I Think I Might Be Poly
And that scares me as much as it intrigues me.
It all hit me when a tall, handsome hippie man asked me to dance.
When our hands met, I felt a comfort, familiarity, and grounded sensuality that felt like home. I’m an introvert whose flirtation comes across as ultra-friendly girl-next-door chat. Will (that’s his name) was easy to chat with. As we flowed through the dance floor, I felt more and more at home with him. “I think I remember you coming here when I started to come three years ago. Then you left — what happened?”
“Life had other dances for me to join,” I said with an ultra-friendly glimmer in my wide-eyes.
“Well, I’m glad you’re back.”
“Me too.”
Then he mentioned his wife. But his openness, his eye contact, his friendly touch, told me “wife” didn’t translate to unavailability.
His eyes never left me the entire night. As I sat and chatted with an old friend at the break, he stood next to his wife and another friend, half-chatting, eyes heavily on me. Obviously, I continued to stare back.
That was when I looked over and saw the guy friend that brought me getting the number of a woman he’d danced with a few times that evening. When I asked him in a jovial, “Ooh you got the digits of a cute chic” way, he told me she was polyamorous and merely inviting him to a taco night she and her “main partner” have every month. “Oh,” I said, super curious, after noticing a married co-worker of mine walk onto the dance floor all googly-eyed with a man I knew wasn’t her hubby.
I’m learning that among the 30 and 40-somethings in my community, polyamory is a new rage.
Chalk it up to boredom — or the fact that monogamy takes a lot of work. Or maybe just the fact that we Gen Xers are realizing it’s nearly impossible to feel love for just one person in this world filled with millions upon millions of amazing, attractive people.
Maybe polyamory is the enlightened way to love?
At the end of the night, as Will was swept away by his wife, his deep brown eyes fixated on me one last time. “I’ll see you soon,” they said.
“Oh yes you will, Will,” my eyes said back.
As my guy friend and I walked out, I told him about my surprise when a married co-worker appeared to be on a date with a single man. “Do you think it a date?” I asked him, half-curious, half-shocked. “It was confirmed to me tonight by the poly woman I befriended that her male friend is indeed part of their group. So it’s likely that it was indeed a date” he said, matter-of-factly.
My eyes went wider. Shock turned into admiration for my co-worker. “Go, Alison!” I thought.
As we walked out into the bitter cold, my mind was swimming with possibilities. I remembered the last love-making session with my ex who told me he thought he was poly when we started dating. By the end of our relationship, he confirmed that polyamory wasn’t for him, but I felt otherwise.
“I just want to be a lover,” I said to him post-orgasm, rolling into his arms like a cat begging to be stroked. When our eyes met, he looked at me with what seemed like a deep disappointment that triggered a deep wave of guilt inside of me. Did my truth hurt him? Was polyamory with mutual love, respect, and trust possible?
I remember tucking that “lover” moment away in the crevices of my mind as a pipe dream.
Sometimes those deep moments of truth scare us — especially when we feel very alone and unsupported in them.
My dance with Will last night awakened the lover in me. He reminded me that I am indeed supported. And the polyamory community twirling itself on the dance floor for all to see reminded me that coming out can be as playful as it is courageous.
I realized I don’t have to “want to be” a lover. I am a lover. I just need a safe space to come out and love, one poly moment at a time.
