Read
Twitter thread by iorena: Time to do my first thread: Why polyamory Is Attractive To Women
... 🧵
Yes, I think polyamory is mostly advocated by women. Although (high-SMV) men may also be attracted to the whole 'not having to commit to sex with just one person' thing, I think polyamory offers women something even more enticing.
What do women want from relationships? First and foremost, it's security. A woman is essentially a prey animal. Our lives are constant risk management. We are always on the lookout for danger. Men want to find a woman who gets them. Women want to find a man they feel safe with.
One of the most dangerous things for a woman is the jealousy of her man. It can get us killed. I bet every woman who's dated men has been afraid of her partner's jealousy. His reaction when he hears an ex contacted us or when we go out for drinks with male colleagues.
We get very good at soothing that jealousy and skirting around it. We learn to not tell them someone hit on us on a girls' night out. We restrict our emotional expression around male friends to not seem too loving. But this is not living fully. This is not emotional security.
Polyamory is a culture that denounces jealousy. Yes, polyamorists still experience jealousy, but it loses its status as a respected feeling, as one that justifies violent responses. For women, this is a form of safety, and that safety is very attractive.
With a polyamorous partner, I can express myself and my feelings freely, without having to self censor out of fear of offending him. From saying I think an actor on TV is hot to recounting stories about my ex, I can speak freely without constant fear of triggering the Jealousy.
If I get a crush on a mutual friend, I can tell him about it immediately without spending hours agonizing over whether or not I am morally obligated to tell and worrying about his reaction. That feeling of freedom, that spontaneity is wonderful.
And if his reaction is "aww, well he's a pretty awesome guy, isn't he?" That chillness, that lack of going into defense mode like he's being threatened? That's super hot. Because it makes me feel safe.
Self awareness isn't really helpful if it doesn't contribute to change
It sounds really obvious now saying it out loud but There's a difference between knowing something intellectually and knowing it experientially, knowing it in your gut.
I came up surrounded by workaholics both my parents are teachers and that kind of comes with the gig.
There's also a real strong ethos of overworking in architecture. There is a very strong narrative of architecture being more than an occupation, of it being a calling.
When you're surrounded by that narrative and it very well could be true for some people but when you're surrounded by it it's really hard not to buy into it cuz that's the only thing that's presented to you. We would go regularly go 72 hours without sleeping just working non-stop. This was normal and accepted understood and even encouraged by professors and peers If not directly then implicitly. The work produced by those who worked long hours was often praised
Graduating out into the workforce into the business of architecture was a series of rude awakenings. Working the way I had in college and had been rewarded for it and not succeeding and not being not moving forward not being treated as valuable or any more valuable than others who worked less in other occupations
And then on top of it looking around and seeing people start relationships and getting married and be going out on in the evenings and on the weekends and that was not something I ever did. I tried to do both and always felt like I was failing at both so I would fall back on what I knew, The thing that was less scary but ultimately more harmful.
That's a real interesting way to evaluate things. Something can be difficult but not harmful and since can be easy but ultimately harmful
Cut to 2020 covid hits and I'm immediately let go and there's sort of an understanding that no architecture firms are hiring they're not going to be hiring for a long time and for the first time in ever I had no way to move forward. Nothing I could do would improve my chances of moving forward I just had to sit and evaluate and obsess and find something else to value beyond professional prowess
I think when time didn't mean anything that's when it really hit me in the face that it did mean something not that I was wasting mine but not using it in a way that contributed to my own happiness and that the things I always thought there would be time for I wasn't making time for. I have to actively make time for them