Probing Poly Questions

I got this email today. Now, in the past I have only published letters from people who wrote to me knowing I was Mistress Matisse, and knowing that I sometimes conduct public spankings of the unwary. But I just couldn’t pass this up. I doubt very much that the sender will ever see it, but that's no reason I shouldn't entertain you with it.

Backstory: Because I have interests and hobbies other than kink, I do have profiles and carry on conversations on various social-networking-type websites. Not kinky ones, very PG-13 sorts of places. In those settings, I definitely do not identify myself as Matisse, and I don’t usually say much about BDSM at all. However, I do usually mention that I’m polyamorous and I have two partners. I’ve had some good conversations with people about it, and offered the sincerely interested folks various resources – books, websites, or this cute little video Minx put together.

Sometimes, though, I get messages from people who have a whole other agenda. Witness this note from a total stranger.

I am writing to ask you something that your profile begs me to ask.1 (I am a curious people person who has nack2 at seeing what the words say even when they don't say it.)3

Why are you so afraid of being alone with yourself?4

Now I really don't expect an answer but if you feel like answering it would help me understand someone in my life who is very much like you 5 and has the same problem.6 She also won't answer the question…7

There’s a certain variety of guy who likes to abruptly engage with women he doesn’t know and throw down a challenge to them, designed to clearly display his stunning insight into the deepest corners of their psyche. “Why, this man has seen past my cleverly-constructed facade,” we will think. “No one has ever truly done so before. He must be someone very special. Nay, he must, in fact, be The Man I Have Been Waiting For.” And then the music swells, and we throw ourselves into his arms.

Yeah, only – not. Not ever, not a chance, not in this lifetime or any other. Just not. Let me break this down for you, Dr. Phil.

1. No, my profile doesn’t beg you for anything. But if it did, it would be begging you to click on the X in the little square at the top right of the page. That’s what it would beg for.

2. I see that you don’t have a “nack” for spelling. Or a knack. Or Spell-check, apparently.

3. I am horrified by this reiterated notion of you reading things in my profile that I didn't actually write. Let me just be very clear here: it does NOT say, “Please come stalk me, murder me, and consume my liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti, so that we can truly be one forever.” That’s not the kind of “people person” I am.

4. Okay, now I am making some logical leaps here. Why should he get to be the only one who reads words that aren't there? I’m assuming that to this guy, saying “I’m polyamorous” means “I’m filling my life with random sex with lots of strange men that I care nothing about, in order to dull some inner anguish and patch over a deep, deep emptiness in my soul.”

   I can understand why he thinks that, given his talent for creative re-interpretation. ( I wonder if he sees pictures that aren’t there, too? ) What I don’t understand is why he seems to be objecting to this, given that he is a man cruising strange women’s profiles on social sites. One would think such men would be supportive of that kind of behavior. I looked at the photo on this man’s profile, and believe me, he is definitely someone who should encourage low sexual standards in women.

   Given that he's objecting, I’m puzzled, too, as to why he used the phrase “being alone with yourself?” The usual line in this kind of come-on is “Why are you afraid of trooooo intimacy?” True intimacy being defined as monogamy, probably with them. So he gets points deduced for that little slip.

5. I really doubt you have anyone in your life who is very much like me. Unless she just hasn’t gotten the restraining order yet.

6. Problem? The only problem I have I silly people saying silly things to me, and actually, that’s not a problem at all. I just convert them into cannon fodder.

7. Nope, I’m not answering you, either. Just consider your point made, my friend, and leave me all alone with myself. Please.