Before cooking the perfect relationship, don't you have to know what your favourite ingredients are first?

Wow, it has been A WHILE since I last wrote something on here, huh? Glad to see you guys are still checking it out every now and then!

Now, on to today's topic...

I've been carrying out an investigation on polyamorous relationships and I have found out some very interesting things... And, although I will not post them here until I am finished, I have come across some ideas that have definitely got me thinking.

When I was little, I, perhaps as many of us have, dreamt of a romantic disney-movie-like love story; of course, as I grew a bit older, it got a bit more explicit, no longer PG-13... But still with the same ending! A life with someone special I'd love more than anything in the world, both of us doing what we love and earning enough to have a place to live and enjoy our lives. Perhaps, some time later, we'd adopt a child and raise him or her into an amazing person... But, what happens when the fairy tale doesn't quite work out? Worse still... What happens when you realise that this fairy tale is not the ONLY possibility?

As I was interviewing one of the participants in the study I mentioned before, I realised that, very often, people like me just accept that we want this or that idea just because that's the way we have been taught all our lives... Like, how can you possibly consider that, say, chocochip cookies might not be your favourite flavour ever when it is the only thing you have eaten all your life?

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I want to rush into a non-traditional relationship just because I met a couple of people who have tasted other flavours in the fridge... But, rather, it has got me thinking about how judgmental we (and, by 'we', I mean 'I') can be. When I met one of the participants (about 7 years ago) and he told me of his relationship (where they are a couple who will, every now and then, have a third boyfriend they get emotionally involved with... or perhaps each of them might have a different boyfriend on the side as well), I was beyond shocked! How could that possibly be? Love is ONLY between two people who share absolutely EVERYTHING!! In fact, they are supposed to be SO "meant to be" that there is only ONE person in the WHOLE WORLD that is right! Oh, but that's fine, they'll break up and have so many issues they'll surely regret it! ... ... ... Or at least that's the way I thought before. Today, they have been together for 10+ years and are happy as can be, sharing a life and planning a future that fulfills them both.

Does this mean I want to do it too? Not really. To me this only means that having a relationship with someone is like cooking your favourite dish (not that I do it that often, but it's the first example I could think of... Perhaps I'm hungry?), someone gives you the recipe the first time but, when you taste it, it is rarely as good as you wish it were... At that point you have two options: you either stick to that recipe or take a chance and modify it. The latter will certainly disappoint you a few times, it might even make you sick or blow up your kitchen... But when you find it, the moment you know which ingredients make your favourite dish perfect... Well, I guess it's all worth it!

Is that the happy ending we were all hoping for? Perhaps... Of course, eating the same dish might get boring with time... And, when that happens, you just need to modify the recipe again!