Your Daily Polyamory Blog for Navigating Life, Relationships, and More
I’m glad it wasn’t love at first sight when I met you.
Back then, we were just friends. Although we found each other attractive, we both had a lot going on. You thought I was colorful, flashy, a real character — but possibly the bad kind of crazy.
I thought you were sweet and friendly — » Read more
We talk a lot about New Relationship Energy in polyamory, that feeling of euphoria you experience when you start a new relationship. Colors are brighter. Food tastes better. You may have a decreased need for sleep, for food. These cognitive shifts cause you to feel like your new partner can do no wrong. » Read more
I can still remember what my ex-husband said when we’d been dating each for a few months.
“I’m sad that the chase is over.”
I laughed at the time when he said it. Which he wasn’t fond of, because he was being serious (and he often interpreted laughter as hostile).
He went on to explain that his favorite parts of his past relationships had been in the courtship phase. » Read more
2011
“Be careful,” she told me.
“Oh?” I said. “What do you mean?”
“I know you’re crazy about this guy, but it’s all so new,” she said.
I smiled. “Yeah, I get that. I know all about New Relationship Energy. I know what that feels like.” New Relationship Energy (or NRE) is a term for the biochemical state that your body enters when you’re first falling in love, » Read more
“I was just thinking about Love’s Baby Soft,” I said.
“Oh?” Justin replied.
I nodded. “It’s the way I smelled from 12 to 19. A cheap perfume that smelled like baby powder and something else. Flowers maybe.” I told him I’d been given it as a present one Christmas. Couldn’t remember who from. » Read more
In an earlier piece, I wrote about the homing pigeon effect, i.e., “good things are hard to screw up.”
Good relationships typically feel very easy in the beginning. A mix of the biochemical attachment cocktail of New Relationship Energy and actual compatibility washes over any small flaws that would otherwise jump right out. » Read more
“You know,” she says. “I get a rush off meeting new people. It doesn’t even have to someone I’m dating. A capital R Relationship. I can make a new friend, even a new acquaintance, and it’ll make my week. Do you know what I mean?”
I nod. “I do. If I meet someone cool, » Read more
There’s this way that you pull me to you when we’re both half-asleep that tells me you’re something different with me in your life. That I manage to balance you and yet unsettle you in a way that makes us both better.
After spending years together, through thousands of hours of careful observation, » Read more
“What’s wrong?” I ask him.
“It’s gonna sound silly,” he warns me.
“That’s okay,” I say. “Tell me anyway.”
He hasn’t been polyamorous for terribly long. And until this point, it’s been mostly him dating on his own. His wife, an introvert who enjoys her alone time, hasn’t dated much on her own. » Read more
“You guys aren’t married, are you?” our cab driver asks us.
“Actually we are,” I say.
“Newlyweds?” he asks.
“We’ve been together eight years,” I answer.
“Wow,” he says. “You don’t act married.”
“What do you mean?”
Our car driver tells us that we seem to get along too well, » Read more
