Thanksgiving in the Wilderness
By Kellie Powell
Emily is a woman in her twenties who becomes involved in a polyamorous relationship. She is mostly talking to the audience, but sometimes she addresses her friend Rita, who is onstage with her, and sometimes she talks to the man in question.
EMILY:
(To Rita.) Contrary to popular opinion, there are not plenty of fish in the sea, and even if there are, none of them are interested in my bait. And I guess that's why, when I saw him again, and he started telling me about how wasn't ready for a new relationship, and how he actually thinks that dating is pretty stupid... Which, to be fair, is essentially true. It is kind of ridiculous to think that there's one person out there for every other person, and that one person can meet all of your needs, and that anyone could really be satisfied with only one person, for all time --
(To the audience.) There's a rational part of me that does actually agree with him. That thinks that sex is only as complicated as the people who're having it. And that relationships shouldn't have to be a quid-pro-quo transaction: I agree to sleep only with you, so that you sleep only with me. If monogamy came naturally, why would so many married people have affairs? If people could just evolve past jealousy, we would all probably be a lot happier. He's right. Jealousy is irrational. He wanted something casual, and I was a little disappointed... I got my hopes up, which was stupid, and I got let down, which I should have predicted... And how can I really blame him? He was up front with me. He told me exactly what he wanted and exactly what he didn't. I could have said, "No, that's not enough for me. I want a real relationship or nothing." But I didn't say that.
(To Rita.) If I thought I could do better, then none of this would have ever happened. But I don't, and it did. I told myself, I'll just keep hanging out with him, until I meet someone better suited for me, the right person.
(To the audience.) I told myself, "Don't get attached, because this is temporary. Don't be jealous, because he's just not worth it." But I'd lie awake, with him sleeping next to me, and think... (To him.) "You're always rushing off - you have all these other friends and other things to do, and other women's beds to jump into... and I wish you had more room for me in your life. I wish you wished you had room for me in your life. I wish you gave a damn. Because, someday, you'll meet someone and you'll feel the thing that you always make fun of when other people feel it, and all your rhetoric about how monogamy is stupid and relationships are bullshit will go completely out the window. And I will never be able to stop wondering: Why wasn't it me? Why couldn't it have been me?"
