Someone for Everyone

guest article by Katie (a self-described singleton)

Multiples are often very charismatic people, and may attract a lot of potential partners. Multiples often have great humor, braininess, exceptional social skills, many diverse abilities, sometimes a certain electricity, and almost always a multi-faceted way of being! The experiences I describe below tell more about split multiples than kinhost, so I hope some kind editor will do their job if this is the wrong arena ... it's just that the phrase had a question mark, and the TOC asked for additions....

I'm a singleton (to the best of my knowledge) who has spent most of the last 15 years with multiples either as good friends or as partners. I've had rocky and confusing, clear and happy, worried and secure, comfortable and at-home phases of both my platonic and romantic relationships.

I still occasionally spend time wondering if the reason I'm attracted to multiples is because I am one, but it doesn't seem too likely anymore, and it's mostly something I don't think about much now. Some people like redheads, some people like scientists, I like multiples. Go figure.

3 of the 4 of the multiples I've spent years with have people within them from abuse, and from permanent or temporary residents. My own co-dependency has greatly determined how these relationships worked.

My first multiple partner was the only person in their system who didn't know there were others. She and I found that out together in one very, very harsh Hallow**n eve. I didn't realize that I had greatly fallen in love with the inside protector I had unwittingly spotted, and that I partly was looking for a protector of my own. I hated admitting that I still wanted rescue from my own past abuse, and the tall, rough, rangy cowgirl in them fit the bill for me. I struggled with them wanting other lovers and my wanting them to join me in my sobriety. Our time ended abruptly when I oh-so-clichely discovered them being sexual with my best friend. Losing all 7 who had become my family and friends hurt horribly.

A good friend in recovery, in a system where lots of people jointly sought to be clean and sober, was the next multiple I spent lots of time with. I spent time with only one of them, the front person for the recovery crew, and heard a lot about what was going on with others. I loved how well that system had healed to date and took care of its kids and teens, and I valued their experience in getting and staying clean and sober. I had a problem with how clear they were about my continuous co-dependency and how strongly they encouraged me to become healthy in that portion of my life. I drifted away from them because I felt I didn't measure up.

My next multiple friend was kind of an obverse of my first multiple partner: they were so frail and tragic, and I just wanted to mother them. We quickly fell into a relationship that fluctuated between play and silliness and 2 am danger-calls from the ER or a skanky diner in the next state. Then I acquired a new, singleton partner and my friend admitted that they had wanted that role. Two years of trying to establish boundaries with them that I'd never bothered with to begin with, and trying to stay ... a friend but with some reasonable distance was something I never got the hang of. I felt they grew more and more clingy and more and more self-inuring, and it took a long time for me to decide I had to break off all relations with them. I still miss them.

On about the third day I spent with my current love, I said "can I ask you a personal question?" She said, "sure," and I asked "who else lives in there?" The introduction process began. On the how-far-healed they are spectrum, they're probably closer to my first friend but far more healed and settled and stable than my first lover or my second friend who are multiple. The person I spend the most time with in their system, outside of the host, is their walk-in. I know that he is part of why they and I click so well. It seems that lots of their figuring stuff out on the inside is part of what helps them and me figure stuff out on the outside - we all keep an eye out for our tendency to blur from closeness to meldedness, and can be refreshingly (for me) clear about it happening and undo it. I'm so grateful the universe brought them to me, and happy to finally be comfortable, my own self, and in good balance.

So ... be you a multiple or a singleton, there *is* someone for everyone.

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