Why Do Polyamorous People Act So Superior?
Especially when they seem so miserable.
Polyamory is having a moment.
There was this cover story in New York magazine.
Celebrating your lover while they marry their partner while supporting your lover’s lover’s lover while they go through it is an example of what Anna calls “living life on hard mode.” “There’s a real sense of connection that I think comes from doing hard things, and I’m someone who likes to do hard things,” Sarah explains further.
There was this New York Times article about Molly Roden Winter’s polyamorous memoir, More.
Winter is at her home in Brooklyn. She has just had sex with her boyfriend while her two children sleep upstairs. Her husband, Stewart, consented to her tryst, but feeling guilty, she dashes naked into the kitchen to text him: Don’t worry, she writes, “he has nothing on you as a lover.” But instead of texting her husband, she accidentally sends the message to her boyfriend, who leaves in a huff, and later breaks up with her. Winter, devastated, begs her husband to come home to comfort her.
There was this incredible essay by Tyler Austin Harper in The Atlantic, which describes the above memoir as the opposite of liberating.
More feels like a 290-page cry for help. Molly does not come off as a woman boldly finding herself, but rather as someone who is vulnerable to psychological manipulation and does not enjoy her open marriage. I am not holding a magnifying glass up to the text in search of hidden signs of discontent. I am not paternalistically projecting my Protestant values or wintry Northeast prudishness onto the author. I simply read the book. And if it seems like Molly Roden Winter does not want to be in an open marriage, it is because she often lets us know that she doesn’t want to be in an open marriage.
I have always found the topic of polyamory to be fascinating. As a happily married man for 17 years and a slut for the preceding 15, I’ve often wondered if men and women could have their cake and eat it too. Various conversations with my wife in which we admitted our attraction to others always lead us to conclude that there’s a very practical reason for monogamy.
It works better.
There’s a very practical reason for monogamy. It works better.
Like communism (or libertarianism), polyamory sounds great in theory, but often has messy implications when normal human beings get involved.
Others - usually those who advocate for open relationships - disagree, and lead with this science-based approach.
“Many nonmonogamous people report that they come to feel less jealousy over time; conversely, many monogamous people complain of experiencing sexual jealousy. In response to the charge that nonmonogamy is “unnatural,” Jenkins and Ichikawa pointed out that virtually no species are sexually monogamous, even if they are socially monogamous or pair-bond for life.”
Indeed, the book “Sex at Dawn” purports that no species is sexually monogamous. Humans are most closely related to the bonobo and for thousands of years lived in polyamorous communities of less than 150 people. It wasn’t until we moved to an ownership society where men owned land and women sought resources that we came up with the concept of marriage.
Score one for the evolutionary biology folks. So, okay: let’s agree that monogamy isn’t natural and that both men and women are genetically programmed to crave variety. Yet here we are, in 2024, with many polyamorous authors who strain to not only justify their life decisions but also project an air of smug superiority that they are more evolved than monogamous couples. I trust you’ve heard their arguments before.
“Sex doesn’t have to be such a big deal.”
Technically, nothing has to be a big deal unless you make a big deal about it. Your house burns down? They’re only possessions. Did you lose your job? There’ll be another one. Your car was stolen? A great chance to use that bike. All of these things are true but miss the greater point that you’re making the best of a bad situation. So yeah, sex doesn’t have to be a big deal…but it is.
“You can love more than one person at a time.”
It’s true. I can imagine finding multiple women attractive. I can imagine having satisfying sex with multiple women. I can imagine feeling a deep emotional connection with multiple women. What I can’t imagine is that I would be able to maintain safe, stable relationships with multiple women. Someone is going to be dissatisfied due to a finite amount of time, energy, and resources.
"Different connections fulfill different needs.”
Also true. That’s why I have my Mom and my sister. That’s why I have my fantasy football friends and my trivia friends. That’s why I have my couple friends, my politics friends, my college friends. That’s why I have my clients. My wife may be my favorite person but I supplement her presence with lots of people - all without sleeping with any of them.
"It's about ethical non-monogamy.”
No one is saying you’re a bad person for wanting to experiment with this. If you’re both on board, go on with your bad self. But, first, read the accounts of the many open-minded couples who tried this and failed. In almost every scenario, there’s one person who wants more sex, one person who wants to take a pause, one person fighting jealousy, and one person developing stronger feelings for someone else. Polyamory may be ethical but it’s also a predictable disaster.
"Communication and honesty are key."
Yep. This is why EVERY story about poly people emphasizes the ENORMOUS amount of communication and compromise it takes to maintain multiple romantic relationships. As always, two things can simultaneously be true:
Humans are not designed to be with one person for life.
Trying to maintain a loving relationship with two people is infinitely more complicated than trying it with one.
You’re not “wrong” if you read the above and still want to go poly. Reasonable people can weigh the pros and cons differently.
Do I want to put enhanced sexual gratification above the harmony and joy of my marriage? No fucking way. Bringing in other sexual partners and potentially destabilizing my marriage is BY FAR a worse scenario than the monotony of monogamy.
Bringing in other sexual partners and potentially destabilizing my marriage is BY FAR a worse scenario than the monotony of monogamy.
If you feel that monogamy is oppressive and want to try to rise above the petty sexual jealousies that govern others’ lives, I sincerely hope it works out for you. I just see a lot of evidence that it won’t.
We all want to be exceptions to the rules. Few of us are. I can have sex without emotion. I can have feelings for multiple people. I can understand intellectually that sex is different from love. What I realized I can’t do is be cool with my wife having sex with another guy.
This man, Michael Sonmore, wrote about his open marriage in 2015. It was as if he was trying to convince himself that he felt good about his wife fucking other people while he was home with his kids.
For my wife, the choice between honoring our vows and fulfilling her desires was a false choice, another trap. She knew how deep our love was, and knew that her wanting a variety of sexual experiences as we traveled through life together would not diminish or disrupt that love. It took me about six months – many long, intense conversations, and an ocean of red wine – before I knew it, too. When my wife told me she wanted to open our marriage and take other lovers, she wasn’t rejecting me, she was embracing herself. When I understood that, I finally became a feminist.”
His half-hearted conclusion: he wants to be cool with it and to claim he’s a feminist who doesn’t control his wife’s sexuality, but, boy, is he struggling.
It’s almost as if he’s NOT enjoying this little experiment.
There are, of course, moments of jealousy, resentment, and insecurity. Recently, my wife went on a date and fell asleep at his apartment. I hadn’t heard from her since 10 p.m., she still wasn’t home at 6 a.m. My texts went unanswered and my calls went to voicemail. A tight knot of dread lodged in my stomach as I imagined all kinds of dire scenarios and realized that I not only didn’t know where she was, I had no idea whom she was with. I pictured myself going to the police saying, “I think she’s in Red Hook with a guy named Ryan. I don’t know his last name, but I think he’s a graphic designer?”
Yeah, that sounds fun.
Polyamorous people often feel judged. They shouldn’t be. But they do have to get that we monogamous folks aren’t prudes afraid of societal backlash. Nor are we less “evolved”. We just draw a different conclusion to the question: “Would adding another person help our marriage or hurt our marriage?”
Your thoughts, as always, are greatly appreciated.
What I Got Wrong
One of our male readers responds to “Why Do Men Still Pay for All Dates?”
I'm a man who always pays for a first date and will continue to do so, but I think we should collectively cultivate a new norm that the first IRL interaction from a dating app is NOT a date; it's a pre-date, like texting or a phone call, and if it goes well, a proper date can be scheduled, planned, and paid for by the man.
Meeting someone online is SO radically different from asking out someone you've crossed paths with in real life that it requires a different norm. The entire point of online dating is to have more choices, with the tradeoff being that the likelihood is lower for any one meetup to result in mutual interest. I am genuinely *thrilled* to pay for someone with whom there's a chance of a genuine relationship; I *don't* love paying when it's clear within two minutes of meeting that there's no chemistry.
Online dating is still very new in the scheme of things, so I think it's entirely possible to create a new norm around it.
Link That Made Me Think
This Year, Women Said Enough To Modern Marriage
I guess you could call this a thinkpiece. The author, Scaachi Koul, talks about the evolution of marriage and refers to the current state as Marriage 3.0. Her conclusion: men suck and marriage isn’t good for women. Her evidence? Mormons, archconservatives, and toxic men! Is that a tiny fraction of the dating pool? Of course. Does that matter? Nope. Here’s further proof that men are useless: “I sheltered in place for years, just to emerge still stuck with a man who thinks “brown” is an acceptable bed sheet color?”
With hot takes like this, I wonder who has it worse: women or men?
On the Love U Podcast
Everyone is Someone’s Second Choice
Don Miguel Ruiz wrote The Four Agreements. One of them is “Don’t Take Anything Personally.” Nowhere is that more relevant than in the world of dating. Texting, hooking up, ghosting, breadcrumbing, endless amounts of rejection. Yet none of it is personal. No one is out to get you. You’re just collateral damage in someone else’s journey. To succeed in dating, you need a strong ego – and you also have to know when to put it aside. If you’ve ever been offended that a guy you barely dated returns for a second go-round, it’s time to let that shit go and get happy.
My Not-So-Viral Social Media Post of the Week
You Can Also See Me On…
Nikki Spoelstra is the ex-wife of Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra and the host of The Know with Nikki Spo. She was DELIGHTFUL and the vibes were great on this episode. After suffering through a marriage with a high-profile alpha workaholic, Nikki is determined to never again settle for a dissatisfying relationship. In this super fun episode, we cover:
Percentages & The Dating Pool
What does your perfect Saturday look like with your partner?
HAVING A ROSTER
What’s on your relationship checklist and WHY
NOT ignoring the red flags 🚩
Compatibility vs. similarities
Compromising vs. Settling
Sexclusivity and having THAT convo
You HAVE to Check Out…
Movies - When Harry Met Sally - The GOAT of romcoms. I will not argue this.
Books - The Best of Me by David Sedaris - Started it this week and he may be the GOAT of funny short stories. Sedaris has always written sharp observations about the foibles of human behavior - but I think he’s gotten crankier in his sixties. I’m here for it.
Substack - The Dangers of Substack for the Chronically Low Self-Esteemed by Shalom Auslander - Good writers have a way of reflecting your innermost thoughts back to you. And while envy is not a good look, this post about being a writer who is jealous of other writers hits REALLY close to home.
The Honey Shot
I had enrolled in Love U and found the content to be uplifting and spot on but I still could not pull the trigger on my ex. Ultimately, I decided to work on me. I choose my happiness first, found a great spiritual coach, did a lot of manifesting and visualization work and left that relationship.
As I found myself newly single, I remembered what Evan taught us in Love U: Believe the negatives, date someone who makes me feel safe, heard and understood. Every second you spend with the wrong man is a second you are not looking for the right one.
Two months after my break-up, my brother called me and said, “I have someone for you to date!” L went to law school with my brother, was a widower and was looking for a loving long-term relationship with marriage as the goal.
L is not my “type,” because he is way too nice! He is generous, loving, makes me feel safe, heard and understood. He leads with kindness and respect. At first it was tough for me because I was used to a certain avoidant type and L was nothing like that. In fact, he’s the compete opposite.
Well, friends, it has worked out! I am thrilled to tell you this has been the easiest relationship of my life. Being in love with the right guy does not take away issues with adult children, parents, jobs etc. but as a team we work out our issues always with kindness, love and respect.
L proposed a while back and I have said yes! We are engaged and will get married in a private ceremony sometime before the end of the year.
Love wins! All I had to do was stop doing everything I had done before and open myself to a great man!
Jan T.
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It's a great arrangement... for people who are emotionally unavailable. Perhaps it is better if they spread the disappointment around haha.
Thank you!!