I am a new to polyamory. This is an explanatory essay about why I am here.

I am trying to fit my round peg into the square hole of dating again. It is not easy. But I don't want to play games around this issue. I am lost without the anchor of a Love that transports me to place of ecstasy. But it is complicated. I am still married to a woman I love and respect and cannot just throw away. She happens to have fallen in love with a woman and I have lost part of her, perhaps for good. I am focusing on sharing her joy, not suffering my loss and am throwing myself into a quest for a new and exciting Lover, which quest she supports whole-heartedly. If this is uncomfortable for you and turns you off, then your hole is much too square for my round peg. If on the other hand, this encourages you, knowing that when I promise (as I did for my wife) I am yours for the next 50 years (when I was 47) I meant it and there are no exceptions. She would have to do something much worse than falling in love with someone else to lose me. If you can read this and know that love is much bigger than most people can understand, I am interested in you. If you think that a promise can't be broken without breaking a part of yourself, I am interested in you. If you think I'm crazy and that what I am doing is probably going to fail, probably foolish and can't be managed in the "real" world, well,... the line forms at the rear (and I'm in it). But like Don Quixote, I can't abstain from the battle.

On the other hand, if you want a strong, highly intelligent, left of center man with a multitude of talents, including a blinding passion for making music that, I promise you, will leave you transfixed and amazed. Who can write erotica poetry that will leave you breathless. Who would shrug at minor infractions like you flirting with another man (or woman) because he is completely confident in his own skin and is only comfortable with strong, passionate people. Who would respond to you honestly confessing that you had an affair last night with a very exciting man (or woman) by asking you for details (all the details you can remember :-) but who would drop dead on the spot rather than to have an "illicit" liaison with another man or woman behind your back*.

A man who would never, never, ever under any circumstances cheat on you (because in 40 years of relationships, I never have, period, except one time when I was 20, which I still regret, but damn it she deserved it, because I had learned of her third affair and I was pissed off, but I still feel guilty about it). Cheating, by the way is when one of you doesn't know about it -- like all dishonesty, it eats away at a relationship.

Love is a thing for me that is like a maelstrom sucking me down to the depths of passion or a tornado sucking me upwards into the heights of rapture. I still love, but I miss being sucked.

* A clarification: Unless, of course, I had your permission, which is a different story, but virtually never happens anyway, so is moot. On the other hand, I give you free rein to experience love you accidentally find, as long as you are honest with me about it. Is this clear? I said it was complicated, you were forewarned... Hell, you got to the end of this essay? I am already interested in you.