Who Do You Love MORE?

There is an absolute plague of supposedly just-for-fun apps on Facebook purporting to tell you things like who your soulmate is, who your eleven most important friends are, what your greatest flaw is, who plays what role in your 'gang'...silly little things. You click on them, they say something like "analyzing profile....calculating results" to make it look like analyzing and calculating is going on...and then they present you with an answer in the form of either the person who 'likes' things in your feed most often, or someone chosen at random. Retests usually prove one or the other.
They're silly, they're fun (sometimes)...and I usually don't post their results, because those results are often...awkward. Sometimes hilariously so, sometimes just...awkward. One of my cousins used to like and comment on practically everything I'd put on my timeline, so for a while she was my "next great love" and "the other half of my heart". Cassidy, I love you, but I'm not your Kenny.

And "eleven best friends"? Now, I have more, and better, friends than I ever would have imagined years ago. But I've never, ever, ranked them.

The idea of ranking a friendship, or a love, has always struck me as offensive. "Who do you love MORE?" It's another question you get from confused monogamous people who think if you have more than one love in your life, you must have them arranged hierarchically and some of them must mean less.

No. There is no "more" and no "less".

Kimchi Cuddles is a cartoonist I've showcased here before. She can get a bit lecture-y, but her heart is in the right places. Her most recent effort does a nice succinct job of explaining how I love.

Big deal, you're thinking. That's just another way of ranking: some people in the inner circle, some in the outer, most people not in any of the circles.  Smartass.

Let's note some things. 

One, there are people, plural, at Kimchi's centre. There are at mine as well. 

This is probably the hardest thing for mono people to understand. I'm told I can't possibly be committed to any 'extraneous' people. This is easy to refute: are you committed to more than one friendship? Yes? So am I.

So why not just call them 'friends', then?

Because they're more than that. I have three people I call 'loves'. Not to their face (and sorry for the confusion here)--"love" as a term of endearment is always and forever reserved for Eva and I. I will hastily correct anyone else using that term on me, and will never use it on anyone else.  But there are other terms of endearment, and each one kindles a different warm glow in my heart. Besides "love" from Eva--(I only get 'Ken' from her when I'm in trouble), I get called 'Ken-Ken' on occasion by one of my loves and 'big guy' by the other. 

I call them loves because they're not lovers. Well, by my lights they are, but that's because I insist on using a strictly literal interpretation of "lover" that NOBODY ELSE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD USES. A "lover", as far as I am concerned, is "one who loves", in ther same way that a runner is one who runs and a hammer is something that hams. But since that is SO easily misconstrued, I'll settle for "loves". 

I think there's been maybe three months in my entire life when there's only been one love. Sometimes zero, but when there's one, others follow in short order.

Two, THEY PLACE THEMSELVES THERE. I don't. 

They do this of their own volition, through their own actions. Some people have moved to the center of my life, and some have moved outwards; a couple have moved out so far I no longer have contact with them (I still love them, mind). 

That drifting in and (well, no, just) out is hard on me, I won't lie. But it's probably the most critical part of love as I believe in it. Love is freedom, not possessiveness. I have no claims on any of my loves. 

That's another thing that's hard for your average monogamist to understand. How can I not have a claim on Eva, for instance? She's my beloved wife of sixteen years next month.  Yes, she is, and I am just as surely her beloved husband. That's precisely why I don't have a claim on her. To me, a claim is an obligation, beset with expectation. Our love for each other is freely exchanged, no obligations involved. It is, in other words, an act of continuing choice.

This, of course, does NOT mean I'm free to act in any old harmful way I choose, to Eva or anyone else. Well, I suppose I am, but that would mean shoving myself forcefully out from her centre, and that's something I can't imagine doing. 

Ditto the other people whose centre I occupy or will occupy in the future.

Three, the people in, say, that second circle are no less important than the ones at the centre. Nor are the people in the outer ring. 

I have lots of people in that outer ring. I may hardly ever see them. I can think of several I've met once or twice.. Those people will still get heartfelt "I-love-yous" from me, and my love for them is just as deep while I'm in their presence, real or virtual. There's actually someone I've never met and almost certainly never will whom I love dearly and deeply.) It's just that I'm not in their presence, real or virtual, very often. 

EACH RELATIONSHIP SEEKS AND FINDS ITS OWN LEVEL. 

Now, since apparently I write about sex all the time, I'll confront that here.

You simply CAN NOT correlate my level of sexual desire for any given person on their closeness to the centre. Don't bother trying. There are people towards my center for whom I have very little physical desire. Doesn't lessen my love for them one bit. There are outer-ring people I wish I could spend a night or a weekend with. (Here's where I reiterate, to save you that "is he talking about me" alarm: if you're are in a COMMITTED, MONOGAMOUS relationship...wishing is as far as he gets.) 

Who do I love more? Nobody. I love all of you, as fully and completely as I can and you'll allow, while I'm with you.