I think the quote below is great.
And, it fails to acknowledge the deep need many people have to be chosen, to be someone else's top choice.
Some say "I choose myself first" and fair enough, they do, and everyone else comes second.
Some choose (or nature does) their child(ren).
Some choose their pet.
Some choose their partner.
Some choose each moment, each engagement, each bite of food they ingest.
We forget the power of choosing and being chosen.
In the ever greater multiplicity of choices we face, in the ever growing candy store of life, we forget that when we choose someone while they choose someone else, the resulting dichotomy might be a deeply painful and lonely experience.
So we continue to choose love, and acknowledge that time, energy, and attention are limited, and try to make peace with this reality.
And yet, choosing and being chosen continue to create the same chemicals in us, every day.
In that sense, many of us are driven to choose to be chosen, or choose who choses us, or find any which way we can to be seen, recognized, received, validated, rewarded, considered, picked, adored, and yes, ultimately loved through the specific focus of this love.
Following the path of being chosen, rather than chosing, makes us reliant on others, which is an act of trust and an act of surrender, but also an act of giving up responsibility.
Because being chosen is to be special. And to be special is to receive the kind of unique love that we've known and craved from our parents.
It's (co-)dependent love. The love that tells us that we will receive the time and attention we need to survive and thrive while we are still dependent on it.
But even when we are no longer dependent, the sweetness of this love never fades away.
So we continue to look for it, in others, in work, in love, in God, in purpose, in the difference we make in others.
Specialness is as emotional as it is primal and adaptive. Without it, without that special bond, indeed we would have died a long time ago.
Specialness moves worlds. It shows what we value and what we don't, because of course, while love is infinite, attention and energy is not. Whether it's in who we call and speak to, who we consider and give our care to, who we spend our time with and who we don't, who we touch and who we don't, who we lend money and indulgence to and who we don't.
Specialness is embedded in all the popular words that end with "ism": age, race, orientation, preference, sex, gender, etc.
Love is infinite, but our doling out of what is limited to express it is not.
And I see it: many of the most successful poly people I know have a special person who returns the favor. Or they have a special community who returns the favor. Or a special purpose or job who is rewarding. They aren't alone, of course.
In the long run, oxytocin, serotonin, and dopamine will always win... for it is how we know we are winning at life.
“We are all polyamorous (even when we have only one lover).
So much of the rhetoric around different relationship styles (poly, open, mono, etc.) is around love. But it’s not really a question of love. It’s a question of time and energy and trust.
So to all the pro-poly folks who say, “You can’t put limits on love” and all the pro-mono folks who say, “True love is devotional”:
It’s not a question of love.
Every human being loves more than one person. Love has no limits. That is clear. Love is unconditional in its purest form.
And so quite literally we are capable of having many (poly) loves (amor).
But relationship requires time and energy. Relationship is limited. As well as time and energy relationship requires trust and trust requires shared agreements.
I can love you and not be in relationship with you. In fact, if I am in relationship with you and I don’t trust you then that relationship is likely to be a source of a lot of pain.
So if we are all polyamorous the question is whether or not I choose to be polysexual or polysensual.
Again, let’s be very honest, that has little to do with love.
Let’s not make love the scapegoat for our relationship choices.
That passes the buck on the responsibility we all have to know what we want and act on our own behalf.
There is no cosmic law of how love works that creates a hierarchy of relationship styles. It comes down to the devastating freedom of having to own what you value and what you want and stand for it.
And we have to start with the thing we want most. The thing we are scared of because it is so vulnerable to want it.
Do you want a deeply devoted partnership in which the relationship itself becomes part of your path of growth and evolution?
How much time and energy will that take?
And if you and your partner invest that time and energy how much is left over for other relationships including the relationship with your Self?
How will sharing your sex or your sensuality with an Other impact your partnership?
What will you sacrifice (literally meaning to “make sacred”) so that you can stand for your deepest desire?
Do you want to live inside an ecosystem of sensual and sexual connection?
How much time and energy will that take?
And if you and your partners invest that time and energy how much is left over to go deeper in one of them or tend to yourself or your purpose?
What will you sacrifice so that you can stand for your deepest desire?
That’s it. So let’s stop pretending that this is all a question of what the nature of love is.
Let’s stop accusing each other of being pathologically “attached” or “avoidant”.
Let’s do the hard thing and find out what it is we want more than anything. And go for it. Knowing that we can gladly sacrifice everything else if we are standing for our heart’s true desire.
It is when we try and have it all in a limited world that we deny the body, the feminine wisdom, for an intellectual and spiritual story that sounds good but doesn’t play.
Right here, right now, what do you want?
Love is unconditional but relationship is not.”