Polyamory Pre-Thoughts

There’s little like a good old-fashioned stereotype staring me in the face to make me say to myself, Holy critical thinking, let’s see what truth there is to that. When a polyamorous man in Arkansas agreed to a first date, how could I decline? Here’s a quick definition guide so we’re all on the same page:

Open-Relationship: A relationship in which two people agree that they want to be together, but can’t exactly promise that they won’t see other people too. Basically, to have it all: a significant other and the freedom to hook up with other people.

Polyamorous: The practice, state or ability of having more than one sexual loving relationship at the same time, with the full knowledge and consent of all partners involved.

Basically, an open relationship tends to include someone on the side occasionally but in full knowledge of your partner. (The longest open relationship guy I dated — read: a guy in an open relationship where I was just on the side — mostly just wanted the ability to let friendships evolve in any way they felt natural rather than having boundaries.) And a polyamorous relationship takes that even deeper, seeming to involve being in love with multiple people and being in relationships with multiple people.

I’m not sure how I feel about this all. There’s a piece of me that is very nonjudgemental about the whole endeavor…like polyamory is for someone else, just not me. And there’s a piece of me, that despite my Dan Savage adoringness, deeply thinks perhaps polyamory is a hedonistic, selfish, immature way to exist.

How do you have time for everything and everyone? How do you focus? I feel like polyamory is love with attention deficit issues. It’s love with a lust for physical contact.

But. What if I’m just plum wrong? Who am I to say what makes people happy? What makes them tick? What makes them feel alive? What if I was supposed to invite his wife and girlfriend?

Guess I’ll find out.

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