#polysaturation

Dating is hard. I am lucky in that I've found two wonderful people to share my love and time with outside of my nesting relationship, and one lovely lady I'm vaguely dating.

Theres been a couple of others I've gone on dates with, but wonderful as they are I've not been able to bring myself to consider widening the polycule.

At first I thought it was because I was tired--as my good friend noted "love is not a finite pool you draw from and it depletes, but energy is."

The thing is, I'm not tired. I have loads of spare time. It took me a moment to clock but I think the crux is that none of my partners have found other partners yet.

I am several people's everything.

That is a weight I was not prepared for, and it feels amazing and odd all at the same time. But it's a lot of pressure.

Like what if I drop the ball? What if I forget things, or can't be my crazy weird romantic self for everyone I love so well?

I think I will chill out on the dating for a while, and concentrate on the people who matter to me, because I care a lot and I don't want to let anyone down.

Hee!

I’m glad you asked, anon!

So- the obvious self promotional answer is to check out my Soundcloud. I’ve uploaded 9 hypnosis tracks there over the past year for 98 minutes of your listening pleasure. :)~ Please do send me any feedback or comments on your experience of them- I’m always trying to improve my skills!

I do have a few friends that I hypnotize over Skype regularly but, to be honest, I’m a bit saturated at the moment and I’m probably not taking on new people I don’t know. However, if you’re going to Entranced over the summer, do come by and say hi!  I’ll likely have availability there to do some quick pick up play if the rapport between us feels right!  (If you don’t want to be hypnotized, say hi anyway! I’m always curious to meet anyone who reads my blog!)

Taurus last night, video call with A today, Gemini Composer tomorrow, J on Sunday, video date with A on Monday... Tues is just for me, then K on Weds, and flamenco on Thurs! That's eight days with only one for me! Good thing K will never want to see me every week! I always think maybe I won't want to see J, but I think I probably do. Still have no idea what the rhythm with T or G will end up being! It's so early and we haven't done intervals this short before. And I never catch up with K, so that's a rare one.

And I'm still supposed to be finishing the divorce finance stuff, ughhhh. So many hours of that.

polyAM Radio Episode Four-Polysaturation

[Begin Transcript]

[Sophie]: Hello everybody and welcome to polyam radio the best show on the internet about polyamory that weird relationship thing you do with lots of other people

["Crazy little thing called love" by Queen plays]

[Sophie]: Hello everybody and welcome my name is Sophie Last-name-redacted

[Mara]: and I'm Mara Fake-last-name

[Sophie]: you are listening to polyAM radio which you already know because the intro just played

[Mara]: [laughs] just to remind you real quick about pronouns this is Mara's voice I use they them their pronouns

[Sophie]: this is Sophie I use she hers, Mara

[Mara]: yeah Sophie what's your problem

[Sophie]: wow, okay

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: umm soo, uh yeah I got a problem though

[Mara]: whats your problem Sophie

[Sophie]: I got, ya know, the holidays are comin up

[Mara]: oh I know

[Sophie]: and uh ya know candlenights is great uh for those mbmbam beanos who celebrate it but uh I got a problem with presants

[Mara]: mmm, mhmm

[Sophie]: I got too many partners Mara, I got too many presants to buy for too many partners

[Mara]: I haven't even started yet Sophie

[Sophie]: oh god, see I'm making some of the gifts for some of my partners soo

[Mara]: and you're only starting now

[Sophie]: no no I already have started well I've started some of them now I've started one

[Mara]: Sophie there's only thirty four days 'till christmas

[Sophie]: oh god

[Mara]: thankfully candlenights is whenever you want it to be

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: [laughs] I guess uhh ya know I uh I recently was talking online to some people about people that start their podcasts by doing skits and I'm not a huge fan of it just cause it feels really fake but umm ya know whereas we just normally just kinda pick a topic and go from there but I gotta say that I definitely see the appeal of avoiding a long awkward silence like that

[Mara]: yeah uh-huh having something scripted would really help with that instead of just pulling something out of our asses just now

[Sophie]: yeah that was supposed to be a long and entertaing bit about how hard it is to get christmas presants and stuff like that when you have so many partners and ya know whatnot uhh but

[Mara]: but we suck

[Sophie]: yeah we're not that good at this yet, I got to say I do want to say one thing I guess umm it's starting to feel real for me this podcast uhh I was on ya know I download the podcast and I listen to it actually the same as y'all are listening to it umm

[Mara]: I don't know how you can listen to yourself

[Sophie]: I acutally really

[Mara]: I hate it [laughs]

[Sophie]: I actually really enjoy it because I feel like it makes me better uhh because I can ya know if I listen to it a few times or whatever I can be really critical of myself and say okay these are things I need to  do better

[Mara]: I don't know how yall are listening to my nasally Wisconsin accent Im sorry

[Sophie]: oh my gosh

[Mara]: oh my gosh

[Sophie]: oh my gosh

[Mara]: that can't be real plesant so props to you for listening I guess

[Sophie]: yeah but so I do listen to it and ummm ya know I was listening to some of the previous episodes and whatnot umm I was listening to some of the previous episodes and ya know it's starting to feel real like there's enough ya know episodes now that I have to scroll through my ya know in the podcast app on apple and uhh on like spreaker where we host it there's like three episodes now and we're recording the fourth and it's starting to feel like we actually got something here

[Mara]: it's pretty cool

[Sophie]: yeah like this isn't just something like ohh we're going to start and it's not going to take off and everything it feels real and kinda good

[Mara]: yeah yeah

[Sophie]: I'm really happy with how this project has turned out I hope you all are umm we actually our next episode is gonna be a little weird uh it's gonna be uh what did you call it Mara

[Mara]: happy poly day

[Sophie]: happy poly days yeah and it's basically gonna be about all the holiday struggles uh taht people have when they're poly and stuff like that so everything from uh what gifts to get for what partners and how to afford all of them to

[Mara]: families

[Sophie]: yeah families and this person is a really big part of my life and how do I introduce them as my roomate or something like that

[Mara]: or do I introduce them to my family too

[Sophie]: yeah I gotta say I am there's this couple I'm dating right now umm who are some of the most fantastic people in the world uhh and one of whom transcribes the show and is blushing hardcore right now as she hears this but umm they're just they're they haven't been in my life for all that long umm but they're really important to me and it's actually difficult kinda going into the holiday season like I wish that umm ya know I could introduce them to my family and everything and be like ya know both of them to my family and be like hey uh ya know these are some people that are really important in my life and I wish that with all my partners but I'm feeling that really hard with two people in particular right it's it's just kinda hitting me close to home umm not to say that I don't feel that way about the rest of my partners of course I don't wanna set up some weird dichotomy or whatever umm

[Mara]: if you have any uhh holiday struggles feel free to send those in to use

[Sophie]: oh got yess that would be marvelous

[Mara]: so it's not just us talking because we're two people and we have not experienced everything there is to experience in the world so tell us your poly-days struggles

[Sophie]: yeah especially about like coming out to your family as poly and stuff like that

[Mara]: cause neither of us have done that

[Sophie]: yeah neither of us have done that uhh we just have kinda chosen not too uhh our family's are on the conservative side and are barely okay with me being trans uhh like so

[Mara]: yeah we'll just leave that for now

[Sophie]: yeah they're like barely okay with a binary trans girl never the less a uh an enby so

[Mara]: which they don't even know about

[Sophie]: yeah so the fact that ya know we just kinda choose not to go there cause we don't want it to get ugly at ya know christmas and for the rest of our years be the ones who ruined the christmas of seventeen or whatever

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: so we're just we're not dealing with it and that's our choice  and it's valid and if that's your choice then it's valid too but if you have funny stories or uhh lots of experience and stuff like that it would be really cool to hear from you you can tweet at us you've got two hundred and eighty characters now so what more could you need it's @PolyAM_Radio with an underscore in there capital 'p' 'am' and 'r' or you could send us an email at polyamradio all lowercase all one word at gmail dot com uhh you've actually got that information on the cover art of your umm of this podcast now I put it on there when I updated it so it's pretty cool stuff

[Mara]: you should also check out our facebook page if you're not on those other websites as well

[Sophie]: we're gonna plug all the stuff again at the end of the episode so there's that to look forward to

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: umm but so like I said at the begining of the episode and our ya know umm and I I guess what probably should have been a skit but kinda wasn't umm

[Mara]: that's just awkardly rambling

[Sophie]: ya know I'm having some problems with gift giving lately and uhh we actually got an email from someone who has a bit of a problem giving a gift of their own vis a vis love uhh ya know mentioned in a previous episode love is like a gift and you can keep giving it as long as you have resources to give those gifts and everthing kind of spoons and money and everthing and they actually emailed uh this person and with a really heartfelt and beautiful email I thought and uhh well why don't you read it Mara cause it was so moving we wanted to do an entire episode devoted to the topic with it

[Mara]: and I'm so so excited send us emails I think this is real real cool

[Sophie]: yeah absolutely we've gotten ya know this is only the third email we've ever gotten so this is real real exciting for us

[Mara]: Sophie and Mara let me first just say that I am so excited about PolyAM_Radio I've recently been exploring myself as a polyamours individual and it's scary at times listening to your show eases the fear and helps me to know what is healthy and valid this being said I need some advice ever since discovering that monogamy is not for me I have been falling in love with what seems to be everyone I know I can't give everone christmas gifts but gee it sure is hard to decide who I want to give my gifts to and how many I understand the answer varies from person to person and I already have a pretty busy life however I was wondering if you could tell me a general number that seems to work for you and others you know how many partner is too many how can I make sure that if I have multiple partners they're all getting the love and attention they deserve, enamored in Eagleton

[Sophie]: I'm gonna go and, wel they're probably too old now because the Matrix is an old movie but I'm gonna go find the bald white child umm from the Matrix the I think the second movie that was that

[Mara]: there is no spoon

[Sophie]: yeah there is no number

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: there is no right number which makes this kind of a hard question to answer because I can't just be like six, or whatever umm

[Mara]: holy shit yeah there are probably people out there with six partner but for me oooh

[Sophie]: I uh I did the math I actually have six partner right now

[Mara]: oh my god you're nuts

[Sophie]: yeah so we're going to get into the number in just a minute here but uh we just want to mention a few things first like I said the reference to giving a gift and everthing uh giving everyone christmas gifts it's a refernce to a previous episode we talked about love is not a pie that you slice up love is a gift and you can give anyone a gift and people are just thankfull for the gifts that they get they're not like ooh I didn't get as many as them or whatever and that's important if you don't understand that what the fuck are you doing you're listning to the episodes in the wront order smack uhh I also wanted to uh there is no wrong number so I guess ya know I'll kinda edit out the five minutes you need to do the math on your fingers but how many partner do you have right now

[Mara]: I can confidently say I have three partners uhh four if you count some more causal comittments that I have that I haven't necceicarily moved forward with I have a couple of comets in my life so this be people who I don't see all that often but when I do it's great it's fun it's really nice so I think I will I'm I'm like ninety five percent certain taht I'm not leaving anybody out when I say I have three partners that I'm pretty comitted to right now

[Sophie]: yeah I umm right now I have uhh I would say four very comitted partners and then I have uhh like at least two if not three kind of comets like we talk about people who are kind of just on your peripherary it's not a super comitted thing it's not a super hardcore thing but when they're around you have a lot of fun and uhh ya know it's it's a really cool thing and that doesn't mean that the relationship is worth less or anything like that but if we're just doing like total numbers of partners I do have six or seven partners right now that's not including like people that I would just have casual sex with or whatever all though I don't really think there's anybody I have casual sex with right now ya know that's not including play partners or anything like that, that's like partners partners

[Mara]: for sure uhh and the most amount of partners I've ever had at a time has been five, five, and that was way too many for me umm that was way too many for me unfortunately it didn't end very well I was I wasn't giving people the amount of attention they deserved and I ended up going to partners and kinda saying hey I'm really sorry I got kinda swept up in this new relationship energy or I've just been so busy with other things that I haven't been able to give you the attention you deserve and I'm sorry, most of them are pretty understanding ya know they appriciated me coming to them and saying hey I'm really polysaturated and I'm trying to work on this but I need to just kind of ya know take a second and re-address some of these comittments that I've made so that it's fair and that I'm giving you the attention that I can and the attention that you want from me

[Sophie]: yeah absolutely I umm right now this is actually the most number of partn- ya know the greatest number of partners that I've ever had that having been said it doesn't feel like that right now because there was a time about a year ago I think or maybe a little less where, man, that really felt like I was just uh I mean I felt like ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag I mean I was just ripping at the seams uhh just with ya know how much and and how many uhh ya know partners  I had and and how stretched thin I was to make sure everybody got time and eventually I kind of ya know grew into it and everything and ended up aquiring some more ya know some people come or some people became a little more tangential in my life some people ya know left some people came in umm so I don't wanna make it seem like I'm streched super thin right now because I don't presonally feel that way I don't necceicarily think I'd want to go adding another five or six right now ya know that seems like a lot uhh but ya know I I'm not at what I would call critical mass right now which is a good place to not be umm there's actually a word though for that feeling like you're just gonna burst at the seams like you're being pulled in a million different directions at once and that's called polysaturation umm and so we got this email about it like I said and uh we thought that polysaturation was important enough that we wanted to do a whole episode on it so tell me a little bit about polysaturation Mara

[Mara]: yeah uhh so it's kinda like you said when it when it's that feeling of being stretched too thin it's ya know you don't feel like you're getting the quality time that you want with your partners and you feel like they're not getting the quality time they deserve umm and I think the hardest thing about this is at different points in my life I'm a student right now I've mentioned that before I'm a student and I work and I'm getting ready to apply to grad school which is a big scary thing so the amount of time that I have during different times of the year vary and the summer I have a lot more time as opposed to like ya know right up against finals like we are right now it just it varies so I know that at different points in my life like ya know it's there are times where there's too many and right now the number that I'm at I'm super comfy ya know I know that even if I do get really busy even if I do have that time crunch I'm gonna be able to give the time and attention to my partners that they deserve uhh but it is a problem and it is something that I've dealt with before like I was talking about earlier when I was polysaturated ya know it it took a toll on a couple of my relationships and it was it was a really crappy feeling coming to my partners and saying hey I've been kind of neglecting you and I'm sorry that was something that's really really hard but ya know being able to talk to those partners really helped me to make sure that they were getting the attention that they deserved because if you don't talk to your partners you don't know what they need ya know it it's one of those talk to your partner moments

[Sophie]: you gotta commuunniicattee [drawn out]

[Mara]: you gotta commuunniicattee [drawn out] exactly it's ya know it it's really important to be on the same page as all of your partners and I think that's the best answer I have to your question how can you make sure that all of your partners are getting the love and attention that they deserve, talk to your partners know the level of comittment that they want know the level of comittment you want and then try to structure your relationships around that ya know I think umm unfortunately there's not a good way to know when when you hit peak partners until you're sitting there and you're like well fuck ya know just a trial and error ohh no I've done it again [laughs]

[Sophie]: well and I think part of the problem ya know there's not really ever in your life gonna be a rule as far as ya know oh well this is how many partners I can have because part of it a lot of it has to do in my experience with how many or or pardon me not how many partners uhh you have but with kind of who the partners are and how much attention they require and how much ya know how often they kinda wanna see you and are able to see you ya know uhh I date primarialy other students and what not or people who have been students uhh just that's who I'm dating right now and ya know I gotta say they're pretty understanding for the most part of my time and when I don't have much but ya know a lot of times I mean I see Mara every day because we live together ya know we're nesting partners we wake up next to each other umm ya know frankly if it wasn't Mara if it was someone else this would be a nightmare frankly but Mara's just special and wonderful ya know I'm able to do it, there are other partners I have where I'll go days without talking to them and that's fine, that's not a problem, uhh especially the long distance ones or whatever and then there are sometimes where we'll talk for hours and hours in a day ya know you kinda block your time like that ya know but even just this weekend I was studying for a huge exam that was monday night and I didn't really see you almost all weekend and especially the day of the exam monday I mean it was an evening exam so I basically like you came and saw me in the library at one point but ya know I just didn't have time and that's okay that's not a bad thing so ya know my partners for the most part understand where I'm coming from and where I'm at so I can have more because they're so understaning and because they're usually by in large or at least lately they're usually pretty low maintainence umm people that need more from you that require more from you that is absolutely fine that does not make them bad or toxic but you will be able to have less which again is fine more isn't better but ya know they're going to require more time and more energy and more spoons and more everything from you so that's going to affect your number too umm Mara even said it it also differs ya know the time of year over the summer and over the winter man I can have a million fuckin partners I'd be soo like ya know I'm just swimming in time and then the second the semester starts up again I'm in hell

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: I'm in absolute hell and ya know I've had problems with that before ya know  with getting in too deep during some of the off months and then going ohh tits

[Sophie]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: this wasn't I don't know why I thought this was sustainible but it is not and hindsight is great but now I have this cool thing that I don't want to end how do I resolve that

[Mara]: well and unfortunately in my experience a lot of it is just it's trial and error it's umm to thine own self be true a little bit know what you're capable of know what you want poly is polyam excuse me is a lot of work truly I think a lot of people look at polyamory like it's the the lazy I wanna avoid comittment thing to do but truly you are actively choosing and actively pursuing comittments with so many other people and so you're sitting there and you need to think about things a lot harder than you do in uhh at least I feel you have to think about things a lot harder than you do in monogamous relationships you need to have a lot of self refelction and that's hard and you're gonna make mistakes and they're gonna suck, making mistakes sucks, in my experience as, speaking as somebody who's made more than their share of mistakes, mistakes suck and they hurt and it might cause break ups to happen and that's not fun and we can probably do a whole episode on polyamorous break ups, but

[Sophie]: damn that's ac- that would be really good I don't have that, I have a list on my phone of episodes that I want to do and that's not on there and that would be really good actually that would be really good

[Mara]: yeah I feel like we could do just, we could talk into your ears for another full forty mintues or however long we tend to go about what breaking up when polyamorous is like

[Sophie]: well especially because recently and ya know it's still pretty fresh it still hurts a lot umm the truth of the matter is a few months ago we had a nesting partner leave us and it wasn't pretty, it was someone who we had comitted to heavily and who we kind of thought was always gonna be in our lives and umm ya know we gave them a comittment symbol and they literally in the they threw it out ya know and umm ya know it was it was hard on everybody and I'm not gonna sit here and slander anybody but uhh ya know that is kinda something we went through

[Mara]: yeah there there was a lot going on there to be sure but umm so anyways yeah no like know yourself talk to  your partner and also this is the best the single best piece of advice I have ever been given by someone else who is polyamour it was actually uhh one of my current partners you have to treat yourself like you are dating yourself, you need to know when you need you time you need to know when you need to be maybe with this one partner maybe not spending so much time with this other partner and you need to be with other people who are good communitaters it's it's really important to surround yourself with with people who aren't toxic for you and and someone being toxic doesn't necceicarily mean that they're a bad person it just means that they're not the right person for you and so you need to be aware of that but I guess my best piece of advice is as you meet people you can add relationships I don't think I know anybody who ya know discovers that they are a polyamorous individual and then goes out in one day and comes back with five relationships that's not in my experience how relationships work and it might be for some people but I think often times it's this process of getting to know people

[Sophie]: [Mara]: [singing] geting to know you, getting to know all about you

[Sophie]: can you tell I don't know the song very well

[Mara]: [laugh] umm can you tell that I was a theatere kid in high school, probably um but you ya know you get to know people you get to know their relational style because everyone has different relationship sytles everybody has different umm I know there are people out there who don't think that the love languages exist or are a smart thing or whatever I personally like that I think it's a useful of explaining the way that people give and show love ya know and I umm I'm very much a quality time person, I I wanna spend time with people but if you know you're a quality time person and you are with somebody who is a words of affirmation person you need to learn how to relate to them or maybe that doesn't work for you and that's okay you just need to know that , so ya know know yourself as hard as that is to do uhh spend some time dating yourself getting to know what you want and what's important to you in a relationship

[Sophie]: yeah and I think that's really good advice uhh ya know and again I try to ya know this is a show by polyamorous people for polyamours people but I always hope there are things in here that anyone can take away that monogamous people can take away, that aromantic people can take away, umm ya know uhh and I think that really whenever you're in a realtionship ever you should always say yes I'm dating this person but I'm also dating myself or I'm not dating anyone but I'm also dating myself because you have to put time and energy and active thought into a relationship and you should treat yourself with time and energy and active thought you should be treating yourself well so I gotta ask ya know after all this uhh is this, how real is this problem, how serious is this and how serious should we be taking it uhh ya know is this something like new relationship energy where it's kinda a  minor problem and it can make you do some foolish things and it can get you into a little bit of troube but it's not that serious as long as you know it's there and look out for it, is this something that it can really start to impeade your life if you don't pay attention to it or is this something that in your opinion doesn't realy cause a lot of problems

[Mara]: I think it's something that can really really mess with your life and it in any relationship ya know monogamous or friendship or whatever if you're neglecting somebody if you're not spending time with somebody you're just kinda like oh yeah yeah we're in a relationship but I don't have to spend time with you right I don't have to talk to you or give you any attention that's that's bad, that's bad for your partners that's bad for you and I think it is, it's a real problem I think ya know before it escalates to it it absolutely is ya know kinda like new relationship energy and being aware and wow I'm being a dumbass right now and I need to check myself before wreck myself kinda thing

[Sophie]: yeah absolutely I think that it's a lot like being stressed out or having a panic attack, it doesn't necceicarily it ya know it doesn't neccecitate that there is something wrong things could be fine there might not be a problem but even if there's not whatever the situation is you're not handling it and a change needs to be made even just for your health and well being even if you're not currently neglecting your partners you are stressed out about this and doing something different would probably be good that doesn't neccecarily mean ending the relationships but probably at this point certainly not starting any new ones right I mean

[Mara]: yeah

[Sophie]: if you're feeling polysaturated the best thing to do is give yourself some times say okay I'm not gonna date anybody new and if you meet somebody amazing and if you fall in love and if it's perfect and if and if and if tell them hey listen I just ya know I really like you but I just got into this new relationship and it's taking a lot of my time and energy and I want to be with you but we gotta put it on hold because I just need some time to adjust to this new thing and figure out where it's going and what's gonna happen ya know versus just ya know devil may care jumping into a new thing I think that's really foolish personally umm, is there a kinda of a a solution a cure-all a ya know cure-all cure nothing as they always say in sawbones but umm,

[Mara]: you're such a dork

[Sophie]: [laughs] I'm a McElroy fangirl I can't help it

[Mara]: ya know what it's okay because when we were talking about ya know if theres a rule as to how many people I almost said ya know it's not like a rule of two kind of thing

[Sophie]: [yells] yes! you don't even like star wars

[Mara]: no I'm just around it all the god damn time

[Sophie]: yes

[Mara]: [laughs]

[Sophie]: Mara isn't even in to star wars, they've just absorbed enough about the Banite Sith to know that the rule of two is like  a really big deal from me reading the novels if you haven't read them go out and read Drew Kapershick's Darth  Bane trilogy path of desctruction, rule of two, dynasty of evil it's amazing and then read Darth Plageius by  James Lucino, holy crap mind blowing books, really really well written umm and if you like star wars at all  you'll love these books the audio books on audible are amazing, they're not paying me to say that I'm just a fan

 [Mara]: you're trash

 [Sophie]: I'm trash

 [Mara]: [laughs]

 [Sophie]: I'm absolute trash

 [Mara]: is is there a solution,commuunniicattee [drawn out]

 [Sophie]: you gotta commuunniicattee [drawn out]

 [Mara]: you gotta commuunniicattee [drawn out] yeah no talk to your partners know yourself,  refelct [laughs] ya know  uh think before you snack, act

 [Sophie]: think before you snak

 [Mara]: it's from mulan when she's got the umm caligraphy on her arm and shes

 [Sophie]: ohhh

 [Mara]: reciting the final admonition I'm also a huge Disney nerd umm but yeah ya know think think before your snack, act

 [Sophie]: [coughs]

 [Mara]: yeah no it's kinda we we've covered the solution a couple of times throughout the podcast, know yourself,  know your partners, just spend some time thinking about what you need to do

 [Sophie]: yeah and and I think that ya know I would say if I had to give a solution mine would probably be  treat it like stress because that's really what it is it's just stress about the relationships and about being  streched to thin and generally speaking when I feel stressed I often feel like I don't have enough time for anything  and that's really really  really bad  because the soulution to that is to take more time to do things and to  move very deliberately through your life

 [Mara]: mhmmm

 [Sophie]: umm take more time to do basic self care I'm not talking about giving yourself a fun ya know a bath with rose petals  in there I'm talking about showering with a fucking uhh pumice stone and scraping three weeks of dead skin off your arms  I'm talking about eating at all, I'm talking about drinking water, enough of it, you need to take more time to do these  things when you're stressed, not less, you need to take more time to study if you're stressed about school than when  you're not stressed and it often feels like you don't have any time and you can't do these things, that is your brain  lying to you because it thinks you're being chased by a tiger and that you're going to die, my grandfather had a saying  uhh that he he was a cartoonist and he used to write this saying on everything umm and ya know I think he had  a really interesting perspective because he was I'm not big on the military I'm not big on imperialism  and and and stuff like that but he was in the military uhh he was in the Korean conflict and umm [laughs] actually  in his old age he used to say that he didn't wanna go on walks because he walked across Korea and that was enough  for anybody, regardless he had a saying that the way  to relieve yourself of a burden is not by refusing to carry it

 [Mara]: mhmm

 [Sophie]: the best way to relieve yourself of a burden is not by refuling to carry is the way to relieve yourself of this stress  with this relationship is not by refusing to carry it and it's not by just saying oh well I'll give my partners more  time and I'll spend more time and I'll go on more dates, no, the way to relieve yourself of it is to do the uncomfortable  thing talk to your partners and then sink more time into yourself because chances are if you're feeling polysaturated  the one who's not getting enough time more than anyone else is actually you, okay, and I'll just say that out there  because pretty much anytime when you feel streched too thin by comittments and stuff like that and ogbligations generally  speaking we drop things that we need first and it's important to take care of yourself and do the things that you need  to do to keep going and to subsist

 [Mara]: well and and Sophie you're kind of a ch-emist

 [Sophie]: I am indeed a ch-emist ch-emistry

 [Mara]: ch-emistry umm but

 [Sophie]: I'm a bio ch-emist

 [Mara]: you're a ch-emist [laughs]

 [Sophie]: I wish I was a ch-emist I'm a wannabe ch-emist, chemist chemist for those of you who are having trouble figuring  that out

 [Mara]:  with saturation when a solution is saturated it means that there's too much of one of the uhh of the solvent, no  the solvent is the thing that, can you tell that I'm real real bad at chemistry

 [Sophie]: can you tell that I'm not helping and that I'm just gonna let you flounder

 [Mara]: uhh

 [Sophie]: so when a solution reaches saturation I just said I wasn't gonna help, umm but when a solution reaches saturation  basically you have your solution and you have your solute

 [Mara]: solute! that's the word

 [Sophie]: [crosstalk] and your solute is what is dissolved in the solution, and basically at that point you cannot get  any more solute into that amount of solution it won't dissolve anymore it's just going to sit there at the bottom  of the beaker stubbornly and not dissolve and you need to do one of two things if you want to get away from saturation  and I think Mara's gonna talk about it

 [Mara]: No I was gonna ask you what you do I just you really you kinda stole that from me

 [Sophie]: sorry

 [Mara]: I was trying to be clever

 [Sophie]: I'm sorry I get really excited about ch-emistry

 [Mara]: so what do you do when a solution is uhh saturated

 [Sophie]: you can do one of three things, umm the first thing you can do is find a way to remove some of the excess solute  that's in there by filtration or something like that remove some of the stressor, in our analogy, another thing you  can do is add more solution if you have something that is taking up your time and whatnot and you lets say it's school  and you graduate from school and all the sudden it's ah I've got so much more time it's wonderfull, great, you can  sink that into your relationships if you want, you've added more to the solution, the third thing you can do is  heat up the solution because a greater amount of free energy in the solution will result in a greater amount of  uhh ya know solute being able to dissolve in there, I don't really know how that applies

 [Mara]: set the things that are taking your time on fire

 [Sophie]: yeah for sure

 [Mara]: set it on fire

 [Sophie]: light your obligations on fire

 [Mara]: [laughs]

 [Sophie]: I will say that it's actually very interesting

 [Mara]: don't do that please don't do that

 [Sophie]: yeah please yeah please don't do that

 [Mara]: for the love of god no

 [Sophie]: I do wanna mention there is something that can happen only with certain solutes in certain solutions  uhh but you can reach a point called super saturation if you heat it up dissolve more than is natural to be in there  more than is uhh kind of chemically comfortable to be in the solution you can reach a point of super saturation and  then everythings fine as it slowly cools down and you can go type in super saturation into youtube and look this up  but any disturbance say a finger poke in the top will cause tons of solute to spontaneously umm uhh umm uhh word  to spontaneously percipitate out of solution wow I went to college to get stupid I guess, uhh but basically  the metaphor equivalant of that will be is that if you try to super saturate your life it'll end poorly  and I'll have like very little sympathy for you cause like I warned ya and you heard it on the podcast

 [Mara]: so don't light your obligations on fire

 [Sophie]: please please don't do that thing

 [Mara]: uh oh

 [Sophie]: oh go for it sorry

 [Mara]: did, do you hear that

 [quiet klaxon sounds, grows louder]

 [Sophie]: what

 [Mara]: in the distance

 [Sophie]:  in the distance, I hear it

 [Mara]: it's getting closer

 [Sophie]: it is it's getting louder, I think do we have a polyfolly

 [Mara]: we have a pollyfolly

 [Sophie]: son of a bitch we have a polyfolly fucking pollyfolly

 [Mara]: [laughs]

 [klaxon fades]

 [Mara]: so today's pollyfolly is getting into too many realtionships too quickly which uhh this is like new relationship  energy and polysaturation in one fun package

 [Sophie]: yeah I umm I wanna mention that this also includes joining triads and things like that if you find a cool couple  or if you find a cool triad or a cool polycule of any size that you think you wanna join that is cool I am happy  for you but

 [Mara]: check yourself

 [Sophie]: it could get very bad very quick especially as the new realtionship energy wears off I would not be shocked at all  to hear that someone in that situation would begin to feel polysaturated again doesn't make you bad doesn't make  you wrong it just means that it's something you need to be aware of going into it that way you don't make an ass   of yourself, get it, cool, also probably uh ya know you mentioned new relationship energy and I wanna throw this in   there a lot of new relationship energy can convince you to get too serious too soon in a relationship that's   definitely gotta be a big polyfolly

 [Mara]: yeah well and if you haven't listend to that episode yet we have a whole episod-

 [Sophie]: what are ya doing ya lis- doing in the wrong order

 [Mara]: there's no order Sophie

 [Sophie]: there is an order, no when I export these to m-p-three they ask me what the track number is and I put it in there

 [Mara]: there's not an order, but yeah we have a whole episode that talks about why that's a difficult thing you should   go listen to that that's why that's a polyfolly don't jump up that relationship escalator

[Sophie]: don't jump up a podcast escalator listen to it in the right order

[Mara]: all right, uhh also failing to get to know someone fully before getting comitted to them that is that is guilty

[Sophie]: yeah guilty

[Mara]: you can't see it , raising my hand guilty guilty as fuck

[Sophie]: can you tell, ya know these polyfollies we don't have like a magic book that we look into that somebody else wrote and we say ahh these where the polyfollies are if we're saying usually means we've done it and is usually means it went poorly

[Mara]: yeah so good to know people

[Sophie]: getting to know you [singing] getting to know things about you

[Mara]: a;lsdkfj not wrong, that's fine [laughs ] but yeah no get get to know your partners it's cool

[Sophie]: we're gonna have no downloads after this episodes because people aren't gonna want to listen to my voice

[Mara]: before you saddle that comittment monster [comittment monster growl]

[Sophie]: every fucking episode he's gonna be in now I swear

[Mara]: yeah he's a reocurring character well see it's the less than four times more than seven times theory so I'm sorry for the next few episodes you're gonna fuckin hate the comittment monster but

[Sophie]: oh but then it'll start to be ironically funny again

[Mara]: yeah

[Sophie]: yeah because we've doing it too much until we've done it sooo much that it just becomes funny again

[Mara]: mhmm

[Sophie]: got it okay

[Mara]: yeah

[Sophie]: now I understand

[Mara]: but before you saddle up that comittment monster get to know the person that you're saddling that comittment monster with because oh wow this is gonna get real real dark they might stab you in the back and ride off with that comittment monster

[Sophie]: they might steal your comittment monster and then you'll have to go find a new comittment monster

[Mara]: and I just nobody wants to do that

[Sophie]: breaking in a new comittment monster is a terrible line of work

[Mara]: [laughs] umm yeah so I think that's all we have for polyfollies today

[Sophie]: before we finish up I have a few points of order

[Mara]: is this a meeting

[Sophie]: this is well

[Mara]: I didn't know you're falling roberts rules

[Sophie]: roberts rules

[Mara]: roberts rules, meeting, no we don't have points of order

[Sophie]: uhh well we do have this point of order, umm I didn't pay much attention in my commuinications class that my college required me to take um I'm pretty sure I did actually go to college to get stupid but umm I just want to mention again like we mentioned at the begining we do have a twitter and a facebook but as you can also see on the cover art of this we have a patreon now which is really cool and uhh like I said the link should be in your cover art it won't work if you click on it but it's seriously patreon dot com slash polyam radio it's pretty easy and before you turn this off because we're asking you for money just hear me out for one second umm we have some really cool rewards that we're gonna be putting on patreon and it would really help us out seriously it starts at just one dollar a months

[Mara]: give us your lunch money

[Sophie]: yeah I'm gonna start out I'm gonna just read very quickly some of the cool rewards that we have on there you can go uhh ya know read them yourself on the link but I'm just gonna ya know briefly briefly umm kinda go through it so for the first level which is patrons this starts at just one dollar a month uhh seriously y'all that is fifty cents an episode that you're basically paying for this I think these ya know frankly I think these episodes are worth more than fifty cents a piece uhh but you're getting them for free right now and if you'd like to show your support but you're kinda straped for cash that's absolutely fine for just one dollar a month you'll get a personal shout out on this show probably on most of the episodes umm ya know that's a pretty cool thing ya know you can hear your own name and other people will know how cool you are and I think that's a really awesome thing uhh for partner that's partner of the show not partner of us, that's a five dollar a month tier and at this level you'll not only get a shout out on the show almost every episode  but uhh you'll also get access to a few bonus episodes we're gonna record and post and those are gonna be cool topics that only our patreon users will have access to so that's some very cool stuff and ya know frankly I hope everybody ya know wants to support on patreon and I hope everyone is able to because these are gonna be really cool episodes that you're not gonna have access to otherwise and ya know it's not that we wanna keep things from other people we just wanna ya know those people that uhh wanna go the extra mile and support us that way we wanna do them a little something umm and then primaries this is the top teir right now for ten dollars uhh a month or more I wanted to make a glucose guardian slash sugar daddy level but all I could think of the reward was show you my tits and I don't think I'm allowed to do that especially over an audio only medium umm so basically at the ten dollar a month level uhh you'll get the shout out on the show you'll get the bonus episodes and uhh you will get all the episodes a week before they come out for everybody else so basically once we get some ten dollar basically what we're gonna be doing is over winter break I'm gonna create kind of a backlog of these episodes and we're gonna have a few of them stored up and I'll be posting them a week early on patreon for our ten dollar a month primary umm uhh patrons I guess our primary patrons umm so if you really really love this show and you wanna support it and you wanna get some early episodes and everything and see it before everyone else does and be the cool one at the bar who ya know knows what's going on in everybodies favorite podcast then that's a real good option I encourage you umm I made the descriptions of these levels very funny in the text I didn't wanna read them here because I wanted the surprise to be there for you but I encourage you at least visit our patreon give em a read umm maybe consider it and certainly share the link and tell your friends because umm we're looking at investing in some new recording equipment and stuff like that our microphone is really high quality but it's just sitting on the counter right now we don't have a mic stand umm we don't have a kind of a one of those cloth like pop ya know buffer things umm uh I'm sorry I've been really sick all week and yeah like I said sorry I'm getting sick and or I'm just getting over being sick rather and its reall- this is really taking a toll on my voice today umm but anyways umm ya know I know that umm uhh it would mean the world to both Mara and me if you would at least consider supporting and if you'd share with your friends so we can get more listeners right now this is only the fourth episode we're recording and right now we've got about twenty or so people who listen a week and I can't tell you how amazing that feels I know that's not much in the podcasting world when people have ya know six figures of followers but I'm an activist who does events at the colligiate level right now and when I put on a program if twenty people showed up uhh ya know I'm in heaven ya know that's great in my world truly umm ya know we love and appriciate every single one of your you're the absolute ya know I guess you're our fans I guess and like ya know not that you like bake us cookies and send us things and whatever but I still think you're the best fans in the world and I just I can't tell you how much we both appriciate this so like I said please consider supporting us and please this week if you could it would mean a lot to us tell at least at least one friend or partner about this podcast and just download it on their phone for them just give them that just say hey I'm just gonna do this quick and then ya have it and listen to it whenever you gotta because then they got it and they won't forget the name of it it would really help us out and it'll help us uhh ya know it would help our confidence and whatnot it would help us knowing that we're getting a wider reach and it'll help more people find this and hopefully it'll help more people learn more about polyamory because that's what this whole thing is about so yeah that's enough for the formal meeting portion of this and I think that's actually  about all the time we have today so uhh have a nice holiday and remember don't date you're dad's best friend

[Sophie]: [Mara]: and don't date you're best friends dad

[Sophie]: see you next time folks

["Good old fashioned lover boy" by Queen plays]

[Announcer]: This show was part of the trans podcaster visibility initiative

I meet a cool new person. I'd like to date them.

If they're monogamous, obviously dating them probably isn't an option.

If they're polyamorous....they're probably polysaturated, and not looking for any more partners.

It somehow seems that a lot of poly people tend to get up to polysaturated very quickly, so half the time it seems the only potential new partners are either folks who a) are monogamous and single, but might be open to trying polyamory, or b) people who are newly polyamorous and haven't filled up their calendars completely yet.