Some friends of mine are going through various relationship crises, some of whom are tempted or being advised to have an affair, and after a long day with Rebar yesterday, today I emailed someone this:

Seems I've got fidelity issues of my own these days. Rebar and I had a long round of discussions yesterday about what I want and who I care about and who I'm attracted to. What he wants and what he can handle. It was a very intense and emotional day. Deciding whether we are friends or lovers. What we want from each other. What we want from the relationship. How that affects other relationships.

I don't think anything is clearer than it was before.

Actually, one thing is. We can be fuckable friends, or we can be lovers. The intensity of being lovers doesn't allow for infidelity.

I may have been calling what we have a friendship, but we behave like lovers. Not just sexually, I mean we call each other every day and miss each other when not together and otherwise act like married people. It was the loss of that in February that made me crazy.

Do you think it's true of polyamory that the relationships tend to be transitory? That was something that came up. The idea that if you choose to practice this, you acknowledge that there may not be -any- long term or permanent relationships, that they just don't survive the low level of intensity needed to share that way. I know about theory, what about practice?

I know I am free to love whoever I love, but the fact remains that I am not free to let that love affect the relationship I am in, without endangering it and possibly losing it.