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Hairpin.What's the payoff to avoiding monogamy?A NON-MONOGAMOUS LADY: Why don't we start by casting our minds far, far
back to the world of monogamy?A NON-MONOGAMOUS DUDE:
Time travel!ANML: Flashback!ANMD: Wavy lines!ANML: Why
didn’t monogamy work for you?ANMD: I liked
monogamy! In retrospect, it’s comforting in that it is possible to
not discuss a lot of complicated feelings about your
relationship, and you can enjoy a comfortable, loving union whilst minimizing
territorialness and
comfortableness often becomes complacency. And as the relationship persists, it becomes
unhappier by barely perceptible degrees, and I find myself becoming discontented --
though I’m not sure exactly why -- and I get to a point where I feel that my
relationship is being held together by inertia alone. I take my partner for granted, I
get taken for granted, and we’re doomed. I have a feeling that monogamy may play a
substantial role in this degradation.ANML: It may!
Is it my turn now?ANMD: Lay it on me,
co-skipper.ANML: My experience with long-term
monogamy was similar to yours. I didn't hate being monogamous, and I didn't have a hard
time staying faithful or anything. For me, it wasn't so much that I hated monogamy -- it
was that I LOVED being single. It was a complete amazement to me, how much I loved being
single.ANMD: You had been in a relationship for a
long time, so singledom must have been quite a
revelation.ANML: It was like night and day. I loved
flirting. I loved one-night stands. I loved the feeling that life was full of endless
possibility, and that on any given day I might
or go home with a stranger from a karaoke bar, or hitch a ride on the back of a Vespa and
then kiss the driver.ANMD: (NB: All these things
happened.)ANML: I'm not a very adventurous person
in most ways. I don't have much of a yen to travel. I get agoraphobia if there aren't
enough buildings around. Extreme sports are anathema to me.ANMD: But man -- X-treme sex?ANML: That’s my adventure! I didn’t know it until I was
single, but that’s what makes me feel alive and curious and engaged with the world.
So I was incredibly happy with my life, with no intention of changing it. But then I met
you.ANMD: On the day of our meeting, an eagle
dropped a snake on a rock in Washington Square Park. All sorts of portentous.ANML: I agonized over it. Christ, I didn't want to be in a
relationship again! But on the other hand, I was crazy about you
and wanted to be with you every second!ANMD: This
was reciprocated. My situation was a bit different. When I started dating you I was just
out of a long monogamous relationship, and I was not at all ready to dive into a
similarly monogamous relationship immediately.ANML:
Non-monogamy was the obvious solution.
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