Of possible interest to my Polywogs

The Youtube collection of colossal fuck-ups and the lessons so far:

1. Don't be a Dick.
This sounds simple but it's actually a multiple part series. You see, not being a dick requires constant check-ins and feedback. On this journey we are not carving new relationships out of the living rock. We are not pristine blocks of marble from which we simply carve away everything that is not a statue. We are heaps of precariously places boulders and rubble all set as temporary fixes to immediate problems that seemed to hold, so we forgot that the layer was mostly bubblegum and duct tape and built on top of it. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Indeed it is what all us irrational pattern seeking monkeys do from the time we are born, we fit the world together the what it makes sense to us at the time.

As we grow up, we start to re-structure. We learn new names for things, new ideas, new ways to stack the rocks we already have and get new ones to fill in the cracks. The important thing to remember is that we are never done with this process. There are always new rocks that will fit somewhere.

As anyone who is familiar with blocks and piles knows, when you move something in the pile, the rest shifts a little. And there's no way of knowing whether that giant boulder will cause no movement at all or that tiny pebble will be the thing that starts an avalanche. It is because we want a strong foundation that we take that risk, and really, if a pebble can cause a landslide, the stack wasn't that stable to begin with. These moments of failure are really blessings, helpers, universal forces who undo our childlike attempts and show us the right way. We can be childish when this happens, throw a fit, pout, cry, make it someone else's fault or quit. Or, we can be childlike and curious, seeing there are things we do not know and keeping a heart of gratitude and adventure to learn the strength of the true thing, and not just the flash of the appearance.

This is when the pile is just us. When there are other people we care about in our lives, things get more complicated. Our piles start to get closer to each other, and a shift in ours can have a small or massive effect on those we love.

A good rule of thumb is, if you have discovered something new about yourself, if you've changed something, learned, decided to do something better or different, the people around you are directly affected. Odds are really, really good that those closest to you have been compensating and adapting and working with that thing, and when you change and grow if you don't deliberately ask your partner(s) how they feel, how it has affected them, what their thoughts are and *thank them* for their support thus far, it doesn't feel awesome to be them. No matter how trivial a thing may feel to you, it may have been a colossal burden to them. One that the bravely bore, to be sure, because they love you, but think of it like taking something heavy off a waiter's tray without asking. You think you're helping, but unless you talk and listen there could be a spectacular display of physics as they try to adapt. Or, more like you've been holding a door closed, and they've been helping you, shouldering a good part of the burden and straining to help. You suddenly decide that door doesn't need to be closed anymore and move without warning. They stumble to catch their balance, and when they do, they *will* be waiting, wanting, yearning for some sort of acknowledgment that their help was appreciated.

If you have changed any rules, or figured out things that have been bugging you stop and evaluate. My most recent example is coming up with specific rules for different partners for dates and parties. I discovered after writing them down, the things that made me feel not-awesome were the very things I'd been doing to those I loved. If it is a rule for someone else, hold yourself to the same standard unless you've explicitly agreed to do something else. And not just consent, Enthusiastic Participation. If they have to be home at a certain time, so do you. If they can't leave/have marks, neither can you. If you decide to change a rule, say, that marks are ok now, this is one of those shifting boulders that needs settling and checking in and talking and agreeing before one acts on it.
Ad hoc changes are for people who don't mind swimming for the bridges they've burnt.

Coming up with party rules was a very recent development, and we've yet to find the time to go over them. I imagine I've got a bit of emotional fallout coming because of events past. I was, in fact, a dick. I made assumptions and decisions based on what I thought I would be fine with and told my partner he should have been fine with it too. I based my expectations of his experience on my own and couldn't understand why my introverted, stoic partner at his first event full of people he didn't know would possibly feel hurt or left out when I wanted to leave him while we were on vacation together with no clear rules or expectations other than that he was on vacation with his wife, to go out with some guy I just met.

Clearly he should have introduced himself better, been clearer about volunteering information that wasn't clear to him, asserted needs he wasn't sure he even had and just gone out and met some hot thing to keep him occupied while I was away. Easy as pie.

Total Dick.

Sure, he needs to be responsible for making his needs known, for telling me how he's feeling and for how he presents himself to the world. But I need to think about what *I* want too. Do I want to have a brief fling with lots of drama, or do I want to pull my head out of my clit for 5 minutes and built a future? Do I want this to be fun just for me or do I want everyone to have fun? This could mean I have to pull back, I have to give up some things I want to make sure everyone is pretty happy and wanting to do it again and better next time instead of having me ecstatic, until the aftermath where I discover that my fun came at the expense of making others miserable, hurt and angry. Do I want a disposable toy or do I want to build clan, with all the shiny and all of the work that separates the Poly community from the swingers.

How I discovered I was being a dick was twofold. One, I have two fabulous men that are smart and I trust tell me they both observed the same patterns in separate conversations. One person says you do a thing, you can argue the point. Two people tell you, it's not them, it's you (DAMNIT!) Second, I got a taste of my own medicine. At an event the person I was with found something shiny. He wanted to go play and instead of asking questions and thinking about what I really needed, I gave the answer I thought I should to make him happy and answered from a place I wasn't but thought I should have been. I consented, but not enthusiastically. So, when it came time to do the thing, the things I'd not stopped to consider became big, red, candy-like buttons and I wound up walking alone, in the dark, through the woods looking for something to do. This story does have a happy ending because my people are awesome and this person in particular reads me like a book no matter how much I try to hide it.

But the point is, if the extroverted bubbly one who knows half the freaks there and can get into adventures and have fun during *JURY DUTY* was feeling alone and abandoned and emo and not awesome, how much more for the others before me that I'd treated thus? Clearly, they are better men than I because I'd have had a screaming pouty fit if I'd done that to me.

Trust me, if you don't stop and ask other people if you are being a dick, you are. If you think everything is fine and others are just being too sensitive or needy or demanding or dumb, you are the dick. Poly is about finding the Pareto Optimal point where everyone wins. If you're not actively seeking that level, actively engaging in looking at what other people need and checking to make sure you're reading correctly and getting the whole message, and if you're not doing these things with a gentle, open heart, ready to hear that you may not be perfect and the people you love need you without throwing a fit or getting defensive, you are the one everyone is walking on eggshells around. If it seems too easy, that's because others are picking up your slack. Don't be "that guy."

Don't be a dick.