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jmed comments on Polyhacking - Less Wrong
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That my partner would have anyone equally important to me in the first place is highly unlikely, because we are not poly. How would such a high importance relationship form against a monoamorous backdrop? So it's really not a big deal in practice.
But you were talking about the hypothetical situation in which you were being courted by a polyamorous person, saying that you'd be upset about their unwillingness to give up their "swinging lifestyle"*, and therefore wouldn't date them.
*(a description that was extremely inaccurate)
Had you forgotten that that was the root of this conversation?
No, I wasn't. I think I see where that miscommunication happened.
I mentioned that it is pretty easy not to have multiple partners (which I wrongly lumped, off-handedly, under the non-term-of-art "swinging"), and so that someone being unwilling to not pursue multiple partners would make me feel replaceable.
I think you read my statement as "the person already has multiple partners, and I demand they give them up to date me." I didn't mean it that way. If someone already has a partner (or partners) that is (are) more important than me, I wouldn't be pursuing them or demanding anything of them in the first place.
Aside: I mentioned earlier that I shouldn't have used the term "swing*", but you still seem hung up on it. Can we move past that? Apologies, again; I hadn't realized it would be so offensive to the poly crowd.
The term itself is not the problem. The problem was that your original post claimed that the only bit you objected to was the sexual aspect. Clearly, this is not the case, but, for reasons I am uncertain of, you still seem to be standing by your original statement as an accurate one.
I am trying to make it clear to you that what you are asking them to give up is NOT just about the sex. What you are asking them to give up is the option to LOVE other people. Which is very different from just asking them to give up the option to FUCK other people.
No one asked me for a list of all conditions I place on relationships. So I stated one and not others. Accurate is different from complete. You are noticing incompleteness and accusing it of inaccuracy.
I was not surprised / learned nothing new about my preferences when I noted that I need to be the most important person to my partner.
Agreed. It's also about relative levels of significance. Not sure why you think that is not clear. I hope it is now clear that it is.
As long as they don't love them as much as they love me, and as long as that love doesn't become sexual/romantic, then no, I am not.
My partner can love her family and friends, as can I. But no matter how much she loves those friends, I would be quite surprised and hurt if she told me one of them were as important to her as I am.
Incompleteness claimed as completeness is inaccuracy. Your statement referred to poly as having precisely two sides, the sexual side (which you had a problem with) and everything else (which you didn't).
It turns out you DO have a problem with the everything else side.
That is incompleteness posing as completeness, which is inaccuracy.
Why would you be hurt by this?: this is honest curiosity on my part, because I don't understand that sort of thinking. I can't see any harm to you, so I find myself confused.
Good thing I didn't claim, in my original statement, to be stating anything precise about polyamory or about my own list of preferences. Else I'd be in trouble.
It is the harm of not being Most Important. This is something I value -- it makes me happy to be the center of my partner's world, and her mine. I consider removal of things I value to be harms.
jmed, you seem to consider admitting previous inaccuracy a bad thing. This whole site is based around the idea that coming in, one will be wrong, and leaving one will be less wrong. Why is it so hard for you to accept that what you wrote was wrong?
Would you feel similarly harmed if your partner revealed that she considered all of her friends and family put together (as a collective, but not individually) to be more important than you as an individual?
Considering I already, in the comments of this one LW post, apologized to various folks for being unclear and using terms inaccurately ("swinger"), you seem to be mistaken.
It isn't hard, when I actually agree that what I write is wrong, which certainly happens enough.
Why is it so hard for you to accept that your interpretation can be wrong? Especially given all the oft-repeated basic LW knowledge on miscommunication and people-talking-past-one-another?
Hmm. I feel like I would not be as hurt by that, because social network is important, but I would be surprised by it. I think my partner would abandon them to stay with me if such a choice were forced (let's say by some sort of relocation protection program whereby she is safe with me or without me, but once the choice is made, no contact with me or them can ever be made again).
Because I am looking at what you wrote, not what you think you wrote.
You wrote that you'd want a person to give up the sexual side of poly, but not the other side. This says that there are two parts to poly in your mind, and only the sexual part is a problem. This isn't, in fact, true, the non-sexual side is also a problem to you; as the non-sexual part would still compromise your position of importance.
However I suppose this has dragged on long enough, and there is unlikely to be any value extracted from this part of the conversation, so you may feel free to state your piece, and I will read it, but probably not respond unless you request me to.
Okay, thank you for the information. It's a valuable insight into how other people differ from me. You are certainly the sort of person who I would call naturally monoamorous, and incapable of happy polyamory. By the sounds of it you and your partner are both happy with this, so :-D.
EDIT: I suppose, to avoid being hypocritical, I should apologise for my incorrect belief that you were unwilling to accept being incorrect :p