The thing that struck me most about my first return visit to NYC was not the sense of familiarity, comfort, buzzing of a city that feels like it’s returning to thriving nor the vibrancy of its people.

It was the excitement and joy at which my friends showed compersion for all the great things I am experiencing in my life. 

The community I cultivated over 14 different moves in 12 years in 8 different neighborhoods in NYC is mostly polyam, queer, kinky, sex+ folks. People who are insanely practiced in compersion: experiencing genuine joy at someone else’s joy. 

Polyam people, in theory, are practiced at compersion in scenarios that warrant jealousy: their partner having other partners, having sex with other people, etc. Which are difficult scenarios to have compersion.

And because they are practiced in one of the hardest places, it makes it easier to have compersion in “lighter” situations.

Say - your friend wanting to move across the country and try their hand at something new. Or a friend being in a committed relationship that they are experiencing new levels of love and intimacy. Or a friend starting a brand new business.

What made this so apparent to me is that all of my friends in NYC were absolutely overjoyed at these exclamations from me - even though none of them had been part of any of it and some of them may have been in direct opposition to the place where I was - having just gone through a break up or in a tough spot financially.

When I returned, I shared this with several people. One friend had a different explanation, he said it was because of the depth, the strength of the bond I have with people in NYC because of the longevity of connection. But let’s break that down a minute - shall we?

There are several of my friends in LA that I have know for many years. In fact, about the same amount of time as some of my friends in NYC - if I count actually being in the same place, as my ones in LA. So if I measure on the same basis - length of time in the same place - why is it that my bonds in NYC are so much deeper than the ones in LA?

There may be many different reasons - but polyam, sex+ folks make friends in a different way and my friends in LA aren’t as much polyam.

Let me tell you why:
Being polyam asks of you that you are vulnerable, share truths, be precise and considerate about what you are saying and how you are saying it. When you are that level of knowing someone,  and that is multiplied by many people at one time, then you end up seeing the same parts of you in different places. Now a stubborn person could continue to blame others for what is clearly their own problems. But eventually, most people practicing polyamory will see that they are the common denominator and start to ask themselves questions about why. The level of self awareness is multiplied by how many people who you share yourself with in that way and inevitably spills into all other areas of your life.

If you don’t practice polyamory this way, I promise, you will be miserable.

Polyamory is the desire and ability to love more than one person. To me, in my life, that means also my friends. I have the desire and definitely the abundance of love to have intimate, emotional relationships with many people.
Polyamorous in my definition is the sharing and freedom of love. Now sometimes, that includes physicality and sometimes it doesn’t. But the notion that my friends receive the same kind of love, attention and care as my partners is still a very novel one. In life we are brought up to value friendships at a lesser extent to a partnership. When in fact, they provided me the wholeness and happiness when nothing else would. And many people who are polyamorous feel that way. They are able to experience those levels of love and affection with friends as much as they do partners. There’s no cut off to sources of love and affection.

Outside of the polyam world, it’s hard to find people that treat their friendships with such reverence. Everyone is merely entertaining the idea of friendships to find their romantic and sexual partner. 

There’s something sorely missing in the fabric of connection with that mono-normative view. And I think it can be found in the never ending yearning to fit into some kind of mold that says a relationship looks this way and a family looks this way and it leaves people thinking if they don’t follow that exact path then they are broken. So instead, they are searching for things to make them whole. Instead of letting their uniqueness guide their path. It breeds codependence and jealousy - because if someone else threatens that wholeness then what will you do? You will be worthless again. If only we could practice compersion on a wider level and start to flip the necessity to compare, jealousy and envy of one another, then friendships and bonds would have the freedom to be stronger, more fulfilling and all of the other stuff will fall into place.

I missed living in the compersive world of NYC. I missed being able to tell my friends of my happiness without fear that they would judge or be jealous of me. Or somehow, it would hurt their feelings for all the good I have in my life.

And in turn, what’s happened is I haven’t wanted to share. Or I’ve belittled my joy as to not incite the evil eye. That’s not something I will do any longer.

Compersive friends, unite!!

Compersion is an easy practice if you practice it with small things and then allow yourself to build up to harder and harder things.
But essentially, compersion is connecting to someone else’s joy through empathy.

So when someone tells you something they are excited about - try to find something that has brought you a lot of joy and excitement. And understand that that is what they are feeling.

When someone tells you that they just got a fat raise and are going to buy a boat and go on vacation - instead of letting your thoughts about how you wish that was you or that they don’t deserve a boat because they haven’t been working as hard as you have or hoping that they will invite you on the boat, connect to a time where you were praised and rewarded for something in a big way and imagine how that felt. How excited and happy you were. How proud you were. And allow that feeling to connect you to the person who is expressing joy. And stay there with that in that joy for the other person’s experience instead of letting your own thoughts over power you.

It could be as small as someone telling you they are excited to go to a party that you weren’t invited to. Instead of being jealous or feel left out, be excited for them in their excitement.

I meant this to be a post about fluidity but it ended up being a story about compersion. Such is the fluid nature of writing =]

All you need to know is that what I described last week, nobody caring which body part or toy is coming from whom it just needs a wet hole and consent exists. It exists in parties in NYC by the plenty. I miss all my bi friends and all my bi for a while (at least during play party) friends. And while I think it’ll be a bit longer to gather those people with my bat signal, compersion is something we can all get down with.

It's without a doubt my most beneficial practice. Even more than meditation (GASP!) =]

xx
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