I’m not such a person, but I’ve dated poly people who seemed to hyperfocus on their new love interests like that. One in particular stands out as someone who’d become deeply infatuated with the current object of attention, almost to the exclusion of others.
Said person was also very new to introspection, rather comfortably selfish (that’s not a “boo!” signal, just a relevant and somewhat abnormal trait—they didn’t have much empathy or concern for the feelings of others if it didn’t impact them directly and insofar as they knew it might cause others to feel hurt, didn’t want to self-modify), and wasn’t very able at the time to understand people feeling hurt as anything other than an attempt to manipulate due to a lengthy abuse history.
I’m sure that there are people closer to “baseline” (whatever the heck that is) who are poly and do this. I do get rather intense NRE, and my feelings for each of my partners are somewhat different, but it still doesn’t wipe out the feelings for other people. I think the advice I’d give such a person, if they wanted to change this for the sake of their partners, would be to cultivate a lot of self-control, and maintaining perspective. Your new love may push different buttons than your old love, but what you’re experiencing is a neurochemical rush which will not last—when it passes, you and your existing loves will either be grateful it’s over, or picking up the pieces. In short, I treat NRE as something on the order of puberty or psychoactive drugs in terms of its emotional intensity: be aware you’re extremely biased in this state.
I’m not such a person, but I’ve dated poly people who seemed to hyperfocus on their new love interests like that. One in particular stands out as someone who’d become deeply infatuated with the current object of attention, almost to the exclusion of others.
Said person was also very new to introspection, rather comfortably selfish (that’s not a “boo!” signal, just a relevant and somewhat abnormal trait—they didn’t have much empathy or concern for the feelings of others if it didn’t impact them directly and insofar as they knew it might cause others to feel hurt, didn’t want to self-modify), and wasn’t very able at the time to understand people feeling hurt as anything other than an attempt to manipulate due to a lengthy abuse history.
I’m sure that there are people closer to “baseline” (whatever the heck that is) who are poly and do this. I do get rather intense NRE, and my feelings for each of my partners are somewhat different, but it still doesn’t wipe out the feelings for other people. I think the advice I’d give such a person, if they wanted to change this for the sake of their partners, would be to cultivate a lot of self-control, and maintaining perspective. Your new love may push different buttons than your old love, but what you’re experiencing is a neurochemical rush which will not last—when it passes, you and your existing loves will either be grateful it’s over, or picking up the pieces. In short, I treat NRE as something on the order of puberty or psychoactive drugs in terms of its emotional intensity: be aware you’re extremely biased in this state.