Poly and Demi and Bi, Oh My!

We're only a few months into the year, but I'm learning a lot about myself. There are a few things that I've realized sort of all at once which has been slightly overwhelming but freeing at the same time. Let's start with the easy one.

I've questioned my sexuality for years. I could give you a list of female celebrities that I would say I've had a crush on at some point, starting in high school. I am absolutely attracted to women, no question. But that attraction feels different than my attraction to men does, and I've never dated or even really wanted to date a woman. I thought I was "too straight" but I can now confidently say that I am a bisexual woman. It took someone literally telling me that I can be bisexual without dating women for me to feel comfortable identifying myself this way. Now that I have, it feels right. And maybe I could see myself dating a woman after all, if I found one that I liked that much.

Something else that I've realized might actually explain why I could never fully appreciate my attraction to women. I am demisexual, which means that I don't feel attraction in the way that many people do. While I can certainly recognize an attractive person, I don't necessarily feel attracted to them. I have no sexual desire for people that I know nothing about, even if they are exceedingly physically attractive. This does not, however, keep me from having crushes on fictional characters or celebrities if I feel that I have a good sense of their personality. Circling back to the bisexual bit, I have not had as many close connections with women throughout my life as I have had close connections with men, so it makes sense that I wouldn't have felt attracted to the women that I knew personally.

And now onto the more complicated part. For as long as I've known what polyamory was, I have firmly believed that it was not for me. I am of the belief that consenting adults can do what they want, but this was never a dynamic that seemed appealing to me personally. Cue the absolutely adorable polyamorous man that has recently come into my life. I wasn't looking to date anyone, and neither was he, but life doesn't always go the way you plan and things went from friendly to flirty to "okay, I actually really like you" pretty quickly.

I have always imagined my future to include a happy, loving, monogamous marriage, so I don't know if a lifelong polyamorous relationship would be for me, but I don't think I would completely count it out anymore. This sort of dynamic seems to actually work for me. Assuming the relationship is a healthy one, you get support and affection and companionship while retaining the freedom to do your own thing and maybe connect with other people on a deeper level than would feel appropriate in a monogamous relationship. It also allows me the freedom to grieve my previous relationship while still building a new one. I adore this new man in my life. I like listening to him talk about his nerdy interests, I like sending him 20,000 TikTok videos a day and waiting for his response, I like his cute face. But I don't think he's "My Person," my soulmate, my true love. I don't think anyone is.

I used to believe in those things, but as I've moved through life, I have come to the conclusion that there are so many people I could potentially be happy with. There are so many people in the world, how could it ever be possible that I'm only compatible with one of them? But, when I moved from one monogamous relationship to the next, I did not allow myself to properly process the loss that I was experiencing. "Oh well," I would tell myself, "This new person must be The One, so it doesn't matter that my last relationship ended." But that's not how it works. Acknowledging that I could have feelings for more than one person at once means I can give myself permission to be sad over what I've lost and happy with what I've found at the same time. I can feel all the things.

In truth, the biggest problem that I had with polyamory was that I thought I was too jealous, insecure, and possessive to ever be able to share a partner with someone else in that way. Turns out, I am not inherently these things. My cute poly boi is married, and I am unbothered. I am not jealous of his wife (except for the fact that she gets to see him every day and I do not), I am not insecure about his feelings for me, and I am not possessive of his time. It turns out that these feelings in past relationships were, in large part, the result of my needs not being met. I didn't get the affection, emotional support, or communication that I needed for me to feel comfortable. Now, I get plenty. So we'll give polyamory a go and see what happens.

And that's my life right now.

XO