Sometimes I'm convinced I'll never wrap my head around this shit...

I do not have a handle on touch, nor on my own somewhat convoluted conceptions of what tactility means in relation to other human beings: what, in actuality, does it mean to have physical contact with someone, and in which ways is it most beneficial? In which contexts are we most prone to interpret touch, to seek it out, or to repel it? Perhaps I'm too apt to equate touch, sensation & its nuance with feeling, where feeling, in general, should be taken to mean 'emotion', and emotion in relation to specificity of relation.

My current partner is polyamorous, which is to say that he believes that he is capable (and probably truly is) of having strong feelings (even of loving), and good relationships with more than one person at a time; that dating and caring for multiple others provides a myriad of needs & wants from each of them is perfectly natural, organic & necessary to his emotional well-being.

I, of course, was raised Catholic-not that that has any true bearing on my relationship values whatsoever-in a household where monogamy & the trust, loyalty & 'true' love that supposedly go with it are paramount. It has never been disputed that monogamy is the only way to love, or to share a life; that monogamy is the only way in which touch should occur, that two people should physically express themselves. These things are simply understood, & have colored the way I've thought about how to love, & whom, & when, for a very, very long time.

And herein lies a new dilemma: via the conduit of one's tactile sensitivity, the ways in which it meshes with one's perspective & perception, how does one include more than one total-body stimulus, as it were?

I adore my partner. He's loud, brash, a little crazy; he smells of dirt & green willow & lavender & boy; his mouth tastes like glacier water & anise. But we are not 'together'. We may work together. We may finish each other's sentences, or speak simultaneously, or like the same books, music, movies, and foods. But we are not a unit in that conventional, constrictive way. These cliches that sound to others like romantic paradise are only indicators of this relationship's execution, not its backbone. Not its joints or ribs-its function; not its heart.

I love touching this man, love the absolute sensation of being around him. We're similar enough to make sense to one another (not wholly of course-that would be boring); we're different enough, I hope, to remain exciting. And yet today I found myself getting ready to take a walk on the beach with someone else; some other man. Someone else whose smells & tastes & textures are, while not anathema, certainly perpendicular to my partner's; we walked for an hour. We talked about things I don't talk about with my partner: SCUBA diving, business ventures, the merits of small towns. The pull was not an electric one. This man tastes of cider & salt & citrus. This man does not know about my partner.

I cannot choose. Which is to say, I cannot choose which half of myself to listen to: the one that is governed by a need for interesting, surprising & varied sensation, or the one that loves nothing more than to search for the subtleties of a constant pressure: one partner, or more than one? One source of touch & tactile satisfaction, or the other? Does there have to BE an other?

And these are the questions that lead to the bigger ones: about the feel of singularity, about what it means to 'date' and to be in relationships. About how those lead to consistency, in feeling, in the faces & bodies we see & touch, about what we hear & taste & smell from choice, from a strange chemical compatibility perhaps. About how those in turn lead to comfort, which leads to habit, which leads to permanence.

About how I wonder as I struggle with the words "right", & "love" & "choice" if what I've really been doing is running, & why, & what from...