Can People Be Monogamous?
Yes!
The whole mind set of people today is one of perpetual instant gratification. Nothing in life worth experiencing or being a part of has ever come instantly or easily. When you place so little value on what you share intimately with another person that you can’t see your way clear to putting forth the energy required to make it through the rough times then the only person you are cheating is yourself. This in no way means that you should be with someone that isn’t willing to put forth as much effort as you are. I do think people jump into monogamous relationships before they really know each other. Before they know whether the one they love is willing to work as hard as they are.
I’ve heard people say things like, “When you love someone it shouldn’t be hard.” The truth is that life is hard. We all deal with hard times and rough things whether we are with a significant other or not. When you love someone else you can not forget that they are just as prone to life’s dark times as you are. You can not make assumptions based on a single response to some suggestion on any particular day. What if they were having a bad day? Wouldn’t you want some consideration if the bad day were yours to deal with?
This is not meant to suggest that each of us is not capable of loving more than one person at the same time. I too have loved more than one person at the same time. What I often wonder about that situation was also echoed by Dan Savage in one of his speeches on You Tube (see below). How can you expect to find a deep, meaningful connection and experience it to it’s fullest if the energy you are willing to give is divided over several people? Truthfully I don’t see how. I mean honestly it’s already been proven through scientific research that even though we all *think* we are good at multitasking we actually aren’t. In fact the study showed that we are all quite bad at it. When you try to apply multitasking to your intimate relationships how much better do you think you might fair with something so complex?
My point here is this you can be devoted to a single lover, you have only to decide that is what you want. It’s much like the same kind of decision a drug addict must make in order to break the bonds of dependency. If you harbor so much as one excuse for why it’s impossible it always will be. But the minute you toss those excuses in the scrap heap and refuse to pick them back up the next time you feel like things with your lover aren’t happening as instantly as you’d have them, you’ll find that it really is no harder to be monogamous than it is to be non-monogamous.
