spun's Journal: This again?

Merril (that, I find out, is how it is spelled) was over again tonight, and I wanted to write about it, but then I reread Friday's entry, and this was a repeat of that. Except that Jenny tried much harder to give us our space to connect.

When I said that the geek connection is as powerful as a sexual connection, that wasn't hyperbole. I've felt it many times in my life. There's something very intense about finding another person with whom you can share certain intellectual parts of your self. Merril and my conversation tonight ranged over mathematics, quantum physics, game theory, Perl programming, object oriented programming, hydrodynamics, war history, and artificial intelligence. Among other things.

Whenever the conversation veered towards topics that Jenny couldn't take part in, she would excuse herself to let us talk. I could tell it was a strain on her. Sometimes she would sit and listen, but with her arms crossed, obviously feeling defensive.

Jenny is incredibly intelligent, but in a different way from Merril and I. Her intelligence is primarily social and emotional, and where it is logical, it encompasses a totally different knowledge base than ours. She can analyze the hell out of any artistic endeavor, in a way that makes the lit-crit pomo liberal arts types seem like the punters they really are.

The thing is, her emotional and social intelligence get short circuited when she feels threatened. She can look at any situation not involving herself, and break down everyone's true motivations in a way that seems obvious, but that most people never would have thought of if she hadn't mentioned it. She can do that with her own motivations, after the fact, and so can I. That has been the main thing that has kept our relationship working over the years.

Merril is a typical guy in that regard. Not nearly as hurt and dysfunctional as Mr. Y., but like most guys, uncomfortable with the illogical complexity of human feelings. He's divorced, and is obviously uncomfortable dealing with "women's issues." He had a strong, overbearing mother and a wife who "nagged the hell out of him." When Jenny and I brought up the fact that we were in couple's counseling, he said, "That's all I need, two bitches in the room yelling at me." Ouch.

Now, one of the things about the way Jenny and I do polyamory: we share everything. When she has a crush, I can be like a big sister to her. Well, maybe like an older cousin who has a crush on you. Anyway, we talk about things, including the emotional state of said crush.

You better be sharp if you get involved with us, because your mental, emotional, and situational state will be analyzed to the umpteenth degree. We may make mistakes, like we did with Mr. Y., but it isn't out of malice. We really want everyone in the world to be intimate with everyone else. That's our strength as a species, our ability to share our experiences with others. You can't share if you are too afraid to be honest, and after seven years and too many close calls to dwell on, I think we are finally there.

While Jenny was in the bathroom, I took the opportunity to tell Merril that he should engage Jenny where she is at, intellectually. There was an interesting Slashdot article recently on early attitudes towards intelligence recently. Basically, if you tie self worth to intelligence early on, you cripple it. If you teach that intelligence is malleable, and that anyone can become smarter through hard study, you enhance it.

All three of us got that bad first message, but Jenny got it far worse than Merril or I. The two of us can still approach intellectual challenges as an opportunity to broaden ourselves, while she sees them as an affront to her self worth. So she has a harder time discussing things that are new to her. So he should meet her where she is at, and talk about directing, acting, art history, cinematography, design, politics, sociology, philosophy, ethics, and human nature.

Now I personally am a true renaissance man. I can discuss mathematics and the intangibles of human feelings, the history of combat and the history of pacifism, art and science: my left and right brain are pretty well integrated. I've had a lot of positive experiences dealing with logical and intuitive types of thinking. So I can see both sides.

This is one reason that Jenny really loves me. It's one of the reasons I'm not afraid to let her have experiences where she is infatuated with another guy. We've been together for seven years, and we were partners above all else from almost the very beginning. Not counting our having sex within fifteen minutes of meeting at the Rainbow Gathering in Oregon, because we were barely ever in the same state for the next two years. But now, we trust each other, that we have each other's back.

Unless you were born rich and privileged, when you find someone that you know has your back, stick with that person. I discount the privileged because they are taught never to trust anyone and to take advantage wherever they can, so they need to work through that before they can be interdependent. I was raised middle class, and Jenny was raised working class, so at least we don't have that hanging over our heads.

Mr. Y. challenged us when we were at a real low point, but we made our peace with being apart and then came back together with a renewed sense of why we wanted to be partners in the first place. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

My story now is that, although Merril rocks her world sexually that is only one part of a complete relationship, and he is not capable of being a real partner. Honestly, if I thought that out of fear or malice, one would think I'd try to use it against him. Instead, I try to tell him what he needs to do to develop an even more intimate relationship with her. Because I want that for her, and I think he needs to experience a relationship with a woman who can be a real partner, not just a ball buster.

One of the many things Jenny and I have in common is that we look at the motivations, psyche, and situation of the people around us and try to figure out how to increase the net happiness of the world. Purely selfishly, I might add: we just happen to like looking at happy, free, and self actualized people more than we like looking at sad and desperate people.

So this is good. A rare win-win-win situation. She gets more affirmation that she is sexually attractive, and that she is desirable as a partner. He and I get a geek friend. He gets some positive experiences working though relationship issues, and a role model, nay advocate, to show him how it's done. I get another opportunity to see where I'm still weak.

Weak? Okay, I'm jealous. And envious. She's getting some of the best sex of her life! How can I not be a little of both envious and jealous? Yes, she and I have had whole weekends together where all we did was fuck, maybe ten or fifteen orgasms for me, and who knows how many dozens for her. And I have had numerous incredibly hot sexual experiences before we got married, unlike her. But the primal feelings are still there.

For all his six foot sevenish masculinity, and his impressive girth if not length (it's far more important!), he hasn't had nearly the depth and breadth of sexual experience I've had. Also, I'll admit that Jenny is the best fuck I've ever had, but some of the things he's impressed by just lead me to believe that he has been with some pretty boring girls, overall. So intellectually I don't begrudge them their fun. But on a primal level it challenges me more then her relationship with poor can't get hard, average sized Mr. Y. ever did.

However, I think I mentioned before that I thought Merril would make a great wingman? All three of us talked about it, and we may all go out soon and try to get me someone new. Last time we were out at a bar together, he was a little pissed off because Jenny was feeling in third place intellectually, so he started pointing out all the girls who were checking us out. "Oh, look at that one, she's totally looking at you, dude, and her friend has been scoping me out! What do you think?"

So he obviously has wingman skills, and if a girl asked about my ring I could say, yeah, ask my wife if it's okay. She's over there with her boyfriend.

P.S. I just reread this JE, and yes, I'm a little drunk and that's why it rambles as it does. Sorry.