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Poly glossary: Comets
May. 4th, 2018 11:11The set of the people a person is dating is often called their polycule. An alternate term is constellation, which I happen to prefer.
I recently realized there's a subset of people who are not constantly in the constellation. They don't get daily or even weekly texts, I can go months or years before seeing them in person. We live quite separate lives. (In all of my cases, none of these people live in the same state as me, but given the pace of life in New York, I could see having technically-local people fit this as well.)
The thing is, my feelings about these people is not merely friendship, or even merely "friends with benefits". (Though all people in this subset definitely get the "benefits" in my implementation, that may not be true for others.) I feel a similar surge of pride and joy when they are doing well as I do my more constant partners; I feel a similar sense of worry and concern when they are struggling. I feel intense compersion[0] when I see pictures on my social media feeds of these people with their own constellations, and often ask how their own romantic lives are going without me. I'll blather endlessly about their creative projects to my friends.
And those handful of times when the distance becomes an arm's distance or less? They spark into something passionate and wonderful, as romantic as anything else I feel. They're deeply validating of my self-identification as polyamorous - that this intense emotional state can and should be cultivated in my life, along with the things I build elsewhere. And I feel it, even with the knowledge that the time spent together will be brief, that our lives are going in separate trajectories.
Given the constellation metaphor, I've started calling this particular set of people "my comets". Honoring my relationship with my comets, making time for them when I can, is a thing I ask my local partners to do. They are a part of the larger constellation of my relationships, friendships and romantic relationships and otherwise, and their presence, however distant, is important to me.
//
[0]Compersion, of course, being anti-jealousy; the happiness and joy of knowing your partner's needs are being fulfilled by someone else. Another poly glossary post will be spent on this concept, on how some twist this interestingly for kink, and so on.
I recently realized there's a subset of people who are not constantly in the constellation. They don't get daily or even weekly texts, I can go months or years before seeing them in person. We live quite separate lives. (In all of my cases, none of these people live in the same state as me, but given the pace of life in New York, I could see having technically-local people fit this as well.)
The thing is, my feelings about these people is not merely friendship, or even merely "friends with benefits". (Though all people in this subset definitely get the "benefits" in my implementation, that may not be true for others.) I feel a similar surge of pride and joy when they are doing well as I do my more constant partners; I feel a similar sense of worry and concern when they are struggling. I feel intense compersion[0] when I see pictures on my social media feeds of these people with their own constellations, and often ask how their own romantic lives are going without me. I'll blather endlessly about their creative projects to my friends.
And those handful of times when the distance becomes an arm's distance or less? They spark into something passionate and wonderful, as romantic as anything else I feel. They're deeply validating of my self-identification as polyamorous - that this intense emotional state can and should be cultivated in my life, along with the things I build elsewhere. And I feel it, even with the knowledge that the time spent together will be brief, that our lives are going in separate trajectories.
Given the constellation metaphor, I've started calling this particular set of people "my comets". Honoring my relationship with my comets, making time for them when I can, is a thing I ask my local partners to do. They are a part of the larger constellation of my relationships, friendships and romantic relationships and otherwise, and their presence, however distant, is important to me.
//
[0]Compersion, of course, being anti-jealousy; the happiness and joy of knowing your partner's needs are being fulfilled by someone else. Another poly glossary post will be spent on this concept, on how some twist this interestingly for kink, and so on.