Monogamy or Monotony?

Someone recently asked me if I was afraid of commitment. Instinctively, I responded that I wasn't afraid of it, I just didn't like it. It's an honest answer and not a particularly encouraging endorsement of my suitability for long term relationships. If I was being 'interviewed' for a relationship, this kind of statement would be grounds for denial of my application.

It's also not wholy true. There's a lot to like about the idea of monogamy: the intimacy, the familiarity, the dedication to one person, the security of not having to worry about your position within the relationship, the 'stability' etc. etc. etc. But it's also a fact that it comes easier to some people than it does to others.

On the other hand, were I to be in an open relationship (and I admit, I struggle as to whether this could be something I could manage), the advantages would be just as numerous: lack of boredom, a degree of honesty about one's needs, the virtual elimination of lies and infidelity (there'd be no need for them), knowledge that a relationship is truly borne of a desire to be together, not a need for regular sex or a fear of loneliness.

These reasons may seem luxurious, even decadent. But they resonate with me and if they don't resonate with you, chances are I'll never be able to convince you. You may not agree with them or you may simply not understand them (there's a marvellous saying: 'I can explain it to you but I can't comprehend it for you'). Or like me, you may wish you were built differently and that your feelings weren't so controversial. Truth is, I constantly hope against hope that I'll run into someone who can make me feel differently about monogamy. Someone who'll captivate me so wholly that the presence of the world will cease to fascinate me. This is not going to happen and I may have persisted in deluding myself for far too long. I've met many wonderful women and let them go because I couldn't operate in the relationship paradigm.

For one thing, I am an intensely curious person: fascinated by everything, obsessed with nothing. Secondly, I am a strikingly unromantic person; I have a stark, often bleak, outlook on the human condition and don't believe that people are particularly good or virtuous: Ambitious people tread on others to get ahead, religious people are obsessed with the points system that will get them into heaven and everyone violates their own rules, in times of duress. Fear or power, that's what motivates 99.9% of the world. I'm no different.

Finally, life in the 00s has made us highly, highly specific and highly, highly difficult to please. We have more choices than ever before and less tolerance for unhappiness than ever before; the Internet has sold us the belief that no matter how specific your taste, there's something somewhere to satiate it and we've applied this principle to our everyday lives. There's even a marketing theory based on catering to niche markets (called 'Longtail Marketing'): Bottom line is: why put up with something when the choices around us are so varied?

Finding someone who shares this outlook is going to be tough: I mean, let's face it, I'm a minority within a minority and my ass isn't exactly in high demand. I'm a fairly ordinary looking person, with fairly ordinary finances, performing quite averagely in my chosen profession. So, that's always going to be a challenge.

Overcoming my own morality (which, sad to say, was beaten into me by over-zealous, over fearful parents and not acquired through thought and genuine belief) is going to be another.

What I do know is that things aren't working out for me and the traditional model(s) has failed to deliver. Time for radical thought and, perhaps, radical change.