risquédivorcée

During the past several months I haven’t been doing much blogging. It’s funny, really. Life is generally good and I’ve been busy with work, my boyfriend, travel, games, reading, hobbies and housework. Blogging is like a live, interactive journal for me – a place to really work on my thoughts and feelings. Because I’m writing for an audience, however, I find myself needing to be a bit more disciplined than I would be in a regular diary. I feel like I need to be a bit structured and to come to some sort of conclusion or denouement in order to wrap things up nicely. Which means I don’t blog as often as I ought.

For awhile, I was following a “power blogger” who wrote several blog entries each day. Many of them were quite short or reposts of news or other items that interested him. His discipline was in posting every day and, seemingly, every thought. I tend to be more studied and I also try to keep on a theme – dating, sex and general survival after a divorce. Granted, the dating stuff was most entertaining and took the forefront, but I suppose I could share a bit more about the ex, the kids, money, insurance…the struggles…but I find that to be pretty boring, mostly. I suppose I should consider sharing a bit more of that side though.

Meanwhile, while not writing as much, I have been reading a whole lot more blogs. As I consider my current relationship, I have been considering dating again and how that might work. I’m intrigued by other poly people and swingers. How do they make it work? And do they, actually? Do they manage to find balance, contentment, love, trust, family? Is it all just temporary, fleeting moments of excitement and newness until someone else becomes the new, interesting person? Are they admirable in their ability to be self-reliant or are they sad in their constant state of flux and turnover? Are people in dedicated families (quads, triads, etc) too busy with household management and great sex to blog? I wonder.

As I was reading these numerous different stories I became intrigued by a sort of odd fantasy that perhaps they were all just sort of the same people. I know that some poly communities are quite small – even with my own very limited experience I have found that there are several people that I know of who are “mutual friends” with other friends of mine. I’ve had an incredible number of people who know other people in common. I’ve also come to know some of my current love’s past lovers socially and one gal he’s been dating lately is quite intent on meeting me. All of this supports this weird fancy that I created imagining that I was reading about the same people from different first-person perspectives.

Imagine – “Artsy Chick” goes on a trip with “The Woodsman” and is gone for a week. Meanwhile, “Suburban Poly Mom” is writing about how “Nature Boy” isn’t going to be around for awhile because he’s vacationing with “Sophisticated Sara” so she’s spending more of her time with “The Stud” who is also seeing “Hippie Chick” (aka: “Festival Freak” aka: “Tye-dye Tina” aka: “Patchouli Princess” – depending who is blogging about her!) Hippie Chick calls him “Mr. Big” and he’s also seeing “The Librarian” who is also seeing “Artsy Chick” – are you feeling me?

Maybe it’s the fact that I like to read lots of fiction and look for overlaps and common threads to solve mysteries and move a story forward, but I found that reading about ten different poly/dating blogs caused me to start fusing people into each other’s stories. Maybe “The Woodsman” is also “The Lumberjack” who hasn’t been returning texts from Portland Poly Blogger but while she can’t figure out why he didn’t respond to her impromptu dinner invite the other night, only you and I know it’s because he’s out in the woods camping with “Artsy Chick” and won’t be back until tomorrow.

Sometimes I wonder if we’re all just living in the same soap opera.