Two years ago, I moved to a new area for work reasons. This meant leaving all of my friends behind. This isn’t the first time I’ve moved cross-country, however.
Once I recovered from the logistical stress of moving, I steeled myself and prepared to meet new folks where I was living. That was just beginning to happen when COVID-19 hit. And then I went into lockdown (as did a lot of other people). So I’ve spent a lot longer than normal living in a new area without local friends.
The past couple of months have been interesting — as I’m venturing out a bit more. Now that I’m vaxxed, there are more options available to me without feeling like I’m taking ridiculous risks, especially if I wear a mask.
I had considered hitting up the local polyamory or kink meetups — as I was heavily involved in a kink organization in my former home. But this time around, I opted to meet people in other settings. This is partly because of my niche fame. It can be hard enough to make new friends as an adult; things get weird when someone has heard of you before they meet you. Hilariously, one of my first friends here had actually heard of me and of Poly Land and exclaimed “but you don’t act famous!” when they discovered who I was (I’m still not sure what “acting famous” looks like). They weren’t polyamorous themselves, not at that time, but had a lot of polyamorous friends themselves — and would over the ensuing year end up as part of a polyamorous relationship (which seemed to amuse them). Not with me or anything. But still, pretty funny.
I’ve continued meeting folks — primarily through hobbies. I am a very bad ceramicist (and do not expect to ever get better), but I love working with clay. And I joined a writing group.
Just between those two things, I have met an additional four polyamorous people. Yes, really. Without even looking.
It’s curious to me because I’m rather low key about it. I don’t talk about polyamory much in my daily life (I get enough of it from writing about it for work, to be honest). But I tend to find other polyamorous people rather easily, basically anywhere I can find people period.
I just randomly meet polyamorous people, I guess.
It’s curious to me — as I hear how often how difficult it can be to meet polyamorous people. But for some reason, this has never been the case for me personally. To be fair, I never sought out polyamory in the first place. It came and found me, as friends in my old social circle back in Maine started experimenting in their relationships.
And ever since then, I can’t help but run into polyamorous people when I’m out and about.