Another short blurb about jealousy— Right now I have no romantic attachments, but find that the same concepts used in poly, apply to platonic friendships.

And at least when it concerns to me, close platonic friendships and romantic attachments are something my brain interprets pretty much the same way in terms of closeness. It’s the same level of emotional attachment.

Platonic friendships just jump all the way to that more permanent attachment, skipping over the fuzziness and the butterflies in the stomach and all that not so very fun stuff and those pair-bonding yearnings.

I can be in love with someone and not be sexually attracted to them (my last girlfriend). I can be sexually attracted to someone, love them as much as my primary, and not be in love with them (close friends I sleep with).

The concept of having an anchor is key. Support without exclusivity. Basically, “…someone who [is] there for me emotionally and who [understands] me on most levels, and whom I [understand] and [support] as well. The nature of the relationship is less important than that one aspect: needing to be understood.”

That’s pretty much my relationship with K.

It hit me just today how ridiculously functional my relationship with her is. I’ve known her all my life, and she’s somehow still a part of it, even when all other attachments unravel into chaos, and even if we’re countries and day-today-lives away.

Our jealousy is very minimal, driven instead by a sense of compersion. That is to say, “…a state of empathetic happiness and joy experienced when an individual’s current or former romantic partner experiences happiness of joy through an outside source, including but not limited to, another romantic interest.”

I think it has to do with personality type and the strength of the foundation our friendship has.

Personality type, because we’re both very independent, making codependency not an issue.

We’re partners in crime, we’re anchors, we’re primaries. We’ll check in with each other from time to time, but there’s no need to smother, because we’ve known each other for so long.

Whenever there’s someone new in her life, I don’t really feel threatened. I’m sure of my place, and the uniqueness in our interactions. It’s not a matter of how ‘special’ the interaction is (though the childish initial feeling is always that), but rather a certainty that we fulfill a very specific role that no one can very well threaten and take over.

Basically, we fulfill each other’s emotional needs.

Yes, people change and so do their needs, but we’re so generally loose about it, that it doesn’t really feel like a threat.

Of course, once she gets a boyfriend, I’ll grow jealous, and he’ll have to go through the test of fire, the same way any guy I’m involved with has to get her seal of approval, but compersion is the basis of our friendship. We want the other to grow and explore.

And so, a good way to counter jealousy, is to really work on the foundation from the beginning. If the foundation is strong enough, jealousy is kept at a minimum. Once you have compersion going on, rather than jealousy fueled by insecurities over abandonment issues, you know you’re in a pretty damn good place to be.