But...

[greenstorm]

...allow me to coin a term first: "emotional chicken", the poly thing that happens where two competitors for someone's affections both are unhappy with the poly thing or with how much attention they're getting and know the other person is unhappy too, so they tolerate an otherwise unacceptable situation in the hopes that if they hang on 'just a little longer' the other person will give up, go home, and leave the whole sandbox to them.

Wow. Yeah, that's a prevalent pattern in poly circles for sure.

Comments

[koppermoon.livejournal.com]

*nods*

[khamura.livejournal.com]

We stared in awe at this term for a minute, because my God -- it's full of truthiness!

[greenstorm.livejournal.com]

Isn't it awful?

[saxifrage00.livejournal.com]

I think this is a pretty big insight.

I also think it's unavoidable without some pretty fundamental changes to how a poly person thinks about time. You mentioned before that time and attention get treated as commodities, and therefore people think of them in scarcity terms.

I think the necessary change is to stop competing completely. Philosophically that makes sense to me since "competing" implies that my decisions are what are important, rather than the desires and choices of the person who's in the middle.

I think it also makes sense practically. If my goal is to be happy, accepting whatever lesser degree of attention and time I get when I stop competing is going to make me more content (and so have more opportunity to be happy with the person). It also doesn't tear the person I love apart and so drive them away from me/increase their discontent which will increase mine/add strife to my environment. King Solomon is still right.

Disclaimer: I am not claiming to be good at this yet.

[greenstorm.livejournal.com]

Or, if my goal is to be happy, moving to a situation where I get the time and attention I want serves the same ends.