unrelated. But genetics is wild when you can have Lily Allen and Alfie Allen in the same branch.
If you’re not exclusive you’re fuckbuddies. Maybe it’ll stick, or eventually something better comes along for either. Then it ends.
Tomorrow we will cover how to determine whether you are being hit on by gays.
back then we called it “swinging” and it wasn’t rare.
now it’s an open relationship or “relationship anarchy”
i’m not a swinger. tried it. never will be. glad people can enjoy it.
there’s no “right way” to have a relationship.
People should identify less and relationship more.
I’m not going to judge people who try open relationships, but I’ve literally never seen them work. It’s also nothing new. Swingers were a thing decades ago. I’ve seen marriages implode, people end up needing therapy, and the like. I have a friend who is poly and has multiple people in her relationship group. She tried to tell me “how great it is” and then the next day I hear about the latest group drama. I’m like “yeah fuck that noise”.
It’s kind of like communism. I love the idea of communism. Equality for everybody and everybody has an equal say in the means of production. However, it only takes one prick not pulling their weight on purpose to abuse the system and it all comes crumbling down, which is why so many communist countries have a dictator forcing everyone to “be equal”.
The same is true of open relationships. It only takes one possessive or damaged person to blow up the whole group. The weakest link in most things is the fact that some people fucking suck.
I mean, I’ve seen a lot of monogamous relationships fail too.
I’d rather be alone thanks
Oh young people.
The silents and boomers tried this crap too.
Raised a generation of angry Gen-X kids through weekend visitation rights.
I had very few friends whose parents hadn’t been divorced from some form of this (cheating or swapping).
Some couples survived but the marriages were strained.
Who the fuck gives a shit anyway.
I’ve dated two women. Two. And you know what I’ve learned?
Jack fucking shit. The first woman abused me for a decade, the second was only one date.
The idea of people dating is one thing. The idea of people hooking up is a different one. But The idea of people fucking outside of their committed relationship is so vastly foreign to my simple experience I’m beginning to wonder if the universe is conspiring to isolate me from humanity.
No conspiracy, let me shed some light. First, open and poly relationships don’t work if anyone involved is especially possessive. I don’t mean like a little jealous, or slightly insecure (that can be worked through) I mean one person expects a fair bit of say over one or multiple others lives.
Assuming you now only have a pool of a few reasonably well adjusted emotionally people (well adjusted socially is nice but not requisite) you can now just have N people agree they like each other and want to be together, but like occasionally hook up outside the group either under some arbitrary rule such as being in different zip codes from everyone else or just in general so long as proper precautions are taken. You have a core group of N people who are emotionally and financially intertwined and N+X people who happen to have all hooked up.
It’s a fine system, have almost never been monogamous, and it’s just like the times I was monogamous except no one is going to be upset about random hookups unless there was a generally accepted rule broken. I also personally find a core group of N=3 to be the roughly ideal number, but everyone’s mileage will vary.
Though I suspect that societal normalization will be informed by the economic situation. The reality is if you can’t afford to live without 3 incomes everyone will eventually organize around 3 person core households and society will defend the new tradition or whatever.
Of course somewhere in there a lot of people have to give up on religious and social hangups but that’s already in progress if the number of articles like this coming out is steadily increasing (it is)
That just sounds like a bunch of friends with benefits. The thing that defined a relationship imo is the valuation you put on your time spent with someone. If you enjoy being with them more than anyone else, its worth pursuing a relationship. And I simply dont see how thats possible with mutliple people unless youre “dating” the group and not any individual member. Or unless you have nothing but free time on your hands. As an austist, i find it difficult but managble to handle my personal hygene, work responsiblilities, and sleep on the same day. Adding in social time and r&r time or “me” time, and it becomes extremely difficult to manage my time daily. Add in a relationship, and my life would be maxed. I cant imagine handling multiple relationships, which is what it sounds like youre describing.
To be clear, im of the mind that is people want to be polygamous, there is absolutely nothing I have to say about it. Its not my thing, but I’d like to understand it. I don’t need to to support its existance indirectly by not speaking out against it. But I would still like to, hence having discussions with people whose views differ. This just feels like the type of topic people are going to get heated about.
And then there’s my autistic ass that just sees a fuckton of socialization rules there and I’m already panicking
Bro I’m with you I’m not even autistic and this shit just seems emotionally exhausting.
You really don’t need a lot of rules, I know a lot of people swear by stuff like relationship contracts and the like. But realistically that’s never been something I’ve pursued and that does seem incredibly overwhelming. Current relationship the rules are as follows: don’t bring STDs home, don’t bring people over during normal sleeping hours without approval, preferably a couple days of notice; and don’t become emotionally unavailable otherwise it’s not really a relationship. That’s it.
My wife and I have been poly from the start of our relationship and it’s been great. That said we’ve also long held a commitment to healthy emotional management
Can’t speak for anyone else but I will never do an open relationship. Either you are with me or you aren’t. Your choice.
I chose to be with you.
You’re not a weirdo are you, SatansMaggotyCumFart?
uh oh, now you two are stuck together
I guess it was a wet SatansMaggotyCumFart
And that’s totally fine to have your preference. It’s not just a “your choice” situation. Communication at the onset and throughout a relationship should help weed out others who are not monogamous.
“Traditional” meaning “the last 2,000 out of 300,000 years”… Not to mention how it was only the norm because it was forced thru powerful organizations and not everyone just choosing it.
Monogamy and Abrhamic values are nothing but a fad on the timeline of human existence.
We ain’t built for that shit. Some people are and that’s fine, some aren’t and that’s cool too.
There’s a reason we’re not all built the same.
Abraham himself wasn’t monogamous.
It’s almost like everything in nature is random
Less random and more “shotgun approach”.
It’s only risky business if your relationship is defined by sex. People who would stay together even without the sex (because they like each other that much anyway) are generally going to be fine.
I’m not against different relationship arrangements and it’s often argued that you shouldn’t dump all your emotional needs on one person.
However… That being said the more people you add to the mix the more complex and more emotional energy you have to dictate to the situation. A lot of people are genuinely not ready for such a thing even if they think they are. Because while you might have mor emotional needs met, you’re also faced with higher emotional and social demands from your partners. Some people don’t seem to understand that you can’t avoid giving more of your emotional self to others when you give it to more than one person. In my experience, some of the people pursuing these kind of relationships are actually seeking less personal emotional investment, and I think that grossly misunderstands the situation and is a bit selfish, at best.
I think these situations can be healthy, but I also think healthy ones are more rare, just like healthy traditional relationships are often rare.
Finally, I am not shocked at people opening up to the idea of throuples when two parents can barely afford to raise a child. Three incomes starts to take the weight of the financial cost off just a little. Not a lot, but a little.
As someone who used to be poly, I agree 100%. Poly people can be emotional wrecking balls if they don’t put in the work to build and maintain healthy relationships. Poly drama story time!
The worst of my poly primaries believed she had infinite love to give, so she saw no reason to limit herself to one partner. While her love might have been truly infinite, her time, emotional capacity, and sense of commitment were not. She frequently overextended herself with multiple new interests and had her desire for attention and validation fulfilled far beyond reason without the capacity or apparent intent to fully reciprocate.
Her interests were typically less socially adept men who didn’t have much luck in dating, so they threw themselves at a charming, intelligent woman showing intense emotional and sexual interest, unaware or uncaring that she hid her flaws with equal intensity. (She had this thing about fucking virgins: hey, I don’t kink shame!) I saw her break a few hearts when they realized they weren’t going to “win” her for themselves, but only toward the end discovered that this wasn’t due to self-delusion as she claimed, but instead her failure to clearly communicate firm expectations and boundaries. Sometimes that they weren’t communicated at all. I also learned after the split that there were far more men than I knew about. Uggggh.
Eventually she began breaking the rules we established for our relationship and chose to leave me when I insisted we close the relationship to work on ourselves, as we promised to do when we first became committed. She opted instead to begin fucking two mutual friends, one of which immediately ghosted me while the other, a newly former virgin, soon called off our friendship so he could, in his own words, “have a clear conscience while pursuing a lasting relationship with her”. I’m sure I don’t have to explain how successful he was.
Somehow, the traditional model makes the rich richer, and that’s why they push it so hard. That’s all I know.
Why do people want so badly to have their government legally recognize their relationship? The legal contract does nothing but make it harder to separate when the relationship runs its course, whenever that may be. Have the ceremony, go on the honeymoon, get “married” but don’t include a legal contract in it. You don’t need it.
Stability of partners and income makes it more predictable to pay for rent and taxes. That’s pretty much it.
Over the years, monogamy meant predictability and trustworthiness. Generally speaking that’s true. When there’s fewer emotions in the pile, there’s more predictable results. More emotions and people? More unpredictability. Landlords and banks don’t like that when it comes to loans or rental situations.
Primarily administrative privileges, at least from a practical standpoint.
It can be done without declaring it a marriage legally, with wills, medical proxies, etc. if you prefer granular control.
I just want my partner to not go through the nightmare of probate court and legal headaches should something happen to me, or be able to see me in the hospital without pushback. If one piece of paper covers 90% of that then I’m reasonably willing to sign it. On the flip side of that, I hate weddings and would prefer to spend that money on a more material investment lol
Everyone is different though, and there should be alternative options that aren’t such a huge hassle, so I do agree with you.
I went through the process of doing the wills and trusts stuff with my GF and it was about $500.
A marriage license is like $60.
Being hopeless romantics we did both.
There are absolutely legal and tax benefits for a legally recognized marriage.
You don’t need it.
Actually, you kind of do for all kinds of things.
If you want an open relationship just date around like everyone else. Committed open relationships is a recipe for disaster.
That’s just like, your opinion, man.
What if you like to be in a committed relationship with one person and build a life together, developing deep emotional bonds over many years, but also enjoy having sex with many different people?
What’s more interesting to me is that every single human society has had the opportunity to allow open relationships and instead settled on some form of hardlined partnership regulation function. To put it another way, every person in every setting in every culture in every era have all come to the conclusion that it is better to have a rigid structural partnership contract of some kind than it is to even attempt to tackle the societal issues open relationships present.
It’s not the first time humans have asked this type of question. Is this really a modern shift, or is this an ongoing historical fad whose waxing and waning phases have been glossed over in favor of more exciting history?
Relationsships with several people have been around in a lot of cultures all over the world. Harems have existed through all time periods. The main problem in the past was ensuring paternity so it was usually one man with several women. The bible has several examples of men taking multiple women, in many islamic societies taking multiple wives is ok, in Nepal one woman could have several men.
Of course relationships have mostly been formed by economic necessities, not considerations of sexual preference. A woman might have several husbands in a place where living conditions are rough and it takes a lot of manpower for one household. A man may have many wives where men often die from wars and the women need to be taken care of. If these rules are kept for hundreds or even thousands of years, can you still call them a phase?
Besides you must not forget that the western view on history has been heavily shaped by christian values. Obvious proof that people were homo-/bisexual in the past was reinterpreted, the same goes for any form of open/poly relationship. “They were roommates” has become a meme for a reason.
That is just literally not true. There was never any grand consensus. There was religious persecution.
Religions don’t just pop up out of a vacuum. They reflect and reinforce the predominant cultural practices of the time.
No they don’t. They are a social power structure that enforces cultural practices by claiming it’s the norm.
Explain the French then.
