http://clarissethorn.com/blog/2012/05/01/relationship-tools-monogamy-polyamory- competition-and-jealousy/ te OK ok te Kk ok te OK OK EVOLUTION: [storytime] You Don't Always Know What You're Thinking I wrote this in late 2010. I have mixed feelings about it now. I think I made important points, but I will also say this: if you don't have a clue what's going on in your head and don't even know where to start, then that can be a bad sign. I think that when people are unhappy, or dealing with situations that are more than they can handle, they often settle into a kind of mental "fog" so they don't have to think about it. (The feminist writer Autumn Whitefield-Madrano has a great article describing how this happens in abusive relationships; she calls it "the fog of abuse.") Yet at the same time, I do believe that we should consciously make space in ourselves for new feelings to emerge, especially when we're pushing our limits. Self-awareness must include allowing new feelings to emerge at their own pace. te Kk ok You Don't Always Know What You're Thinking In May 2010, I wrote a post called "Am J Evolving Away From Monogamy?" in which I talked about my urge towards polyamory, and my confusion about that urge. I talked about my previous dislike for polyamory, and I talked about how new it is for me to feel like I want to be polyamorous. I talked quite a lot, really, but a week later, I started feeling like I hadn't covered everything... or like I just wasn't correct about some things I'd written. But how could I be incorrect? I was, after all, writing about myself and my own feeings. How could I be wrong about what I myself was thinking? I guess I realized quickly that I'd claimed things about my past self that weren't quite true. That didn't acknowledge my own complexity. For example, I wrote that although I've toyed with polyamory in the past, my most recent poly leanings came up only because I got my heart broken by a gentleman who I sometimes refer to as Mr. Inf