The Polyamorous Misanthrope

A good friend of mine and I were discussing the new Dr. Who series and some of the socio-political issues, when we had an interesting and rather telling conversation. Now, we’re both poly. That becomes important to the conversation.

I asked, “So, which Doctor do you like better, nine or ten?”

“Both,” he replied. “Each is different.”

If that isn’t illustrative of both an ingrained idea in our culture as well as the general polyamory viewpoint, I don’t know what is.

Here I was, a total product of my upbringing and environment. General culture tells us, “You have to have a favorite, like something best — be it having a ‘best friend’, a favorite Doctor, a favorite food, or a favorite football team. You must create a hierarchy of value based on those favorites. What isn’t your favorite isn’t as good — yep even people. In fact, if it’s not your favorite, it might even kinda suck. Teach your children to have a best friend, so they can get the idea early. “

Then there was my friend on the side of polyamory saying, “Individual uniquenesses are such that you don’t have to have favorites or rank desires if you don’t want to. Good can be good without the better and best getting in the way of the idea. In fact, those individual uniquenesses might mean that comparison is silly. They’re different.“

Thing is, even in our culture we recognize that “best” or “favorite” when it comes to people can be damaging. It’s one thing to have a favorite flavor of ice cream, but what loving parent would ever say, “Why yes, your sister is my favorite child, Alphonse.”

I remember many years ago having someone try to argue with me about polyamory, and having the person insist that we all absolutely have to rank our love and relationships. He chose a silly example, not being a parent. If there were a fire in the house, he asked, which child would I save? I remember thinking, “What the hell kind of question is that? I’d die trying to save both!”

Some people would say that the parenting analogy doesn’t work because you don’t have a romantic relationship with your kids. I say that romance doesn’t change the core of what love is, but is merely another flavor of it, and that ranking and favorites and needing to be the favorite all the time is something you need to grow out of if you want to make polyamory work well.