Help needed: key points for the polycurious.

[reddragdiva]

I have a wife and a girlfriend and I've had both for five years now, which is longer than any monogamous relationship I had before that. So people keep assuming I'm an expert in this non-monogamy thing, which is a frightening concept.

I suspect I should write a "people keep asking me about polyamory" page for the polycurious. Here's a first draft. Comments on problems welcome, let's assume there's more stuff to add and I'm undecided on whether to include a generic list of links.

I think I've got poly-incompatibility down to a single question ...

Key question: How will you feel when you see your sweetie kiss someone else? How will you feel when you hear your sweetie having sex with someone else? How will you feel when your sweetie falls for someone else (without un-falling for you, note) and just can't shut the fuck up about them?

(a) indifferent
(b) enormously pleased for them (note, that's immediate reaction not considered response)
(c) just a little torn at the heart?

(That's all the same question.)

[ (b2) Reaction: pleased for them, but would quite like them to keep it the heck down so you can sleep kthx.]

Other things to watch out for:

• If you're sure: Don't compromise. Unwillingness to embrace polyamory has to be a deal breaker. (This is easier for you to say now than it is to act on it when you're already embroiled with someone else and there's life to untangle and a cold lonely bed to go back to.)
• The emotionally unstable are as common around poly as everywhere else, but they're not taken out of general circulation by hooking up with someone else. Crazies, predators and fuckheads in general do tend to accumulate in poly communities; eventually people either realise this or there's a great social schism. Drama a go go.

Go on, pick holes. Ideas on phrasing that last point also welcomed.

(Also posted on polyamory_uk.)

Comments

[cavalorn.livejournal.com]

How will you feel when your sweetie falls for someone else (without un-falling for you, note)

That's hardly a fair question when phrased like that. There is no guarantee that the state of 'not un-falling' will occur, let alone persist, so it can't be presented as a given.

If every situation of that kind automatically involved party B falling for party C without un-falling for party A, then they would be a whole lot less messy than they tend to be in practice.