High heels and half court

I was listening to a woman describe why she loves wearing heels and fancy purses.  This is not something I can easily understand.  High heeled shoes (or non-athletic shoes in general) make me feel unstable and uncomfortable   Purses are things that keep my hands tied up and are vehicles for losing important things in.  Such as when I put down the purse so I can use my hand and forget to pick the thing up again.  I’d rather pull around a ball and chain in bare feet.  At least my hands would be free and my toes unsquished.

This woman got through to me though.  She described the feeling of power, confidence and triumph.  That I understand!  It reminded me of a time I was playing basketball at a University gym.  I was the only girl there.  Half of the court was a group of 6 or 8 playing 3 on 3.  The other half was just me and a friend.  My friend was 6 foot 4 and pretty athletic.  I am not quite 5 foot 7 and my game plan is to run around, get in the way and wait for the other player to get too tired.  In other words, I am not so coordinated.

The boys on the other half of the court were finished and decided to watch us for a bit.  This gave us more room.  Instead of cheerleading, they decided to play Statler and Waldorf.  I’m a little sensitive to being made fun of for being female, especially when it was obvious these guy’s first language wasn’t English but they chose to speak it anyways.  I didn’t appreciate the comments.

“Next basket wins!” declared my friend.  He had been winning, I’m sure, so this was nice of him.  I had the ball but he pressed hard and I found myself being pushed backwards.  I was over the half court line, feinted to the side, stepped back, and threw.

Net!  Silence.  All the jokes about throwing like a girl died.  Yep, all those guys saw.  Even my guy friend was congratulating me on shutting them up.  Power, confidence and triumph!

If a pair of shoes can make someone feel like she sunk a basket from half court in front of a bunch of naysayers, I can understand why someone would want a closet full of them.   I take back all the snotty things I thought about a certain relative who has boxes of shoes.  And I’ve decided I need to start playing basketball again.

Not God’s Fault

Thank you all for your thoughts on Ryan’s passing.

Some of our Christian friends have reacted with immediate offers of support for his family.  Some have mostly successfully held back from sermonizing and talking about heaven and hell.  I really appreciate that.

One man refused to accept that God would allow someone so young and so needed to die.

Me: I don’t know if we’ll be able to commit to that date since one of our friends passed away and we might be doing something in his memory.

Him: How old was your friend?

Me: Around 30.

Him: How did he die?

Me: Heart attack.  Blood vessel burst in his heart.

Him: Ah.  Was he overweight?

Aside: AARRrrgh!  Overweight people are more likely to recover from heart attacks than ‘normal’ weight people, but we still read adipose as unhealthy.  Its ‘healthier’ to carry a little extra weight.

Me: No.

Him: Oh.  [pause]  Did he exercise too much?

Me: He seemed pretty healthy and balanced.

Him: Did he do drugs?

Me: No.

Him: Did he have any other health problems?

Me: (What the heck?  I’m just telling this guy that I can’t confirm some dates.)  Uh, insomnia I think.  Once depression (he had a difficult childhood thanks to some bullies)

Him: (conspiratorial voice) Do you think they are hiding something from you?

Me: Huh?

Him: (triumphant voice) Suicide!

Me: Absolutely not.

Him: (patronizing tone) Are you sure.

Me: Yes. Thank-you.  Have a nice day.

I understand that his children are in Ryan’s situation right now, but the need to put blame on Ryan goes beyond denial that we are finite and vulnerable.  Its understandable that we want to emphasize (or make up) ways we are different from someone in a terrible situation.  But this particular relative has a deep faith that God does everything with a benevolent purpose.  Leaving a pregnant wife and a toddler without the love of her life and not even memories of their daddy is cruel.  Therefore, this death couldn’t be ‘natural’, it had to be Ryan’s fault.  And God would have prevented it if Ryan hadn’t decided to not be the perfect weight, physical and emotional state (even though he was doing really well on all counts).  God didn’t fail- we did.

My relative can go on feeling safe and secure.  He is psychologically protected from anxiety and deep remorse or from questioning his view of an all powerful and benevolent god.  I hope he doesn’t try and comfort anyone else though.  He does a shitty job.

 

This is a sketch of Ryan and his son taken from a Christmas photo.  Looks like they are praying which Ryan would have found funny as he is a joyful, skeptical atheist.

Aspie?

Apologies.  The following post is really self-centered.  But I’m really excited!

Looks like I’m likely an Aspie.  A chart!  That follows the colour spectrum!

Since ‘coming out’ as potentially Aspie, I’ve been told that it runs in my family, that I have a few relatives with AS and a lot more with the same symptoms.
This probably helps explains why I took Christianity so seriously while other people I grew up with didn’t seem as affected.

I don’t have a phobia of malls, I am just hypersensitive to stimuli.

I’m not a scaredy cat, I just react intensely to unexpected touch or sound.

I’m not a social idiot, I just read signals differently and react to the energy people give off instead of the words they say.  Someone will smile and say they are fine but I feel this intense need to give them a hug or run away and cry so I freeze because I can’t react to them as if they are fine.  I take people literally and often don’t associate the discrepancy between what I’m hearing and what I’m feeling to them – why would they lie?- and blame myself for the confusion I feel.  I come off as awkward and stilted because I’m frustrated that socializing seems to be a game and I don’t know the rules.  Good thing I didn’t grow up in a sarcastic family

I’m not an immature rebel.  I just don’t see the point in following rules or procedures that don’t make sense and I see other ways of getting things done.

I will probably always fixate on a few topics and be more fascinated by them than the general population.  It doesn’t mean my brain is like a scratched CD, looping and looping.  Its ok.  People aren’t forced to read all the articles on rape culture I post to FB.

I’m not lazy because I wear comfortable clothes, I’m just sensitive to touch and uncomfortable clothing drives me crazy.

I will never find the magical purse or high heeled shoes that will make me feel like a powerful woman.  Never.  So I can stop feeling obliged to pretend to look for them.  I will always prefer to go barefoot than wear ridiculous shoes and I will keep losing bags that aren’t strapped onto my body, bike or stroller.   My brain just doesn’t appreciate impractical and painful status items.

I’m smart but I can stop feeling like I’ve failed because I haven’t yet found the way to use my intellect and passions for paid work.

I’m not a bad mother because when I’m really focusing on something I don’t even notice the child beside me screaming that she has to go pee.

All those OCD tendencies I have that I used to feel so guilty about really are about self-soothing, not some masochistic tendency to destroy myself.

I likely don’t have a mental illness.  I’m not broken but I do have a more active prefrontal cortex than many people.

Just like when I accepted that Christianity was not what I thought it was, the world seems bigger and brighter.  I feel more free, and yes- like dancing!

 

Holy Ghost Train

When my husband was living in a northern woodland town, the young adults group went on a night adventure to see the Ghost Train.  The story told is that a train conductor rides a ghost train up and down the abandoned tracks holding a lantern.  He is looking for his decapitated head.  My husband appreciates a good campfire tale but was surprised that the young adults group actually believed it.

The group went out in the night into the woods until they got to the spot.  Sure enough, wavering lights appeared.

My husband’s first thought was that he could see lights from highway traffic.  However, many people, including scientists, had gone out on the nearby highways nearby to test this theory, but the roads were at too low an elevation for light to travel to the ghost sighting spot.  For most of the town’s residence that was proof that something supernatural had appeared.

Finally, two highschool girls set out to discover what was causing the mysterious intermittent lights.  Using topographical maps, compasses, a GPS and a flashlight, they determined the exact location of the light.  However, it seemed impossible.  There were no roads close to the direction of the light at the correct elevation.  There was a highway nearly 9 km that matched the exact trajectory but it was much too far to produce a light so big on its own.

That was their answer.  The highway was receiving other help to enlarge the lights.  Somehow the trees blocking the view from the highway to the Ghost Train viewing spot grew in the right places to produce diffraction.  This makes the small lights appear much bigger than they would otherwise be.

One of the girls was disappointed there was no supernatural explanation and said it wouldn’t be as much fun to see anymore.  The other was delighted- not that there was no supernatural explanation, but that the real reason was so fascinating: ”If I had heard there’s this really neat phenomenon with light waves, I’d be more inclined to want to see it than a ghost train,” she said.

http://www.virtualsk.com/current_issue/mystery.html

You can watch the phenomenon for yourself here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYlWGbm-OtY

The comments on the video are interesting. About half of the people refuse to believe that diffraction can cause lights nearly 9 km away to look so large, yet are quite happy to believe that a headless ghost rides on a removed train track or some similar story.

How similar to many aspects of religion.  There are blinking lights that are beautiful and seemingly impossible.  People see visions that come to pass.  People do get flashbacks of events they did not see.  People are healed.

Just because I do not understand these events does not mean I have to deny them.  I can just not understand them.  I am sure the real explanation is much more beautiful and awe-inspiring than anything religion has yet come up with.  The high school girls devoted a lot of time to their experiment.  They also had tools like maps and a GPS to help them navigate.  We may never develop the tools to measure what some people call spiritual consciousness and it will certainly take more time than this mystery.

I’m off the Holy Ghost Train, but that has added to the wonder and mystery of life.  Maybe one day we will have better explanations for the mysterious so-called supernatural phenomena.  Until then, I am content to not know and maybe discover that I am wrong about other headless ghost train stories in different disguises.

Tarot Cards and Prayer Meetings

Tarot cards and prayer meetings are remarkably similar.

This is a fact I could never have accepted a few years ago.  I thought psychics were con-artists or devil-worshippers.  Then I found out that I have a friend who reads cards.

She has read my cards a few times and I have been impressed with her insights, but doubted that they had much to do with the tarot cards.  My friend is a very intuitive person with a natural gift for reading people.  Why should I be surprised that she sees I have certain issues?

One day she asked me to read her cards and guided me through it.  Instead of feeling pressured to speak words of the divine, she told me just to share the thoughts that came to me.  My words.  Not prophetic or psychic, just my thoughts.

We went through the algorithm.  The order of a card stood for something such as Past Experiences.  Then the particular card, say 3 of rods, had a list of possible scenarios but very open-ended.  She asked me to pick which line about the card jumped out at me and tell me why.

In the end, I was able to say things that I really wanted to tell her but didn’t know how to.  For example, I could tell her that she was beautiful and her body shape was healthy and attractive.  There was no need to count calories but to accept that she is gorgeous without being underweight.

It reminded me of a prayer meeting.  It provided a medium for asking deep questions without feeling like it was crossing some social boundary.

At prayer meetings, instead of looking at cards, we closed our eyes.  Instead of saying “I’m thinking that you are struggling with this right now and maybe it would help if ___” we spoke more obliquely at church.  “God, you see that so-and-so is really struggling right now and help her to see that ____ is ok.”

Also, I didn’t feel like I had to be right.  I could throw out any idea and have it be processed, and built on or rejected.  Perhaps that was unique to my friend, I don’t know.  Unlike a prayer meeting when the pressure of using ‘divine’ authority is felt by both speaker and listener, this felt more free and honest.

The pictures and thoughts in my head were focused by the ideas on the cards, but they were my own.  No more agonizing over whether my thoughts were inspired by god or deceptions of the devil.

I doubt I’ll get into tarot cards or psychics, but I do have more respect for the role that they can fill in a friendship.

killing you kindly

I tried to be nice to the other kids in highschool. 

I was trying to show Jesus’ love and be an example.  But, I did not realize how hurtful my surface niceness could be.

There were people that I was friendish with, but never got too close to, because they could ‘lead me astray’.  We were told to befriend non-Christians, but to make sure our best friends were all Christians.

Like the goth boy who lived in the library – the place I spent all noon hours too cold to go outside.

He had no friends except for the girl that everyone thought was a boy.

I didn’t make fun of him like the other kids, but I didn’t get to know him either.  Once I found out he played Dungeons & Dragons, I had to protect myself from Satan’s influence.  I had an opportunity to treat him like another person, but all I saw was ‘devil worshipper’.   I thought not tormenting him was enough of a good christian example. 

I did talk to the girl-who-everyone-thought-was-a-boy.  But not about anything real.  Just her fear of the colour orange and her hatred of French class.  I don’t even know if she had siblings but I knew she wasn’t a Christian.

The kid who everyone labelled as ‘special’ I was friends with, but only in the library when my Christian friends weren’t around.  We talked about Einstein’s theory of relativity.   I think I was the only person in my grade who knew he could actually talk, let alone do math our calculus teacher couldn’t.  But, I never asked how he was doing or invited him to spend time with my friends.  He wasn’t Christian enough to hang out with after school.

I did have some good elementary school friends.  When we reached highschool, they became boy crazy.  I still was in love with horses and Jesus, or at least trying to be.  They would giggle about things I knew nothing about, like vibrators and vodka.  I knew I couldn’t stay close to them and remain ignorant.  So, we drifted apart. 

When one of them started hallucinating that spiders were crawling over her, I didn’t call 911 or even just hold her until it passed.  I told her about praying to Jesus to take away her fears.  Don’t know why- I still had my fears, but I thought it was supposed to help.  Looking back, it was probably drug induced or a psychotic break.  Telling her about a man who died violently prolly wasn’t the best thing to do…

There was the popular girl who sat beside me in art class.  She always talked about her amazing weekends in which she got so sloshed she couldn’t remember anything.  I listened, but I didn’t.  It never occurred to me that she was reaching out for someone. 

 I had her labelled as partier, and so I could smile and say hi, but never go deeper – mostly out of fear that she’d think I was boring, partly out of judging her.  After we graduated, she sat right beside me in the one class we shared in university.  I didn’t know why, but I’m guessing that she was scared and I was familiar. 

Again, not that I was mean, but I wasn’t real.  I protected myself against their imagined evils.  While I felt inferior and insecure, my views of their choices could have made them feel looked down on.

Goth boy wasn’t Satan, if I’d ever taken the time to get to know him. 

The friends that I did have were great.  But we banded together in part by feeling rejected from the other kids and in part by rejecting them ourselves. 

Just because I wasn’t overtly mean doesn’t mean I was truly kind.  No one remembers the person in the mob who was silent, they remember the one who steps out and holds your hand.

Sorry for the highschool trip.  I’m not actually wallowing in guilt and should-haves.  (Yay, I’m just human, not a worthless sinner!)

This is more a reminder to myself not to label people and ignore them.  Now I’m not afraid of gamers or queers, but rather of right-wing advocates and fundy church leaders.    I can’t just assume I know their motives either. 

 

The Gay Samaritan

A frienemy of mine from my old church has been hosting some controversial topics on his facebook page.  He stopped because a relative asked him too.  I enjoyed the discussions which were mostly about gender, sex and homosexuality. 

I thought I’d put this story as a note on my page.  But, maybe its too preachy.  I’d appreciate your feedback.

The seminary student patted the old woman on the shoulder.

“How are you today, Judith?” he asked.

She flashed him a smile of pearly white dentures.

“Sit down, David, I’m going to tell you a bible story, dear.”

The young man sat down, amused. He had memorized most of the New Testament and good bits of the old.

“Once there was a young man. A homo-sexual. Gary loved God and he loved his neighbours. But he didn’t just stop there.”

David interrupted, “This isn’t in the bible…”

“Shh. Now, one Sunday he was walking to church holding hands with his boyfriend, when a couple of big fellers who went the church down the street jumped them. Smacked them around right good. Called them names and spit on them. Some other people from those feller’s church were walking by and quickly crossed the street. They didn’t know what to do so they kept walking.”

David interrupted again, “Oh, this is the story of the Samaritan.”

“Yep. Now shh. Our young man Gary was shaken but he got up and kept going. This had happened before.

“About a month or so later, when his black eye was just shaded yellow, he was walking home from work. There in front of him was one of those guys who had beat him up. Passed out cold on the sidewalk. Vomit everywhere. People stepped around him complaining about drunks.

“Gary stopped. He noticed some blood around his ears and realized this was a lot more serious than it looked.

“He called 911 and rode with that guy to the hospital.

“That guy had no ID on him. They wouldn’t let him into Emergency.

“Well, Gary told them he’d pay for the expenses until they could find that guy’s ID. He stayed until the hospital staff told him to leave. Then he visited him every day until he was better.”

Judith took David’s hand. “When Jesus told that story, he then told the young lawyer to go and do like the Samaritan. I now tell you, go and do like that homosexual man.”

David pulled his hand away. “But, homosexuals are sinners. They can’t get into heaven unless they repent.”

Judith looked at him. “The bible can be used to say a lot of things. If you are telling me that you want that loving young man to burn in hell because he’s different than you, then how can you claim you have divine love in your heart?”

David stared, “It has nothing to do with love, it has to do with what the Bible says.”

Judith laughed, “That bible also says its ok to beat your slaves unless you beat them so hard they can’t get up after a day or two*. If you don’t have love in your heart, then memorizing the bible won’t make you any better. You’ll only find excuses to hate.”

“But, it is because I love homosexuals that I hate their sin.”

“If you believe that, you ain’t as smart as I hoped you were. That ain’t loving. That is controlling. You can only love someone if they’re like you? You can only accept someone if they change? The Jews thought that way about the Samaritans. Jesus didn’t say that Samaritan should change, he said the lawyer should be more like him.”

David flipped open his cell phone. “Gotta run. See you next week.”

Oversensitive?

I was recently talking with a survivor. She was putting herself down for being ‘oversensitive’. That is, something that would seem normal and non-threatening to most people was experienced by her as traumatic. Like a hug.

She was frustrated that certain things, which were not abuse, triggered strong reactions in her.

Knowing what she has gone through, I feel nothing but compassion for her sensitivity.

It is like a gaping wound that the lightest touch causes unbearable pain.

And then I realized that most people who overreact could have similar issues.

My mother loves to point out how sensitive I am about gender issues. She insinuates that it is my failing if I react. Well, I happen to have a big gaping wound about gender and the worth of things feminine.

My church and immediate culture scraped my soul raw with toxic messages about gender and gender roles. I feel like I was hauled naked over gravel. As I pick out the rocks of hatred, lies and indifference, I uncover hidden wounds.

Even feather brushes against it hurt. If someone mentions that boys are X and girls are Y, I immediately freeze. I get a sick feeling in my stomach. All over again I experience the message “women are worthless”. Even if X and Y are eating patterns, I still experience it as a trigger.

In reading blogs like Womanist Musings, I saw the issue of racial sensitivity come up time after time. These women of non-white status were being ridiculed for being sensitive about racial comments. They have gaping wounds that, like mine, go back generation after generation. A comment that would seem a friendly slap on the back of a white person (in our white-supremacist society), was actually stinging open flesh that had been sandpapered off by a lifetime of small, “insignificant” comments.

Not coincidentally, all of the ridicule I observed came from white persons. Is this because they are racist? I wouldn’t say that, just that they failed to see how an open laceration experiences things differently than unmarred flesh.

That brings me to other groups that react strongly to seemingly benign or honest statements: the privileged.

A classmate of mine was seething with anger that his Somalian roomie was racist against white people. I tried to explain that the definition of racism is prejudice + power, so the guy wasn’t racist – just prejudiced – at least while they are both in Canada.

My classmate got very angry at that and complained that he was always being discriminated against because he is a white, middle class male (although beyond his roomie’s hateful comments he could think of no concrete example, just his fear that he would be).

His immediate anger reminded me of other men who react to the fact that we live in a society that privileges (certain types) of men over women. The most common one I encounter is “I’m not sexist! Its just that women aren’t as ___ as men are!” Some people’s anger is truly frightening.

Now, why would a group that isn’t being put down because of their gender/body type/age/race and so on, react when this is pointed out? Why do they react as if it were threatening their very life?

I can understand when a Metis woman accused me of hating First Nations people on the basis that my skin was white. She didn’t even know my name. I assume she had been treated poorly so many times that my light skin was a trigger for her defenses. I can understand that.

I don’t understand why some men are so threatened by the realization that women are just as human as they are, that one cut off the nose of his teenage wife when she tried to get him to stop beating her. (National Geographic, Dec 2010)

Unless, he has convinced himself that her personhood really is a threat to him.

The same way that certain fundy evangelicals, JW’s and Hutterites convince themselves that the world is out to get them. That everything that doesn’t support their belief system is a direct and hostile personal attack.

How else could a person react to a kind and sincere “Happy Holidays” with outrage. What else could cause them to scream back to the person wishing them well that “Its Merry CHRISTmas and how dare you ignore the reason for the season! Christ hater!” (Yes, this is extreme, but yes, it happens.)

Some reactions I understand. Touching an open wound of abuse will get a painful reaction, even if the touch is meant as friendly or neutral.

Some reactions make me angry back.

I hope to be more patient with those people who react strongly to certain triggers and not to minimize the pain they feel, even if on the surface it appears oversensitive. Even if that person is myself.

Faith Healings

Sometimes I miss faith healings.

I don’t miss watching them and seeing the hope and despair of individuals as they cry out for healing.  I don’t miss the shame and discouragement of those who didn’t get what they wanted. 

But I do miss the possibility of miracles unexpected. 

I never liked ‘healing services’ where people had to walk up long isles and have small groups of men ask their deep problems and pray loudly for them in front of the whole service.  Not at all.

I don’t miss travelling to churches overseas and being swarmed by locals asking to recieve healing.  It is heartbreaking to see people starved and overworked looking for salvation where it doesn’t exist.  I, having studied nutrition, wanted to talk to them about their diets and water supply, not sprinkle oil on their heads.  Dealing with parasites and sanitation seemed to be a better use of time.  They wanted none of that, just a miracle, like Jesus.

But they did get some miracles.  I’ve seen them.  I have seen paraplegics walk.  I’ve seen crippled arms grow. 

I do miss small encounters, quiet and unexpected.

As I and a few other friends were touching a woman with a bad back, she felt shoots of hot air and her back straightened- completely better.  I knew her and could tell she was not putting on a show.  No one would perform heavy labour with a crooked back for weeks so in a quiet prayer meeting she could pretend a miracle.

I do not know what caused those things.  Placebo effect?  Certainly part of it.  Is it worth dangling a carrot in front of so many that only a few can access? 

I don’t know.  There are people who seem to have healing gifts, like those who have psychic gifts.  The skeptic community often derrides these topics as irrational. 

I think there is something to them.  I have no explanation, but I cannot dismiss what I’ve seen as lightly as mass hallucinations.

I don’t think a bearded sky god is the cause.  I can’t even concieve of a diety that makes sense to me.

It seems like the athiest/agnostic community has no place for this type of discussion.  Certain New Agers and Christian groups do have a revered spot, but the attempted explanations are anywhere from laughable to dangerous.

Maybe there are more people who are willing to talk about it without pure mockery, but maybe they are shy.  Or maybe people just hear about such things and have never experienced them.

Another prejudice challenged

 I always assumed that people who were ‘swingers’ were in a bad relationship or sexually perverted or had serious psychological problems like untreated bipolar disorder. 

Then I found out that a friend is polyamorous.  And this is a person that I feel safe enough to let  watch my kids.

Ironically, I have a very sweet relative who adores small babies and animals that I do not feel safe to leave my kids with for an extended period of time.  More for her sake than for the kids, perhaps. 

 

So now I have to deal with having a polyamorous friend that I look up to.

I currently have two theories about polyamory.

One is that it is a symptom of our society which is obsessed with infatuation, romance and continual dopamine highs, and which devalues steady deep friendships.

(I’ve been reading 18th century literature, I think its influencing my writing

Mary Wollstonecraft vigorously argues that by training women to see romance as their only occupation in life, that society creates a league of adulteresses.  According to her, these women were taught that romance was a high ambition.  After marriage settled down the passion, only mystery and intrigue could keep the husband interested.  So, the wife flirted to make him jealous.  This is sort of like bringing in a third party to a intimate relationship.  Of course, it doesn’t fit the definition of polyamorous in which all parties must give enthusiastic consent.

I read a biography of an American woman who married into an elite Mexican family.  They all lived under the same roof.  When the marriage of her husband’s brother and his wife grew cool, the American felt that friendship and talking about it would resolve the issue. 

The mother-in-law scorned the thought of spouses being friends.  The mother-in-law’s solution was to slip one of her gloves into her son’s room.  His wife found a strange feminine glove with her husband’s things and flew into a jealous rage.  She went back home to her family and her husband had to woo her again.  Passions were revived.

With such an expectation for married love, I can understand that bringing another party in could ‘spice things up’.  In the movie 1940 ”Too Many Husbands”, the wife is ignored by her husband until her previous husband, thought dead, turns up.  She loves the attention that she gets as they fight over her. 

There is another film, The Freebie, http://www.calgaryfilm.com/2010/schedule/film/452/ I heard about on the radio recently about a couple who can’t remember the last time they had sex.  So they decide to go out and have sex with other people.  I don’t know how it ends.

Ok.  That all sounds very sad to me.  It is placing the dopamine rush of new romance at a revered level.  I don’t think that is healthy, and can just lead to going from person to person in search of ‘happily ever after’. 

An unmarried friend of mine thinks marriage is endless romance.  She is in for a surprise!  How will she deal with flatulence and conflict when she is expecting flowers and candles?   Will she get bored too?

But, my non-monogamous friend tells me, she isn’t bored with her partner.  She just finds polyamory fun.  And says it has brought her closer to her partner.   And helped her grow as a person.

I’m guessing that she could have experienced this same growth doing any challenging activity with her partner.  Like mountain climbing or swimming with sharks. 

That is my second theory: it is a comfort-stretching activity.  

So, maybe there are many reasons for polyamory.  And maybe I was wrong.