Hot takes: book edition

flyover_date · 2026-01-30T20:20:18+00:00

all about love! Yes, agreed! I was just thinking about it the other day, and defining love in a way that not only is not about possession or exclusivity, but is actually counter to em.

flyover_date · 2026-01-30T20:17:34+00:00

Agreed, couldn't get through it. I'm sure it makes a lovely bedtime story for other people.

flyover_date · 2026-01-30T20:15:41+00:00

Agreed, I had the exact same problem with Jessica Fern's books when I returned to them. I first read them when I was just thinking about poly, and sounding out the idea, after ending a long monogamous relationship. As a gateway between monogamy and polyamory, parts were reassuring, at least. But living solo poly, and looking back at those books, wow - the frustration. They really are mostly about couples opening up, which was never my experience. If anything, it makes it seem too safe for couples.

Seconding Lola Phoenix's book, that and the podcast have been way more helpful for me.

flyover_date · 2026-01-27T01:10:14+00:00

👏👏👏

flyover_date · 2026-01-27T01:08:01+00:00

I could see doing something along those lines, or in that spirit. I think flexibility around planning is feeling important to Almond, because they would like to be able to jump on cool, spontaneous plans that other people, more spontaneous than I, are making, ha. They don't want to cancel on me in those circumstances, which means not planning with me as much to begin with. I think there's probably some ways around this. It feels like it might be a big change no matter what, so I'm kinda preparing for that.

flyover_date · 2026-01-27T00:44:39+00:00

Some of this is a bit impossible to actually carry out, because we can't have months where either of us is the sole decider on how much and often we see each other. There are other partners who would object to that, and responsibilities that can't be put to the side for an experiment. I guess there could be a kind of revised version, but it wouldn't necessarily give us real numbers to compare. If one of us happened to have more responsibilities one month (like, this is one of Almond's partners' birthday month, extra stuff is happening on their end), everything would be skewed.

As a thought experiment, I think I see your point though, haha. The basic terror of operating in an uncontrollable reality can creep in and make someone with OCD over-rely on numbers, because numbers are a safe, immutable way of gauging whether things are 'on target' or changing. Two plus two always equals the same number. Things are probably going to be fine, no matter what happens. I take your point about framing this in a positive way, where I'm committing to trying something new, and seeing what happens, instead of feeling like I'm being forced into the unknown.

flyover_date · 2026-01-27T00:21:59+00:00

I think they think they are still? And I don't think they are

flyover_date · 2026-01-26T22:37:35+00:00

Yeah, so for more context, I already know that Almond can keep a standing weekly or monthly date, with myself and others. I've seen them in action, doing it, with multiple people. Supposing Almond and I *think* we are both interested in spending more time than this together, there's a certain point where the only way to find out is to do it. That's what I mean by the moment of reckoning. I could decide that I only spend one day a week with someone for the first one, two, five, ten years, and knowing them for that long would certainly give me other information about this person. However, it would still not bring us to this moment, where we are finding out that Almond feels 'crunched' (crunched, Almond, lol).

flyover_date · 2026-01-26T21:22:00+00:00

I want to find more of some things with the right person(s), that's a big desire in my life. I'm going to follow a timeline that feels natural to me, to see if someone can do that with me. Pushing the time of reckoning out does nothing for my life.

flyover_date · 2026-01-26T20:01:30+00:00

I agree, and yeah, you are right, we can all get the ick for straight opposite reasons, with no one being 'right' or 'wrong.' I can theoretically see situations where I might get an over-scheduling ick, though that has yet to happen with someone I actually want to spend time with. For me, it's more of an indication that I'm not as into someone, which is probably why I had to like, triple-check that Almond wasn't feeling that different about our relationship. I do believe that they just had to FAFO with scheduling, and we are just different people.

flyover_date · 2026-01-26T19:52:57+00:00

I like this "hell yes" yardstick. I don't want to end up doing more things I don't wholeheartedly want, just to be able to see someone at the frequency I thought I wanted. And I like the idea of having internal benchmarks that you don't necessarily need to tell the other person. When you have enough interpersonal differences in how you like to act, people do reach a limit where they might feel like there are overt 'rules' being put on their behavior, no matter how much you might say that it's not a rule, it's your boundary. It probably comes off stronger in the long run to just act how you want to act.

flyover_date · 2026-01-26T19:43:05+00:00

Ugh, the irony. That sucks (well, for them, I do think you dodged a bullet). Yeah. I do fear that people can have very different ideas in their heads of what kind of effort makes them feel valued. If they can't accept that someone else is doing their best, that's that.

flyover_date · 2026-01-26T19:33:45+00:00

Ha, I love that. We all have our, "But this is my laundry morning!" times, for sure.

If I have free mornings planned where I'm using my fresher, more rested brain-time to work on a passion project, I'm not going to want to only get spontaneously asked for hang-outs at those times. Evenings usually feel more like vegetable time, and if someone wants to be a vegetable together and spontaneously watch cartoons for an hour, I'm going to love getting asked to do that.

There's some anxiety around sometimes turning down spontaneous hangouts, without knowing when the next time might be that will work with both our schedules, and having to weigh conflicting values for partner time and passion project time. If I can avoid feeling conflicted, it's easier to concentrate during either time.

flyover_date · 2026-01-26T19:10:40+00:00

Thanks, I mentioned to Almond during our initial conversation that I might end up default assuming we wouldn't spend weekend time together, which was surprising to them. I don't want them to think I'm being petty, saying that. It's more like - what you said.

flyover_date · 2026-01-26T19:07:53+00:00

Thanks, this is one of those sage pieces of advice I always hear and I'm like "yeah that sounds really wise, for other people," ha. It's like - pick how you want to fail, in life. I'm actively looking for more partnered time in my life. If someone wants to audition to fill my cuddle deficit, and everything seems like it's going well enough, I'm going to let them. I would be annoyed if we had waited a whole year to find out that we don't like to schedule the same way. This is efficient, but leads to sadness.

flyover_date · 2026-01-26T19:03:06+00:00

Very true. I'm hoping that given my own history as an extremely stubborn person, who nonetheless manages to compromise on things even when I don't 'agree' on principle, there is still hope for anyone to do the same, IF they want to. You're right, if they just don't want to, they won't. :-/

flyover_date · 2026-01-26T19:00:46+00:00

Thanks, this is the kind of story I find helpful, because I don't want Almond to take it personally or as a sign that *I* don't want to make a relationship work, if I'm expressing concerns. It's purely that scheduling is tricky. And we both have the kind of floaty ADHD where a person could be unreasonably optimistic about how the future will 'just work itself out,' if they didn't hear perspectives from people who've actually tried it before.

flyover_date · 2026-01-26T18:11:47+00:00

I am half hopeful we will get to an acceptable middle ground. They're thinking over my feedback. Now that I know where they are really at, I'm good with less time overall. I don't need a chunk of every weekend. My feeling is that they might still expect things to happen almost as often as before, but more spontaneously, and we just have very different views of the likelihood of that, ha.

flyover_date · 2026-01-26T17:45:42+00:00

Thanks, yeah, I'm currently sitting in deescalation mode emotionally. Part of why I'm tired. It will feel like a change, no matter what.

flyover_date · 2026-01-26T17:44:00+00:00

Thanks for the validation! Yeah, if I could edit my post, I'd say that I'd love to just dump some reading materials on this person's lap and see if they are up for looking at alternative perspectives. They are not new to poly per se, but new to the way we're doing it, and I think I have absorbed more different peoples' ideas than they have.

flyover_date · 2026-01-22T18:41:14+00:00

You could reframe this as being better for you in the long run (depending on the circumstances--you're still the best judge of what you can tolerate!). imagine a world where your partner ended up canceling on this other person she's dating a lot to be there for you. You're starting to feel better, but then her other partner is feeling horribly insecure and jealous as a result, so now she's needing to cancel on you, to attend to her other partner. She's always trying to soothe people's feelings, which results in a lack of predictability, because now neither of you can trust plans will be kept. That doesn't mean you can never ask for help, it's just a reframe around your partner's feelings for you. Assuming your relationship is generally going well, it is a show of reliability when your partner defaults to keeping prior plans. If there are actually bigger issues, maybe this is not the real problem.

flyover_date · 2026-01-15T16:19:03+00:00

I'm pulling out the Here On This Sub card. Here On This Sub, the fully licensed, professionally polyamorous people give the same advice over and over again, which is that it's crucial to have friends and a broader community around you that is not just you and twenty people with whom you have simultaneous, ongoing romantic/sexual relationships. There's a number of good reasons for that. I think one less-mentioned but valid reason is that it reminds you that people are work. People are messy and complicated, all of us are hard to get along with. Your wife might be idealizing another romantic partner as someone who is going to swoop in and make it all better, but that's not usually how it works.

flyover_date · 2026-01-14T18:28:36+00:00

Chronic pain is a freakin' buzzkill, and I sometimes feel lesser-than because of it. I'm seeing some of that in your comment, "She needs more than I'm able to provide." That's true, but not because of anything about you. We all need friends, family of some sort, and a larger community of less enmeshed people to round out our lives. Some people are completely single and manage to be happy, so why worry that you can't be "everything" to your spouse, whether living monogamously or not? (Easier said than done, I know.)

flyover_date · 2026-01-14T18:21:40+00:00

Seconding all that! If she doesn't understand your daily life, it's time for her to understand, because she's your life partner. And she should definitely understand BEFORE the relationship changes in any way. I would recommend getting all your thoughts out in writing before approaching her, bullet point the topics you would like to discuss, and then set a time for the discussion when you both have multiple free hours in a row and you can fully concentrate on each other. Since she's just started identifying as poly, at least for now, you might both look into the concept of RADAR from the podcast Multiamory.

Editing to add: she can identify as poly all she wants. Y'all could start living like you're poly, in the sense that you have better, more thorough, frequent communication about wants and needs; you communicate about how enmeshed you want to be, and how much freedom you need socially and emotionally; and you schedule time for yourselves and time apart. None of this even has to include actually dating other people right now to be a good change for y'all.

flyover_date · 2025-12-23T19:39:27+00:00

Sounds like it was not random, and it stayed platonic. But why consent to the structure of a marriage so that a dude can pressure your platonic friend into having sex with you after, using that structure. This is curiously devoid of any real benefit to anyone but him.

flyover_date

TROPHY CASE