The View From My Knees

Hey there!

I’d love some advice. I gather from some of your tweets that you might have some personal insight into this, so here goes:

I’m in a poly relationship with a close friend who is married. All is cool. We’re happy, and I date other people and it’s fun and supportive and great. Friendship gets better all the time, and so does the sex.

I’m also romantically very attached to an old old friend from way back who is recently coming back into my life. She lives on the other coast, but we’re talking about getting together in the next few months and sex is definitely on the agenda. Whether we can make a long term thing of it will depend on a lot of factors, too many to go into, but I’m still interested.

The problem is that in the past year she was diagnosed with HSV2. Asymptomatic. Neither I nor any of my other partners have it. I’ve done a pile of research and I think I understand what my risks are. I also think I’m willing to take those chances (they seem slight enough) at least for the time being. We probably won’t spend more than a week together this year anyway. The transmission rate appears to be like 4% per year for hetero males who are with HSV positive females. Condoms reduce this by half, so 2%. Valcyclovir ["Valtrex"] would reduce it by another 50% so that would be 1%. Per year. And we’re not going to be together for a whole year.
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Photo by Lucky

A couple of weeks ago, in a drunken haze, I broke up with Vincent. Actually, I don’t know if “broke up with” is exactly the right phrase. I told him I couldn’t be his primary partner anymore. What does that mean? Well, for starters, “don’t tell me you love me anymore.” That’s one of the rules I gave him through tears as we sat out on a curb in a residential area of the U-District. What else does it mean to remove yourself from the role as primary? It means less expectations. Less responsibility to each other. It represents a large shift in the way you include that person in your life and how you interact with new partners. It is not, however, a clean break. I didn’t want that.

So what did I want? I wanted a release from my guilt. I wanted him to be free to pursue relationships that I had decided were more suitable for him. Monogamous relationships.

When we first started dating, Vincent was firmly in the monogamy camp. He’d always said that he’d never date a poly girl. But then I came along and something that was supposed to be a fun fling got really intense, really fast. Sometimes that just happens, even if you don’t want it to. To be honest, it was kind of inconvenient. I didn’t want another serious relationship. Especially not with someone who wasn’t sure of this whole polyamory thing. Because I am sure of it. It is absolutely, 100% the right lifestyle for me. But, while I do think that more people would be happier in a non-monogamous relationship, I don’t believe it’s the right lifestyle for everyone. Still, if you want to be with me, the lifestyle has to be right for you. Or, at least, you have to be willing to give it a shot.
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