Book Day 19 - A Christmas Story, Finding the central thread, continuation of monogamy + polyamory
I asked my lover in bed this morning today, this Christmas morning, after many jokes, an occasional accidental insult, if he would surely miss me when I’m dead, and if he would replace me.
He told me he would replace me with a giant fern. He would look at this fern and think of me.
I asked him if women would come in and compliment the fern. “What a nice fern!”
He said he would tell the internet sluts to get the fuck out. They do not get to talk to fern-me. Get out! he would say. Get out slut!
He said he would attach a stick to the fern, so that the fern could accidentally whack him in the dick sometimes. And perhaps a voice box so that it could tell him things like “you did this thing extremely well, good job, but you are still inadequate in this other way” at random times.
He said he would put googly eyes on the fern.
On the top and the bottom of each frond.
That way he could look at the fern in the eyes, and it would be like looking into my eyes.
Thousands of googly eyes.
He said he would have two fern-me’s. One for each room, but not for the bathroom, because he would like privacy in the bathroom.
He said he might get one for the bathroom, actually. But without the googly eyes so that it could not see.
He would pet me and care for me and water me each day.
I found the central thread last night. The spine of the book. Usually the “spine” of a book, that routes everything else around it, is the obvious-to-you thing, and is the thing you want to talk about the most. It usually is your favorite chapter that you want to perfect, or make extremely good. Usually that chapter needs the rest of the book to be the very good vision you imagine for it. But usually the first time you write it, it is just a normal seeming chapter, that you happen to have a lot of fondness for and keep thinking about.
For me, it is the layers of legibility chapter. I kept thinking about “how to make this chapter as cool as it actually is” for other people, and then realized that I finally found it. The spine. This chapter is the spine. The “layers of legibility” will stay a chapter, but then what is so cool about legibility and how to do it is literally the point of the entire book. And it seems kind of hard to explain what is cool about it because it will take the entire book to explain it.
Once you have your, “this will take an entire book to explain this,” you have your purpose, your point, the thing that you need a book object for.
And then “fleshing out your book object to explain that thing” becomes a lot easier.
Often people have in mind a “book object,” they have a vision for it, but do not really know what it is actually about for a good while. Working on the book reveals it.
An excellent book, Blueprint Your Bestseller: Organize and Revise Any Manuscript with the Book Architecture Method, goes into this. I found that this book really helped me unlock how to write a book. In terms of reading one “how to write a book” book, this would be the one I’d recommend, if what you get stuck on is structure. If you are good at structure and are stuck on some part of creativity, I may recommend something else.
So that was exciting. What else.
Continuing on with the book.
Is this book for polyamorous people, or monogamous people?
This is a book for everybody.
The short answer is: it is for anyone who has ever wanted more intimacy than their current script easily allows, or who has felt overwhelmed by the intimacy they already have.
[damn, I’m getting really stuck on this part]
[Remember Sasha Chapin’s advice. Just say it]
Ok look. Polyamory and monogamy are a spectrum. They are a spectrum in the population. They may not be a spectrum inside each person. “Being gay” is a spectrum. Some people are totally gay. Some people are totally straight. Some people are something in between. Some people are pan.
Monogamy and polyamory are similar. Some people are totally monogamous. Some people are totally polyamorous. Some people are something in between.
There are enough people in the world who are completely monogamous, and completely polyamorous, that they can end up finding each other if that is the axis on which they are selecting a partner.
However if that is not the only axis on which you are selecting a partner, they are likely to find somebody who is close to what they are, and potentially compatible, but still there might be some sites of difference, that can cause a lot of problems.
What do I mean by this.
A cleaner way to say this is: monogamy and polyamory are not two completely different planets; they are ways of organizing meaning around sex, time, and promises.
Monogamy, in practice, is a system where sexual exclusivity carries a lot of the meaning of “we are each other’s home.”
Polyamory, in practice, is any system where that meaning is not carried by sexual exclusivity, and has to be actively built in other ways.
Some people are temperamentally “all the way mono” or “all the way poly.” They can say, “I never want to negotiate about other partners,” or “I never want to give up the possibility of loving more than one person.” They often find each other, if that axis is the main thing they select on. Usually they find each other in certain communities, for example religious communities, or poly communities. That is, they find each other in spaces where being in that space and being in that community means believing a certain set of norms around sexuality, commitment, and community. As these communities break down, or as there is hypocrisy or other issues, then it stops being a given that finding a person in that community means that you two will be aligned.
Most people are not that tidy.
They may be mostly monogamous in their behavior, but very non‑monogamous in their fantasies or in how much flirting and emotional intensity they want with friends.
Or they may be mostly poly in their philosophy, but very monogamous in what their nervous system can currently tolerate. They may wish that they are more poly, but aren’t there yet.
This book is written for that messy middle:
For people who live in “extended intimacy” whether or not they use the word polyamory. Colleague crushes, the ex you still text, the best friend you half‑jokingly call your “other spouse.”
For people who are technically monogamous but keep running into problems that are served by poly-shaped solutions: secrets, half‑truths, chronic almost‑cheating, mismatched desires about flirting, porn, sex work, parties, or exes.
For people who already know they are polyamorous and now have the problem of too much complexity, not enough legibility, and a sense that being “good at extended intimacy” is a skills issue, not an identity issue.
When this book uses words like “poly” and “mono,” read them less as fixed tribes and more as clumps on a map: regions where particular simplification mechanisms and sacred centers tend to cluster.
The goal is not to convert you from one region to another. The goal is to show you the building blocks of whatever structure you are in (or moving toward) so that it can actually hold the weight of your real life.
I can give examples of:
A very mono couple with poly‑shaped problems.
A very poly couple with mono values (kids, home, finances).
A secretly‑non‑monogamous person in a “closed” marriage.
A self‑identified poly person whose body is still very mono.
What else.
If people think about dying they start thinking about things differently. If I ask myself, do I want my partner to have sex with other people, my answer is, no. If I ask myself, do I want my partner to have sex with 100 people before he dies, the answer is, yes. That feels cool. If I ask myself, do I want my partner to have sex with somebody who is the age of a college undergraduate? The answer is, no absolutely not. If I ask myself, in the goal of of getting my partner to have sex with 100 people before he dies, does it matter how old any of them are or would I want opportunities missed because of age, if everyone is above the age of consent? The answer is probably not.
Am I actually worried he would run off with somebody younger than me? Probably not. Would him sleeping or not sleeping with an 18 year old do much for that fear? Probably not. It’s more that the trop exists, and the trope is uncomfortable. There is a type of guy that perpetually likes the younger woman. But that’s probably not the kind of guy I’d be dating. But then do I even know what kind of guy that is?
There are a lot of tropes that exist. Archetypes and tropes.
What else.
The holidays are hard for people. It is a time when people are “doing things they love with people they love.”
The “feelings and legibility” stuff all gets mixed up. You hear tons of posts asking for help online — “I thought he loved me, but he’s ignoring all my texts on Christmas” — “I knew that we were mostly just fwb, but he said we would spend the weekend before Christmas because he would be away, and then he cancelled on me, not to spend time with his wife, but with a random other hookup and that feels pretty bad to me. Should I just dump him? I am very hurt”
It is a time when social signaling, love, and then actual scheduling / time all intertwines. The symbolic meanings of things, the actual practical logistics of things, and love all get mixed up.
The calendar itself suddenly feels like a diagnostic tool: who you are with on which days becomes proof, or disproof, of love.
They are stories about who counts as family, who counts as extra decoration when there is time away from real life, and who is invisible when it “really” matters.
Holidays are when three different layers collapse on top of each other:
The symbolic meanings of days and rituals (“New Year’s Eve is for Real Partners,” “Christmas is for family, the 26th is for side people”).
The actual logistics of travel, in‑laws, kids, work schedules, and energy.
The messy, contradictory feelings: love, resentment, obligation, shame, jealousy, relief.
If you do not have explicit agreements, the culture has default ones for you. A lot of people like various parts of the default ones, or have their own “bespoke” ways of pulling from the default ones. They mostly do not do all of them but pick and choose which ones they want to do. When you are coordinating your own bespoke meanings that have been pulled from established social meanings with other people, it tends to get messy just as a rule.
Unlike weddings and funerals, holidays are recurring and so “how to do them” is something people practice, and then they have assumptions around “how to do them right” based on their own previous experiences, that may not be shared with any other person in the universe. Unlike birthdays, there is no obvious person to take the lead (the person whose birthday it is) and unlike anniversaries, there is no obvious process of co-creation (the couple decides jointly what would be special for them).
Under many monogamy scripts, “of course” the spouse gets Christmas Day, “of course” the serious boyfriend gets New Year’s Eve kiss, and everyone else has to fit around the edges. Under many poly scripts, there is a vague sense that you should “rotate fairly,” but very little discussion of what counts as fair when one relationship has children, one is long‑distance, and one is brand new and intoxicating.
“I did not understand what role I was in, and the holiday revealed it, brutally.”
In this way, the holiday season can be a bit like weddings, births, or funerals. You see where you stand.
“I thought I was a main character; the schedule told me I am a recurring guest star.”
Questions
What does Christmas, or Diwali, or New Year’s actually mean to each person? Is it sacred, merely nice, or actively stressful?
What is the realistic logistical constraint this year, independent of meaning?
And then, given those two, what story do you want to co‑author about who you are to each other, so that January does not arrive with a hangover of “I guess I was stupid to hope.”