By D Myr

As alternate relationships become more socially acceptable, dating app profiles mentioning relationship anarchy, open relationships, or a primary partner have become more common. As millennials and zoomers become collectively more disillusioned with the discourses of the late capitalist hellscape that is 2021, one must ask: is polyamory the new avocado toast?

For those who aren’t familiar with the concept, polyamory is a relationship structure that implies having multiple partners (whether romantic or sexual) with the consent and knowledge of all. This could encapsulate a couple in an open marriage, or a person casually dating multiple people, or three mutually-involved people forming a triad, and much, much more. For some, this might sound liberating. Others might take it as an affront to their sensibilities (but let's be real, are they really having as much fun?). For a lot of people, it’s hard to even visualise what a poly relationship is like. 

Where strict monogamy has an established (albeit frequently dysfunctional) roadmap, poly dynamics are uncharted territory. Every relationship is navigated and negotiated differently, and they require a nuanced (and interrogatory) perspective of what a partner is and what your needs are. I have been in several polyamorous relationships: good ones, bad ones, boring ones. At best, they offer a platform to explore yourself with safety; at worst, they are a source of pure panic. 

One thing that I want to dispel about the poly experience is that it centers around jealousy (or that to be poly you shouldn’t feel any jealousy at all). Now, no one will say moments of jealousy don’t happen in poly relationships, but they are far from the majority of what the relationships center on (in fact, it’s probably actually scheduling). In my experience, loving others within a poly framework has actually helped me heal from being a jealous partner in the past. Engaging in frameworks of trust and transparency is infinitely soothing and validating for me as someone who has struggled to find true security in my personal relationships. In some ways, polyamory feels more real than strict monogamy: you know your partners are attracted to other people, and you make your peace with it because you are too.

When you decide to date multiple people, you agree to a certain degree of discomfort. However, I could also say the same about dating just one person. Love is always a terrifying plunge. But what I have found is that when I feel jealousy, polyamory demands that I interrogate it. Am I feeling jealousy because my partner hasn’t been making the time that I need? Is this feeling reflective of an insecurity? Have I been neglecting myself? Polyamory demands that I spend a lot more time with my feelings, determining the unmet need and being honest enough with myself and my partner to express it.

Experimenting with polyamory has further helped me to question the internalised truths popular culture has taught me about what romantic love should look like. I have found often that loving multiple people is the most gradual, thoughtful, and unpressured I have felt within relationships. Peeling back some (or all) social assumptions about how romantic relationships are ‘supposed to be’ has left me in a position where I feel more aware of what I want and what I can receive from partners. The prescient questions of how you want and need to be loved are immediately at the forefront rather than assumed. Almost always, I find that the internalised narratives around romantic love are deeply gendered and irrepresentative of what actually feels good for me or my partners. It’s important to be reminded of that.

To have successful poly relationships, you must have tough conversations. There’s no way around it. If successful monogamous relationships are built around communication, it is doubly true for polyamory. Polyamory will demand that you be uncomfortably honest with yourself and challenge internalised beliefs about both the way love looks and feels. In a polyamorous relationship, you don’t have the privilege of expansive, positive media representation to establish expectations. Instead, you have to make them yourself and roll with them. 

Sometimes this will be confusing. For me, this has often meant having conversations that terrify me: admitting feeling vulnerable or insecure when I am, admitting when my own trauma is informing my response, making space for my partner to know my needs and soothe me. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve spent hours on video calls sorting out feelings and action plans. That being said, one of the greatest gifts that polyamory has given me is teaching me that there can and should be safety in conflict. In a healthy relationship, friction is an opportunity for collaboration and understanding – a tenet of polyamory that feels miles from how some heteronormative relationships that I’ve been in have played out.

But where the flexibility of polyamory is its strength, it is equally its weakness. In a society that continues to stigmatise and marginalise people who decide to be in polyamorous relationships, a popularly understood framework for polyamory remains murky. This reality creates the conditions for unhealthy relational dynamics. It has been my unfortunate experience, in polyamorous dynamics with men in particular, that there is often a lack of transparency and a sense of entitlement to feminine bodies. Frequently in these situations, I find men fail to establish boundaries and expectations for relationships, and I only find out what they decide to tell me afterwards. The result is often male partners painting me as needy while having multiple other sexual partners that are all in the dark about each other. Men behaving in this way is a fast road to disenchantment for many regarding polyamory – myself included. 

All in all, polyamory is an experience that will test and strengthen your relationship with yourself. After all, the way that you show and receive love is a mirror to how well you know and understand yourself. The work of polyamory is to bring that understanding to the light and collaborate with your partners to have everyone’s needs met. When done right, polyamory is a beautiful thing, and it should always be navigated with openness and the readiness to learn. Whether you feel curious about polyamory or ready to try it out, I encourage you to challenge the way that you love others and yourself. Polyamory asks us to consider that love, no matter what kind of love we’re dealing with, takes a village.