#gr ace

For a long time I worried that I did not experience compersion the way I should. I worried I could not experience compersion.

Being sex repulsed, I struggled with the idea that I could not feel compersion because I do not like watching my partners share physical affection** with other people. Actually, I just hate watching people kiss. I wince all the way through episodes of the Good Place. I look away at the end of the Beauty and the Beast. Seeing, hearing about, my partners kissing (or more!) other people? No thank you.

I struggled with idea that I could not feel compersion because New Relationship Energy makes me extremely uncomfortable. I dislike spending months feeling like I'm drugged. I dislike seeing people acting out of character or being out of their normal mind. I avoid mistaken identity and fish-out-of-water stories with all my might because the certainty that something will go wrong. Experiencing NRE vicariously through my partners fills me the same anxiety and dread as watching Elf.***

But seeing my wife open up a box full of love from a long distance partner? Absolute joy! Hearing that my partner is back in touch with his once and future girlfriend? Beautiful! Knowing that there are scheduled phone calls to get everyone through the week? That gives me such comfort! Seeing my love become more herself as she grows her relationships? 💕

I experience compersion. My partners' joys are my joys. Love creates more love. I don't experience compersion in the way that is most often depicted because those depictions center compersion on allosexual and alloromantic experiences. And I am not allosexual or alloromantic.

* I am grey-ace and sex repulsed. I have never identified as aro but writing this I realized my reaction to romance is 🤮

**beyond hugs or cuddles

Knowing that:

|my hatred of x human| < |my love of popcorn|

I didn't chose to come out of the closet, make an announcement of such, proclaim my identities for everyone to hear. For me, being out is more about how I choose to live my life, share my stories, interact with the world.

My bit of gr-ace is more a reminder that (in contrast to what I orginally thought) not everyone approaches sex, relationships, and even kissing on screen (ew), the same way that I do. It is an idenity that serves me and connects me with people who have similar lived experiences. I do not broadcast it. I do not advertise it. Only one of my partners knows about this flag I carry close to my soul. But it is a little compass that helps me navigate my way around human relationships. It is valuable and important. My actions are no different from before I found this flag, these words. But the way I understand this world, that has expanded.

I am queer. I like the word queer. I like how all encompassing it is. How it captures my struggles to find a man I would say is unquestionably, bang me now, attractive. (I can think of three. Yes three. Wait, two. One of those went away after that hormonal bit faded.) I enjoy how it fits with my rather emphermal relationship with my gender. I like how it catches all those butterflies that flirt around my chest each time I see that bit of joy in another woman's face. I delight in how it does not demand that I am sexually attracted to anyone. That I can be happy to sigh longingly. That I don't have to state who I would be physically intimate with. I rejoice how it carried me through my partner's transition, never asking me to redefine myself. I like that queer doesn't ask anything more of me than I already am. Do I announce I am queer? At work I do, but subtly, with the pronouns I choose to use, the pins on my jacket. Many of my employees are younger than me and looking for representation and if I can provide that for them, if I can be a shelter for the genderqueer kids, I will.

I am polyamorous. I also practice polyamory. For me polyamory is both an identity and a relationship philosophy. The thought of monogamy, and all the trapping of the patriarchal expectations that it carries, terrifies me. It feels like signing away part of my soul and idenity. Polyamory provides me the liberty to be myself. But it is more than just an identity for me, polyamory is a philosophical grounding for how I approach all my relationships. It is one that asks what am I doing for this relationship, am I putting in the energy and love it needs? It reminds me that my friendships are just as important as my romantic relationships, that my relationship with myself matters. It tells me that there is no shortage of love but I should not disregard the limitations time places on our lives. Polyamory asks me to love more but take ownership of my actions, be aware, and yes, work always to communicate better. Polyamory reminds me that everyone has something that they may bring to someone's life, and that is good.