[UUPoly-L] I'm new

["Jenni Gaffney" <jennimac1974@gmail.com>]

Hi,

I'm new. I got connected to this list through the polyamory booth at GA in
Portland last week, and the people at the booth who talked to me. I don't
know whether my situation is too far from anyone else's to be worth
discussing, but I have been looking for people to talk to for awhile.

I'm not planning on having sex with anyone but my husband, and I am happy
with our relationship and marriage and sex life. But I realize I do love
someone else. It's kind of confusing to me, because... well, let me just
start by explaining: The internet has really changed the way relationships
and friendships can affect a person and yet keep any secrets. And this is
even more true when you are role playing. I play a lot of World of Warcraft
and have really enjoyed the role playing servers lately. As a female who
plays a "fight the monsters" type game, there are many boys/men who are very
interested in me once they find out I really am a girl. They range from good
friends, to brother figures, to people I flirt with in a casual way, to
people who want to run away with me. I tell them all that I am happily
married and that I am not looking for another boyfriend or anything. But i
really do like to flirt, and I really like to role play.

Anyway, this one guy and I really hit it off both in character (meaning the
characters we were playing got along well) and out of character (meaning
when we talk about the real me and the real him we also get along). Our
characters "fell in love" quite quickly and got "married" in front of
friends on the server. I realize that I think about him a lot. His character
is quite similar to the real him and my character is pretty similar to the
real me too. So it's a little scary that I feel so loved and so much love. I
try to explain to myself that it is not very different from being in love
with a character in a movie or a TV show or a book. But it is a little
different because there is a real person on the other side who is reacting
to me and who I react to in real time. So then I tell myself it is like an
"actor's crush" where we are both acting in a play or something and the
characters are in love and I get swept up in it and feel like I have a crush
on the actor when it is mostly that my character is in love with his
character. This is closer to the truth, except that in a play we don't get
to choose what we do and say, the writer and director decide for us, and
while role playing, we decide what to do and say.

Anyway, neither my husband nor I feel comfortable at this point sharing
sexual relations with anyone else and neither of us can imagine that ever
happening. I'm not trying to become truly polyamorous, though I do strongly
believe that what consenting adults agree to is fine and nobody else's
business. There has been some "internet sex" where the two of us describe
what our characters would be doing with each other if they were really
together, but I decided to get "cursed" so that we couldn't do that anymore
because my husband was uncomfortable with it.

This guy can express his character's love for mine in a way I've always
wanted from a boyfriend or husband, and I love living vicariously through my
character. But I don't want it to put too much strain on my already
wonderful marriage.

So, if anyone wants to talk, or to listen, maybe we can exchange email
addresses and talk more privately. I've been browsing all the talk about
definitions and stuff, and I probably don't fit under any of those
definitions except that, well, when it comes to emotional loves, I do have
more than one.

Thank you for reading this, and any of you who want to talk with me about it
all as I try to figure out what is best for all of us involved.