Poly Mon Amour
I always thought I knew exactly what I was looking for, what I was feeling and what I was dreaming about. I always thought I knew how to imagine a relationship, at least to some extent. I also belong to the generation that was carried away by love films like »Breakfast at Tiffany’s« or »Titanic«, a generation made for such misleading half- truths. Well, it used to be all there, partnerships just came into being and they remained, at least for a while. But I, too, was thrown off track after several attempts to live together, to become one with another person whose daily routine looked quite different than my own. Out of devotional desire a friendship developed. My sexual yearning disappeared as if it had never been there. No uncommon phenomenon, and yet for a long time I thought about how such romances, as I could only scrap them together from my memory, would live on, a passionate fire that would never go out.
After ten years of metropolitan confusion, I’m now calling myself a ‘Berliner’. My relationship at the time, which came with me from home, survived for another two years. Since then we have been living together like a family. Actually, I have never separated, somehow I have remained always faithful – at least amicably, only my passionate fire for different bodies and their inner life has never extinguished. The capital city throws my realities overboard again and again, with each new encounter I get a different idea of love. Every new encounter awakens different desires in me. Affairs that get caught up in practical connections and in the end do not dare to remain in any affiliation; love in the city of the undecided and I am a part of it.
Polymania
Recently, me and my friend Jane joined a »poly meet up« in Friedrichshain. When we entered the bar to overlook the situation, we didn’t get that far. We took off our coats, sat down and were involved in a conversation by Steve immediately. From the corner of my eye I saw him approaching us euphorically, like a cheetah smelling new prey and attacking directly. And that’s what he did, he sat down with us. Briefly, he asked if he was disturbing, we were out of words and that didn’t disturb him at all. Steve came all the way from Brandenburg for this event, and as we should learn later, also with a very specific goal. He and his girlfriend Heidi were desperately looking for another partner who would share the household in Brandenburg with them in the future. Heidi herself didn’t sound as convincing as the energetic Steve and I wondered for a short moment if they might have become bored in their relationship. I met many confident characters that evening. Some who don’t see anything in polyamory, but also don’t want to elude from this rather new trend, people who want to refresh their own relationship with a third or fourth person because one won’t do, and people who just won’t commit themselves at all, but perceive this kind of meeting as a perfect opportunity to fuck their way through life without restraint, or at least meet people who share their current ideals. Yes, Poly mon amour, that’s also an impression I got from you; lately on various dating apps, where this term pops up more and more, as an excuse not to have to commit.
Polytragedy
Each one of us carries a package of painful memories of their own. Traumatizing experiences from past relationships make us the people we are today. There was someone there, someone we felt so close to and suddenly this episode no longer exists in our lives. Aren’t we actually afraid to get so close to a person again, to trust unconditionally that the idea of a polyamorous partnership seems to be the perfect solution? Because then it’s easy to keep options open, to let the pain be the pain and to only distribute certain parts of one self to different partners. But how can I guarantee that I am willing to love multiple people if I can’t even do it sincerely for one person, let alone myself? Or did I misunderstand something? Doesn’t polyamory mean to be able to give more love, love that is not only for one person and love that not one single person can live up to? A feeling of belonging, of accepting what is coming, of listening, of responding, of paying attention. What happens when we stop integrating this important component into our lives with our fellow human beings? When we can only give partially and receive partially in return? A real tragedy of lost souls becomes silent in the face of faded dreams from past days. Dreams that have not been fulfilled with lovers we would have taken into our hearts forever. Dreams that can only be satisfied with several stimuli at the same time. Being poly in times in which we have forgotten how to cope with mono. And I wonder:
Poly mon amour, what are you actually dreaming of?
