I’m not poly., but I’d like to be—it seems by far the most functional outlook on relationships. It takes many potential problems with monogamous relationships and completely eliminates them without introducing new problems in their place.
It just seems better. I hardly have any relationships as a monogamous person, though, so . . . there’s not a lot there for me to be poly, LOL
Posting years after your comment, but as somebody who is relatively new to poly myself, I want to mention: that thing at the end of Alicorn’s post, with the “all kinds of popular”? It didn’t hit me quite that hard, but it did hit. I get more interest and don’t have to turn people down when they say “by the way, I’m married, is that a problem?” (actually asked, in sentiment if not verbatim, a couple of relationships ago). I’m a guy, ~90% straight (though I’ve thought about hacking that, and a few years ago I’d have said 95% or more), very nerdy but with an atypical life story, and had a hell of a time finding relationships up until about three years ago.
I’d also be curious, if you happen to see this, what your thoughts on poly are now. Did you ever try to hack it? If so, why, and did it work? Are you happy with your current poly-or-not status? What would you have estimated your probability of being where you are now to be, 3.5 years ago? Where do you expect to be in a few more years?
Hi. I apologize: this is a pretty long reply—but thanks very much for your comment. :) I really appreciate the opportunity to follow up like this on something I said a few years ago.
My thoughts on being poly. haven’t changed. I still think it’s the most functional romantic outlook. Although, after re-reading my comment: “without introducing new problems in their place” is somewhat of a loaded statement. If someone has a difficult time being polyamorous, then it introduces a lot of problems. Not to dwell on this too much, but that part of the comment was a bit circular: If a person is already poly., then, of course having a poly. relationship solves problems. Perhaps it would have been best to say “Since the society in which we’re raised is largely monogamous, being poly. solves a lot of problems at the cost of having to exert more emotional effort against that norm.”
… or something to that extent.
Three and a half years ago, I thought the likelihood of my entering a relationship in the first place to be very low. I didn’t want to be in a relationship at all. This thought persisted up until the beginning of my relationship a little over a year ago (which was just a friendship at first, but ended up functionally being the same thing as a relationship—so we just went with it).
I wouldn’t call our relationship polyamorous, but it’s open. Pretty early on, we had a discussion that essentially came down to “You do what you want and I do what I want.” That is, if I sleep with someone else, then it’s ok—and if she sleeps with someone else, then it’s ok. This is pretty limited to physical activity. I don’t think either of us would be comfortable with “I have another girlfriend/boyfriend.”
This actually did not take any hacking; it came very naturally to the both of us, and I am happy with it. In fact, I really like this relationship. When I talk about it, I feel like a grandfather showing off pictures of his grandchildren—in a “Look at this, look at this!” sense. I have to consciously stop myself from talking too much, haha. (Thinking about it a bit further, too, actively having multiple girlfriends might be more effort than I’d want to exert.)
We both expect this to be a long-term relationship, and think it most definitely has the potential to last a long time.
Thanks for the reply, and no apology needed; I write long comments myself!
The “without introducing new problems” part is actually kind of funny in this time context, since I had just spent a while on the Negative Polyamory Outcomes? post, and poly definitely does sometimes cause problems. If nothing else, I think it introduces new ways to screw up, in terms of both emotional and physical health… but it can also be pretty beneficial when everybody involved can handle the emotions involved. The cost of going against a societal norm will be very context-dependent, I suspect; a bunch of the LW crowd apparently live in the SF Bay Area, where it’s fairly common and has minimal societal costs, but some of us are in less-progressive areas.
Congrats on the happy relationship (against earlier expectations). I wonder how many people would be able to just slide into a consensually non-monogamous (dammit, we need better words; even that phrase isn’t accurate) relationship when they hadn’t previously thought of themselves as poly. It came easy to me—I’m actually kind of upset by jealousy in general, and once I found other people who were OK with this relationship style it just fell into place—but a lot of people do seem to have hang-ups with the idea.
I’m not poly., but I’d like to be—it seems by far the most functional outlook on relationships. It takes many potential problems with monogamous relationships and completely eliminates them without introducing new problems in their place.
It just seems better. I hardly have any relationships as a monogamous person, though, so . . . there’s not a lot there for me to be poly, LOL
Posting years after your comment, but as somebody who is relatively new to poly myself, I want to mention: that thing at the end of Alicorn’s post, with the “all kinds of popular”? It didn’t hit me quite that hard, but it did hit. I get more interest and don’t have to turn people down when they say “by the way, I’m married, is that a problem?” (actually asked, in sentiment if not verbatim, a couple of relationships ago). I’m a guy, ~90% straight (though I’ve thought about hacking that, and a few years ago I’d have said 95% or more), very nerdy but with an atypical life story, and had a hell of a time finding relationships up until about three years ago.
I’d also be curious, if you happen to see this, what your thoughts on poly are now. Did you ever try to hack it? If so, why, and did it work? Are you happy with your current poly-or-not status? What would you have estimated your probability of being where you are now to be, 3.5 years ago? Where do you expect to be in a few more years?
Hi. I apologize: this is a pretty long reply—but thanks very much for your comment. :) I really appreciate the opportunity to follow up like this on something I said a few years ago.
My thoughts on being poly. haven’t changed. I still think it’s the most functional romantic outlook. Although, after re-reading my comment: “without introducing new problems in their place” is somewhat of a loaded statement. If someone has a difficult time being polyamorous, then it introduces a lot of problems. Not to dwell on this too much, but that part of the comment was a bit circular: If a person is already poly., then, of course having a poly. relationship solves problems. Perhaps it would have been best to say “Since the society in which we’re raised is largely monogamous, being poly. solves a lot of problems at the cost of having to exert more emotional effort against that norm.”
… or something to that extent.
Three and a half years ago, I thought the likelihood of my entering a relationship in the first place to be very low. I didn’t want to be in a relationship at all. This thought persisted up until the beginning of my relationship a little over a year ago (which was just a friendship at first, but ended up functionally being the same thing as a relationship—so we just went with it).
I wouldn’t call our relationship polyamorous, but it’s open. Pretty early on, we had a discussion that essentially came down to “You do what you want and I do what I want.” That is, if I sleep with someone else, then it’s ok—and if she sleeps with someone else, then it’s ok. This is pretty limited to physical activity. I don’t think either of us would be comfortable with “I have another girlfriend/boyfriend.”
This actually did not take any hacking; it came very naturally to the both of us, and I am happy with it. In fact, I really like this relationship. When I talk about it, I feel like a grandfather showing off pictures of his grandchildren—in a “Look at this, look at this!” sense. I have to consciously stop myself from talking too much, haha. (Thinking about it a bit further, too, actively having multiple girlfriends might be more effort than I’d want to exert.)
We both expect this to be a long-term relationship, and think it most definitely has the potential to last a long time.
Thanks for the reply, and no apology needed; I write long comments myself!
The “without introducing new problems” part is actually kind of funny in this time context, since I had just spent a while on the Negative Polyamory Outcomes? post, and poly definitely does sometimes cause problems. If nothing else, I think it introduces new ways to screw up, in terms of both emotional and physical health… but it can also be pretty beneficial when everybody involved can handle the emotions involved. The cost of going against a societal norm will be very context-dependent, I suspect; a bunch of the LW crowd apparently live in the SF Bay Area, where it’s fairly common and has minimal societal costs, but some of us are in less-progressive areas.
Congrats on the happy relationship (against earlier expectations). I wonder how many people would be able to just slide into a consensually non-monogamous (dammit, we need better words; even that phrase isn’t accurate) relationship when they hadn’t previously thought of themselves as poly. It came easy to me—I’m actually kind of upset by jealousy in general, and once I found other people who were OK with this relationship style it just fell into place—but a lot of people do seem to have hang-ups with the idea.