And...

[greenstorm]

...there it is again, as it was last weekend. That feeling that, with my free time, I can either spend time doing what I'm s'posed to be doing, spend time doing something that I enjoy, or spend time with the people I love.

What does anyone else do when they only share minimal active interests in a relationship?

Comments

[seeker9.livejournal.com]

Well.. Can you expound on what exactly you mean by 'share minimal active interests in a relationship'.

As for me, with those 3 choices.. Depends on my mood.. Tho, I'd tend to the latter 2.. Spend time doing something I enjoy (aka Everquest or hanging out with friends) or spending time w/ someone I love (which is only 2 people, but only 1 of whom I'm in a relationship with, and the other, I know has no interest in me)..

[greenstorm.livejournal.com]

I want some of them to overlap! ;P

[seeker9.livejournal.com]

Well, some of them can overlap.... For me.. Hanging w/ one of my friends, whom I also love does overlap.. (Ok, so she doesn't love me back :( but that's okay)

[reepicheep.livejournal.com]

I've gone around this a few times with Sandy... The "I love you so why don't we like to do more of the same things?" question...
For me, it's not a problem, because I have a lot of time to myself during the day with which to do the first two things on my list, and then I have no problem doing things that Sandy likes to do when he gets home, because he has limited time.

But overall, the best solution I've found is strangely enough, to spend less time together and when we do, make a conscious effort to do things we both like.
I don'thave a good answer though, because we go through periods where we are trying to spend time together doing things we're supposed to do ... running errands together... and calling it quality time... and periods when it seems the only things we like to do together are watch tv and cuddle/sleep/have sex...

I got no simple answer to this one. Sometimes it's possible to be doing different things but still spending good time together (we go to a cafe, i write, sandy works on magic decks but we're stil smiling at each other). *shrug* hope that helps.

[greenstorm.livejournal.com]

It's interesting you should say that. I realised, awhile ago, that I tend to fall in love with people who are very different from me. So I don't have the feeling that, "I love you so why don't we..."

What I have instead, and I've been thinking about this a little today after the post, is the feeling that there's nothing fun to connect me to the other people in my life. I realise this isn't strictly true, in that, for instance, a bunch of us go to pottery on Wednesdays and that's supposed to be fun, right?

So I guess what I'm looking for is something a lot more narrow-focused than 'something to do together' or even 'something to do together that's fun'. I'm not sure if what I'm looking for is even an external condition (this kind of activity) or something internal (a feeling of interest and being included in things).

Silverseastar posted something the other day in her livejournal, asking about perils of having poly groups of four or more people, like this. And I think maybe an answer to her, which has something to do with how I'm feeling now, is that if the other people all share time-consuming hobbies with each other, there can be this sense of exclusion. They just run around doing things they like to do, but since the thing they like to do is a group activity that I'm not interested in I end up more often than not wandering away.

So there's the one side of it. The other side of it is that I -have- been focusing on quantity of time over quality lately, you're very right. And... it seems scary to try for quality time instead. Maybe that's because sometimes it doesn't go well? Maybe it's because then I raise my expectations, and they've got more space to fall? I'm not sure.

And it may be, too, and is most likely, that I'm just going through an alienation period lately. It happens, and I wish it didn't, but I'm not sure much external can be done about it. Maybe it's my mind telling me I need to get out on my own more and look at those cherry blossoms...

Hm. Thanks for the advice. It was good to think about, and good to be reminded that everything's cyclic no matter what is actially causing it. :)

Take care, and see you... Saturday night? Friday night? Both?

[reepicheep.livejournal.com]

Yes, it is good to see that others have similar problems... and sometimes it's nice to know that they haven't really figured them out either :)

Yes! I'll see you on Friday and Saturday night, or at least that is the plan. Sandy is gaming on friday night, so I would love to tag along to van poly with whomever of you folks is going. And I've just tuned up the hot tub again. All clean for Saturday :)