touching.

"Allison" had a boyfriend, he's how we met one another, and he also, like my ex was down with the lady love so we had a few sessions where I accompanied them and she accompanied us without the other guy involved, some where she and I just played while the boys watched and one memorable night where we all ended up coupling in the bed together. Good times...

That relationship ended when I moved to Seattle and I didn't do anything poly again until I moved back to Kansas City and started dating my boyfriend. It was then that I started realizing the word "polyamorous" applied to me because he and I actually talked about things like that. If you're wondering why it took me so long to apply the term to the actions, it's because all the other players in my sexy fun times just seemed to view sex so much more casually than people I considered uptight, that I just assumed it was one more unnameable difference between my kinda people and normal people. Since it was limited in my experience just to people I knew, it never occurred to me that this might be a broader movement.

After a while together, my darling and I got into trying to find other local poly people in KC and we met a few but didn't have any interest in any kind of relationship with them until we met "Bella." Long story short, she dated us for exactly a week before she dumped us by proposing on the phone to her "just friend" best friend and I was pretty down-hearted about that for a while. I kind of gave up on my ideal poly lifestyle, which I had only just formalized in my mind as a single mother or a couple who would want to enjoy life, raise our babies and grow old together (though not necessarily living together) as an interlinking unit of 3 or 4.

Recent events in my life, however, have breathed new life into this dream and someday you may even find out why...

Meanwhile, this aspect of my life remains to be continued...

Related posts:
Futurama Shows Polyamory Is Heaven
Buddha, Bisexuality and Betrayal
Not Quite All Out (Being Bi)

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