When Good Principles Are Bad

Posted on May 31, 2012 by Professor Taboo

In April 2011 I wrote about how exclusiveness kills healthy friendships in the name of monogamy: The Curious Perplexity of Attachment. Curious how history repeats itself. This past weekend a very dear female college friend and I talked on the phone, updating each other on the past year since we spoke last. Allow me to give some background.

Both of us make each other laugh a lot, always have. During our rough times — each going through very difficult divorces — we were there for each other speaking brutally honest about anything, often saying things that the listener didn’t want to hear. Over the past five to seven years of our close friendship, we had always confessed “what if”…how greater the closeness could be if we were dating. Fun natural flirting came easy between us. But the 400+ miles and each of our separate families and kids kept us apart. The last time I had spoken with her she was madly in love with a new man. Fast forward to this weekend. Now that man was way out, even psychotic in her words, and now she has a new “keeper”.

What is so important or different about all this you ask? It is this: when I spoke honestly with her and flirted like we have always done over our 29-year friendship, strangely she did not respond. In fact, it seemed awkwardly BLAND. I thought to myself something is weird, out of balance, or something. When is she going to explain this?

If you have read my April 2011 blog The Curious Perplexity of Attachment, then you will know that the women to whom I was referring are past girlfriends, i.e. intimate relationships over multiple consecutive months. This good college friend of 29 years has always been a platonic friendship; never any sexual moments, not even any temptations except over the phone, long distance when her divorce had been filed by her husband. She was in a lot of disillusioned pain, struggling with 17 years of a dying marriage which sadly involved their four children. Her soon-to-be ex-husband was intentionally pitting the children against her. Innocent bystanders of a man’s anger.

There are several significant factors involved in the demise of her marriage but suffice to say for this article, infidelity was the root cause of the divorce. However, getting engrossed in the ugly mismanaged details of their marriage and divorce is not the purpose of my article today. Honestly, what happened between my dear friend and her husband or its complexities is ultimately none of my business or anyone else’s business. What is my business is how her “new” relationship with Mr. Keeper has now affected our 29-year friendship.

After our phone conversation my dear friend explained why she was not being her old, or usual self with me and our fun flirting. “As much as I love you” she explained, “…I feel loyal to [Mr. Keeper]. I never want to EVER cross the line again. You were playing like we always do (which made me smile), but I want to honor him and not flirt with anyone.” I must be honest, I was bothered by this explanation.

She and I have always, always been ourselves with each other. We have always been very comfortable in sharing all of our unedited, undiluted thoughts and feelings with each other. We could do so because we passed no judgement whatsoever on each other. Our 29-year close friendship is genuinely a wonderful healthy friendship. Why on earth should that ever change? An easy question to answer, right? No, it seems I am incorrect…again. Why?

When are good principles bad? What do monogamous boundaries really protect? When does a 2-month dating relationship have any more value than a 29-year platonic friendship? I am honestly not a wild-cannon that fires off randomly around new spouses or boyfriends with no impulse control. On the contrary, I am quite respectful of other’s relationships or marriages. I really struggle with this ‘pinch-off’ decision from my female friends when a new lover comes around for them! I hope one of my good female married and polyamorous friends (O.M. Grey) comments on this topic. From a woman’s perspective, she is a wealth of wisdom and experience on this subject.

I would very much like to hear anyone’s thoughts and comments about this because it happens way too often. Please tell me what your thoughts are.

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“The One” Myth

Posted on January 22, 2012 by Professor Taboo

As part of the Alternative Lifestyles blog-posts migration over to the new blog The Professor’s Lifestyles Memoirs, this post has been moved there. To read this post please click the link to the blog.

Your patience is appreciated. Thank you!

Trials of Open/Poly Lifers

Posted on August 8, 2011 by Professor Taboo

Your patience is appreciated. Thank you!

Do’s and Don’ts in What Kind of Relationships?

Posted on May 13, 2011 by Professor Taboo

Your patience is appreciated. Thank you!

The Curious Perplexity of Attachment

Posted on April 13, 2011 by Professor Taboo

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate;
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”

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I was contacted over the last several months by a few old, intimate friends, some of which were ex-girlfriends. I considered these now defunct dating relationships (and still do) to be quite significant to my life whether past or present. Now they have disappeared into that mysterious lost world of attachment, again. If history holds true, I should not hear from them again for another ten or twelve months or more, or perhaps never again. Why is that?

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I suppose the freedom and pursuit of happiness and meaningful experience in all of our human interactions is in these cases just too risky an endeavor within the subtle framework of traditional attachment. These situations sadden me to be honest because it was they who missed me and contacted me after so long. I find this curious and perplexing… and so I write.

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I did not graduate from elementary and junior high school by passing one subject. I did not graduate from high school or college by passing one subject. As obvious as those implications might seem, why did we all take so many various subjects throughout our educations? What did it benefit us? Why was it required to pass many subjects? Could we not have functioned or succeeded in life just as well with only one single subject of study? Of course not, so why should our relationships/friendships be any different?

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Allow me to put this analogy in another perspective. How about your teachers or your classmates? Would it be considered well and fine if they forbid you to study any other subject but their own? Or what about the not so ancient business of human slavery? Isn’t it fine and well to own slaves to benefit the personal well-being of the owner? Of course not, so why should our relationships/friendships be any different?

Yet, too often I discover this curious, perplexing attachment in relationships today. One subject and one subject only… and it seems to be either chosen or enforced, verbally or non-verbally, in action or by passiveness. Very reminiscent of ages and civilizations gone when proprietary rights ruled in all aspects of life and home.

Edgar Cayce believed, as I believe, that soul mates (i.e. persons in our life that through interaction we become acutely aware of our shortcomings and our abilities) were to be embraced…forever.

“Soul mates (not one but many) are individuals that are not our full compliment or other half that makes us complete, but rather in being with those individuals we are provided with an impetus to become whole ourselves AND to offer the same to them.”

Fullfillment, happiness, problems or obstacles are all presented in the relationships/friendships for a purpose:

“they are infinite opportunities of invaluable assistance to mature mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. Soul mates are not to be feared by a partner, but on the contrary should be encouraged by both to grow as they may.”

How well do you live freely? How well do you love freely? How deeply and how freely are YOU loved…and how freely is it given?

“…When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, so long lives this, and this gives life to thee.“

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