It is no big secret that I see little value in small talk or networking. I find the whole practice of meeting people to be tiresome, and the games we play as humans are ridiculous. When it comes to meeting other people I am usually hoping for one of three things: friendship, partnerships, or sex. This may sound a little harsh but it is true for me, I just don’t care about meeting people that will help my “career” or just to pass the time on the bus. I want something deeper than that in my human reactions but because time and resources are finite the entire population can’t fit into one of these three categories for me.
Friends: I have a good core network of friends right now but this is in transition. As I have left the beltway liberty movement many of my friends from the east coast are not as prominent in my life. They are still important to me and I love them dearly but email and g-chatting is not the same as having these friends in my life. So, there is room for more friends right now but I tend to get along with women better than men. I’d like to believe I am a true individualist and post-gender but the reality is I generally feel more comfortable around women than men and am able to open up more to them. I don’t know if this is because I view men as competition or what but the friendships just seem harder to forge with guys for me. I actually think it is because women are most likely to fall into the next two categories which means investing in a new relationship with women opens up a lot of potential where men will only be in the friends category.
Partners: This is the ideal for me. To find romantic partners that will be part of an intimate family of love. This is tough to find though, especially when part of a poly relationship that is long distance. It is hard searching for a partner on your own when many people are not familiar with the concept of polyamory and it isn’t something easily broached early on in an encounter. In my experience the one exception is OKCupid where the poly lifestyle is not that unheard of and their matching algorithms do a good job of linking people who are at least open to open/poly relationships.
Sex: Lastly, sometimes other people are a strong sexual connection but not really a potential partner or friend. This is what I probably have the most room for in my life but is also very difficult to find. As an introvert poly it is not easy to approach someone or to explain my relationship as it is so I rely on others to be more aggressive who are familiar with my views. I guess my views are becoming more well known due to my blog and open acceptance of my own lifestyle. I realize I might be rationalizing my own aversion to approaching women now by basically saying, “they know me and what I want, it’s out there, they will approach if interested”.
Hmm, I need to give all of this more thought.
Wandering Oak 