{"id":55191,"date":"2012-03-31T15:00:40","date_gmt":"2012-03-31T19:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=55191"},"modified":"2012-04-01T13:28:35","modified_gmt":"2012-04-01T17:28:35","slug":"a-steady-diet-of-nre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/polyamory\/a-steady-diet-of-nre\/","title":{"rendered":"A Steady Diet of NRE"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Maria Padhila<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I need to drop 10 pounds. Could I just fall in love, please?<\/p>\n

You know you\u2019ve thought that once or twice. New love — new relationship energy, as many both in and out of polyamory call it — is one fine drug. It takes the place of food and sleep (and common sense).<\/p>\n

\"Poly
Poly Paradise at Burning Man. Photo by Eric.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A speaker at the Loving More conference called it \u201cthe fuzzy pink stupids.\u201d You may choose between NRE and FPS, depending on your mood. NRE sounds like \u201cenergy,\u201d and FPS sounds like a curse. Actually, it might depend which side of the love you\u2019re on for the terms you choose. If you\u2019re in it or enjoying it, even the secondary side effects, it\u2019s energy. But if it\u2019s making your partner impossible to live with, then get out the F-word.<\/p>\n

Everything about the New Other is so fascinating and exciting. You want to know everything. That coffee cup they use! Their adorable slightly torn underwear! Their conflict with their fifth-grade teacher! You talk about these things for hours, if you can get hours. And then you go to your other partner, bubbling over with the conversations, and he or she looks at you like you\u2019ve lost your mind and says: \u201cMy goodness, I never knew until this very moment that you were even remotely interested in NASCAR.\u201d<\/p>\n

One way you know love is going beyond this stage is that the trivia of the Other still retains some of this glow. You still care. How you know it\u2019s not is that everything starts to annoy you. A man\u2019s snores are music one day; and then you can\u2019t even stand the way he breathes. Been there, but only once or twice. Most of the time, my infatuations transform into true love and reality, the kind that will last forever if no one tries hard to kill it.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I think my biggest ally in this has been relying strongly on my sense of smell. I\u2019m serious. If you want to find the one or more who is truly meant for you, trust pheromones. The first person who invents a scratch-and-sniff online dating site will have a 98 percent success rate for matches. I\u2019m sorry if I\u2019m creeping anyone out, but it works.<\/p>\n

(Reading this is going to make Isaac laugh. We are a family of amateur athletes, and we spend half our life cycling sweaty laundry and getting in and out of the shower; we have bumps and bruises and sprains and black toenails and ragged fingernails. I\u2019m known to run across the room screaming for him to stay away from me and holding my breath when he walks in after a run or a ride. The other day, we went with our daughter to a Bikram class and left a puddle behind us like the Dead Sea. A loved one can smell great while they\u2019re sweating through sex or even a day at the beach or a game or two of tennis. But after the five-mile point in serious biking or running, anyone, no matter how much you love them, will smell horrifying. You start burning off all the yucks — emotional and physical — and it\u2019s obvious. I can\u2019t even stand myself after three miles. But under more relaxed conditions, Isaac smells good for sure, like hay and a baby. Chris always smells good; his health conditions mean he has zero body fat, and I think all smells and toxins just go right through him. He smells like old books and iris root.)<\/p>\n

But this brings us back to weight loss. I\u2019m in a perfect storm of sloth conditions right now. Menopause has been symptomless (doctor says that\u2019s thanks to all my exercise) except that my weight is creeping up. Despite all my exercise. But I have to admit I have sacrificed at least 10 miles a week on the altar of polyamory. Another five miles has gone toward work. That leaves about 10 miles of actual running a week. And some of the time I\u2019m not running, I\u2019m making tasty things for Isaac and hanging out with him drinking all those fancy beers and wines we like. (Chris doesn\u2019t drink, and like me, he appreciates food, but if we eat what most people consider a normal amount, we just get sick.)<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not being a size-ist or food disordered here. Ten pounds for me is like 30 for someone else. I feel it in my back and when I run — it\u2019s not comfortable. I\u2019d like to throw down a reminder that the size thing works in reverse. Telling someone thin to ‘eat a sandwich’ is just as lame as telling someone of a different size not to eat one. Chris recently got a ticked-off email from a sort-of ex who \u201caccused\u201d me of being \u201canorexic.\u201d That\u2019s really not a term to throw around lightly, nor should it be used as an insult, in my opinion. I mean, would you say: ‘Oh, she\u2019s so annoying, I think she has rheumatoid arthritis, you know’?<\/p>\n

No, what\u2019s happening here is too much of the good things. When I stay up at night to get my work done, I find myself eating a handful of chips every hour to help stay awake. While they might be whole grain, organic and non-GMO, they are still made from a grain loaded with sugars and fried in oil. They are, if you think about it, just one step removed from doughnuts.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s sad when the perfectly fine foods that kept your ancestors going become like a poison to you, but it\u2019s happening to all of us in these days. Corn in itself is not so bad, but what\u2019s been done with it in the food factories it makes it a one-way trip to Type 2 diabetes. Palm oil is another one of those foods from another of my family trees that\u2019s actually good for you, but not in the way we usually encounter it stateside.<\/p>\n

So I am trying to change my habits to eat like my ancestors did — in style if not substance. Not that trendy Paleolithic diet. I mean that they ate simply, and usually not much, and not always with a lot of variety, most of the time. On the feast days and festivals and harvests they ate and drank a lot, and then went back to austerity for most of the time. I\u2019ll let you know how it works. (Or you can read about it in the Oprah magazine. The Pagan Tribal Peasant Diet.)<\/p>\n

New Relationship Energy works the same way. When I\u2019m feeling it, the pounds fall away, I can run for miles, and the poems come pouring out of my fingertips. When I\u2019m not in that state, it\u2019s a true temptation to seek it out. Its accessibility is somewhere between corn chips and crack, and the long-term damage it can cause likewise falls in between that caused by those other substances. Here are a few things I\u2019ve picked up and learned on my own about NRE:<\/p>\n