"It's me on the outside..."

What are the rules about how I should expect to be treated and treat others?

One of the reasons I really like ballroom dance is because there are rules that are supposed to be followed. The first and last dance go to your escort. If asked to dance, you should say yes unless the dance is already held for someone else. If it is held, it is polite to offer the next dance to the person who asked. It is selfish to dance with a person more than once (excepting your escort). Are the rules followed all the time and by everybody? No, but the rules are there and if someone isn't following them, they are social structures in place to correct the person.

I really wish there could be rules like that in life. It would make my existence so much easier.

I asked a friend about getting together. They told me that they were going to be busy through the end of May. I poked them about getting together now. I am not worried about this, because they are my friend and while they are dating someone and I am married, that doesn't mean we won't find time for each other. However I think this is the first time in our friendship that they are in a (capital 'R') Relationship. I wonder if that changes the rules? I am curious about how things will change between us. I am not worried, but I really have no idea what it will be like.

I have another friend who is poly. He has a girlfriend and an "ummm..friend". I would label both relationships as dating but the "ummm...friend" says they are just friends. There has been considerable conflict between the three of them because the girlfriend is tired of the "ummm...friend" being treated with the same consideration and courtesy as a girlfriend when the "ummm---friend" does not seem subject to the same expectations as one.

 I don't know the answers, because polyamorous relationships are like pirates in Pirates of the Caribbean, there aren't rules so much as guidelines that some people follow and others do not and all the ships look different anyway. However if someone says, "We are just friends" then I think they are asking to be treated as such and can't get pissy when the girlfriend takes precedence. However that is based solely on labels and the rules I place around how a thing is labeled.

I know a lot of my questions stem from navigating boundaries and figuring out things with people in general. As I noted recently, I like patterns. I like structure. I like their to be rules. I want to label something, define it and then act with the associated rules to a thing. My job is like that. Video games are like that. My computer is like that. People, they seem to do any old thing. It's frustrating. I feel like I need to know.

I can easily cope with a space that contains 20-30 strangers. However navigating a relationship (regardless of how it is labeled) with a few people seems like such a chore sometimes. I don't know the rules and they are different for every person. Why are people so complicated?