r/SoloPoly • u/[deleted] • Mar 30 '26

Is this.... solo poly compersion??

The title is mostly meant to be a silly heehee ha ha, and also there's so much relief in recognizing incompatibility irregardless of how much you like someone, ending the relationship, and *not* spiraling down the drain of low self worth.

I've had a wild transition over seven years from only being a secondary in hierarchical non monogamous relationships to solo poly RA. I'm just really fucking happy to be at this place in my life finally where being poly doesn't feel like a humiliation ritual for my partner or meta's self esteem (or lack there of), and my only other option is being shoved unceremoniously onto the monogamous relationship escalator over and over.

TLDR: really proud and happy to have finally settled on solo poly as being the right relationship style for me

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u/JonnyLay Apr 01 '26

I'm not changing the definition of anything. You just don't understand the nuance between the two and conflate them.

Yes a child has greater needs than a partner. So they get priority to ensure their care. Hierarchy is a chosen ranking, there's no such thing as natural hierarchy in the dictionary.

You are the one redefining.

Priority is flexible based on situation. Hierarchy is consciously decided and set.

"hierarchy is a system of organizing people or things into ranked levels based on importance, authority, or grade. It establishes a top-to-bottom structure, often with a single leader or highest rank at the top."

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u/SadBoiCute Apr 01 '26

We actually agree they have different meanings but you might need to do some more reading because priority builds heirarchy. Natural heirarchy is real we call it descriptive heirarchy. There is prescriptive (decided) and descriptive (just what naturally happened).

Highest to lowest priority for time and communication is building a heriarchy. Highest to lowest need for home care tasks, food, medical is part of heirarchy. If one partner has veto over who is in the house cause you have a child there and you host hook ups, they rank higher in the heirarchy from having that priority. If you will bail on quality time with a date cause your roommate needs a lift to hospital, they have priority right then but nornally might rank lower than your dates. That is decided so is prescriptive. If you always bail on dates to hang out with your roommate and clean the apartment it might be descriptive heirarchy.

All those things add up to the heirarchy not just the parts you decided on.

So you can choose who gets priority in some moments. You can choose to make an effort for avoid heirarchy with partners. You cannot eliminate heirarchy at all and pretending you can by saying they are completely separate things hurts the people you have relationships to.

The definition you gave supports this. Heirarchy is a system of organising by importance. Doesn't mean you organised it that way on purpose sometimes life happens. RA is supposed to be about challenging those expectations not pretending it does not happen ever.

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u/JonnyLay Apr 01 '26

Further, there are 4 people that I'm dating consistently. Two for over a year. I have no ranking or priority and no titles. I'm not ranking them to see who gets more time.

Someone going to the hospital and me cancelling a date isn't hierarchy unless I would do it for some, but not others.

I guess you could argue that there is hierarchy between someone I've had a first date with, vs someone I've been seeing for a month or two. But beyond that, it isn't hierarchy, it's just priority.

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u/SadBoiCute Apr 01 '26

Literally that is heirarchy. If you would have to cancel because work called that would be exercising heirarchy. If you are solo poly like me and prefer alone time and making decisions for your future because you are top priority you might be top of your heirarchy same as me so most my partners are ranked the same as each other. When one gets really sick who has a chronic illness that changes the heirarchy cause I help care for him for that time. You keep trying to split up what priority and heirarchy is, but repeatedly prioritising someone on purpose or accident is what builds heirarchy.

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u/JonnyLay Apr 01 '26

Descriptive Hierarchy does not change situationally. Priority does.

Descriptive hierarchy would be the relationships you are describing like with children or a partner you live with.

But one partner having a birthday so you make sure to see them more, or another going to the hospital and having to cancel a date is not descriptive hierarchy.

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u/SadBoiCute Apr 01 '26

Correct. What you have described is different priority that day and not long term heirarchy. You keep giving evidence that agrees with me.

Agreeing to prioritise one person repeatedly whether it's explicit or implied creates heirarchy. It can be descriptive like they are your child so of course or you prioritise plans with partner A because they live closer than partner B so when you choose who to go see for Christmas you pick A. When you are with partner B you still pick up partner A's calls in case they need something. You can say you do not do heirarchy but partner B knows that partner A is a higher priority so feels lower in the heirarchy. Partner A and B might both feel lower than the person you live with. Partner C knows they live in another state and so when they are sick you won't come help them like you do for A and B. It is not a bad thing or evil choice but the heirarchy exists because that is real life.

Or prescriptive like you talk to your partners about what heirachy you do or do not want to do example, nobody gets veto power. You manage expectations and when heirarchies appear you acknowledge it and plan what to do or how to make amends. You try to keep it balanced because you do not like heirarchy and keep the same rules for everyone.

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u/JonnyLay Apr 01 '26

I think you've just changed what you've been saying.

You've been pretty steadfast that basically every relationship and person must be hierarchical in some way. And that varying situations means varying hierarchy. I'm glad you seem to have dropped those and are accepting that priority and hierarchy are not the same.

None of your examples of hierarchy, outside the situational examples, like health emergencies, that we're now excluding, apply to me or any of my relationships.

So, I suggest you stop assuming your experience is everyone's.

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u/SadBoiCute Apr 01 '26

Nope never changed my point it was the same.

Heirarchy and priority are inextricably linked.

Repeatedly prioritising creates heirarchy.

Heirarchy is not just assigning value and importance as you said, it is rank based on the cost-benefit analysis you do to decide who gets priority over time. It is not just a thig attributed to primary partners or medical episodes.

Unless you started all your relationships on the same day, same time, same gender, same city, same abiltiies and disabilities then you have to change your interactions to be a good partner to those people. That will create heirarchy. If you do not adjust for heirarchy cause you dismiss it as "I just made them a priority again I don't do heirarchy" you are ignoring the heirarchy that happens over time and are not good at ENM.

Feel free to reread previous.

For real though if you treat your 4 relationships like broken computer software that's a problem. Peoples needs aren't IT tickets. I did not make assumptions about your dynamics you were the one bringing them up. I used examples to explain a few ways heirarchy can be incidental or deliberate. Generalised examples do not have to apply to you exactly, like a metaphor. Good for you if you have zero heirarchy in your life but that was not the comment you made.

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u/JonnyLay Apr 01 '26

You absolutely have changed what you were saying, you called this situation hierarchy in your very fist comment.

Their best friend's wedding is going to take priority over their sister's desire to see a movie.

You made assumptions about OP's relationship dynamics and every solo-poly person's dynamics. And shit on them for always being a secondary,

You've now rudely accused me of being unsafe and otherwise problematic, for merely giving you a simple analogy for priority vs hierarchy.

I hope you learned something by now, because I'm done teaching you.

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u/SadBoiCute Apr 01 '26

Bruh that was not even me that comment, you are confused. I am solo poly and a secondary by choice in both my partnerships. This is why I suggest rereading cause you and I actually agree on a lot.

I agree that person had it wrong about the wedding/movie example but they are right in their meaning thst heirarchy will come up no matter how hard we try, that is part of being good at ENM we work to fight it by acknowledging when it happens.

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u/JonnyLay Apr 01 '26

Fair, but that was the comment chain that you were replying too, and that was the point you were implicitly defending. But glad we agree.

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u/JonnyLay Apr 01 '26

I work in IT. We use the ITIL framework and I deal with Incidents. An incident is when something is broken.

Priority is based on a matrix of impact and urgency.

Impact is dictated by two things, how badly it is broken, and the hierarchy of our applications, their business criticality rating.

Two applications could be down, but one would have a priority-1 ranking because the app is highest criticality/hierarchy, but the other could be a P3 because it isn't that critical.

For a P1 I'm rushing to get it fixed immediately. For a P3, it can wait a few days. They have the exact same situation, but, because one is higher in the hierarchy, it gets different treatment.

Priority vs Hierarchy

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u/SadBoiCute Apr 01 '26

Again you are describing how something that is ranked higher in the heirarchy will have higher priority repeatedly. You do actually understand this point. If a P1 is down 5 days in a row the relationship is in trouble. Because the heirachy exists. If everything is a P1 then how would you decide what to work on? Pretending heirachy does not happen means people get hurt cause a P3 that occurs every single day is actually a P1, it costs the company time and money every day. In relationships you have attention and time to give, so how you spend it will have some heirarchy. That is all my point is.

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u/JonnyLay Apr 01 '26

If two people are in the hospital at the same time, it gets treated like if I have two P1 incidents at the same time. FIFO - First in first out, and juggle when there is downtime. The same way I would balance it if I had two kids in the hospital. It doesn't mean there is hierarchy.

I trust and rely on my partner's empathy to not hate me for not rushing away from one person in the hospital to see them in the hospital.

I also trust and rely on my partner's empathy to not be upset that I'm not at their side 100% of the time they are in the hospital if I have another partner in the hospital.

It's an extremely rare instance where planning and communication won't abate any concerns about not having priority because of some hierarchy. But, I date reasonable people.

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u/SadBoiCute Apr 01 '26

So to work out the priority you judged the importance based on who was first in and first out? And then assessed the value, seeing each of them at the same time would be equally important because they are equally valuable. You determined them to be equal priority and treated them the same because they're in the same place on your heirarchy. If this happens multiple times a year then you start to have to make choices about heirarchy of need, like who higher priority cause they can't drive home after or who needs more sleep and won't be able to see you so much. They will feel a heirarchy you did not intend based on who you visit first every time so being responsible means addressing that.

Reread your initial comment cause you forgot what this was about and responding to. Heirarchy is a system of prioritisation. That comment was right and you tried to split hairs tell them no it isn't then proved it is.

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u/JonnyLay Apr 01 '26

My initial comment is that hierarchy is not priority. You've already agreed with this statement.

Hierarchy is not a system of prioritization at all. It is a system of value and importance, which can impact prioritization.

Prioritization happens without hierarchy all the time.

And again, you are using situations to ascribe hierarchy. And you're putting up some hypothetical strawman series of situations that would make someone feel like there is a hierarchy. Someone feeling like there is hierarchy does not mean that there is hierarchy.

Someone else feeling like there is hierarchy is not the definition of descriptive hierarchy.

But you are 100% right about addressing those feelings of hierarchy, and discussing them and clearly setting expectations and validating to build security.

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u/SadBoiCute Apr 01 '26

Lot of projection going on here, you keep making up conclusions to disagree with that weren't said. None of my examples were strawmans any more than your hospital or work one. It is hypotheticals that could happen and yours also show that we base priority on heirarchy.

Again splitting hairs cause you are not reading the persons comment properly. Heirarchy is A system of prioritisation. Not the only. Not the best. Just "a" system. Which you agree with cause that was all your examples. Heirarchy is not JUST a system of prioritisation but it is a system of prioritization.

If one my partners feel our relationship is being impacted by heirarchy it actually does not matter if I agree or if it is descriptive or prescribed. What matters is how we do repair and how I make sure they do not feel power is being exercised on them and our dynamic in the future. Most of the time their opinion on if it feels like bad heirarchy is the only opinion that matters to me cause I care to do ENM right more than redefining words at people who gave examples of how priorities get decided by heirarchy of need.

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u/JonnyLay Apr 01 '26 edited Apr 01 '26

Hierarchy is not a system of prioritisation. Full stop.

No where in any definition of hierarchy anywhere is the word prioritization. (Feel free to prove me wrong, or stop accusing me of making up definitions.)

Hierarchy, described or prescribed, is ranking one thing above another. End of story.

Hierarchy is often viewed negatively, because people usually don't want to be treated as lesser than.

I don't treat any of my partners as lesser than the others. I don't believe in it. In 5 years I've never had anyone accuse me of it either.

I can't even comprehend why it seems so impossible to people. Or why people like you implicitly defend treating some partners as less than their other partners.

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u/SadBoiCute Apr 01 '26

Laughing cause honestly what are you saying. You miss the point on purpose and then reword and change "my point" to get out of saying you were wrong. If this is how you communicate about something this basic... huge red flag. You don't gotta put words in my mouth it is all typed out right here. We can literally read it back so what are you doing.

Heirarchy is a system of labelling the prioritisation that happens by order of importance. Split hairs all you want you were wrong.

To come off my comment and try saying I am defending heirarchy when all my comments are right there to read back is wild for real. You always pull out DARVO when conversations aren't going your way?

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u/JonnyLay Apr 01 '26

You entered this conversation defending hierarchy...

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