Polyamory, Compersion, and Being Ace/Aro*
For a long time I worried that I did not experience compersion the way I should. I worried I could not experience compersion.
Being sex repulsed, I struggled with the idea that I could not feel compersion because I do not like watching my partners share physical affection** with other people. Actually, I just hate watching people kiss. I wince all the way through episodes of the Good Place. I look away at the end of the Beauty and the Beast. Seeing, hearing about, my partners kissing (or more!) other people? No thank you.
I struggled with idea that I could not feel compersion because New Relationship Energy makes me extremely uncomfortable. I dislike spending months feeling like I'm drugged. I dislike seeing people acting out of character or being out of their normal mind. I avoid mistaken identity and fish-out-of-water stories with all my might because the certainty that something will go wrong. Experiencing NRE vicariously through my partners fills me the same anxiety and dread as watching Elf.***
But seeing my wife open up a box full of love from a long distance partner? Absolute joy! Hearing that my partner is back in touch with his once and future girlfriend? Beautiful! Knowing that there are scheduled phone calls to get everyone through the week? That gives me such comfort! Seeing my love become more herself as she grows her relationships? 💕
I experience compersion. My partners' joys are my joys. Love creates more love. I don't experience compersion in the way that is most often depicted because those depictions center compersion on allosexual and alloromantic experiences. And I am not allosexual or alloromantic.
* I am grey-ace and sex repulsed. I have never identified as aro but writing this I realized my reaction to romance is 🤮
** I've never actually seen Elf, the previews made me too uncomfortable