Polyamory, "Ghosting", Compassion and Friendship: One of these things is not like the other

[blackrosemoth]

Lately I'm coming to realize what an early adopter I was at the notion of public polyamory. While I made mistake after mistake trying to figure out how to be ethical and romantically involved with more than one person at a time, I was doing it before the term existed in the public lexicon. Now that the notion is picking up some much needed cultural

Comments

[elmocho]

I think ghosting is an asshole move unless it's to avoid an abusive situation. I tend not to cut off contact with people, though mostly these days, the contact I have is online. I might talk to them less, or go quiet for awhile, but I like relationships that pick up where they left off. I tend to find people go who "If you care, you make time!" to be a little too full of drama to my liking. Relationships are a two-way street in whatever form they take. People who've known me for awhile know I spend a lot of time living in my head and I usually have to schedule escapes from my responsibilities carefully. But I don't cut people off

[blackrosemoth]

I do think there's some middle ground on not owing anyone an explanation, and also not feeling like you've got to explain all your actions or justify them to death.

[blackrosemoth]

Boundaries and being up front about who you want in your life and how. They're amazing things. And dealing with difficult people with tact and decorum should make a return.

[doe_witch]

Hey, it's me-the-user-formerly-known-as-rauduskoivu, and it's totally your fault I'm back. In any event, it took me a moment to figure out what "ghosting" even meant, so at the ripe age of 28 I feel uncool, but in any case I feel like I have mixed opinions on it? It sounds to me like what you and the above commenter are describing is indeed an example of some people needing to develop better interpersonal skills. At the same time

[blackrosemoth]

Ghosting totally makes sense to me, and I'm guilty of it too. I think the particular bother of this case for me is that it's not just one person doing it. This is a full on ousting from a long-standing social group. I don't think it's necessarily a bad deal to reduce contact with a person, and especially not for one's own mental health or safety. But this is kind of a whole set of people doing this to one person at once.

I think your reasons for keeping your circles close and small are really interesting though.

[doe_witch]

Interesting is one word for it. I feel uncomfortable explaining it to most people because I worry about sounding creepy.

I definitely know what you mean about an entire social group doing it to one person. That happened to me a lot in school, and I don't think it was ever quite as targeted as what you describe here, but it was so deeply irritating to pick up that I was a fifth wheel and then to be stuck on my own trying to figure out why.

[blackrosemoth]

Not creepy to me at all. I think it's just a way of setting boundaries. And as I probably said above the thing that sticks out is just the poly lessons of compassion not applying across the board to everyone in someone's life. We all end up learning the hard way that communication saves a whole crapload of mess for everyone and usually makes endings (and beginnings, and everything in between) a lot easier than agonizing over feelings or deliberation or awkward removals. Again abuse is an exception of course. Non-close friendships don't necessarily warrant a huge chat when they aren't going much of anywhere. Yeah. Poly principles are useful everywhere. Ha. That's all I got.