Time's a-wastin'

One of the most common tropes in dating is the notion of "wasting time". This would typically come about in the context of reviewing one's relationship, and usually expressed by women in relation to their boyfriend "popping up the question". This could come up, for example, if the relationship has been going-on for a certain period of time, but said boyfriend hasn't proposed to the girlfriend just yet. "Am I wasting my time with him?" the girl might wonder.

Naturally, this thought could occur to guys too, but in our society, male are still more dominant (or expected to be) in pursuing and advancing relationships, and so it's more common for the woman to wait for the man to escalate the relationship into marriage.

The trope of time-wasting is one that frustrates me to no end, because it's an embodiment of the biggest issue with many relationships in our society. The issue is that for many people, their romantic relationship is a GAME…a pre-conceived path from a beginning to an "end". The game starts when one finds a romantic interest, goes through a series of escalations (going out, dating, kissing, having sex, becoming exclusive, getting a key to his/her apartment, meeting the parents, moving-in together, making/getting a marriage proposal) and eventually reaching the "end" (marriage), following which you live happily ever-after.

In this game, most people are taught, you must play by certain rules. The stages must be in a specific order, and certain time periods must exist between each stage, and these must be no shorter than X and no longer than Y. In this game, most people are taught, you must overcome challenges by any means necessary, such as hiding key aspects of your personality to not scare the other person away. You must make efforts to keep yourself pretty, interesting, fun and attractive…. until you finally "win" the game and no longer have to suffer through these hardships. Once you finish the game and get to the END, you no longer have to be concerned because you WON…you have your marriage and can finally stop the chase and be who you really are. It's OK! So what if you're a controlling freak, or a messy hoarder…you are DONE because marriage is Eternal!

In this game, most people are taught, if the game is not winnable, then what's the point? If the other person won't allow you to win the game within the "normal" time-frame by committing to marriage, then they may NEVER do so. If the game is not winnable, then you must end the game and start a new one with someone else. In this game, we are taught, if you aren't playing to WIN, you are wasting your time!

Sarcasm aside, this process, which many of us find normal and natural, is actually the opposite. It's a romantic fabrication that's born out of laziness and insecurity, and it being "the way" is just a myth perpetuated by the media. The reality is that it's all based on deception (of self and others) and leads to countless failures of relationships. It often leads to more insecurity and even depression. In fact, the no. 1 cause for suicides in modern society is romantic issues and failures.

What is the right way, you ask? Simple! Forget about the game, the path and the destination. A relationship is a JOURNEY. It's an adventure you take with another person, during which you spend quality time together, enjoy each other's company, fall in love, engage in sex, and continue to do so for as long as both of you still want to. Sometimes, this adventure will last a few months, sometimes a year or two, and sometimes for the rest of your lives. However, if it's just a short-term relationship, this is by NO means a failure if you both enjoyed it. Relationships with romantic partners sometimes run their course, and there's nothing wrong with that. You can conclude one relationship and develop another one, or have several of them concurrently (polyamory). You can find and start new relationships at ANY age - even in your seventies (in fact, retirement homes are known to be some of the busiest places in the world, in terms of relationships and sex). If you think you don't have the energy for that, keep in mind that once you take the "game" element out of it and just enjoy the adventure, it removes most of the stress and effort related to the relationship, making it easy and fun. In fact, new relationships can cause a huge BOOST in one's energy (this is known as "NRE"…New Relationship Energy). They can literally make you feel like a young man or woman again, and it's one of the best feelings in the world.

Letting go of notions and habits that we spend decades believing can be hard, I know. I see a lot of people go through the anguish of dealing with relationship stresses, and as a younger man, I've gone through them a lot too. However, I've overcome these irrelevant tropes and misconceptions and I know for a fact that it is possible. I hope you give it a try and be on your path to open, loving and fun-filled adventures with your romantic partners!

Once upon a unicorn

In the world of poly, many people have two or more partners, and if they are socially active, they may end up interacting among themselves. Depending on how social and outgoing you and your partners are, they might be anywhere from complete strangers to full-time intense lovers. That sounds fun, right? Well…not always!

If you have a romantic relationship with two people, and then they start a relationship with each other, that essentially creates not one but TWO unicorns at the same time. A unicorn, if you’re not familiar with the term, is a 3^rd partner in a love triangle. For the most part, a unicorn is a person that joins an existing couple to form the new relationship (which is often referred-to as “Triad” or “Thrupple”). There are many variations of this, and there isn’t a universally-accepted definition of what a unicorn is or is not, but a very common notion is that unicorns are called that because like the legendary animal, romantic unicorns are a mythical creature that doesn’t really exist. The latter is usually said somewhat in jest, as obviously there are plenty of people who do meet some definition of a romantic unicorn, but the reason for this is that romantic Unicorn are exceedingly rare, and that type of relationship often doesn’t last more than a few weeks.

If you have two partners that develop a romantic relationship, that generally doesn’t meet the popular definition of a Unicorn, but the way I see it, it’s very similar. The main reason for many of the issues affecting any “group” of lovers is pillow-talk…our tendency to share deep secrets with our lovers. In other words, many people would share thoughts, issues and grievances they have with one partner, with another one, and this is a very explosive situation. At best, it would be difficult for the partner to keep what they hear to themselves. At worst, it could actually shift their point-of-view of their partner. Some people even explicitly play one of their partners against the other, either consciously or not.

Ultimately, all relationships are a fragile thing, and the vast majority of them don’t last very long. Most people know the statistics about how half of marriages end in divorce (this isn’t accurate, but the number is quite high indeed), but the percentage is much higher for non-legally-binding relationships. Even for people who are married, the relationship often has various issues and frustrations going on, sometimes deep under the surface, and sometimes right-in-your-face. When you add another person into that relationship, you are actually creating multiple relationships. Partner A and B, partner A and C, and partner B and C all have their distinct relationships. If one or more of the partners have kids, that is yet another whole set of relationships, and any of them going sour can jeopardize the entire family or poly-family. This means that any additions to an existing relationship is risky, and the less stable the relationship is, the more it risks blowing up badly, with a lot of collateral damage. An analogy I like to use is this: If you see a person standing on top of 2 skateboards….do you hand them another skateboard?

If this sounds like I’m discouraging triads….well, yes, that’s true. Not that I think these are all bad…on the contrary! A functional triad is an amazing experience. However, any relationship needs some level of maturity to be stable, and a triad needs exceptional maturity. If even one of the partners is immature, narcissistic or otherwise bad relationship material, the whole thing would implode, and usually quite quickly.

In the case of two partners of one person forming a relationship between themselves, that, in a way, makes partner A a unicorn to partners B and C, and partner B a unicorn to partners A and C. With Unicorns and relationships being difficult to begin-with, having two of them at the same time is exceptionally fragile and the chances of long-term stability are low. In my own opinion…they are close to zero.

Is there a way out? Not always, I’m afraid. While this CAN work in some situations, my general approach is to not encourage my own partners to get too close. I like them to be friends, but I prefer they remain no-more than simple “buddies”. It’s very important to me to NOT control or steer people (esp. people I care about), so I don’t actively discourage it or do anything to prevent it, but I don’t encourage it either, and I share the above thoughts with any new partner, so that they can be careful. If you yourself are part of a successful, stable and long-term triad (or more), I would love to hear of it, as I’m sure you have some lessons to share and help others build better relations. Please comment!