A
friend asked me a question the other day. She wanted to know how in the
world it was possible to be
polyamorous in the presence of
jealousy. "Doesn't that
contradict itself?" she asked. "How can you really
love more than one person when there's jealousy around? I truly don't understand."
I paused for a minute. "You know how in a group of friends, you'll get really jealous when she spends more time with that other girl, the new one, than she does with you? How you get jealous when he goes off to talk to a different girl, even though you're not dating him, and don't want to it, still hurts?"
She thought about this for a second. "Yeah?"
"Well, there's jealousy there, in friendship alone. Right?"
I paused, and continued.
"Friendship's just another kind of love."
And she understood after all.