Love Explored: A Personal and Perhaps Practical Look into the Complexities of Love
Open Relationships
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I have been wanting to write a segment on all the forms of human love the exist for quite a while. In part due to my time spent in the non-monogamous world which allowed me to explore a plethora of ways that humans show their affection, and sometimes just simply share physical pleasure with each other. Admittedly, there was one big thing stopping me from hitting publish. And that was that I had never felt that type of love that sweeps you off your feet and you just know will last forever. As a result of not fully understanding the poets, writers, painters, and musicians, I simply kept notes in the background, not quite sure what I would end up doing with them. Perhaps because, while I explored love, I’m was not sure that I ever believed it existed in the ways I read about. I was a love skeptic, convinced that my research would lead me down the path of the outsider. The consistently rational and pragmatic explorer.
Well, the tides have changed for me, or shifted, or whatever it is that tides do, and I can happily say, I am experiencing that thing that held me back from sharing anything that I researched about love. No longer do I feel like an onlooker into this mystical fantasy world. Nope, I can now write without even an ounce of hypocrisy. What I didn’t believe existed, actually does. All the years of exploring different ways to love another human have finally reached the point of full spectrum. The head over heels love is real. And with that, I feel that I can share some really fascinating and complex ways that people show it, experience it, and feel it.
So, with that, let us start exactly where I did, or at least got the gears turning in regards to there actually being variety in love: Open Relationships.
What is an Open Relationship?
The best way to describe it would be to use the opposite. It is everything outside of a closed relationship. And yes, that does mean that it is a fairly wide open term! If gateway drugs were actually a thing, I could clearly see how opening up a relationship could be akin to that. In fact, having that initial conversation about exploring things outside of an exclusive pairing is the launch point of…
