Compersion

I find it kinda funny that people can't get past the sex. Sex may be part of the whole package but its got little to do with the concept.

 

The entire concept, which personally I think is mostly unworkable, is that you are actually happy, at a visceral level much like jealousy, that someone you love is also in love with someone else. Sex isn't really part of the issue, its a side note.

Edit: Thinking about it, unworkable isn't the right term, as its not something you can really work on, its more "unusual" and would require a very different sort of personal wiring form the norm. You can learn to not be jealous over sex pretty easily, but sex is just sex. A emotional tie is very different and when that happens, for most, its ends in drama.

 

Is this kinda stuff just a product of middle-aged married people suddenly realizing that a 1950s marriage isn't really for them? Sure, you're now encumbered by a gargantuan mortgage, the bottomless trench of credit card debt and 2.5 screaming shithead kids, so you force yourself to like your partner for practical reasons, but maybe you just needed a different partner. Or maybe you just needed one of those urban legend Hall Pass weekends. Or a Corvette.

I'd also like to hear how Serious Adults with Serious Jobs and Serious Families go through the risk assessment I described earlier.

 

I've only known a few people first hand that considered themselves poly, and every one of them had no kids, and were in their early 30's. If you go into some alternative lifestyle to cover for a problem in your relationship, you're gunna have a bad time.

Perhaps if you restate this in an easier to read form there might be an answer to it.

Most humans don't seem to be wired for either. Monogamy is definitely not the norm, if it was you wouldn't see so much cheating, so many prostitutes, etc. When studied the number of children who are not their fathers is quite staggering, up to 30% of some areas and thats in the first world. In the UK they did such a study and found about 20%, they thought maybe it was just that location, expanded the study to a wider area, still 20%.

Likewise polyamory doesn't seem to be natural either. Very few societies endorse it, outside of extra wives, (which perhaps is why the most stable form is FMF), and those that do, still have "head wives" or in the one example of polyandry we have the second husband (brother) wants to be able to have his own wife eventually.

I think Matt Ridley had the best idea in that humans mating is more like social birds. Long term pair bonding but a lot of extra-bonding "affairs".

 

AYFK? I'm at a 7th grade reading level as is. Anyway:

So, yeah, what that dumbass said. How do you go about vetting someone? I'd assume it's either a long, arduous process or that people just take a lot of whoa-shit chances. Details would be interesting. It's not a fling, it's more, right?

 

You basically date them. You meet somewhere like a bar or restaurant, you talk, you look for any weird vibes, and if all is good, you invite them for sexy times. Some people will want to really date, and take a LONG time getting to know each other. Other people will fuck on the first date. Its just like any normal dating situation in that respect.

So far in 14 years, we never ended up with a couple, had sex, and then had to go into hiding. We met a lot we weren't interested in, and they were sorted out early, a few that had issues later, kinda like dating, but it never got bad. So yea there is a risk, but its not really more than the risk of being single. We've met some fantastic people in swinging, which is different than poly (more first date fucking, decidedly less I love you).

Most of the bad situations in swinging at least, involve singles, male or female. Single males often are pretty sex starved and the usual drama is they try to steal the wife away. Single female drama is different, they tend to be more batshit insane, and rather then try to steal the husband they try to become poly and move in. We've experienced neither of these, but we don't play with singles. Of couples we know who have its a pretty common story.

 

Nice word; but I won't ever be using it in relationship to myself.

I couldn't be more indifferent to my wife's sex life before we started dating. Nothing seems to have been worn out.

Even after a gazillion years, our relationship has it's ups and downs. Not a chance in hell, I'd add a potential drama shitstorm to what is already tenuous at times.

In theory, I want her to be happy in every conceivable way. In reality, picking up after her dog and changing the oil in her car while she's off screwing some random hookup isn't going to work for me. Some things are better left as fantasies.

Consenting adults and all, I don't much care what anyone else does; but I'll pass on this.

 

Which is fine and understandable, but nothing to do with the "compersion" idea. First the random hookup would have to not be a random hookup but a long term boyfriend/girlfriend of some kind, and secondly they would have to be romantically linked, not just fucking, and then third THAT would have to make YOU happy for her. Thats what "compersion" is suppose to be at least. I'm not even sure it really exists, but thats the concept anyways.

 

Many, many years ago, I think in the Jurassic era, when I was a single man, I met a woman at a dance, very sweet, a musician, and she came home with me and shared my bed.

Afterward, she hurriedly got up to go. She took it for granted that if she didn't, I would throw her out.

She was astonished that I didn't want her to go.

(We went together for a few months. Eventually the fact that she and I had very little in common took a toll.)