A really common poly failure mode, the kind that I’m talking about when I talk about Bad Poly, is weaponized atomization. Basically, it’s responding to any request that you consider the effects of your behavior on others with an accusation that the other person is acting like they “own you”.
(Disclaimers: I am poly and actively so. The critique is coming from inside the house, as it were. I am also decidedly uninterested in policing other people’s relationships. I object only inasmuch as certain ideals are pushed on me, personally, without my consent, or taken as representative of the poly community as a whole. I’m also not 100% sure this is coherent or ideologically consistent; I’d appreciate feedback on tightening it up.)
I also think poly people tend to be… pretty blind to their own expectations and requirements. We’ve started to associate virtue with not having needs / not imposing on others. But of course everyone does have needs and they do impose on others (at least implicitly)*, so this leads to people either being in denial about these things, refusing to tell their partners about them, or getting annoyed with anyone who does talk about these things..
* Lots of people won’t outright say what their requirements are, but everyone has some. “Be at least this high status”, “have an IQ > x”, “be this physically attractive”, etc.
> We’ve started to associate virtue with not having needs / not imposing on others.
This is one of those things that some people really need to hear and some people really need to hear the opposite and everything is terrible if the wrong people hear the wrong thing.
This is the beautiful Noface. She is very tolerant of our affections but prefers to hang out alone.
Sometimes one of us will be chosen as a lap. It is a great honor.
Heard this post was marked ‘sensitive.’
12/10 agree.
Reblogging to share photos of Noface, a sensitive cat.
#GrowingUpUgly
When guys in middle school would get dared by their friends to ask you out and see if you say yes as a joke
How about growingupugly and then turning out sort of okay looking but you don’t know for sure because your self esteem is shot and you’re convinced you look awful?
#GrowingUpUgly Being so wholly convinced of your hideousness that as an adult you now literally cannot even imagine that someone would pay you a compliment and mean it; the only conceivable thing that could be happening is that they’re either a) taking the piss like the boys in school used to or b) so repulsed by you that they feel sorry for you and are telling you you’re pretty because they think you need to hear it.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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