Alternative Relationships 101
Open relationships: one guy comes to terms with what the world thinks of his lifestyle.
It's a perfectly crisp early evening in the summer of 2007, and Carrie and I are slouching into one of the squishy booths in the back of a dark Pittsburgh pub called Le Mardi Gras. Anyone familiar with the neighborhood will tell you it's a fairly serious alcoholic's bar, mostly because the drinks are strong to the point of being ridiculous.
Also, the bartenders never seem to kick anyone out at closing time. The place has a bit of a clubby feel to it, because almost everyone is a regular. But Carrie and I don't come here too often—only at the tail end of those nights when we're feeling particularly naughty, or immoral. I guess that's partly because there's an odd energy here that seems to almost encourage decadent behavior. And besides, most of the people we know wouldn't be caught dead drinking here, which makes the whole experience feel something like a hidden, secret escape—a respite from the hateful social hierarchy of Pittsburgh's few hipster bars, where everyone judges everyone else, just like a high school cafeteria.
Carrie and I have been doing a lot of sneaking around lately. And to be perfectly honest, it does feel adventuresome, in an illicit sort of way. In fact, all of this started because of Carrie's boyfriend. Sort of. It's a complicated story, but I think it's one worth telling. Because if I've learned anything about alternative partnerships over the past couple of years, it's this: Almost no one in this country seems to understand anything about them. And personally, I think they teach a very valuable and a very important lesson. At any rate, this is a story that I think does a pretty decent job at illustrating their worth. And here's the big shocker: It has almost nothing to do with sex.
Carrie and her boyfriend have an open relationship. They've been together for six years, and the partnership has been open for about five. But like most couplings, their relationship is very far from being black and white. It's complicated, in other words. For one thing, their arrangement has a surprising number of rules. No falling in love, for instance. No lying about who you're seeing, or when, or in what capacity. And since Pittsburgh is a small city where everyone seems to know everyone else, they've also agreed that there will be no parading around town while on dates—keep it discreet, please.
Carrie's boyfriend runs his own business in the construction industry, so when they first decided to open up their relationship, it was mutually understood that the employees would not be privy to the intimate details of their boss's sex life, or for that matter the sex life of the boss's girlfriend. All that made perfectly good sense to me, and if you've ever had the displeasure of spending an hour or two with a construction crew, it should make perfectly good sense to you as well. I think it's pretty clear that your average hammer-and-nail meathead is going to have a difficult time respecting the boss once he learns that the boss's girlfriend occasionally has sex with other men. (And other women.)
Discussion
Calm down, everyone. Don't begrudge Dan and Carrie their happiness. Don't assume that open relationships are AT ALL easier than more traditional ones.
PS: he's great in bed.
wow. I've just read these pieces, and wow.
I'm totally confused, as I am with most blog type writings.
What is the point of this? Why on earth did I read it? Why on earth did he write it? Why do I care?
It's so incredibly self serving for the writer. Which is not to say it's not interesting or informative for the rest of us. I rubberneck on the highway too, and there, too, as I pick up speed driving away, I wonder why it is that I had to look. And why I looked, trying to figure out why I looked, along with everyone else, and traffic slowed to a crawl - that is always way more interesting than what we were all looking at in the first place. And so it is with this piece, this soap opera.
Seems like this writer. like most of us, loves him some cake, and loves eating cake too. He wants to be both understood and misunderstood at the same time. He wants to tell us all about what he's doing, show us all how incredibly cool and modern and progressive and s**t he is, and for us to stroke his ego and say, wow dan, you're so incredibly cool and modern and progressive and s**t, but at the same time, he knows there's no traction without friction, so he also wants to get folks all riled up because no way is anyone else remotely as cool and modern and progressive and s**t as he is, cause if we're all as incredibly cool and modern progressive and s**t as he is then, well then he's just like the rest of us, and then he's got f**k all to tell us about, and folks will just move along, nothing to see here...
Hmm.
Anyway, my favorite part so far is his brief mention of Carrie and her ex's "rules." Extremely amusing. I wish I thought he was being funny when he enumerated these: no falling in love? Come on, that's hysterical, pure comic gold. That's totally monty python, right there, to paraphrase the australian sketch - Rule 6: No poofters. Rule 7: there is no rule 7. Rule 8: no poofters.
So anyway, bring it on. I can't wait for the next installment.
Quite honestly people, this man is telling his life's and his partner's story so we should all listen with an open mind. If you don't want to know don't read, pure and simple.
I'm not about to condone or explore his ideas in my personal life but I'm a big enough person to give him credit for being brave enough to explore this idea and post it here for the world to read.
I don't think the basic principles of love and relationships apply to two people who have consciously and mutually agreed to live a non-monogamous relationship. We should all learn to respect other people's choices regardless of how vehemently we disagree with them.
The venom of that first handful of posts really quite surprises me, though I guess it shouldn't. I mean, last month I saw a comatose woman sprawled face-first on the sidewalk on Avenue A and anyone that bothered to stop did so to go through her pockets.
Why do open relationships, polyamory, whatever, get people so angry? It seems almost the reflex fury that the subject of gay marriage (or publicly-acknowledged gay anything, for that matter) garners. Are we licentious whores ruining your marriages? (Unless we're married to you, unlikely, but accomplishing that would be something of a tautology.) Sleeping with your boyfriends or girlfriends? (Probably not, if we're honest, but even then, it takes two to tango.)
Where does this instinctive hatred for the romantically unconventional come from? Come on, guys, can't you just be smug and say "well, we're the ones who get to enjoy broad social approval, pass on our obviously superior DNA, and get tax write-offs"?
I'm really curious to know what "emotions" this author has come to "master" from being in an open relationship and how, exactly, he controls his own jealousy (and "Carrie" hers for that matter). And even though I know it's none of my business to pry as Dan so nicely put it, I'm dying to know if these two are seeing anyone else now, if Dan reacts differently when "Carrie" dates men as opposed to women (or if that comment was only added for an added dash of juiciness), and I guess I just wanna know more about what their life if like now as a couple since they're not swinging naked off of chandeliers or sneaking around to dimly lit bars anymore.
I do agree with Dan that it seems like there were a lot of hateful comments on his first 2 pieces, which I have to say I find a bit surprising, since really, I don't think any of the columns to date let allow any reader know enough to make a judgment - be it positive or negative. And I have to agree with Dan too that some people who do seem to hate on this kind of thing may just be envious (or maybe miserable in their own relationships and probably cheat or have cheated themselves and just wish they could do so openly).
To be completely honest, I'm a teensy bit jealous (and very curious) myself and wanna know more about how to make this kind of relationship work. So, Dan, I guess my comment's really for you. As voyeuristic and "none of my business" as it may be, can you please dish a little more dirt (or do so a little more often - maybe turn this into a blog here)? I'm pretty sure there are quite a few of us following your pieces closely and do want many, many more details and stories - not so that we can hate on you and your fiance, but so maybe, just maybe, we can learn a little more about ourselves and explore and expand our own relationships with some new ideas and a little guidance. Isn't that what this site is supposed to be about in the first place?
It’s tough enough to start a new relationship, without the eyes of the nation upon you. I take off my hat to your courage in making your openness public. Although I got married with the monogamy mindset, almost a decade has changed me. Now I wish I had such a husband. Growth is imperative, both as individuals and as a culture, and I hope you are at the forefront of a wave of increasing acceptance of alternative relationships. Facing and dealing with the instinctive jealousy associated with an open relationship is a self-imposed challenge that would stagger less-evolved people. Wanting one another to be happy is a higher level, I’m convinced. I wish you both the best in continuing smoothly down that bumpy road of personal growth. May you have many happy and fulfilling years.
I've sucked down many a mudslide at Mardis Gras in Shadyside. Thanks for the memories.
Seems to me her boyfriend trusted you to be cool (meaning: discreet), but you betrayed that trust by parading your relationship in public, like one of the children you dismissively refer to earlier. It's a shame, but you are claiming to be so "evolved" here, yet you broke one of the most basic rules of open relationships: be worthy of the trust you receive. You weren't, and don't seem to understand that.
Wow! I love how you manage to twist your selfish, hedonistic, juvenile behavior into some noble "learning, growing experience." Very deft. You seem like a very sophisticated man, Mr. Eldridge, and are quite self-satisfied with being so (unlike those "meathead" construction workers who are probably so lame that they actually go home to their wives and kids at night.) I can only hope, though, that after years of indulging your every sexual and emotional whim (because, yes, that's what your great "experiment" is all about), that you'll gain some actual wisdom, and learn that real love is about more than sex, titillation, and continually seeing yourself reflected "anew" in the eyes of another. I hope you're a very young man, because you've got a lot of growing to do. And it won't happen while you're licking the faces of two girls in some bar.
I have no desire to read your story, Dan. I had enough amorous adventures to fill a book before I got older and wiser. All I have to say to you is "stay single if you want to act single" and "grow up" because some day you will whether you want to or not. At least I hope you will or you'll look like an increasingly foolish old man.
