Nice to enjoy a bit of success
Here’s what I’ve been up to the last couple months: building community. After spending a whole year trying to find a polyamory discussion group in my section of the county (nope, there was not even one) I finally accepted that I was going to have to create my own discussion group. The first Practicing Polyamory Discussion Group meeting was last month -- we had 23 people that night. And last night, the second meeting drew 38 attendees. Sasquatch and I are going to have to buy a few more folding chairs! We drew people of varying ages and marital status, a nice percentage of ladies, and even several people of color, who are indeed rare in the world of polyamory. (I am sorry to say that, for a variety of reasons, polyamory is very closely associated with middle-class white people. So I was extremely happy to see some people show up who didn’t fit this sterotype.)
The thing about poly life is that there’s just not a whole lot of road maps to go by. This is partly deliberate -- people tend to get in polyamory because they don’t want society telling them how to run their romantic lives, you know? So there’s a strong tendency in this neighborhood to just say, “do your own thing, I ain’t judging, good luck to you.” But it’s not easy to forge a new life. Sometimes we really need a second opinion or three. And we need inspiration, too. Realtors will tell you: empty houses don’t sell as well as houses with plenty of furniture in them. They tell you to “stage” the house with furniture, put pretty but generic art up, maybe even bake some cookies so the place will smell good during the open house. You do these things so that people can imagine living in your home. If they can’t see your couch, they have a lot of trouble imagining watching TV in that room. Well, romance is a lot like this as well, I think. People have trouble imagining something for themselves romantically if they can’t see someone else doing it. Where can I see someone living with her 2 husbands? Where can I see the man who has a close, warm, brotherly relationship with his co-husband? Where can I see that family sitting down for Thanksgiving, Grandpa carving a 28-lb turkey, 2 husbands watching the game or maybe coming home sweaty from an early morning Turkey Trot 5K, 2 wives and Grandma arguing happily about the right number of pies to make and working on the annual Thanksgiving jigsaw puzzle, Auntie and Uncle arriving with a huge casserole and a nice Pinot Noir? Nowhere, right now. But maybe, some younger person down the road will be able to look at me and imagine this for themselves. (Although admittedly the real fantasy in this story is Sasquatch ducking out to run a 5K.)
So that is what I want to provide and also to access. A place where people can learn about poly, and talk about their own journey, and receive or give counsel, and feel their imaginations kick on. And I feel like I made pretty good progress here!