What are YOU looking for in a partner?

[sistawendy]

[I've been writing up events several days after they happen lately. This one is from Monday night the 26th.]

I had dinner with Tall Girl - not a date - for the first time in nearly a year to swap )'( tales and, as you'd expect with me involved, to talk about adventures and misadventures in dating. She asked me a question that I've been asked once before: "What are you looking for in a partner?"

I had to think about it.* I confessed that I have U-Haul** tendencies, so she better be OK with that.
"Are you looking for serious romance?" asked Tall Girl.
I'd never thought of it that way. I smiled. "Yeah, that would be nice."
She said she'd see what she could do. Awww.

What else do I want? Here come the bullet points!

• I love to geek out with girlfriends; you must be at least this smart to get on this ride.
• I love to shop with girlfriends, and I'm a reasonably girly girl.
• I miss romance, silliness, long conversations, and yes, snuggling & sex.
• I've been known to dance until my feet blister, and I'd love a partner.
• Watching TV makes me feel dirty, and not in a good way.
• I'm anal about housework; slobs make my hands do choky motions. Long live the Oxford comma!
• Kink is a plus.
• Religion - any kind of religion - is not.

I don't buy Tall Girl's assertion, by the way, that monogamy is unnatural, much less unnatural for me. (Did I argue with her about it at the time? Of course not. I'm my mother's daughter.) Tall Girl and her parents are poly, but I know plenty of people my age for whom monogamy seems to be working out just fine after upwards of a decade, even if not without difficulties.



*Yeah, there are a couple of individuals I could use as examples, but they're off limits for various reasons, even off limits to this here LJ.
**An ancient joke that I first heard from dianala: "What does a lesbian bring on the second date?" "A U-Haul trailer."

Comments

[trystbat.livejournal.com]

It seems that among certain alternative communities, monogamy is considered uncool or passe. But hey, monogamy, poly, monogam-ish, they're all different flavors & ways of being for different folks, & none are more or less "natural" any more so or less so than L-G-B-T-S-etc. are "natural" for any one person. And one can be fluid in any combo of all of these thruout one's life (esp. females; there's studies, go look 'em up ;-).

Besides, I thot the old U-Haul joke was absolutely *because* of a tenancy towards serial monogamy in lesbians. Geez!

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

I'm familiar with the studies. I'm grateful for them.

And I agree with you about the U-Haul joke. Tall Girl isn't strictly lesbian, so that's not where she's coming from. She wore rainbow diapers, and is into a little (?) bit of everything.

[gement.livejournal.com]

I don't buy Tall Girl's assertion, by the way, that monogamy is unnatural, much less unnatural for me.

I roll my eyes so hard at this sentiment that I'm at risk of spraining something.

Natural or unnatural is a word I have stopped applying to human issues anyway, because our environment is so complex that working out nature from nurture is a lost cause, and nature includes all kinds of things we disapprove of. "Natural" or "unnatural" as value judgments strike me as an Appeal To Authority fallacy.

That aside, people who assume everyone must be [bisexual / poly / mono / better off if they only eat X] get a heaping helping of "Stop living other people's lives for them, kthanx" from this corner.

Other than requiring a sufficiency of oxygen, nutrients, shelter, and interactions to thrive as an organism, "everyone" has so little in common it's laughable.

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

The choice of words was mine, not hers. It's a paraphrase of something I can't quite remember verbatim, something to the effect that most people can't do monogamy happily in the long term because they change too much over time. I don't buy that, either.

[gement.livejournal.com]

Ah. Some people grow into each other, some grow out of each other. *shrug*

How much energy one puts into it doesn't even determine which is more likely, in my observation, though it generally improves the quality of result in either case. Some people stay together or fall apart out of inertia, others by active collaboration.

I wish you a good growing-into-each-other with whoever you find!

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

Heaven knows I put plenty of energy into Nibs' and my relationship. Shit happens, but that doesn't mean catastrophic shit always happens.

[ximinez]

The way I tend to view that argument is more along the lines of: in our evolutionary past, our ancestors probably lived in small groups where all resources were freely shared, including access to sexual partners. Because of this, our bodies have evolved features to allow competition to ttake place at the "sperm wars" level. They also indicate that non-monogamous behaviors gave some reproductive advantage (large testes, the shape of the penis, hidden ovulation, etc.). As a species, we've only been practicing monogamy for a very short amout of time, and most of that monogamy is imposed by the environment (society) and in many cases is only social, not genetic.

Somehow, all this leads to the conclusion that monogamy is _difficult_ for many, if not most people, and must be maintained through conscious effort. It doesn't mean that one is better than the other, but it usually means that anyone who is ethically nonmonogamous has probably put some thought and effort into analysing the options and making a conscious choice, rather than unthinkingly going with the societal default. Some people, I suspect, mistake that for enlightenment.

Damn. That turned into something a lot longer and more complicated that I expected to write.

[macabre0.livejournal.com]

I have to say that the "thought and effort into analysing the options and making a conscious choice" to be poly does not, unfortunately, always play out in them making any better partners than non-pensive monogamous partners. I've seen things fall apart on all sides of the fence when the person is not self-aware about their actions, and it ruffles my feathers when I must listen to poly people talk about how it is so much more natural to be poly than monogamous. I try not to hang out with the self-righteous ones for that reason.

I think that each action in our lives deserves conscious consideration and self-awareness, not just our sexuality. No one has the right answer to everything (or if they do, they are not sharing) and I much prefer to be called out for it when I start getting preachy. Maura, please call me out if I ever start saying such things to you?

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

Maura, please call me out if I ever start saying such things to you?

OK, I'll try not to be my mother's daughter long enough to do that.

[ximinez]

Amen. That's why I used so many weasel words: probably, usually, some...

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

>Natural or unnatural is a word I have stopped applying to human issues anyway, because our environment is so complex

No doubt. I was having this conversation on G+, with a libertarian friend who was yelling about how humans weren't monogamous "by nature". We don't respect property rights "by nature" either: we choose to, because we're civilized. Likewise, we can choose some aspects of our sexuality, if we want.

Which reminds me of a bit I read in a book about insect reproduction the other day. The writer was on about how many questions she gets about homosexual behavior in animals, and sums it up by observing that of the people who ask, a lot do so because they believe animals don't exhibit homosexual behavior, therefore it's unnatural, and most of the rest believe animals *do* exhibit homosexual behavior, and therefore it's bestial. She said she preferred the students who didn't really care about what animal behavior might or might not say about human behavior.

[darkmane.livejournal.com]

Shoes and corsets are unnatural.

Lots of people still wear them.

Of course I detest shoes and am ambivalent about corsets.

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

Ambivalent about the way they look on other people or about wearing them?

[darkmane.livejournal.com]

Both...

Take too long for me to get on and too long to get off other people.

I'm a guy, clothes are meant to be functional.

[ximinez]

Have you tried any of the "minimalist" style of shoes (eg. Vibram five fingers) that have been becoming more and more common?