r/polyamorous 2d ago

question What how do polyamorous people think?

I'm really curious of how it is to have different partners, multiple at the same time?

Whether one is emotional wise, the other sex? Or all being providing both as a whole?

How do people share in such relationships? Love life/sex life and etc, how does it all add up?

0 Upvotes

25 comments sorted by

25

u/SaschaBarents they/them egalitarian solo relationship anarchist 1d ago

In the same way you can love multiple parents, children, siblings, friends, pets.

19

u/deviationblue 1d ago

Also in the same way you can hold down two jobs, or play in two bands, or be in both a bowling league and a pool league.

5

u/Ok-Reward-770 1d ago

the way this is.

3

u/princesscuddler 1d ago

This is pretty much exactly how I explained it to my girlfriend. I like hierarchal enm, and explained it as… I have my two kitties at home. I’ve built my life with them and love them as my family, more than anything else. It would hurt me deeply to have to part with them in any way and I always want to come home and find them waiting for me. I would always protect them with everything in me.

Still, when I go outside and I see a stray kitty or I go to a friend’s house who has a cat or even a cat cafe, I will still pet the kitties and give them kisses and show them love. I love all kitties and want every kitty to feel that love, even if I’m only willing to actually have two in my family. I can’t run an entire shelter because I don’t have that much intimate love to pass around! I only want to share my life with my two kitties and maybe if one or two other kitties really speak to me, I will consider adding them to the family.

The same is true of romantic relationships with me.

I have a lot of love to give and am not happy only giving that love to just one person!

1

u/HappyCamper2121 22h ago

This is such a fantastic analogy! Thank you for your words. I will be stealing them. ❤️

10

u/okapistripes 1d ago

Do I love mozzarella any less because I also have parmesan on my pasta sometimes?

Usually, I joke with people who ask: "Well, do you only like one type of cheese?" It's like that.

Think about it with friends. We might have best friend(s) who sit higher on an imaginary heirarchy, but it doesn't mean that other friends are without inherent value.

I'll also sometimes talk to people about how I'd rather not have the person I sleep with be the person I make life changing financial decisions with. Someday those people might overlap, but that's not a must for me. I value people for their own independent lives, differences, and how they individually connect with me. But they are as free to cultivate their own social networks as I am mine. What that includes is their business.

8

u/deviationblue 1d ago

you are only allowed to have cheddar, thus saith the Lord.

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u/BeeStingz4play 8h ago

🙏Amen 🙏

8

u/Ok-Reward-770 1d ago

OP sounds like a lost monoganist looking for attention.

I would have been less snarky if this were the year 2010. But in the year of our lord 2026, there are full TED Talks on the subject available online, educators all over social media, and several specialized sites on the web. This was an annoyingly lazy post.

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u/deviationblue 1d ago

Waffles? Don't you mean carrots?

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u/stressed_newpoly 1d ago

I don't think they're looking for attention. They could be wanting info from real people not ones hand selected to talk by another person. And here you can get lots of opinions and personal stories. I honestly would come to Reddit first as opposed to the other options you listed.

1

u/Ok-Reward-770 1d ago

Aren’t the people dedicated to researching, studying, and sharing polyamory and their owe personal experiences, real people?

Are you implying that TEDx videos on polyamory are fake, or produced by LLMs?

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u/stressed_newpoly 1d ago

Yes they are real people, but what's wrong with wanting to hear experiences from people who aren't studying it? Or just more perspectives in general.

Idk what LLMs are, maybe I'm too old or too offline for that. But I'm not implying TED videos are fake, just not the route I'd personally take for info.

And my main point is to not be rude to curious people. I can see myself a few years ago asking the same thing out of curiosity and trying to figure out what it's all about. I wish being nice to others (especially on the internet) wasn't slowly dying.

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u/HappyCamper2121 22h ago

I'm with you. I'm on Reddit to see random people's hot takes on everything. That's the fun of it! Shows the variety of human expression, and it's beautiful!

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u/Ok-Reward-770 17h ago

Those supposedly “hot takes,” tend to spill into real life bs from wannabe polyamorous people who conflate it with ENM in general and use precisely Reddit to get their information from.

I just had this experience happening to me two days ago while chatting with a supposed “polyamorous” match who used some ridiculous post from this same sub to gotcha at me.

Dating in this day and age can be daunting, but witnessing the lack of coherence in real life is fuel for my cynicism.

I bet my money that OP is a karma farmer.

1

u/Ok-Reward-770 17h ago

The cynics have existed for centuries. I’m one of them. Maybe is for being older, maybe is for have seen too much of the same.

LLM’s = Large Language Models which people tend to popularly known as “AI.”

4

u/princesscuddler 1d ago

I never liked this kind of interpretation. Asking questions and wanting to learn is never a bad thing.

People should be respectful while doing so, of course, but assuming everyone should automatically be equipped with the opportunity and knowledge of how and where to find the answer to their question is just condescending at best.

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u/Ok-Reward-770 1d ago

I hear you and I disagree with you. The reason why is that these assortment of opinions don’t offer a proper foundation. People on Reddit more often than not have conflicting messages, or when they have solid ones, they cannot develop them.

We have already real people, actual humans who are themselves polyamorous and have dedicated their adult lives into the psychology and sociology of polyamory. They have done great and coherent studies , followed by public presentations about polyamory and some are even teachers/thought leaders offering workshops to help people deconstruct monogamy and understand why, it’s not humanly possible that every single person should be like that, even when we are all under this mainstream pressure to do so across different societies.

I’m just profoundly cynical. Nevertheless, I believe each of OP’s questions can be written on a search engine and get the best results and THEN armed with those basic facts come to this collective and clarify any doubts or ask us about our experiences.

I truly find OP’s tone condescending. Without putting the following words on their mouth the feeling I get from re-reading this post is “poly what? That’s bs. Prove me wrong.”

As I’ve mentioned before , I am cynical, [to OP’s intentions.]

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u/HappyCamper2121 22h ago

Reddit is not an authoritative source of information. That's what makes it fun and light-hearted! You'll always see more variety and wildness then from heavily curated sources. I say we keep Reddit wild!

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u/Ok-Reward-770 17h ago

Yeah! Totally agree with you. That’s exactly why I’d rather have people seeking answers to such type of questions in any SE and then jumping on the wilderness with some of the basic of the basics answered.

As I said, if we were in 2010, I would have been more than willingly to freely help, but in 2026 is kinda weird. I’m too cynical to believe that it’s not.

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u/Ok_Coffee_4977 1d ago

With our brains. Same as everyone else.

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u/Poly_and_RA 1d ago

Maybe spend some time reading or listening to some of the ENORMOUS amount of poly-101 content already available online?

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u/Ok-Reward-770 1d ago

RIGHT?

I don’t know if it’s the memes era we have been living, but I’m exhausted to “prove” random people the legitimacy of polyamory.

Maybe because his profile seems suspicious to me.

1

u/CapriciousBea 1d ago

Polyamory makes room for multiple full-on romantic relationships.

Sometimes I have multiple romantic partners. I don't choose partners to fill in gaps or make up for something missing in another relationship. I choose them because I'm into them. Each relationship has to stand on its own legs.

I do also have casual sexual relationships. Whether a relationship is romantic and sexual or strictly sexual comes down to how much compatibility and mutual interest there is for those things.

1

u/DebutanteHarlot 1d ago

Everyone plays a different role in my life, including partners.