Jenny Block, open marriage and me

Posted by steve on April 9, 2008 |

Oh, the magic & wonder that is the blogosphere-rama. The last post on my evolving view on love & relationship, seemed to have caught a few unusual eyes. One of which is Jenny Block, an author who lives in an open-marriage lifestyle and is writing a new book.

I found her article on the beginning of her open marriage fascinating:

Portrait of an Open Marriage

You can also find her blog here at My Open Book, she has posted the first chapter of her upcoming book on the website. I’ll find sometime to read it in the next few days, maybe.

Although, there are some things I should clear up. Usually any information, discussion on open marriage and/or open relationships comes from the perspective of a participant. I think the media portrayal of these people is more or less connected to what people think of college frat parties. A bunch of horny, young folks under heavy influence of various chemicals, doing, well… you know the rest.

The reality of me:

• I am not an extremely handsome guy, average at best. Which also means I’m not picking up women at different bars daily and engaging in all sorts of fun activities.
• I am introverted, shy to strangers, and generally don’t enjoy being in huge crowds.
• I am extremely picky in my relationships with others (not just in a love sorta way, I’m even picky about everyday friendship). I have “years” of gaps between intimate relationships.
• As a result of the shyness mentioned above, no, I haven’t dated very much.
• “Haven’t dated very much” is probably an overstatement.
• Oh yeah, lastly, I give off that “a girl’s best friend” vibe, which means for the most part, women cry on my shoulder when their terrible boyfriend had just done something horrible to them. I’m almost always on the side of, “Too bad nothing can ever happen between us, because we’re just such good friends!”

So as you can see, I certainly don’t fit into the media stereotype of a “open-relationship” participant. However, I don’t have to fit that stereotype to consider the evolution of relationships in society. I also think that even if your next-door, all-American-from-the-60’s-sitcom neighbor was in an open-marriage of some sort, you might not ever realize it. Unless you have some voyeuristic habit of your own. (TMI?)

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