Love, Basketball, and Moral Conviction

“I think polyamory would be good for you. Honestly, it seems unreasonable for you of all people to reject it out of hand.”

So says a good friend to me this week over coffee. A few weeks after I separated from Victoria last summer, I wrote to this friend – whom I know to be polyamorous – and told her I should like to hear more from her about ethical non-monogamy.  She was happy to help, but our schedules were such that it took us eight months to find a time to sit and drink Americanos together.  And in those eight months, I have gone from wondering if perhaps polyamory might hold promise to being very clear that at least in my case, it does not.

Polyamory is having a moment. It’s on the front pages of magazines and newspapers, and stories abound of mostly white, mostly middle-aged, mostly educated, mostly prosperous folks discovering happiness and fulfillment by shedding the shackles of monogamy.  I am a reflexive contrarian, and I do not like trendy things. (The fading tribal tattoos on my arms and back, fashionable in the Nineties, prove me a partial liar in this regard.)  I do not like to do the obvious, and it strikes me that if I were to announce that at age fifty-six – divorcing now for the fifth time – I had joined a polycule, many who know me only a little would roll their eyes and say, “Well, of course. We could see that coming.”  It would be too on the nose, as it were.

Many of my friends on the right have deep objections to polyamory on moral, spiritual, and psychological grounds. I hear their concerns, but I lack their certainty about the proper way to arrange one’s intimate life.  I am prepared to say about polyamory the same thing I do about marijuana or margaritas or placing large wagers on the Super Bowl: “Though I do worry about the long-term consequences, I am in no position to judge. Darling, I think you should do whatever you feel to be right.” 

A gentleman is reluctant to make universals out of his particulars. Depending on your view, that commitment to pluralism is either admirable humility or an irresponsible shirking of duty to one’s fellows. (I change my mind about that at least three times a week.)

It grieves me greatly that people (my children, for starters) may draw universal conclusions about marriage based on my particular failings. It is very clear that I have a hard time with monogamy, intimacy, and the give and take of relationship. My five divorces prove that I am rather hopeless at marriage, but it does not strike me that my track record reveals any flaws in the institution. If I went out and practiced basketball every day – and still missed the crucial shot at the end of every game I played – my failure would not be evidence that the rules of basketball need an overhaul.  It would not be evidence that the hoop should be made lower for everyone.  

Repeated failure might suggest that I should take up another pastime. Perhaps, though, I decide that I still love basketball, even if I’m bad at it – so bad that I am liable to injure myself and others if allowed on the court!  I accept that I will not be invited to join a team, but I will stand on the sidelines and holler encouragement, embracing my role as a cheerleader for the triumphs of others, still reverent about the game and the rules, quite clear on my own abject inability to play.

I suppose I’d be better inclined towards polyamory if its proponents were not (mostly) so critical of monogamy. What grates is the suggestion that monogamy is a fatally flawed institution, and that polyamory is a more enlightened, humane, and satisfying vehicle for human flourishing.  I am always delighted when someone I love finds something new that makes them happy – Warhammer, a keto diet, Pilates, Pentecostalism, Polyamory. I find it tiresome when they insist that I too will find fulfillment if I join them on their journey. They have mistaken their particulars for universals.

(Most of my ghostwriting clients are possessed of strong convictions. I find it satisfying to translate those convictions into prose. It is a delight to say firm, definitive things! It is a pleasure to write with straightforward moral clarity! I do not necessarily believe everything my clients believe, but because I wear my own certainties very lightly, I can slip into theirs easily and quickly. I can say in another’s voice what I could never say in my own. This isn’t lying or hypocrisy. This is zealously and faithfully representing one’s client.)

A great many books that sell well have the same three words as their premise: “If only everyone.”  If only everyone could have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ; if only everyone could stop eating meat; if only everyone would eat more meat; if only everyone could reduce their carbon footprint; if only everyone could meditate every day; if only everyone could see that abortion is murder; if only everyone would understand what Marx was really trying to say; if only everyone could shed their sexual hang-ups and embrace eros without limits; if  only everyone knew the harm vaccines cause; if only everyone could explore polyamory; if only everyone understood the Illuminati and the lizard people; if only everyone could see that animals are sentient! If only everyone…

 I suspect that you are saying to yourself, “Hugo, some of these are ridiculous but others of them are true. You are recklessly lumping facts and falsehoods together.”  No doubt, except the certainty that is required to distinguish the truth from the lie was either not given to me in the first place, or trauma has obscured it from me so successfully that years of prayer and therapy have not revealed it again. I suspect that if you are the sort of person who spends a lot of time wishing “if only everyone,” you also experience a fair amount of exasperation – and perhaps, a fair amount of anxiety about the future.  Best I can tell, whatever your “If only everyone” is, you probably are afeared that most folks aren’t accepting it.

In my enthusiasm, I have wandered from my theme. My point is this: I do not mind fads, but do mind being browbeaten into embracing them. I am suspicious of fads that claim to have improved on long-accepted practices, particularly when the most ardent boosters of those fads insist on mocking those who still cling to the old ways.  Let me be fair – many “polyfolk” are humble about the practice, and do not opine that they wish everyone could be as they were.  I know some of these people, and I appreciate the stories they tell me.  I always enjoy an anecdote when I know it is shared without missionary zeal!

I am happily celibate. I suspect I will remain so until I have a very good reason to be otherwise. And I am quite prepared to say that I am very bad at marriage. But I bristle at the suggestion that my failings – or the failings of others like me – reveal anything more than a basic truth about human frailty. 

I’m on the bench, but the game is still a fine one. Don’t lower the net.