Lazy Saturday

 Sometimes, it is nice, fuzzy and essential to forget about the never-ending to-do list of life, sit in a comfortable chair lit by the morning sun, watch insects fly around lazily and let one's mind wander.

This week has been busy with household related duties. My in-laws are here inviting people for my BIL's upcoming wedding. Naturally, this means that I cannot buy cereal and then tell the kids to take care of their own breakfast but that I have to cook, clean, do laundry and keep the house kind of clean. This takes a lot of effort and planning and I am rather amazed at myself for having done this reasonably well. But I am also really tired and ready to go back to my slothful ways. Too much efficiency and productivity are not good for one's mental health.

I decided to expand my thinking and brain this month and read about stuff that might normally makes me uncomfortable. As part of this, I am reading a book on polyamory:

As anyone who knows me can attest: I am the Undisputed Devourer of heteronormal romance novels.
I started reading LGBTQ romance when one of my favorite authors, Courtney Milan, wrote a MM romance novella in an anthology called Hamilton's Battalion and I adored it- it was outright the best story in the entire book. And after that, I discovered many other writers whom I enjoy reading and who write about MM or FF romance: KJ Charles, Cat Sebastien, Alexis Hall and more. One of the best books I read last year was "A Rake of His Own" by AJ Lancaster (the protagonist is a gardener).  Also, nowadays, even in regular, non-romance SciFi/Fantasy books, homosexuality or bisexuality has become very normalized and so one reads it, accepts it and moves on to the rest of the story- it hardly warrants more than a mention. 

But the one basic aspect that all these have in common is that they all have one couple- one human (or near-human, depending on what genre you read) having  an emotional and intimate connection with another single, sole, one human.  I did not realize just how completely I believe in and how strongly my entire foundation of life rested on the one person-loves-and-marries-one-other-person dogma until I came across this book called "More than Two". More than Two talks about the possibility of one person loving many people who may love many other people. Honestly, the first paragraph of the first chapter made me deeply uncomfortable: the authors describe how a guy works, goes home to his wife, who has her boyfriend who lives with them, and how the guy and the boyfriend hang out and are friendly and once in a while the boyfriend brings home his other girlfriend and they are all friends. 

And more stories like this.

I am just like, what?? How does this even work? Do these guys actually get anything productive done in their lives or do they just keep on working on all their emotional and communication issues?  WHY would anyone want to complicate their lives this much? Just the dynamics of this makes me terribly goggle-eyed and almost anxious.... having two people get along together and reach a state of relative contentment and happiness is hard enough... now you want to add a few more? Jeez.

I have progressed to about mid-book now and the more I read it, the more I realize that the principles given in the book are actually quite universal: communication, acceptance of one's emotions, identification of fear, realizing one's triggers. And it is making me reflect and question and think. 

So my realization about myself: I may state, that as a biologist, I think that monogamy is an unnatural state- it makes no sense. Our own ancestors, the primates, do not engage in monogamy. Neither do most species in the world, even those that are considered to be monogamous (like Sarus cranes, for example).

But as a human living in our current society, I am so deeply attached to the idea of monogamy or serial mono-amory that I was finding myself utterly discomforted by the book. So, perhaps I am a bit of a hypocrite... , but maybe there is hope in me since I am sticking with the book, despite all this discomfort, and am realizing there is more in common with my version of hetero-monogamy than I had previously realized.

Also realizing that maybe I am a naturally monogamous person who does not feel the need for multiple loves. And  this does go against my biologist brain. But a good part of me is quite relieved to realize that this is also ok. And that some people may feel the need for multiple loves and emotional connections and that is....hmm... that is also ok. It may not be me, but it doesn't mean that it is wrong. And presumably such people thrive on complicating their lives and maybe it just feels complicated to me, but not to them. 

My New Year's resolution to read books that make me question myself and grow is clearly working well... almost too well, one might say.

I think after this, I might pick up a book on caste, another topic that discomforts me greatly.

But before that, I quickly downloaded Ali Hazelwood's Check and Mate, a standard boy-girl romance which is funny and sexy and it's like drinking a large glass of cool water on a hot day. So refreshingly straightforward and predictable. Phew.