I have this feeling of being emotional, but not knowing why. Is it truly sourceless—or am I guilty about not going to the gallery? Or do I feel bad because I had to contact R–? Or is it lingering food poisoning? What do I want to do, really? Just walk forever? It’s so nice out, after all…maybe I should just—go for a walk on the mountain. What else do I have to do in this shitty life…February, lonely. Or—just shoot me. D– is very annoying, and her callousness hurts my feelings.
Despite a series of successes in the new year that I can’t deny, I still feel—very empty. Unchanged. Like a failure, essentially. My fear is that I will need to fully wallow in happiness before I can actually be happy—before I stop thinking about how nice the other lawn is. How green. How beautiful is the other woman. If happiness is a treadmill, my heart-rate has not really been raised quite yet. This is the kind of emotionality we need to bring to the poly story—it will only, or rather, it is conceptually about economism of emotions. Gameification. What is going to be most efficient, what will get me results most quickly. The most bang for my buck.
Ultimately, yes, the story is about trying to find love. But it’s a corrupted sort of love. It’s corrupted by all the trappings of modern society—everything that is designed to lead us astray. To corrupt our minds.
What are the scenes? What scenes do my life depend on? Meeting Eric at Casa, and then later on he says I’m gay.
Tinder is first invented. Using it at O–’s mom’s condo on King Street. Rob has already developed one strategy of being selective, while J– has developed the opposite strategy of being indiscriminate.
N– and her friend fucking the same greasy guy; convincing herself that she’s poly as a form of cope, while he’s laughing all the way to the pussy bank.
Developing a romance with E– as N– winds up regretfully fucking some gamer. Ha, ha, I win. And she met him online, too.
My loyalty to N– leads to the downfall of my relationship with E–: the desire to have-cake-and-eat-it leads to nothing. She called it, too. You are restricting yourself to a subset of the population, the men of which are typically some of its worst specimens.
D– and the post-Ethical Slut. “Ethical non-monogamy.”
First there is her “sado-masochistic” relationship with Yas, so hilariously mis-named. Again, a man is laughing on his way to the pussy bank while a woman is doing emotional labour. The key to this is her telling herself that the relationship is of a certain type, while he nods along, uncomprehendingly.
Then, there is the way she poisoned the well with Eric by trying to enforce this stupid ENM standard—a mirror of what happened with E– and I? Except that she was a far more high-quality individual than he is. And he and I as the men in the situation, both had a lot more to lose.
The scene of their final breakup, with the dead friend, the make-out with the other woman at D’s place, etc—all very perverse. Like a consensual Bret Easton Ellis story.