The Hidden Benefits of Polyamory

It’s my birthday on Monday. Instead of doing the grown up thing that everyone seems to do these days & plan a casual meet up at a pub for drinks, I decided to have a good, old fashioned, juvenile piss up* at my place. I arranged for the kids to spend the night at their granny’s house, invited some people and proceeded preparing my house for a party. At some point, I got it into my head that proper lighting was needed. I became fixated on getting fairy lights and tea light candles. After much consternation, I managed to purchase both these things & the hooks needed for hanging the fairy lights. The problem? I suck at doing decorating stuff. So, I decided to invite my decorating mad, fairy light loving & self confessed anal retentive friend over to help me. Let’s call her Di.

We began by discussing what arrangement in which to hang the freakishly long string of lights I had bought.** It turns out I wasn’t very organized and really had no idea what I was doing. Surprise! While the children ran amok around us, I finally decided on a rough idea of a general way of hanging them and we started sticking the hooks on the wall. During the course of sort of eyeballing*** where the hooks should go, she said that if it were her house, she’d have her husband (let’s call him Chuck****) getting out the ruler and the spirit levels to make sure it was perfect. Remember what I said about her being anal? Yeah, that.

Fast forward to lunchtime and we were chatting about who will be at the party. She’d met a few of the people who will be there and I was trying to help her remember which face went to which name. Following on from that, it turned into me explaining the various romantic connections between this particular group of people. They have what I affectionately refer to as a “love cloud.” Basically, they’re polyamorous. It can seem complicated at first so that’s why I thought Di’s eyes glazed over for a moment. Then she said, in a reverent tone:

“That would be awesome! They ALL could have rulers and spirit levels!”

So, there you have it. A benefit to polyamory that I bet you never even considered!

A blurry photo of the fairy lights or, as Di pointed out, Cullen guts.

*      That’s Australian for a drunken event.

**     I’d wanted two or three short strings but was only able to find this freakishly huge one.

***   We did, you’ll be happy to know, eventually get out the measuring tape & do it somewhat “properly” though not to the standards that Di would insist on for her own home.

**** It’s not necessary to give him a nickname, really. This is the only time I will mention him in this post. However, calling him Chuck makes me giggle.