2:06 Polyamory Class

This story exists in a twilight realm of narrative between dates, smeared chronologically through the fallin-in-love phase, the fucktard singularity, and the friendzone.

During one of my happily exasperated conversations with NSG about our mutual sexual attraction and what the fuck to mindfully do about it, we wandered into the topic of polyamory. This was yet again another NSG conversational realm slightly above my comfort level, but in a good, challenging way. I had to admit to not knowing very much about polyamory, possibly due to a confluence of my own self-knowledge lacking interest in that direction, and also possibly because of societal influences. Much of what little I know is due to some good friends I know who are exploring polyamory...

Which lead to the contemplation about how dedicated and successful these friends are in everything they do. So, naturally, I found myself asking NSG if she knew my friend "M".

She did.
And it was not a good thing. She had some very negative opinions about my friend M, and she was immediately closed and defensive.

At first I tried defending my friend M, to help round out some of her observations into the generally good person I know. I quickly abandoned that tactic, throwing M under the proverbial bus, and worked on convincing NSG how M and myself are profoundly different.

This was all potentially contributory elements for the fucktardification event a couple days later. Which was further twisted into an amusing coincidence because I had a lunch planned the following day with M to catch up, set some weeks in advance.

So it came to pass that I met with M, gave him a ride in my Tesla, and went to lunch to get down to the work of catching up on our friendship which hadn't had any connections since S and I went public with our divorce. He was very kind, and extremely understanding, because he had many relevant points of personal reference to navigate and because he had known S and myself for our entire parenting careers. The pain and difficulty people face in divorce are all unique, but also with a certain degree of compassionate understanding.

It was in this rejuvenated sense of friendship and camaraderie that I brought up our mutual connection to NSG. Which was hilarious to both of us, even if considerably more immediately tragic for me. He had his own slant on his interaction with NSG, which seemed as valid as hers, but while he intended to reassure me that losing her was for the best it mostly illustrated how meaningful she was to me. More importantly, however, was that he expressed a deep appreciation for the difficult relational journey I was trying to embark on, and let myself weave into my healing. This discussion dragged on long enough that we managed to loop in his lovely wife "T", whom I also had not seen in a while. Together, they expressed a strong sense of helpfulness.

Which is how they came to invite me to a class on "Safer Sex", including useful latest health information and elements of consent and boundaries. They sent me the syllabus, which seemed interesting, and a link to the teacher - Amory Jane. She's awesome.

The next week I met up with M&T at She Bop in North Portland. A small crowd gathered for the class, and they were all very friendly. Many polite introductions were made. Then we were ushered in, and Amory Jane started the class. The very first thing she did was to ask us about who we are, our community, and what brought us here. The far corner started with, "I met M on OK-Cupid." Then the next person, "I also met M on OK-Cupid.". And so on.

It went through the room, one by one, with every single person being there as either having met M directly for dating, or were connected to a person dating M or T. Then, finally in the back corner, it came to me. "I, um, did NOT meet M on OK-Cupid. We've been friends as part of a parenting social circle, and I'm here out of general non-specific interest..." And that was how I discovered that I was the lone outsider in a private lesson M had arranged for his "polycule" (a new term I learned that evening) so that everybody who was "fluid bonded" (another new term) could all meet and be on the same page regarding some fundamental common-sense ground rules.

It was a good experience, and a lesson about my general state of obliviousness.