midoriw:

I’m an ambigamist not just about embracing a partner but every aspect of life. I watch myself and everyone I know wrestle with the tension between open and closed, romance and skepticism, faith and reason, confidence and doubt, tenderness and protectiveness, hope and fear, transcendence and realism, generosity and caution, friendship and business. 

I don’t see any way out of it.  I think this kind of tension is the truest fundamental, a fundamental that, alas, isn’t a groove you can slide and cozy your way into, but a groove that’s a rickety rope bridge we weave as we walk it. 

How can it not be? Ours is to enjoy life with death in full view.

Lately I’ve noticed that there are really two types of ambigamists and that I much prefer the company of one of them—the ironic ambigamist—so much so that I’ll describe the other as bipolar.

Both ironic and bipolar ambigamists oscillate between open and closed, romance and skepticism. But ironic ambigamists never forget that the tension between those two is the truest fundamental. No matter how open or closed they feel in any moment they know and embrace the opposite condition.  They own both their openness and closed-ness, even while they’re feeling more one way than the other. 

For ironic ambigamists, the dream partner is someone with whom they can merge their ambivalence. Their partnership is one in which each partner winkingly recognizes that the other is an appropriately skeptical individual, even while both parties do what they can to keep the romance or, at minimum the appearance of safe, certain, romance strong and alive.  They joke about life on that edge between being one thing and two, a couple and individuals.  They give each other room to breath and forgive each other the disconnects when one is closed and the other is open.  In other words they respect the inescapable give and take of partnership.

In contrast, bipolar ambigamists, when feeling open can’t remember feeling closed, and when feeling closed, can’t remember feeling open. So yes they oscillate like any ambigamist, but no, they don’t take responsibility for it. If you’re feeling romantic, and they happen to be feeling closed, they assume the disconnect must be your fault. If they’re in a romantic mood and you’re feeling closed, again it’s you’re problem.

Bipolar ambigamists are conflicted. They just don’t know it.  Maybe they don’t want to know it.  They haven’t yet reconciled themselves to the fact that they might want conflicting things. Yes, they know that other people “flip-flop” but certainly not them.  In order to maintain their own sense of upright consistency, whenever they change their minds they have to turn you and the world upside down.

I’m definitely the bipolar type (though self-aware and working to change that!). I harp on consistency so hard that I sometimes forget I’m one of the most inconsistent people I know, and when inconsistency is undeniable I often seek an external explanation. Again, though, the first step is admitting you have a problem…