The End Goal Is That We Are Happy

“We’ve been dating for about a year now,” my friend said apologetically.  “She’s really good for me emotionally – I trust her implicitly.  I love the life I’m living with her.  But,” he confided, dropping his voice low, “She’s not polyamorous.  So I’m monogamous now.  But she makes me happy…”
“Stop,” I said.  “Isn’t that the end goal?”
Which, as far as I’m concerned, it is.  But there’s a lot of people who seem to feel that finding happiness isn’t the end goal, dating the proper way is.  So if you’re a lesbian who falls in love with a man, you’ve somehow betrayed the cause.  If you’re a bisexual who gets married in a monogamous relationship, you’ve depleted the pool of one (1) bisexual.  Or if you’re a polyamorous person who falls for someone who is unabashedly and incontrovertibly monogamous, settling down is a violation of the polyamory contract you signed when you became an ethical slut.
So there are these embarrassed conversations, explaining that yes, maybe you’re not part of The Crew any more, but you’re actually okay with that – no, more than okay.  Turns out that thanks to the magic of chemistry, with this one person, an issue that seemed so huge actually becomes minor.  Because when you click on that many levels, some mighty large issues get cut to size.
I mean, I’ve heard the tales of people losing friends over finding a partner who’s at odds with their social group’s paradigms – the gay man who falls in love with a woman and sheds all of his buddies by accident.  But why?  Was the whole of what held you together your shared sexual preferences?  Are you telling me that if someone turns out to be slightly different from what you’d thought they were, you need to berate them, question them, step away?
Is your friendship so shallow that a single definition is the only thing that can bind you?
Fuck that, say I.  Happiness is mighty thin on the ground.  Hardly anyone finds it, and if you’re truly happy then I’m gonna be happy for you.  Maybe it won’t last forever; to quote Detective Gaff, “It’s too bad she won’t live! But then again, who does?”  And maybe you’re different from me, maybe you’re different from what I thought you were, but I’d like to think that my definitions of friendship can include people of different sexualities, different colors, and – most importantly – of evolving choices in their lives.
So hey.  I’m polyamorous.  If you go monogamous, I’m still going to support you.  Because that’s what friends do.