More Than Two: A Practical Guide to Ethical Polyamory (64 page)

WHERE ARE POLY PEOPLE?

If you're shopping for bread, you'll have more success in a bakery than in a hardware store. If you're looking for poly people, you're more likely to find them among openly poly people than among people who prefer traditional relationships. A quick online search may turn up poly groups wherever you are. Check Modern Poly's
Polyamory Group Registry
(polygroups.com), and also search Meetup.com and Facebook for groups in your area.

If no real-life groups are near you, the major social media have many poly communities, and there are web forums and dating sites for poly people. Huge numbers of poly people are on the free dating site OkCupid.com. There, answering lots of personality questions (hundreds) and marking poly-related ones as "mandatory" will help you zero in on your peers, as will listing "polyamory" as an interest in your profile. At the time of writing, a new poly social networking site called K-Tango was in beta testing; this looks like a site worth watching. The two of us met each other through Twitter: Eve was following Franklin, who tweeted about an astronomy lecture. Eve, who happened to be in Portland for a conference, attended—and the rest is…well, this book.

It's a lot harder to find poly people if you're not open about being polyamorous. Imagine a cocktail party with ten poly people there, none of them open. All ten might end up thinking,
I wonder where I can go to meet poly people? Not here!
We've had multiple people at a single conference or workplace quietly come up and confide in us that they're poly, but don't want anyone else to know about it. Of course, because polyamory is such a vast umbrella term for so many different styles of relationships, someone who says "I'm poly!" may mean something different by it than what you do. Get them talking about what they mean.

THE IMPORTANCE OF PARTNER SELECTION

The notion that we don't choose our relationships is surprisingly widespread. Compatibility, shared vision, mutually negotiated relationships—none of these things matter in the face of True Love, says the fairy tale. When we fall in love, we are obligated to start a relationship. And once we're in it, the love is the fuel that makes it go. As long as we're in love, we will be happy. Many grown-ups believe this.

FRANKLIN'S STORY
A few years back, I was speaking about alternative relationship models at a convention. One of my fellow panelists, a writer, was complaining that he'd never been able to find a partner who understood his writing habits; his partners tended to complain when he got an idea in the middle of the night and got up to write, or when he would lock himself in his office through dinner because he had a burst of inspiration and was too absorbed to stop and eat.

I suggested the solution to this problem was to choose partners up front who understood the way he worked and were okay with it. The man was quite shocked at this idea. "You don't choose partners!" he insisted. "Relationships just happen. You don't screen lovers the way you would look for an employee at a business!"

If we, like Franklin's fellow panelist, accept the idea that we do not choose our partners, we tend to wake up and find ourselves in relationships by default, not design. We may end up, as the writer at the panel did, with partners who are a poor match, because we don't apply good partner selection criteria. We don't think to ask questions that might tell us how well matched we are.

We do have choices about our romantic lives. You can skip right over vast quantities of relationship problems by exercising good partner selection skills at the outset—and yes, partner selection is a skill. Part of it is recognizing the choices we make, and part of recognizing our choices is acknowledging that while we may not always have control over our feelings, we have control over whom we are in relationships with. Love, of and by itself, is not enough to guarantee a good relationship. Good relationships grow by careful tending, but they start with good selection. (Or as gardeners like to say: "Right plant, right place.")

One part of the skill of partner selection is knowing our "deal-breakers" —what would make a partner a poor choice for us. Sexual incompatibility is one common deal-breaker; drug or alcohol abuse is another. So is a history of violence against past romantic partners. But many others are more subtle, such as, in the case of the writer at the conference, disrespect for work habits that are really important to you.

When selecting a partner, there's a strange state of limbo you can end up in: a person doesn't display any particular red flags or deal-breakers, but you also don't feel really enthusiastic about her, either. If we make choices based on whether or not someone hits any of our deal-breakers, we might plow ahead with a relationship without considering whether or not that person has the qualities we
want
in a partner.

One good policy for partner selection is "'
Fuck yes
' or no." This policy, first articulated by writer Mark Manson, is based on the idea that it makes no sense to invest time and romantic energy with someone you're not that excited to be with, or who isn't excited to be with you. If the idea of dating someone doesn't prompt an enthusiastic "Fuck yes!" then the answer is no. Ambivalence has little place in romance.

The approach we recommend relies more on asking ourselves questions about what this person has to offer, rather than asking whether this person has disagreeable traits. Franklin likes to use questions such as these:

• Does this person have wisdom I find attractive?
  
• Has she done something that shows me she is likely, when faced with a difficult decision, to choose the path of greatest courage?
  
• Has she done something that shows me that, when faced by a personal fear or insecurity, she is dedicated to dealing with it with grace, and to investing in the effort it takes to confront, understand and grow beyond it?
  
• Does she show intellectual curiosity, intellectual rigor and intellectual growth?
  
• Has she dealt with past relationships, including relationships that have failed, with dignity and compassion?
  
• Is she a joyful person? Does she value personal happiness? Does she make me feel joy?
  
• Does she seem to have a continuing commitment to understanding herself?
  
• Does she value self-determinism?
  
• Does she approach things with energy and enthusiasm? Does she engage the world?
  
• Does she demonstrate personal integrity?
  
• Is she open, honest, enthusiastic and exploratory about sex?
  
• Does she communicate openly, even when it's uncomfortable to do so?
  

The previous chapter talked about the idea of amplifiers versus attenuators: people whose response to stress tends to make things worse vs. people who tend to make things better. This idea applies to partner selection. When you're considering dating someone, ask yourself: "Does this person have a history of leaving their social circle better or worse than they found it?"

One factor that can be very revealing is how a prospective partner talks about ex-partners. Are they monsters? Is every story about an ex a tale of woe, in which the ex plays the Big Bad Wolf? This could mean that if you become romantically attached, you'll have the starring role in a future monster story. In contrast, when someone is on generally good terms with former partners, that speaks volumes.

Look at a date's current relationships, if any. Do they seem turbulent or generally smooth? Do you like the way this person treats his current partners? Does he speak positively and respectfully about them? If so, he will likely do the same about you.

POLY DATING AND CHILDREN

Poly dating with kids in the picture is in many ways similar to monogamous dating for single or divorced parents. In chapter 13 we told the story of Clara and Elijah, a polyamorous couple with two young children. Many of the strategies they employed represent general best practices for dating with children. Clara chose a partner, Ramon, who had children of his own, and the adults all worked out supportive scheduling strategies around the kids' needs. Not every dating partner would want to do that.

You might seek partners who like being around children, though not everyone considers this a requirement. It can certainly be easier for parents when their partners are kid-oriented people. At minimum, you at least want to feel like your kids are
safe
around your partners.

As with metamours, a time will eventually come when you will want your partners to meet your children. Most parents we've spoken to prefer not to introduce new partners to their children until the relationship is fairly well established. This serves two purposes: ensuring that
you
are comfortable with and trust the new partner, and not having your child become attached to someone you're not sure is going to stick around. Of course, the right time to introduce a new partner to a child will probably need to be decided by all the child's parents.

Some people believe having children provides a good rationale for a screening veto, as discussed in chapter 12. Our answer is: sort of. Certainly, when two (or more) parents share custody and caretaking of a child, particularly a very young child,
all
of them need to be on board regarding who else is allowed into the child's space. This doesn't necessarily mean, however, that all parents need to have veto over new relationships. It might mean that certain partners don't meet the children or come to the home. That will, of course, restrict a relationship in many ways, but choices about how those restrictions will then play out can be left to the people in the relationship.

Finally, remember that your relationship with your child is
a relationship,
and a very high-maintenance one. And you need to care for that relationship when you are in the throes of a new romance. Just as your partners may feel insecure and scared, so might your children. They too may need reassurance that they are still special, still loved, still irreplaceable. It can be very helpful, as Clara did, to schedule special alone time with your children the way you would schedule "date nights" with your partners: one-on-one time where they have your undivided attention and do something fun with you, so they see that you are still committed to them.

MISMATCHED SUCCESS

It's common to see poly relationships in which one partner has much more success meeting new people than another. This can create resentment, guilt and anxiety all around. Some highly sociable people try to scout up dates for their more introverted partners. This rarely succeeds. It can feel a bit awkward to be approached by someone who says, "Hey, would you like to date my boyfriend?" or "How'd you like to go out with my wife?"

In reality, we are responsible for our own dating experiences. It's not your job to provide your partner with new dates. Different people find it easier or harder to meet people, but if you're the one who meets people easily, you're not doing anything wrong. If your partner finds it harder, that's not your fault. Unless you're a professional marriage broker, your ability to find partners for another person is limited (and your responsibility for it, nonexistent).

What strategies work when one person in a couple finds it easier to date than the other? An introvert may need to practice pushing his comfort zone a bit; he might ask an extroverted partner to help bring him into new situations. Different people succeed in different social settings. A person who doesn't meet people easily might have more success in "closed" settings—for example, among friends and acquaintances—than in "open" settings, such as parties or bars. Some people prefer looking online; a web search can turn up guides for how to use OkCupid to find poly people successfully. As mentioned, specifically poly dating sites are springing up all the time.

Social networking through our partners can be another powerful way to meet people, as long as you don't burden your partner with expectations or let your partner run the show. Peter's partner Gwen is someone Eve originally met on OkCupid. They had a four-way date with Gwen and her live-in partner, Finn, and while there was no chemistry between Eve and Finn, Gwen and Peter hit it off. And Clio knew Eve online for about six months before she started dating Peter; her acquaintanceship with Eve was a key factor in her accepting Peter's request to come to her town for a visit.

KITTYCAT LESSONS

A "kittycat lesson" is what we call a situation where we generalize poorly from our experiences or learn a lesson that works against us.

FRANKLIN'S STORY
For many years, my mother had a fluffy white cat that might reasonably have been called obstinate. It's not that she was incapable of learning. Far from it. She was a very bright cat; she just tended to learn the wrong lesson. For example, whenever my mother opened the refrigerator door, the cat, realizing that the fridge was the source of all goodness, would try to dart inside.

My mom tried to teach the cat not to do that by closing the door on her nose. The cat learned the lesson quickly—not "I shouldn't try to get into the refrigerator," but rather "I should dash in the instant I can before the door hits my nose."