dating – untitled atm

095 – curiosities and non-monogamy

There are things I do on a daily basis which help me maintain a sense of stability even as I try to keep with the various big crazy uncertainties of life. Singing, dancing, making lists, journaling, talking to and texting with people who feel like home, watching Schitt’s Creek, making and having my morning cold coffee— these are some of the things that allow me to cope with the big questions of life. These are the things that help me cope with my exploratory needs, even when those needs are incredibly anxiety inducing.

What are some of these needs, one might wonder. Lately, it’s been curiosities around non-monogamy. Which has bought up quite a bit of tumult within me, if I’m being honest. Yesterday night I realised how invested and attached I do feel about one of the existing connections in my life right now. There’s also a lot of discomfort around realising how ingrained within me the current monogamy mental model is. It’s not just me, of course, most people I know are quite monogamous and are quite happy with it as well. But in my current circles, I’m the only one who’s “trying” to check what I prefer. One of my friends identifies as polyamorous, but he has done so for pretty much the longest time and I don’t know if he struggled with any of this, and it certainly didn’t show even if he did. Another friend experimented a bit with all this— and I actually realised I wasn’t super supportive of his explorations when he was in the throes of it— I think I was of the opinion (without perhaps being very aware about it) that we don’t need to do things if they give us so much anxiety. (He would tell me about the amount of anxiety he would experience when his partner was on dates with other people and I would just struggle to understand why they (he and his partner) were putting themselves through so much when it was so uncomfortable for the both of them). Over a year later, as I’ve reconnected with the exploratory, curious parts of me, I realise that just because new things give us (me) anxiety, it doesn’t mean new things are bad.

I’m glad I’m able to hold and face this believe again and again, with various things in life. I’ve accepted that anxieties about all the plethora of things in the world aren’t “not going to show up”, and to “delete” them can’t be my aim. The aim is to just to be in touch with what new things are worth trying despite all the anxiety, and the reasons for which I may want to try them. (“What is worth trying” is also something we cannot answer in the present, but I suppose being clear about why we’re “putting ourselves through” something can help).

Whenever I’m faced with something that’s so non-conventional, I always automatically go back to the time when I first discovered that I liked women. Somehow, that wasn’t at all anxiety inducing to me. Maybe because I discovered that through love, or maybe because it was still within the limits of “my “open” mind” as it were at the time. Basically, somehow, I wasn’t inherently homophobic and was also lucky enough to probably not have too many (openly) homophobic people around me (which I believe is why I didn’t get influenced into taking on any external homophobia either).

The topics of gender and non-monogamy on the other hand, have been uncomfortable enough. But I won’t want to blame myself for the discomfort. It’s okay that it’s uncomfortable. And I know that I can work through it, also.

So yeah, I feel better now that I’ve acknowledged and laid out the discomfort and the context of the situation here. Now to the next part: if being clear about the reasons of something can help with carrying it forward, what are my reasons for wanting to explore non-monogamy?

I think it was triggered by realising I had some residual feelings for a person while I started to see a new person, and I actually felt for a (albeit brief) period of time I actually had feelings (and curiosities about more than a single person). (Side thing here— I felt a bit guilty about this, and I feel like the monogamy model is one of the causes for the guilt.)
Did some research and reading, and of course, having curiosities for more than a single person is just the starting point. Non-monogamy is not just about having these curiosities, it’s about a lot more— ie whether you have the wish to follow these curiosities, whether you have the bandwidth for it, whether you have the capacity for very open, honest communication with multiple partners and the ability to respect different types of boundaries AND the capacity to deal with the reverse, and lastly of course whether you have the willingness to then date only within the non-monogamous pool— because the reality does seem like it is an objectively smaller pool.
I do compare romantic love with non-romantic love as of now, sometimes though. I just feel like I’m a better friend because I have multiple deep friendships. And for the same reason, I just wonder if I could also be a better “lover” if I have multiple deep romantic relationships. I basically wonder if I could be more “secure” if I was non-monogamous. I’m reading a lot more about this and of course, it’s not like I’m trying to solve my relationship with myself THROUGH other people, like I know that the security essentially has to come from me, only me, and whether I date one person or two (or zero actually), that piece of the picture has to still be painted through my own internal work.. and yet, I just feel like being “forced” to do some of the work and having different types of structures and stimuli can help with it all. (Again, as it often does with friendships and all the other types of relationships.)
I’m trying to answer this very important question for myself: Why is it that we believe that we can only (romantically) love a single person at a time? Or whether it’s even true. If it’s true (for me), I may not end up caring about the why, but if it’s not true— I would really like to know sooner than later.

There’s probably a few more things here but I’m actually really satisfied with the last point, I think that’s the crux, really.

Phew, that was a lot. Stay alive folks, cheers xx

092b – new topics in life + gratitude

Every time something new comes up that I haven’t talked about too much on here, I experience new sorts of vulnerabilities. For example, I’ve started seeing someone more regularly over the last couple months and that’s brought up a lot of new questions, thoughts, feelings, etc etc in me.

That, in turn, made me realise that despite talking about SO many things with so much openness, there are still so many things that I don’t talk about, or hesitate before talking about.

Sex, physical intimacy, kink, these are some topics that I realised I’d like to talk to people more openly about. I used to think that I was the more “closed” one when it would come to these topics, and YET these days I find more people shying away from these topics even more than I do. Maybe it’s true for the Indian society, maybe my benchmarks were the ones that had been formed by my time away from India.

Monogamy and non-monogamy is the other thing that’s been occupying a lot of brain space. And while personally I’m okay with open questions taking their sweet time to find resolutions, obviously with other people in the picture, some of these questions do come with some time constraints, and I guess I have to be okay with that.

Being doing some research on the origins and advantages of monogamy and one of the primary considerations (advantage) it provides is definitely around child-bearing, raising etc. So it makes sense that I’m curious about non-monogamy because I’m also not sure whether or not want to bear (or even raise) kids.

Personally, the main aversion I feel from monogamy is the idea of being “tied to” one person. Honestly, emotionally, when I like someone I don’t feel the need to follow other curiosities. But I know from experience that other curiosities do come up as time progresses. And in those scenarios, I would just like to have more freedom to discuss them AND potentially explore and follow, if they’re strong.

Spending a lot of my time with books also. Enjoying that a lot.

I talked about love and learning earlier. I think February has been pretty great for both. If you find the right people these two things often come together, actually. I learn the best from people and if I can also find love in those dynamics (whether it’s romance or friendships or other dynamics), time-management becomes much easier. (As non-poetic as that may sound.)

Yeah, life’s pretty decent, I suppose. Not much to complain about at the moment. Pretty grateful for most parts. I’m just going to savour it all this week and not try to optimise it or “make it better”.

Why fix when not broken? Basically.

Alright that’s it from me. Hope y’all are having a safe and sound February! xx

087a – updates and planning

Lots going on. Lots of feelings and thoughts. Attended a big-ish poetry open mic which triggered some insecurities, although I did come out with a couple of really nice takeaways. Found some inspiration, found some people to connect with, and was also able to “provide value” (I think) by talking to a few students who were really interested in the processes and the community and how they could get more involved with poetry and slam poetry in general.

I think it’d be nice to be able to attend a workshop on slam poetry sometime soon because shifting from page to slam might require some more intentional work that I’m not able to put in yet.

Something I’m incorporating in dating (ie what I look for in a partner) now is maturity. For the longest time I’ve “known” that this is something I like but I’ve also thought that it’s something that I can get by without (because “I’m plenty mature for the both of us”). But I’m realising lately that that’s not how it works (LOL). But also realising that maturity doesn’t just come from books and movies but also a good amount of life experience. Also maturity on what fronts, really? Not just in terms of life and existing and suffering, but really having interacted with a good amount of people, with a good number and type of people, situations, etc etc. I don’t know yet how I can test for this when dating, but it’s something I’d definitely want.

I wrapped up the 10-songs project for now (reflections here) and something I’m realising is that it’s literally very similar to word-vomiting and journaling. I’m still continuing with music and writing as need based things (ie feeling outlets) and that will likely stay, I think. Production and release will be a separate project, one that I’m not beginning anytime soon. I’m going to be working on the smaller things this January. Small admin tasks, other P1 mini-projects etc. I’ve also got a vocals exam and I’d like to wrap it up soon since it’s stretched on for too long now.

The other thing that’s going on is no-Instagram-January. Today I felt like I want to activate it again because I felt the need for connection. But then if I don’t carry on for at least 2-3 weeks without giving in I wouldn’t really be able to tap into the returns, if any. Because my need for connection actually wasn’t a need for connection, only regulation. And for regulation, I mostly want to rely on myself, or actual, real people, not social media.

Not sure exactly what to focus on this week, work-wise, but I need to decide at least a few things otherwise I might end up doing nothing, really. I think I might need to follow a sprint model for personal tasks as well because that actually works pretty well, in my experience. It’ll allow me to not get “triggered” by my todo list but instead just look at it as opportunities— opportunities that I can explore at the pace that I want to.

Alright that’s it for today! Hope you’re having a good start to the week. Cheers xx

069a – passive writing, intentions for the week

I want to sleep before 4am today. Because I really want to wake up before noon tomorrow. Which means writing a word-vomit now, doing some reading and then literally just switching off the lights by 3:45am. Had some friends over today and realised I really care about them. One of them I was meeting after more than 6 months and he’s been going through a bit of tough time. Him getting me upto speed is when I realised how much I really felt for him.

I’ve been a bit triggered about lacking a romantic relationship over the last couple days so today was a bit of grieving the last person I dated. I thought I was mostly over them but today brought some new (old) inner feelings out, I guess. It’s been over a month since we ended things and I expected this much time to be enough for me to grieve. But maybe I need a few weeks more.

I’ve decided to purchase an electric and a semi-acoustic guitar soon but the research part of the purchases is not very fun.

I think I definitely want to complete 2 more songs before the end of this year. That’s doable, I think.

I haven’t taken a flight in a while. I think I’m missing the feeling. Even though flights and travel give me some anxiety, I think even WITH the anxiety, the overall feeling is nice and interesting. Maybe I’ll go somewhere early December.
I guess I used to think the net feeling in a moment is the “sum” of your positive and negative feelings but I think it’s not really that. It’s not [happiness minus anxiety = less happiness]. It’s just (happiness, anxiety). This is actually quite interesting to me. (#epiphanies)

This word-vomit is slow because I keep getting distracted. I’m really tired today though I don’t know why. I’ve slept enough and I didn’t do much. Maybe it’s just that. I didn’t do anything refreshing.

Do I really not have any thoughts at the moment? How is that possible?

I have many tasks to do this week, most of which I’m not looking forward to. So, then, what am I looking forward to, if not those tasks? How can I make this week a bit nice? There’s an open-mic I could sign up for potentially, but I don’t know what songs I’d want to sing. Okay yes, I think I can do this. It’s a task that’s the right amount of challenging, plus it’ll also be nice to move towards my medium-term goal of doing ten open-mics by the mid of next year. It’s also at this queer/mixer event type thing so it could potentially be nice to meet some new people, and I’ve been meaning to find ways to do that anyway.

I want to get back to 1000-word posts because I think more stuff comes out when you write 1000-word posts as opposed to shorter ones, so yeah– that’s something I’ll probably start doing soon. I’ve also decided I’m not switching to substack until I’ve written 10-long posts/essays that I’m actually satisfied with (where the satisfaction rating is at least a 7/10). Alright, these conclusions feel good.

051b – late twenties are tough

Dating is hard. One minute you’re deep into the fantasy of falling in love with a new person you might have met, and the next minute you’re grieving the fact that they left you on “Seen” (albeit for a day). I’ve worked a lot on myself since my first dating-apps-sourced heartbreak of 2020, but there is only so much work you can do with the past and the present. There are scenarios that come up every time you meet a new person that bring up so much new stuff for you, and no amount of self-work, therapy, healing, non-fiction / self-help books can really prepare you for the real thing. I think. I shudder to thing how much I might have been affected by said scenarios if I was still the same person I’d been in 2020.

Dating is realising that the knowledge of your attachment styles, communication preferences, following @therapyjeff etc etc doesn’t actually prevent you from feeling shitty when things don’t go as expected. Partly because the people you meet may not have engaged in all of this. But also partly because at the end of day, lived experience will trump everything. Bottom line is, while you can look at your feelings with more awareness (and knowledge), there is no way to avoid them altogether. Pain and suffering is the price we pay for living.

Last couple of days have been tough. House-hunting was paused for a bit because I couldn’t really find good options, but overall I’ve been unable to focus on other things until this piece is figured. I think that’s the tough part for me, parallelisation. It does take around a month in most places to find a place, so I’m trying to just remind myself that, but overall optimism has been hard to find when it comes to this. I’m also conflicted about the area/neighbourhoods I’m looking in and whether I should compromise a little bit on that (since I’m unable to find good places in my most preferred areas). I don’t know.

I found a music open-mic event that’s happening somewhat nearby to my current house, thinking of going and participating in that. I was practicing singing today and realised that it does recharge me, even though I often forget that when I’m not actively engaging in it. So maybe it’ll be nice to engage in this goal of mine and get that done with. I also enquired about drums classes nearby and going for an intro session today. Excited about that though! Been meaning to try this out forever so if I can engage with this, I might feel good.

I was supposed to have therapy this Monday which got canceled which I think is the primary cause of why I’ve been feeling so low last few days. I mean, not the root cause itself but something which could have alleviated everything.

In summary, dating, house-hunting, physical tiredness, a canceled therapy session, potential pms – these are the things that have got me down. Let’s see what shape the week ends up taking. Onward!