Surprised to be greeted by name at the PR cafe. Funny that this cute young girl I see at the gym, with the SLEEP shirt, now walks in. Everyone both lives in the neighbourhood, and hangs out here. She’s very stylishly attired, and with a very cute, fey boy. The milk in this cappuccino is making me nauseous. I like how every accoutrement here is on theme—that’s how I need to do my place. Pick a theme, make sure all the colours match. Re-do the floors.

So far, two scenes in the POLY story: going to Bishop and gabbing with D–. Then, also, using Tinder for the first time with the boys. 2012.

Using the Bishop scene to anchor the flashbacks is a good idea, but how do we go back to Tinder? What function does that story serve? Mostly to (a) date things; (b) to indicate how different things were at the outset, versus the present of online dating; and (c) to talk about how the gamification of these systems was a social inevitability from the outset.

We have to set up the whole thing with N. in order to really get into the poly aspects of the whole thing. We have to set up the intensity of the romance; but we also want to skip a lot of the blowback, because it’s too much to get into.

The three pivotal scenes: (1) first kiss, where she says she doesn’t want to be exclusive; (2) the intensity of our reunion in New Brunswick, where she then talks about wanting to have sex with some guy; (3) the break-up and reunion; me meeting E–, then her reading me a literal diary entry where she describes having sex with some guy who picked her up—feeling excited by the thought of the pain she would cause me—and then he rolls over and starts playing a video game.

The Campbellton interlude should include a moment of—well, the scene around the fire truck. I ask her why she wants to be poly, why she thinks it’s a good idea. She tells me the story back in Chicago. Under the tree. But she also rationalizes it—it’s based on wanting to economize on her sexuality.

This recurrent theme of gamification is like the faith versus Enlightenment debate. Quantity versus quality.

We then go into the time with E–. Must do her honour, but the only scenes I have in mind are (1) the meeting—the TRUTH of the meeting; and (2) the scene at O, where she’s crying and telling me how the whole things is insanity. This should be the middle of the story, where the themes are spelled out and the stakes made clear.

The question, of course, is how to connect all these scenes. How do we anchor them around the meeting at Bishop? Not everything can be a story told? Why would I be telling D– all these stupid anecdotes from my “glory years”? It doesn’t fit. She would never sit still for a story that long. I would never seek to tell her all of these details…

And that means we need as many stories, scenes, from her perspective as from mine. We want this story to be more-or-less equal—gender parity—to represent a POV different from my own. It’s a technical exercise. A level-up. And it’s part of the same series as The Path to Self-Consciousness—there’s a continuity somewhere.

It’s not going to be balanced if all of her stories are from the present, and I’m the only one allowed to have a backstory. Or maybe that asymmetry can be part of the work? Since I have nothing happening in the present—and she has everything happening, and seems incapable of learning.

Science versus faith. Gamification of love. I can talk to her more about—what? If she’s ever been in an open relationship before?