It happens more often that you would think. I am having a conversation with someone and we end up talking about polyamory as it is a subject that makes people curious and inquisitive. And we get to a lovely point in the conversation where they ask who is more important in my life. And then I tell them that it is very difficult to answer that question and not something I am terribly interested in answering in the first place. And then they conclude: “Surely your husband MUST be more important than any other partner”.
And I want to start by thanking you for making decisions for me. Not just any decisions, but emotional ones. Now all sarcasm aside, I will have to write a larger article about our tendency to dismiss other people’s feelings and assume we know better what they must be feeling. But until I get to write it, I will say that we all do it. We all have moments where, instead of listening and believing, our knee jerk reaction is to assume we know better. Only we cannot possibly ever know what is in the heart of another person.
As far as hierarchies go, it is not really a subject I want approached in my relationships. I think of it as falling off the bandwagon. I do not want to think of anyone as more or less important to me, as I would not want my partners to think in those terms about me. Not only that, but I am highly aware that our feelings can be swayed and modified in time. They change with the day, the mood, the interaction. If you really need to know, then you can think of it this way: whoever I am spending time with right now is the most important person to me in that moment.
“Yeah, but you chose to marry your husband because he is special and your relationship is special”. Actually, I chose to marry my husband because it was important to him and a ring on my finger has become a constant reminder of what we have and I am extremely grateful for that. Just as I chose to be collared by my lover, because that was important to both of us and the collar around my neck is a constant reminder of what we have and what I can be extremely grateful for. And if I were to find someone else who is special to me, I would probably add to my collection of bodily decorations to celebrate that. Because, honestly, I am a sucker for letting people know that they are special in my life.
And if you are really, really dying to know who is the most important in my life, then know that it is one of my cats. The sociable one that comes around for me to pet it, even after I have groomed it (which he hates). So there, if I were to pick one and just one, I would pick my asshole cat, because even if he pokes holes in my favourite clothes and tried to steal the pizza right out of my hand, he is never concerned with who is more important in his life. He already has an answer for that: himself!
P.S. Now you can go back to enjoying the picture of the most important being in my life, being lovingly tortured by am impromptu hair style makeover. Bwahahaha!