How (Some) Poly People Meet Each Other
Polyamory means "loving more than one". This love may be ***ual,
emotional, spiritual, or any combination thereof, according to
the desires and agreements of the individuals involved.
"Polyamorous" is also used as a descriptive term by people who
are open to more than one relation****p even if they are not
currently involved in more than one.
This is a list of collected stories about how (some) poly people
happened to meet each other.
Ruminations on the meaning of this FAQ:
This is about community, and how poly relation****ps form in the
same type of wonderful, goofy semi-random ways that other
relation****ps form. This is people stepping forward into the
light and choosing to share themselves with others who can
benefit from their experiences-- and inevitably with a world
that, in large fractions, won't or can't understand them. It is
an act of courage, an act of considerable risk and vulnerability,
and, more than anything, an act of love. To put your story in
this do***ent is like locking the closet door and throwing away
the key; you can't go back in. The people who give their names
here are giving of themselves; their credibility, even their
safety, is being used to build and sup****t this fragile thing we
call community. Thanks to all of them.
Administrivia:
* To add your meeting story send email to <bear@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>.
While I welcome you to add your story, and commend the courage of
those who do, please think carefully before doing so; this
do***ent is archived at many sites, and there will probably never
be a time when your prospective mate / employer / neighbor /
landlord / whatever won't be able to enter whatever identifying
information you provide here into a search engine...
* This FAQ can be found online at
http://www.sonic.net/~bear/poly/meetFAQ.txt
* To learn more about polyamory read the other FAQs and/or visit
http://www.polyamory.org/
History of this do***ent:
* Yusuf compiled the first version of this FAQ in 1996 after
Jennie started the "how did you meet" thread on alt.polyamory
with a brief but obviously powerful short post, which appears
below. During the following five years, Yusuf kept the FAQ,
adding to it as the stories (and permission to use them) came in.
* In September 1998 the FAQ was passed to Ray Dillinger, who made
a few organizational changes in the first few paragraphs but left
the stories untouched.
* More stories have been added, as they come in. Unless someone
specifically says it's okay, I strip any identifying info that
they did not specifically include in the middle of the letter
(ie, I strip all headers, email address, and signatures unless
specifically requested not to do so).
-------------------------------------------------------------
I met one of my partners in college, and the other through a
community service organization. How did you all meet your
partners?
Jennie D
-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: stef@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
a women's pagan ritual. On soc.singles. On the triples mailing
list. On a local BDSM mailing list. On alt.polyamory. At a polyamory
discussion group. At a fat women's sup****t group.
-- Stef
----------------------------------------------------------
I met E in the hottub at the local women's bath house. I started
developing a friend****p with her and her girlfriend S (whom I had
met a few months earlier during a breakfast for a mutual friend
visiting from out of town). E hinted that she was attracted to me
in a post on a mailing list that we both subscribe to, and we
began flirting via email. E & S and I discussed doing some s/m
and *** play together. I realized I was attracted to E, but not
to S. I called E and asked her out on a date. (Well, asked her
over to my king-sized bed for a date, we didn't actually leave
the bedroom for about 9 hours).
I met R at an annual gathering for s/m type folks. She had
written an article in a book I'd read, and I had sent her email
to tell her about a zine I was publi****ng on a related topic. At
the fair I was handing out flyers for said zine, and I gave one
to her, at which point she introduced herself, and she and her
girlfriend and I started becoming friends. About a year and a
half later, I left the collective that was producing the zine,
and R joined it. Around that time we started confessing our
attraction for one another, and became lovers.
-- max
------------------------------------------------------------
From: bearpaw@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(bearpaw)
I met my current primary at a Chiltern Mountain Club event.
(Chiltern is "one of the world's largest Gay, Lesbian, and
Bi***ual outdoor s****ts organizations", and is based in the New
England area of the US.) I went to the event with one of my, uh,
hmm, "occasional sweeties"? (Well, he's always a sweetie :-> but
we're only occasionally ***ual.)
I've met other people through friends, and through the local "bi
community". (ObMythResponse: not all bi people are poly.)
Bearpaw
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Steve
Actually, I have met two partners right here on alt.polyamory.
Which certainly makes me feel very fortunate that this newsgroup
exists and has the qualities that it does. If my experiences are
typical, those who participate here are not only wonderfully
romantically inclined, but possess a strong preference for being
honest and open in matters of love. There are not many places
where people with such qualities can be found other than by pure
chance.
But to answer the question more completely, I think I'll have to
use a narrow definition of "partner" to include only those whom I
will be spending time with now or in the very near future; of
these, one I met while in college way back when; one I met on
IRC; and one is among the two mentioned above whom I met here.
-------------------------------------------------------------
I met my hubby Bruce through a personal ad, I met Janine, my
lover, at a sup****t group.
-------------------------------------------------------------
In 1984, L and I were hanging around in occasionally overlapping
parts of the LA pagan community. I was married, he was usually
with someone, and the concept of poly was pretty unknown to me.
I did think he was kinda cute, and we flirted a little when we
happened to run into each other over the next few years (which
was not often)...
In 1988, I had moved to the Bay Area. My roommate at the time
went to Baycon memorial day weekend, while I was off visiting my
husband in LA. When I got back, she mentioned that she had met
this nice Pagan guy from LA. ... It was L. They dated for a
while, so I saw him occasionally when he was there to see her.
1992 in the warm pool at Harbin during Ancient Ways, I looked
over and saw L. We connected a little there, and a little later
he came up behind me and gave me a hug that utterly melted me...
It's like he was a strand weaving in and out of my life until the
time was right.
----------------------------------------------------------------
I first met Elaine when I was running an Sf bookshop and she was
one of my customers, but we were both monogamous and married at
the time. We didn't meet again until many years (and several
relation****ps) later, at a folk music and poetry-reading group,
and I asked her out. She found out, through mutual friends, that
I was single, and then came back to the bookshop and trapped me
behind the counter until she ascertained that I meant it.
Elaine met Laurton at a photo-shoot for Gay Pride Week, stopped
just short of having *** on the table, and made a date to meet
again later.
Most of our casual lovers have been co-eds of Elaine's, or women
we've met at sf conventions (I seem to be reading that one a lot
on this thread...)
---------------------------------------------------------------
My relation****ps are very strange, in that they grew from some
remarkable coincidences.
It all started some 20 years ago.
I was stationed with the active duty Marine Corps, newly married
and was now heading for my first assignment - Okinawa, Japan. My
new, and physically abusive husband was also stationed on
Okinawa. I was scared, pregnant, rather well beat up, headed to
a totally new job and country, and facing a 15 hour flight with a
single lay-over in Alaska. I did what I always do, grabbed a
large book (The Star-Child Trilogy) and a cup of coffee and sat
to wait the few hours for my flight to take off, then read myself
to sleep on the plane.
Except that it didn't really go that way. Another Marine came
and plopped himself down beside me and either ignored the book,
or tried to get me to put it down and talk to him. We ended up
swapping seats and sitting together for the flight. I fell
asleep on him - literally. For his part, he just snuggled in and
held on.
We became friends for most of the year that I was there. I was
****pped out of the Corps. He went to his next duty station, I
got divorced, and we never saw each other again.
Skip to three years ago. I'm talking with my current husband
about cutting grass and getting divorced, and to change the topic
away from the fighting (the kids were in the next room), my
husband asks me about someone in the Marine Corps. Wouldn't you
know it was the person I fell asleep on 15 years before?
We exchanged a few letters, then I drove down to see him again.
Everything we had as friends had magnified. His wife and I got
along too well (almost like sisters), and next thing you know, we
all buy a house together and move in.
I know the story, but I'm still not sure how it all happened. It
just did.
For someone who wants to meet like-minded people, I have only a
few words of advice. Be yourself. Be honest with everyone you
meet. You never know who you will end up seeing again. Or what
will happen when you do.
Peace, Sybel
---------------------------------------------------------------
I met both of my partners at the Loving More conference (then
known as Pepcon) in September 1992 at Harbin Hot Springs. Howard
and I met in a nonverbal interpersonal exercise that opened up
the conference, then met again in the warm pool, with my husband
at the time. I was interested in Howard from the beginning --
physically we connected well at the exercise, then in talking he
seemed interested in similar things to me, then the following
night he gave me a watsu (water massage) and I totally fell in
love.
At one point in the first evening, Gelly came floating up to us,
as we talked. She was at one with the water and herself. That
was my first glimpse of her, and it stayed with me, though it
took longer for the promise of that time to come true.
By the end of the weekend, I was deeply in love with Howard, and
the long process of poly family formation and individual
transformation and growth had begun. Gelly and I took almost 3
years to fully connect with each other (the final breakthrough
was at Harbin, in the warm pool again), and my former partner and
myself took about that long to fully disconnect. Almost 4 years
later, Howard, Gelly and I are a triad, living together with our
3 children.
Carol
-----------------------------------------------------------
My husband met my "to be" wife at a concert where she was
performing 3 years ago, and hit it off right away. They had a
serious case of the hots for each other. At the time we were
monogamous, but we had been talking about needing *more*. We had
been married about 8 years then, and my husband respected our
monogamy, so he didn't persue it any further.
They ran into each other from time to time at various pagan
events, but never found the time or place to "get together", (we
had definitively decided to *open* our marriage by this time).
At one fateful gig R(hubby of record) and B(my wife, now) set up
a time for her and her husband to come visit. I, at this point,
had still never met B or her husband, although I had seen B in
concert, and thought she was beautiful.
I had not been with anyone else ***ually, at this point and
needless to say, I was NERVOUS. But, within 2 hours of meeting
them we were all nekkid in front of the fire. The *** was great
but I was still uncomfortable with the idea (my husband would say
I was insane with guilt). But even with having some problems
dealing with the whole poly-*** thing, I fell in love with
B(wife) and B(my husband not of record but of heart), and with
the passage of time and very understanding partners I got thru it
and now I am hanfasted to 3 wonderful people.
N
----------------------------------------------------------------
I met B at a bi convention in um... 1992 maybe. We first had ***
that weekend, and the first *** party I ever attended, and have
been dating ever since.
I met S at a soc.bi gathering at Stonewall 25 in NYC (1994).
Didn't like him, he was grumpy to me. I met him again, a month
later, at another soc.bi party in NYC. He was standing behind a
friend of mine giving her hugs & making her purr, and I was
hugging her from the front. My eyes met his. We smiled. It was
electric. We then flirted on soc.bi a little, started exchanging
more and more and more and more e-mail, saw each other again at a
party in October, made out in the back yard a bit, got together a
month later just the two of us, and have been dating ever since.
We started out thinking we would be friends who had ***... but
fell in love. *sappy romantic smile*
I met P at the same soc.bi party that my eyes met S's. She and I
were sitting next to each other, but hadn't been formally
introduced. Someone called me by my name, she turned to me and
squealed "You're Cappy?!?! I have to give you a hug!" I said
"Why?" And she said "Because... because you're CAPPY!" And she
gave me a most enthusastic hug. (She knew me from my posts on
soc.bi.)
Oh, B showed up at that party too. *grin*
I met D at our area's monthly BDSM dinners. Again, it was a case
of our eyes meeting, long lingering looks, a long hug goodbye one
night after dinner, me murmuring something half-joking about my
jealous boyfriend, him backing off, me getting out of that
relation****p with the jealous boyfriend, me seeing him again, and
me somehow clearly signalling my availability. That was over a
year ago as well. We just recently (as in, last week) told each
other that we loved each other. We had been "casually dating"
before that seeing each other every other week or so, but I don't
think we're anticipating much of a change in our relation****p,
except hopefully more acknowledgement of our feelings for each
other.
There are other people in my life, friends I have *** with
sometimes, friends who live across the country, friends whom I've
been flirting with... but those are the three major sweeties in
my life right now. :)
-----------------------------------------------------------
I met the man who is now my husband (M) when I first got to
college at an informal Shabbat held by a mutual friend. I
started hitting on him immediately; he essentially giggled,
blushed and ignored it. As we got to be friends, we constantly
talked about how we should get married regardless of whether or
not we ever had a romantic relation****p because we had such
similar views on just about everything im****tant: home, family,
poly, etc. I started dating another man, M started dating
another woman, his girlfriend didn't want to be poly, my
boyfriend didn't want to either, I fell for her, they broke up,
we broke up. I got together with M as my first relation****p was
disintegrating for a "physical" relation****p and we
"accidentally" fell in love and got married.
Then his ex and I dated while she was seeing two men as well,
then she and I broke up (all while M and she and I were
roommates), which was really for the best (not because of
roommateness.) In the interests of circularity, I *really* think
M's/my ex-girlfriend and my ex-boyfriend should get together
except for the fact that they'd both hate it.
So essentially, college has so far been my only resource for
meeting partners; in a hippie liberal arts college, a meme like
polyamory spreads well enough so that everyone at least knnows
about it and sorts themselves fairly well. Makes the
investigatory stage of a relation****p somewhat easier when people
already have vocabulary for it...
Skye
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I met David in college, though we didn't get involved until a
while after we had both graduated; I met Elise in the Minnesota
Science Fiction Society, though we didn't get involved until
about ten years after we met; and I met Raphael on Fidonet, on
the SF and Writing Echoes: we switched to internet email fairly
soon, which sped up the process of getting to know one another
considerably, and got involved about eighteen months after we
started exchanging email messages, before we had actually met.
Think there's a pattern there?
Pamela
----------------------------------------------------------
I met one in a basement and another in a laboratory ;-)
I'll emphasize the mundane a little. Just as I don't think one
will be very successful *looking* for partners, I don't think one
will be especially successful *looking* for poly partners. It
really can "just happen", especially if your taste in friends
runs to interesting and open minded.
I met P while we were both still in high school. A friend had
enticed me to come along to "E's house" on the basis that her
mother stocked the fridge really well (an extremely im****tant
consideration for under-financed teenage boys ;-) ). The fridge
lived up to expectations. E turned out to be a precocious and
*****y 14 yr old.........
She also had a much quieter and more interesting older sister, P,
who was watching the entire scene while filling in the colours of
one of those doodleart posters that were popular in the early
seventies. I helped add in a few colours, chatted a bit, and
wondered how we might get better acquainted. A friend of mine
(faster on his feet, but less patient and persistent) asked her
out first, and I was so mystified by mono (let alone poly)
dynamics that I figured that was that...... When they seemed to
be ignoring each other I (dumb as an ox) asked *him* what was
going on and luckily got a relatively accurate (although
unflattering) answer. It wasn't until much later that I was
dumped on for holding back so long..... ;-)
We've been together ever since, except for a two year hiatus
spent convincing ourselves that it was the right thing. About 10
years later and "great with child", P came to join a group from
the lab who had got together at the end of the day. She and L met
and became great friends. I thought this was wonderful, since
there were not that many people who fit well with both of us
then, yet any two out of three could sit together and talk for
hours and the three of us could go on indefinitely. We still
weren't ready for the idea of poly, so we hung out together and
kept those occasional dangerous thoughts to ourselves.
J arrived on the scene. L finished and went off to Ottawa. M
arrived on the scene. I finished and the four of us went off to
Germany. L went off to Ohio. We worked hard and lost touch......
then found each other again a few years ago. This time we were
ready for the idea, and it only took us a year to get around to
it. (remember, I said "patient and persistent")
J will be 12 this fall. M will be 9 this week. Almost twentytwo
years on, the adventure is still beginning......
-------------------------------------------------------------
First of all, let me say that I've never 'dated' anyone. All my
partners have started out as friends. Some were friends for
quite a long time before they became partners/lovers/sweeties.
I met my first poly partner in school.
My husband and I met at the library - we both worked there. I
applied for the job *because* he worked there, a girlfriend had
scoped him out for me. However, it wasn't until after I quit
working there that we became close.
I met my hubbie when I became a co-sysop/programmer on a local
BBS that he co-owned.
I met another sweetie on a usenet news group - we're not sure
which one.
(ASB is what she thinks, I think it was alt.poly.) Two more I
aquired from a poly-email list and subsequent 'cracker
munches'. (Cracker munches are coffee-tea-chats at a local
espresso shop.)
Tolovana
---------------------------------------------------------------
My current lover (the only one I have at the moment) and I were
introduced nearly 5 years ago by a mutual friend. Soon after
that, she started dating this friend, much to my chagrin as I had
become smitten. At that time, I hadn't thought all that much
about polyamory, and I assumed (incorrectly) that their
relation****p was monogamous. I thought I wouldn't have a chance
with her.
A few months later I moved to another state for 6 months. When I
returned, almost 4 years ago, I found out they had broken up. I
ran into her soon after that, we started hanging out, and then
one night acknowledged our mutual feelings toward each
other. Thus began the relation****p. She informed me right before
we started going out, or perhaps right after, that she refused to
be monogamous in relation****ps, and I thought that was just
dandy. The rest, as they say, is herstory.
Sean
-----------------------------------------------------------------
My own history of meets is quite different from all the others
I've seen in this thread. I hope that my perspective will not be
so odd as to prevent its inclusion into the above-mentioned
database. I will try to be as factual as I can, I believe this
will aid the process of deciding where exactly to place the
information I'm providing amongst the others.
First, a confession. In order to recount the story of how I met
various "others", I have to perform a very challenging and
extremely complicated operation(s). To begin with, I must come to
an "applicable" theory of "others". Then, test each individual I
have ever known against this theory and re****t to you the
outcome. That is, every single person, or rather, my perceptions
of each, would be subjected to the paradigm developed for this
purpose.
As you see from the tone of my voice, I have a big problem with
doing these tasks. But, we should not ****rk our duties--even in
the face of adversities. So let me continue a bit longer. And if
I fail, I'll be the first to admit failure. I've done it before,
in fact I've done it so many times I feel almost a secret right
to claim a certain mastery in the area.
I want to make clear that I enjoy sharing stories of others just
as much as the next guy. Especially those "special" others that
my as yet unarticulated theory so lovingly talks of--actually
painstakingly defines. And what hurts me the most is that no
matter how much effort I spend in this realm, I can never quite
capture the nature of these others when I apply my theory to
them. My theory is always a bit too _specialized_.
Now you may think I'm withholding something from you. And not
just one thing. The implicit promise was for stories. And it
seems that neither they nor the theory which allows me to bring
those stories to you is forthcoming. But I want to suggest to
you, tentatively to be sure, that just the reverse is the case:
that I am now revealing more to you than is probably decent and
proper. Does anyone know what they mean?
And now I'd like to get to the nutshell of my argument.
No matter how articulate I could become, any attempt at this is
doomed. As is my theory, stories, and rhetoric. The poetry of
my others is defiled by any possible grid of placement. And
while they count for me, I never want to do a count of them, and
certainly do I never wish to publicize any such count. In sum,
the desire to rank, name, and number pales so utterly in the face
of real, actual, or imagined others that my mind goes soft
thinking about it.
So why is this appropriate? Or for Polyamory at all? It's this:
Even if there were just one of you,
I always think of you in the plural.
-arn
---------------------------------------------------------------
Well, I didn't think I'd have anything different to tell, but
happily I do. We (the three of us) were high school
sweethearts... sort of. We went to school with each other for
six years, always keeping very close, but never getting
"involved" one way or another with each other. In fact, looking
back, at high school we were always closer to each other than to
the various partners we each had at the time. Hehe, and I know it
was a source of much concern for one or two of those partners.
Things changed a little when I started going out with a mutual
friend of the three of us. (Besides each other, this girl was the
closest friend *all three* of us had.) We knocked about with each
other as a friendly social set for a couple of years until my
then gf moved overseas. The day we said goodbye to her at the
air****t, the three of us shared something special just for a
moment. Then we went our separate romantic ways, but remained
close friends.
A year later, it's my birthday and also that of K. (We're twins
to the day. :) We had the bash of bashes for a party, and at the
end of the night K and I are together, and very happy about the
fact that our mutual friend M has found the (other :) nicest
bloke at the party. A happy three-year interlude followed with
the two monogamous couples sharing a lot of social occasions,
though for some reason the other "he" never seemed to get some of
the in-jokes... Then, almost as if by mutual consent, we all
reached some major turning points in our lives. Uni, friends,
family, work, romantic plans and taken-for-granted assumptions
about all sorts of things suddenly blew up and didn't come down.
We rode it out, and at the end by some set of coincidences that
none of us can really piece together, the three of us were living
together and loving it. There are so many stories in between that
it's hard to point to where it happened. The weekend I spent in
another state, after which I came home and found that both M and
K had been seduced by another female friend was instrumental, as
was the night that same female friend seduced me. Discovering
this newsgroup at just the right moment helped, and so did moving
house together, alcohol and playing soccer. :)
The thing I remember most is the day we lay in bed together just
to talk. When K ran her hand up M's spine the way I'd told her
she liked, I was surprised only at my lack of surprise. It just
felt so *right*. It was that day that I suddenly understood that
the term, "best friend" was neither singular nor limiting.
A funny postscript to the story which many may appreciate is that
a year later, when we told that old friend of ours from
high-school, her first reaction was, "Yuck!" Then, "Explain it
again in my language, please." Then, "Gee, maybe it's lucky I
didn't hang around..." Then, "So why have I been through so many
guys so quickly? Can I come back and visit?" And finally, "You
know, you're the three best friends I ever had; I suppose it's
just *right* that you worked out like that. Now I know that I
chose the right friends." :)
Well, that story ended up going on for a little longer than I
intended... sorry... (a bit. :)
Cya, Rob.
--------------------------------------------------------------
How I met my partners...
I met my wife Holly because she was dating my boyfriends
roommate. I thought I had once again fallen for a straight
woman, it took her a few tries of hitting me over the head with a
baseball bat to convince me she wasn't.
Pooch was my game master back in college and we had been best
friends for about about 10 years and finally started dating when
we went to my ex-girlfriends wedding. I figured it wouldn't work
because of the polyamory thing (all his prior relation****ps were
very monogamous) but he seems to be adjusting just fine.
So basically I met my wife by dating a guy, and my guy by dating
a girl <G>
I tend to meet my secondaries at Science Fiction Conentions.
Both Holly and Pooch are involved in fandom but that isn't how I
met them.
Samantha Star Straf
----------------------------------------------------------------
One of my partners was a grad student in the same department I
was in, and we had friends in common, and we were in a party skit
together, and then he found out that my office had a cheaper
coffee club, so then I found out that he was a really interesting
guy who liked to talk .....
And then we were all on the patio of the Graduate Club one summer
afternoon, celebrating someone's passing Generals, I think
..... all my friends kept saying "P's coming to meet us! P's
going to be here, isn't she?" and I wondered who she was .... I
can still remember what she was wearing. She was great with
child, and relaxed and happy, and I thought she was beautiful.
And that was almost twelve years ago <happy sigh>. Thanks for
asking!
-------------------------------------------------------------
It was thanks to the Taiwan police, in part.
A friend had met me in Taiwan (where I had been studying) to do
some climbing for the summer. But when we went to climb Jade
Mountain (Taiwan's highest peak, ca. 13,000 ft.), we were foiled
by the local police. Even though she and I were both experienced
mountaineers, they told us we needed to hire a local guide and
have a party of four, etc. (All this, for a walk-up peak!) So
she and I split early for Japan and spent a most enjoyable summer
hitching around, climbing, and learning delighfully un-ladylike
Japanese from truck drivers.
As Americans are wont to do,at one point we were grousing to some
Japanese mountaineering buddies about the restrictiveness of the
climbing regulations on Taiwan. Well, said one, as a matter of
fact, our university alumni climbing club is planning an
Expedition to Jade Mountain next winter. Please join us!
(Now, a saunter up Jade mountain, even in its subtropical winter
snows, does perhaps not merit the term "Expedition", but that's
what they called it.) So, six months later, I joined them. Of
the seven, there was one guy who bravely attempted to traverse
our language gap several times. I found him earnest, ruggedly
handsome, and endearingly goofy. BUT at that time I was most
decidedly Not Into Men and Enjoying Being Single etc etc. Yet in
the months that followed I found myself corresponding with
greater and greater urgency with him, creating fake Japanese
sentences by writing Chinese (which I know well) first, then
moving the verb to the end, and then adding a Japanese past tense
conjugation, and hoping that he'd be able to parse it. And so it
went. (I should add that although Chinese and Japanese both use
Chinese characters in writing, the two languages are completely
unrelated and have quite different word orders.)
Anyway, from him, I got a lot of thinly-veiled allegorical
letters about "burning bushes" and whatnot. So, we've been
together for ten years, learned each other's languages, and
spawned a not-so-small fry. For the past year I've been trying
to talk him into something other than don't-ask-don't tell
polyamory, without much success. But these things take time, ohh
if I weren't so impatient....
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I met S in Fremantle (WA) in 1981, at a meeting in which ze was
putting forward a scheme to start a dance/theatre project. Ze
lived in Melbourne at the time. I liked the project, thought ze
was a spunk, and when we first touched in saying goodbye after
the talk, there was a lightning-strike of some kind of energy
through both our bodies. We just looked at each other
wide-eyed. We became lovers about two days later, and the
following year ze moved to Freo for the project, the Red Herring
Dance/Theatre Company. Ze directed the dance side, and I directed
the theatre side, and we moved in with each other, although we
ended up living sometimes together, sometimes in different houses
over the next few years.
We later were taken in different life directions, but have
recently re-connected, and are together full-on again in a way I
can only describe as "incandescent". Trips between Canberra and
Sydney are expensive, but we see each other at least one weekend
a fortnight.
S had lived with Jay earlier, and also lived with Jay during the
period we were together, and this was how I met Jay. We didn't
get together for a couple of years, during a period when we were
sharing a house. Jay and I were subsequently together for 11
years. We moved to Canberra together, though we don't live in the
same house, and are now separated.
I have a very good friend, Anita, who I know through HAI. While
not a 'life partner', I feel like we are long-term friends. Our
current relation****p includes the ***ual, and while that will
always be fine, it isn't a focus of our relation****p.
I have a few casual partners, most of whom I know through
Sanyass, HAI, Pagan circles or the Canberra bi***ual network and
its activities.
I also have a beloved in the SF area. I had a long-term email
relation****p with M (from Wisconsin), which developed from common
posting to NGs dealing with ecological and community development
issues, and subsequently on a conference dealing with gender
issues. We planned to meet in SF, and spend some time with zir
other partners, Rick and R, both of whom I also knew by email.
As it worked out, M couldn't make it, but I did meet Rick and R.
Rick was great fun and a wonderful person, but meeting R was
something very special. R is one of those rare people who hit me
strongly, viscerally and create that "I want this person against
my body *NOW*" feeling in each and every one of my cells. The
fact that R is also wonderfully intelligent, literate (just
finished a book), witty sensual and deeply involved in improving
the world certainly didn't hurt either.
Life being the peculiar thing it is, M and I had plotted a triad
with Rick, but it was R I fell in love with. We spent a day
talking, me resisting the urge to get more intimate without an
invitation. When I left we had a hug that turned into a kiss, and
we both realised we'd been doing the same thing. Our next meeting
started with the hug and kiss and proceeded rapidly from there.
I went on to WI to meet M and zir new partner, and R came out and
joined us after a couple of weeks. M and I never really connected
***ually for a number of reasons, but R and I had a glorious
time. We are now trying to cope with the fact that we live so
miserably distant in the RealWorld (TM). Email helps, and R is
planning to come and stay with S and I for a little while early
next year.
Dhanu River
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fellow science fiction fans, to slightly varying degrees. But in
every case, it has been friends, friends of friends, and we've
met at friendly get-togethers, small parties, or conventions.
Sometimes it took years to get around to developing a romantic or
***ual component, sometimes it was nearly immediate after meeting
in person, but in those latter cases we had always been
communicating in writing for months beforehand.
I can get a crush nearly immediately, but I tend to need a fair
amount of time before becoming comfortable with entering into a
Serious Relation****p.
Of course, now I've learned a bit of the Deadly Art of
Net.Flirting. . . . ;-)
Gary
---------------------------------------------------------
My first pp (read: poly-partner) I met at a Bi***ual Group
Social. We went to a bar and danced all night.
I first saw my second pp at a halloween bonfire where a friend of
mine wanted to introduce me to this person they had a crush on so
as to get my opinion of the person. The next halloween, after
being pursued by my friend for a year, my second pp kissed my on
the couch. The rest...
My 3rd pp was the lover of my 1st pp. I don't know how they met,
but I think it was at a sweat-lodge.
My 4th pp my 1st pp met at a SF convention. Iwas aked by my 1st
pp to go have coffee with my 4th pp and tell my 1st pp what I
thought of my 4th pp. We talked all night and I ended up living
with my 4th pp.
My 5th (current) pp I met at a toy store. :)
Leigh
----------------------------------------------------------------
I met my 1st & so far only poly partner on the net, (IRC undernet
chat) about 6 mo. ago. I recently met him f2f at his wedding in
Texas where I was a female "best man" for him. He & his wife have
aked me to become thier co-wife & (allowing for certain other
stiuations in my life), I have agreed to join them..... Such a
unique & loving world.
M.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
I met my longest-term lover "K", now my wife at college. We were
each others' first loves and first ***ual partners. Recognizing
the silliness of trying to stay together forever with no outside
***ual experience, we agreed to allow each other an "affair".
This single permission has since turned into fairly
straightforward "polyamory".
A few years later, I met my second-longest-term lover, "E". She
knew K from childhood and always wanted her. My initial intent
was simply to have a friend in the new city we'd moved to.
Before too long, we were living in a big house, friends. I can
still remember how amazingly difficult it was for me to force the
words out of my rebellious mouth. "Um, uh, I was wondering..."
But, I did force out the question and she was interested. It
didn't work completely work out, we ended up moving to separate
houses in another year or so, but we remained friends and
occasional lovers. In the last few years, we have gotten
together ***ually...maybe four times.
Three years ago, I had a brief intense relation****p with a woman
from work, "L". L was not at all comfortable with my marriage to
K. She refused to meet K for months. Her desire for social
permissability / marriage ended that relation****p after about six
months. This caused me to decide that for the near term, I will
only date people in the occult community, since they are a good
deal more accepting of alternatives.
All my encounters since then have been within the occult orders.
The most significant of them is a woman, "A" I met the spring
before last while visiting some occult buddies in another state.
She is a lover of another friend of mine in the order. I admired
her beauty and fire from a distance, so made some
wooing-gift-jewelry (labia rings) before the next time I visited.
The jewelry ended up not being needed as an ice-breaker, since
the chemistry between us was quite strong the second time we
met. I am now on a twice yearly visit schedule with her, the most
recent being a wonderful trip along highway 1 on the coast of
California. Long distance love is interesting. Head-over-heels
.... re-center ... head-over-heels ... re-center ...
---------------------------------------------------------------
A local BBS had a writer's conference that I started posting to.
Some people on the conference regularily got together for coffees
and it turned out that one of the other posters was someone I
knew from University and another was a member of the local pagan
community and knew my teachers and my (then) lover. So we became
friends.
My current SO was somebody I really enjoyed on-line because of
zir's smarts and sense of humour. Zie finally showed up at one of
our coffee-meets. By the time the group went our seperate ways I
was head-over-heels.
-------------------------------------------------------------
B's not stupid, so he invited the two smartest, strangest, people
he knew to be his 10th grade biology lab partners. B and i hit it
off, lots of unspoken eye contact communication between two
closeted bi poly veggie pervert *** radicals going crazy in
suberbia. It took me a year to come out of my shell enough to ask
her out, by which time she was dating C, who was someone i knew
and liked, straight but gentle funny nice etc. B & i had read
heinlein together so we had some mutual understanding of what we
were doing, and i was too out of it to realize how oddly the high
school was looking at us, as C & i would wait for B each morning
at her locker.
It lasted less than a year (the breakup being very traumatic for
me), but we stayed in touch, due in part to my willingness to
hitchhike anywhere to see her. She had an affair w/ my best
friend/roommate, taught me what safewords are, introduced me to
L, a member of her lesbian-separatist no-boys-allowed household
under the flatirons. L and i lived together (mono) for 7 years
till she left me for some guy. L now lives alone w four cats a
house in the country and her own business.
Since then i've mostly had one night stands with guys met on irc*
(one of the best at stonewall where cappy met s.) (*gtbear
here). I'm still looking for that coop/bi/poly/radical household
situation, not finding it here in mundaniapolis. No local bi
sup****t group like there was in columbia, and the poly group here
is great but kind of odd - they are grown-ups, where i feel more
connected to the genX/slacker set. I'm pretty much of a hermit
again, except for the net and my usual table at the coffehouse.
- robbin
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I met my first husband while working in a Hallmark store. He had
just started college and was with a friend who wanted to find an
obnoxious card for his girlfriend. We got to talking and I
mentioned that I was a Heinlein fan. He said that the was too
and we got to talking. I was dating someone else at the time --
someone who /said/ it was okay with him that I was poly. (At the
time, I had not heard of the term polyamory and just used the
phrase "not monogamous"). It turned out that my boyfriend was
most certainly /not/ okay with my poly tendencies, so I went to
my new friend to cry on him a bit. One thing led to another and
we started dating pretty seriously after a few weeks.
We married two years later. At that time I had had two other
realtion****ps (concurrent), but they were not serious.
Six years later, I met my present -- I guess you could say,
"fiance" -- on the IRC (#polyamory or #heinlein, I don't remember
which). He was someone with whom I had locked horns on
alt.fan.heinlein, so I swiftly left the channel. I talk on IRC
for fun only -- not heated debating. He /msged me and demanded
why I left so quickly. We got to talking and we found that we
had some amazingly similar interests. That was all she wrote.
We'll be moving in together soon, I hope.
Noel, Axe of the BABs, Mum to King of the Babies
and She who truly Groks Coffee.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
My primary, "E," has been my friend for 24 years, mate and
partner for 20, and coparent of a very high energy adopted son
for ten years. When fertility problems lead us to adoption a
decade later we began polyamory, without at the time having any
name to refer to what was happening to us. She has had seven
secondaries, two, maybe three of which have been PIV ***ually
fulfilled. Two of these relation****ps are still active and one,
second man, "RW" may be for as long as both shall live. I
approuve. I've had five secondaries, one ***ually fulfilled, two
of which are still active.
"E" and I met second lady "DT," at a dance. There was an instant
three way rap****t. DT became the best friend I've had in years,
sup****ting me emotionally thru the loss of another very beloved
secondary, fifth lady, "MV," and other heavy times.
I also met currently most beloved third lady "MB," at a dance. I
was intensely depressed at separation from MV and astonished that
a woman as lovely and vital as "MB" would ask me to dance. I
didn't see her again for several years, then we began coming
together in music circles. Second lady has known third lady for
years and approuves. "MB's" primary, variably separated for
years, "DG," welcomes me and has been sup****tive when I've
squabbled with her.
While "MB" and I have been trying to find out what god has in
mind for us. "E," six thousand miles away below the equator,
became close enough with third man "AV".
"E" and "MB" have never met, though between e-mail and snail mail
"E" is pretty well aware of my evolution since she's been away.
A lot of my future will depend on the chemistry when they meet.
MB has agreed to learn some of E's music so we can try for
acoustic harmony while exploring the spiritual. E has agreed to
meet MB as open heartedly as I met AV.
--------------------------------------------------------------
How we met....
Three simple words that cannot begin to explain it at all. I
had already been part of an extended family, and from my only
foolishness had been asked to leave. That was several years
before I met A. She worked at the second largest employer in
Lubbock Texas and at over 200 pounds was no world shattering
beauty, but she was/is fun to be with. We ended up living
together, then buying a house in that frying-pan flat Mars
colored land.
A had several friends in her work group, one was B. A lady
of pure Spanish decent, she began spending more and more time at
our new house (she was having husband troubles, something even
today she's never outgrown.) We had several things in common,
mainly ceramics. Religiously, A. is Southern Baptist. B. dances
around & I wor****p Athena. For two years we grew closer and
closer. I'd kissed B. a couple of times, in front of A. (After
losing one wife & an extended marriage position... I'd learned
to never lie to a woman. It makes life easier.) It was fun, but
there was never ***.
Then one afternoon they both enter the library (I use this
term very loosely. The library was a converted 10x10 bedroom).
A. asks "You said your Religion allows you to have two wives,
right?" I answered "Truthfully, a man can have two wives, a
woman two husbands. But they all have to agree." "Fine"
A. said, "I want you to marry B." (Strange how some points in
your life remain crystal clear, as if they happened moments ago,
even more than a generation later.)
Lets just say surprise is a very mild word.....
So I married B. & A.. adopted her. There was only one
stipulation B. made. No ***. A. is railroad rail straight &
B. tried another woman years later, B. & I have never done more
than kiss. That doesn't mean I don't love her, A. doesn't love
her of B. love us. Four years later A. & I moved 400+ miles
South, B. remained in Lubbock where she is today. We see her on
average once a year, but we still love her, still keep a place
open in our home for her and spend hours on the phone with her.
Does this make us any less married? No. Any less in love?
No. How did it happen? I honestly do not know for certain, but
my being truthful to both of them at every point, even when it
hurt me a little, seems to have made a lasting bond. What will
happen in the future? I can't say but A. & I honestly hope
B. will move down here to live with us when she retires. We
don't expect it, we hope for it. Do I play around? No... And I
can't say why since both A. & B. have given their permission, as
long as one of them meets the lady first. Am I physically
attracted to B? Yes, as much as I am to A.. But I gave my word
and I have never broken my word.
It doesn't stop me from dreaming.....
So now you know, as if it matters. No kinky ***, no
dominating another, no tight knit religious beliefs. We just
like to be with each other and can't wait for the next life for
me to switch partners. B. has a second husband now, it took her
long years to break an abusive relation****p and A & I were there
as moral sup****t only. It's all she would allow (I wished for
more, but I'm no fighter.) Does that make us Poly? I don't
know. I really don't care. Labels, in the end, are for
beginnings and we are long and far away from beginners.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I met my first BF at my second SCA event at the sidelines of the
English
Renaissance Country Dancing.
him: "Ladies, some Tequila?"
me: "I'd love some but I'm underage."
lady A: "No thank you."
him: "How close to 21?"
lady A: "Not close enough. She's 17!" <glare>
him: "Well then, I suppose I'll just have to rely
on my charm to get her in bed with me as opposed
to alcohol."
Since this woman had taken it upon herself to chase away every
other guy I'd met, and this one wasn't chasing, I ended up
walking off with him before she could stop me. I was a college
sophomore at the time and by this point getting slightly annoyed
at this sanctimonious woman who knew what was best for the
newbie.
We ended up spending the next 5 hours together. Mostly
necking. Three weeks later I lost my virginity.
I met my second BF at a science fiction convention. Friday
night there was a massage swap. I had my upper body rubbed down
with baby oil as well as a wonderful foot massage. I was trading
off by giving hand massages. I sat down on the edge of the bed
he was lying on, put my foot in another guy's lap and said: "Hi,
my name is M, would you like a hand job?" And didn't realize
what I had said until the entire room went completely silent.
Became very flustered, blushed quite a bit and managed to stammer
out "I don't, I, um, er, well, I mean, did I just say that,
ohmygod, hand massage would you like a hand massage?"
When I ran into him the next day in front of the con suite, I
spent most of the time sitting there really earnestly hoping he
wasn't the guy from the night before cause he was kind of cute
and he kept _smiling_ at me. At one point I was getting a neck
massage from one guy, K, and giving another guy, T, a hand
massage while leaning against my sister, talking to another lady
sitting on the floor, while he tickled my leg. Goofing off
fannish sort of stuff, an improptu massage swap of sorts.
My boss is a fan. She also aspires to being a Chinese tourist
and is never without her camera. I was the perpetrator of the
recent April Fools Prank against her. Guess who was at that
convention? *click* Hi M! *click* don't you look comfortable?
*click* the other labbies at school will love these. T looked at
M, M looked at T and T said: "let's give them something to really
talk about back at school. You take her left ear, I'll take her
right." Never had two guys tongue my ears at once. (It made a
great photograph) Somehow in the squirming,
I-think-I'm-going-to-melt-into-the-couch, I ended up kissing him
on the lips. I thought he was the instigator, and he thought I
was the instigator. I'm to understand T had a great expression
when instead of ear he had a mouthful of hair and M had a
mouthful of tongue. It only took him two weeks.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
i met one lady at a restaurant...she was my waitress, and she
kept looking at me. i was with my spouse and i was terrified, but
he encouraged me to talk to her, so i did. i was on my way to an
indigo girls concert. i told her that, code language you know:) i
did something really corny, because i was too scared to just ask
her out. i left her my phone number, and she actually called me!
it didn't work out long term poly, but it was fun while it
lasted, and we're still good friends.
another time we met a girl at my parents' house, of all
places. she was dating my brother, and they broke up, and she
started flirting with us. once the ice was broken, though, she
ignored me completely, and that would never work with us.
the lady of my life to date i actually met in high school. my
boyfriend of the time was poly and was dating her. i fell in love
on sight. it outlasted my relation****p with him by several
years. i miss her terribly. we miscommunicated, and we didn't
understand how to take care of what we had. we still love one
another, but our lives took different paths. but these were all
accidents, fate if you will. i don't know how to find someone now
to make my triad complete.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I met my Otherlove through a personals ad. I posted the ad,
because I wanted to find someone, and at the same time was doing
some work on praying, etc., that the right person read it and
respond. He did, I had some initial apprehension, but everything
has worked pretty well for the last year and a half. : )
Mistress Mine and I have been friends for several years and it
just kind of clicked recently that oh yeah, we're attracted to
one another too! But as yet this has been online.
The Wolf and I have been together nearly 10 years now, I met him
through his roommate....I was staying over there one weekend, so
I wouldnt have to be by myself at my place, and I basically never
left. we got married 15 days after we met.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
well, it's like this...
marcey and tc have been friends/lovers/whathaveyou for longer
than i have known either of them. (met her in 1983, him in late
1984...she recommended that i not get involved with him at the
time...he was newly divorced (2nd wife...the now dead one) and
she identified as a lesbian.
tc and i married each other in 1987, after we had kept all 3 of
his kids for the entire summer. i figured if i was crazy enough
for that, i was crazy enough to get married again.
sometime in the early '90's we started practicing poly (with
various success...i was more used to cheating, and he got
involved with women who didn't like me. we are all better now,
thanks for wondering.)
met sean in RL(tm) in 1996 ...we had known each other in
callahans for years. he moved in with us in march 1997. the
three of us married each other in november of 1997. tc and sean
compliment each other perfectly and, as they are both geminis, it
proved once again that i am totally insane. (barbarafox said
that they are the two most het guys you'd ever find who are
married to each other)
tc. sean and i all had outside relation****ps, but nothing
serious. tc reconnected with marcey and they started being
involved again. she lives on the east coast and we live in
illinois, and while their relation****p was very strong (she no
longer identifies as lesbian)it didn't affect us (except for
travel expenses).
fast forward to 1999. callahanicon 3 in denver. he struck up a
flirtation with cheron and later that year it turned into a
passionate affair which included all four of us. since her
daughter was out of school and gone and she was miserable in her
marriage, we invited her to come and join our family. she moved
to illinois in april 2000.
just at the very same time that cheron decided to join us, marcey
proposed to tc. it was kind of a shock to all concerned, but he
accepted...there was some miscommunication between the five of
us...but tc and marcey decided to have their committment ceremony
in july 2000. we all praticipated, but there was LOTS of
friction between cheron and marcey and some territorial problems
between marcey and me...(she's got a lot of good points, but
being a control freak isn't one of them.) that meant that we did
NOT have our committment ceremony with cheron in 2000. (for one
thing, we agreed that we would wait for a year after we moved in
and for another marcey did not want to share her year with
anyone.)
also, at this point, tc (me, cheron and sean) got involved with a
lovely woman from the east coast, who is our committed but not
the marrying kind sweetie) but she and marcey are like oil and
water (or maybe oil and fire)
the three of us and cheron had a committment ceremony in april
2001. (kittencon 2001: the wedding odyssey) marcey was there and
helped with the wedding ... our sweetie was there too...and many
of the people we know and love. marcey didn't want to marry all
of us. there wasn't that connection.
so here is where it stands in the spring of 2002. 4 of us live
in 2 duplex apts. (cheron can't live with cats so she is across
the street). we have a rhythm. we cook and do laundry at her
place. the tv, stereo and high speed net connection are at our
house. she and sean work together for a computer networking
company and tc and i both work on campus. nobody ever sleeps
alone (unless he/she wants to, or unless tc is out of town...and
not even then generally.) what conflicts we have, and there are
some, are minor...most of the time we don't even fight with
marcey.
....i have to admit, that even though tc is senior husband, i am
the centerpoint...i like that.
marcey is going to move here in august. her son will be out of
high school and on his own. she got the duplex right next door.
she is used to being top cat and in charge. i'm used to being
top cat and in charge. the balance is going to ****ft...it's
making me nervous. she wants everything to be perfect and to fit
immediately.
she is my husband's wife. i like her as a person. she is part
of the family, but i don't feel like a want to marry her (at
least not in the forseeable future.)
i have come back to alt.poly just to see if i can calm my
fears...
--barbara trumpinski
------------------------------------------------
I met my primary partner in a coven that i joined, about 10 years
ago. He's a great partner to have if you are poly, because of
the fact that he has no jealousy (i can't imagine how one can do
that, but apparently some can).
I met my other primary partner a few years ago (though we are not
together any more) at our local poly group. He was hosting a
movie night for that group and he ended up spending most of the
night by my side, touching and cuddling with me. It was
hilarious. When someone came to the door, he would get up and
answer it, then rush back to the seat, sometimes leaping over
people, to get beside me so that no-one would take that seat.
Because i live on an island and our poly group was on the
mainland, i couldn't go home at night when i went to any of the
group^Òs functions. So i had arranged to stay over on their (he
and his wife and her boyfriend's) couch. Well, that ended up
being our first night together. He didn't tell me until over a
year later that he had set up the movie night mostly with the
intention of seducing me. That was so sweet. :)
--A
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
*** end of "How (Some) Poly People Meet Each Other"
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
Guy W. Thomas
San Leandro, CA
http://www.xango.org
http://stonebender.livejournal.com/
"If we have learned one thing from the civil rights movement in the
united states, it is that when you let others speak for you, you lose."
— Ed Roberts
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