Check out Emmett Rensin's essay on polyamory, Of the Kinds of Love We Fall Into: Polyamory in Theory and Practice. Emmitt Rensin is a young writer who graduated from the prestigious University of Chicago, and authored a collection of Twitter-style summaries of the great books (I've attached a screen shot of a page from his book).
In the essay, Rensin recounts how he was introduced to polyamory by an older girl at his college. The essay is very long-winded but it really baffles me. He talks repeatedly about how he is "afraid" of this woman who introduced him to polyamory, and how she is the one who suggested polyamory to him.
Excerpt:
I don't understand this. He's afraid of her? Why? And she is proposing polyamory? Isn't it usually the guys who want to play the field? And he's agreeing to polyamory without really understanding it?
Below are some photos of the author, Emmett Rensin.
What is going on with his hair?
In the essay, Rensin recounts how he was introduced to polyamory by an older girl at his college. The essay is very long-winded but it really baffles me. He talks repeatedly about how he is "afraid" of this woman who introduced him to polyamory, and how she is the one who suggested polyamory to him.
Excerpt:
Quote:Quote:
Her name is Lou, except it isn’t really (every name but mine has been changed). This is our third date, but I am still afraid of her. We will stay together, in some form or another, for the better part of four years; in love for parts of it, and never once monogamous.
¤
I’d met Lou six months earlier, during my first year at The University of Chicago. She was a senior, a sort of matriarch to our college theater scene, who brought bourbon in water bottles to parties with inadequate booze and held court with kids I wished I was friends with. Her boyfriend was more popular than I would ever be . We met in passing: I helped her step over a law student’s vomit on a late night bus when she was on crutches; later, we traded names in a group conversation we’d both wandered into. We’d exchange pleasantries at parties. Soon, we were Facebook friends in the way two people can be without really knowing one another.
One night, near the end of the year, particularly frustrated by a long time spent celibate in the name of a languishing hometown holdover relationship, I sent Lou a message. We’d never spoken like this before, and I was coming on pretty strong with my self-pity. She indulged me; listened to me complain about my girlfriend, about long-distance fidelity, about not wanting to be the kind of man who rationalized his desire to betray, but who still couldn’t understand why love was proved by exclusivity. She listened to all of it, and when I was done she said, “Don’t worry. You’ll grow up one day and find a girl you can love who’s OK with polyamory.”
At the time, I don’t think she meant herself.
Back in Los Angeles for the summer, I manufactured reasons to call Lou: I’m looking at classes for next year, what should I take? I’m in the Tribune this week, could you save a copy? I saw you reading a book once, remind me what it was? I suspect she knew what I was doing, but found it charming enough to play along. I remained terrified of her.
My hometown girlfriend moved to Chicago and we leased an apartment together. We took separate bedrooms but never really discussed why. She worried that she’d made a mistake; I did my best to be distracted. By mid-fall, it was over and she found her own place in town. I kept after Lou, and manufactured calls became manufactured outings. By Halloween I was at the zoo and agreeing — immediately and with no real understanding — to be polyamorous, “if this becomes a thing.” I said I already knew what it meant (I didn’t, aside from the obvious). Anyway: anything to be with her. I figured I could cram before exam time, and newly, over-eagerly in love, I set out learning everything I could about the word and the world that came with it.
I don't understand this. He's afraid of her? Why? And she is proposing polyamory? Isn't it usually the guys who want to play the field? And he's agreeing to polyamory without really understanding it?
Below are some photos of the author, Emmett Rensin.
What is going on with his hair?
