Chapter 22: Poly Not Poly

Well, at the ripe age of 39, I fucked up another relationship. Could you tell by the way I avoided my blog like the plague? Or by the fact all my Instagram stories are of me at the gym? Gotta lose that relationship weight. Not that I put any on. This is L.A. He was a vegetarian. Who’s putting on lb’s from Amy’s frozen cuisines?

But should I really confess to the Internet exactly how this relationship fell apart? Obviously not. If there’s one thing polyamory taught me, it’s that my communication skills suck. Fucking up your love life then tweeting about a fedora is just modern day escapism. Or modern day privacy, depending on how you look at it.

I failed at love. Again. Or a type of love. Am I incapable of polyamory? Am I stuck in some old school way of thinking? I have been doing the dishes a LOT lately. Without being told. Even if they’re not mine. All of a sudden, I want to cook. I just bought a new vacuum and almost lost my mind with excitement. Don’t worry. I know deep down this is in no way some sort of desperation for the patriarchy and traditional relationships to make a comeback. This just means I am procrastinating HARD with my writing. I went a long time, eh? I owe some of you HUGE thank you’s for even making sure I’d come back here. Sometimes when you fuck up, you don’t want to explain yourself. You just want to keep living, until something new and cool to post comes along.

But here I am. Trying to explain my first major break up in L.A…

I always take my sweet ass time getting into a relationship. Mostly because I’m always haunted by how hard it is to get out of one. When it comes to dating, my roommate always says,

“Don’t sleep with him right away!”

I say get that shit out of the way STAT. If it doesn’t turn into a relationship, you probably dodged a bullet. AND got laid. Double bonus.

But I lucked out and dated one of those guys who I booty called enough times to finally turn around and say,

“Sooo, are you my girlfriend now?”

Oooof. If he only knew how the other guys played it.

I do enjoy safe, reliable sex, and a place to sleep west of the 405. And while I was thrown off by someone wanting a relationship, I was oddly comforted by his polyamorous ways. He took my freedom away, then very swiftly gave it back. I really thought this would be right for me. But how did I think I could go from loving being single, to juggling multiple relationships? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:

I love polyamory on paper. In practice, it’s so fucking hard.

At least for me.

But the truth is…

I can’t actually blame the polyamory for this break up.

The stuff that brought down our relationship, is the same stuff that breaks down everybody’s relationships…

Not being astrologically compatible.

Kidding! I’m drinking. I don’t know how else to write.

I don’t know how long you wait between the moment you know you need to break up with someone, and the moment you actually do it… But the older I get, the faster that bandaid gets ripped off. I remember my first relationship ever- I didn’t know how to break up, so I told my friends to tell him I was spending the summer in L.A. Maybe he thinks that’s why I live here now. I laid down some serious groundwork when I was 15.

I felt two kinds of guilt during the breakup process:

1. Making him drive all the way to Malibu, only to get dumped. (I did say he could still sleep over, but he didn’t take me up on the offer. SHOCKING EH?)

2. Not telling him everything. Not just breaking down and admitting everything. Things you did wrong, things that drive you nuts, things that you don’t understand, things the people around you in this type of relationship don’t understand. A lot of relationships go down from secrets, whether they come out in the open, or stay covered up, but are recognized by one partner as a sign he/she needs to be single again.

And secrets have no place in polyamory.

And with that, I fucked it all up.

I’m grateful I had so many poly people reach out to me, and let me know they were here for me when I was confused. People who know it truly can work. The sick part is, I also got trolled for not perfecting an open relationship. That’s right, I got trolled for struggling with polyamory. (In particular, the blog where I asked to take a break from it, which I actually bounced back from.) It’s one thing if you don’t like my stand up comedy, but can you imagine somebody hating you for the way your heart works? That’s a new one. The hate is never ending on the internet, eh? Now I can feel shamed for being defeated, as if I didn’t already.

I really wanted to become polyamorous. Trust me, the word “poly” is MUCH better than the words given to single women who choose to love multiple people at the same time. Polyamory is probably the way of the future, but we’ve all been trained in a very specific past… Maybe these types of relationships require very solid foundation to succeed though… And I don’t know that my relationship had the legs for it. We didn’t really have a honeymoon phase. We just started up, and all of a sudden I was in this new world. I barely even knew where all the electrical outlets in his room were yet. (A girl’s gotta charge her phone.)

What I did admire was meeting couples who had been together for ten years, with kids, opening up their marriage in a very fair way. They never wanted to disturb a functioning family, but they couldn’t pretend their relationship was going to be the last time they fell in love either. I truly believe multiple adults loving a child are better than two who barely love each other. Kids aren’t dumb. They know.

That being said…

I’m not married.

I have no kids.

Does it have to be monogamy?

Does it have to be polyamory?

Why is a woman not allowed to just stay single?

Women can have a great time being single- ALONE, dare I say!

We’re walking around pantless (at home) all day and night. (Perverts need not respond.) We’re sprawling out on a queen size bed at night, with our cold feet and zero complaints from a co-habitater. We nap. We jill off during that nap, and that prevents us from throwing ourselves at men in bars at night, like we (I) used to do. We drink a beer, eat wings, watch a hockey game, pay our own bill, tip well, and go home at a reasonable hour. We are female Cliff and Norms.

My new bff Jen Murphy, put it perfectly the other day.

“I don’t need a boyfriend, I just want someone to ask how I’m doing.”

She needs to meet my friend Kirk. He actually stands out as one of my few friends who does that. (I’m talking straight up text, out of the blue: “How are you doing?” It’s SO nice. Try it.*) We’re all a little narcissistic in this town, texting and chatting about our own lives, while forgetting to check in with the friend we’re bombarding. And I think we stand a better chance at perfecting our friendships than relationships, so let’s keep moving forward with that.

I am a girl who has prided herself on loving being single. I then forced myself out of my comfort zone, because I know that’s the only way to learn anything in life. But I figured out I might not be the person I was attempting to be. I thought I had super powers over my heart, decisions, jealousy and relationship… but I didn’t. I went from having the potential to have multiple loves…

To having absolutely zero.



But you know what?

I’m okay with that.

Grandma Walkinshaw, who turns 96 this August (a Leo, obvi,) once said the best thing behind my back. She said,

“Do you ever notice how Christina is the only one in the family that’s NOT married and DOESN’T have kids… and yet… she’s the happiest one?”

I never forget this. It keeps me sane when I’m scared I’m crazy.

The good news is, a failed relationship is good for at least three good life lessons. I learned about Palindromes, Weird Al and black label chapstick. Plus he got me through 2/3 Star Wars movies, which ain’t bad. (The originals, I’m behind.)

At the end of the day, when people ask me why we broke up, I like to tell this little story: (spoiler alert: it has nothing to do with polyamory.)

“He went to Arizona to DJ a wedding… Now I love a good road trip, but I couldn’t go with him. I was busy. But I would have. I love exploring a new city, big or small. I don’t care. I just care about meeting new people. You got good people, good food- you got a good city. He called me after he got off work, and that’s where things got weird…

“So… after the wedding, I took a little cruise into town. I found this adorable little street, with all these people drinking beers on patios, so many bars! You would have loved it! Anywho, just past all that I found a deli that’s famous from New York, and I got a veggie turkey sandwich!”

All I could think was,

“GO IN THE FUCKING BAR! YOU’RE A POLYAMOROUS MAN! GO FIND SOMEONE TO SHARE NACHOS WITH! PEOPLE NEED PEOPLE TO SHARE NACHOS WITH! DON’T GET EXCITED CUZ YOU FOUND TOFURKEY OUT OF STATE!”

That is the meanest I ever get. And for the record, I told this anecdote to my cousin, expecting her to be on my side, but as much as she hated the poly portion of this relationship, she said,

“Well now I kind of like him.”

So I for sure might be the asshole.

But sharing nachos is basically the only reason I look for a partner. Check my old blogs. I literally light up with excitement when I find an establishment that serves half orders of nachos. And there was probably a single girl in that Arizona bar, too shy to order nachos by herself. She needed him. I used to be that girl.

I am that girl again…

This may not be the deepest level of compersion out there, but this the level I can understand.

Oh, but when you break up with someone, you shouldn’t bring up lost nachos. You should always remind him/her of their greatness. Nobody comes into your life for no reason.

So as I bawl my eyes out, giving one of the very few breakup speeches I practiced in my head, but fucked up in actuality, I hug him tight. And at the very end of that hug, I manage to whisper the one thing I know is true:

“You inspired the fuck out of me.”

I do believe I have the capacity to love a shit load of people in this life time.

But maybe I’m just the kind of person that needs to take each human being one at a time…

Yours honestly,

Christina Walkinshaw