South Bay Poly Essay #137 (August 2006)

“The Poly-Mono-Mutual-Misapprehension-Thing”

Still pondering where the mutual understanding between the monogamous and the poly often falls apart..

“Mutual understanding?” – I mean how polys look at the monogamous and the monogamous look at polys – the misunderstanding.

That’s how these things go, after all. The two sides look at each other and see bad traits. The “other” folks are “hung up”, “possessive”, “stuffy”, “self-centered”.

Or – the “other” folks are “undisciplined”, “unable to commit”, “selfish” – “self-centered.

Missing the point. It’s not that one’s better than the other. They just have different tastes.

It’s like they can’t understand each other – because they don’t realize that their own strong convictions – what seems obvious to them – are really matters of taste.

So maybe one person finds it “indecent” (a la “Indecent Proposal”) that Joe sits in the living room reading the paper, while his wife’s in the bedroom with her lover. Another person finds it “pathetic” that a man gets upset when another man flirts with his wife – and his wife is pleased that her husband is possessive of her.

Well, some people just like different things. As George Bernard Shaw said: “Do not do unto others as you would they should do unto you – their tastes may not be the same!”