I’m wondering when the best time to disclose to a new crush is, in terms of being poly and having a partner? I’m a queer poly woman, interested in someone but we don’t get a lot of time to talk. We’re limited to ten or fifteen minute conversations at lit events, just enough time to make small talk and know we have a few things in common. She seems to like me too, but it’s hard to say. I don’t know if she’d be interested if she knew my situation. I’m sure this is a problem poly people have always faced, so any insights on how to drop the “I have a partner but...” is appreciated! Let me know how to rip the bandage off better.

At the risk of sounding wishy-washy, I’m a semi-indirect person, but mostly very much in favor of sexual and romantic tension in all forms. The difficulty of disclosing is that it can sometimes puncture that exciting and uncertain newness. You don’t know if she’ll be interested in your situation until you disclose that you have a partner. She might not be interested in dating someone who has another partner but she could also have a partner and could be going to these events with the intention of meeting someone. You never know.

I’d recommend asking her to coffee to talk about writing. A one-on-one, relatively neutral activity in which you could look Very Good and mention that you happen to be in an open relationship. This way, you can organically disclose a fact about your life and get a sense of her thoughts on polyamory. Whether she looks concerned about “how that all works with your partner” or asks you to get drinks a week later, you’ll have your answer. This is a tried and true method of seducing someone while disclosing relationship status and it definitely has worked on me.

You’re not dropping bad news on her but you’re acting like you are. Think of it not as “I have a partner but…” instead, “I have a partner and…”

Disclosing in polyamorous or nonmonogamous relationships is a hurdle that people face over and over. When do you tell a new person that you already have a partner? And when do you tell an existing partner that you’re into someone else? If you disclose too early you run the risk of appearing as sexually single minded (not always a bad thing), but if you wait too long you run the risk of seeming evasive.

In general, it’s important to disclose the information that other people need to make an informed decision about your relationship. For example, I got foot surgery two weeks ago. I texted an embarrassing number of people about it a) to let them in on the horror of having your foot not only stitched up but experiencing your ankle become bruised and squishy and b) so they would not expect me to take a train to meet them. My number one fear is the yawning, uneven steps of an MTA station. Likewise, disclosure involves some fear — it acknowledges your sitch, and invites others into your life and allows them to meet you where you are at fairly, whether it is religiously bedbound or poly and partnered.

Polyamorous relationships demand more honesty than monogamous relationships. The sooner and more you disclose, the easier it will become.

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I'm a woman in my mid-40s. When I consider the dating apps out there they seem so damn complicated with all the online ways of relating. They make me feel old-fashioned in a strange way, so I’m really ambivalent about getting on there. But there doesn’t seem to be many/any ways to meet women and men in real life who are looking to date and who I’d also share some interests with. I don’t know why I’m so ambivalent about it though. I have friends who met their partners on an app. So, do you think I just have to get over whatever reluctance I have?

As a Gen Z/Millennial cusper, dating apps also make me feel old-fashioned in a weird way and I’ve been on them my entire adult life. Oscar Wilde, who met his lovers in social clubs and public bathrooms, wrote that “uncertainty is the essence of romance,” but the apps take out the exciting ambiguity of meeting someone who may or may not be looking for something romantic and make dating utilitarian.

I was in high school when my ex-step uncle introduced me to Tinder. He was staying at our house for an indefinite period of time and showed me a status update he made on Facebook. The post announced that he’d gone on five dates over the course of five days. He told me that he had a second date that week and a couple of fresh ones lined up the week after. I felt lucky to have courted my high school girlfriend over the course of a thirteen hour bus ride to Utah with the rest of our choir. Obviously, I would never have to resort to dating apps, but I did wonder if this would be my future: hours spent swiping through pixelated strangers on apps, and it was, but it wasn’t the only way I would find relationships.

On the apps, you know a lot of information going in. In your case, you know that you are a bi, forty-ish woman who is looking for a Hinge-y long-term relationship (open to short-term). You are going to meet a Theoretical Stranger: Lesbian, forty-five, looking for a life partner. You will both be meeting under the pretense (and hope) of establishing a romantic relationship. Knowing this information can save you time, but dating apps replace relationship seeking with a new kind of uncertainty. Not only are you overwhelmed by options, but there’s the added pressure of trying to get a total stranger to go on a date with you through a few carefully selected messages in a short window of time.

My ex-step uncle’s post on our family desktop computer still haunts me today. I remember that twinge of embarrassment and discomfort that I would come to know well fifteen years into the future: the days when I would have several dates lined up and spend hours staring into pixelated faces of strangers wondering how many people they are talking to.

But given my age, I stand by the online ways of relating! I encourage you to accept The Internet as a sphere that broadens romantic possibilities. You could DM an acquaintance on Instagram and invite them out for coffee or ask someone out over Zoom chat in a virtual gay writing workshop, both moves successfully attempted by me. And of course, there are the in-person ways of relating: unconsciously attracting the only other person at a party who has IBS and, coincidentally, also went through a break up a month ago, or striking up a conversation with someone that you’ve seen for years at a coffee shop but never spoken to. And of course: da apps.

So, how do you navigate them?

I will say that I take my ease with them for granted. It’s highly likely that the people you match with who are your age probably also find dating apps awkward and strange, if that is any consolation. Try testing the waters by creating a profile with the goal of trying to meet up with just one person from the app without any kind of expectation. I would highly recommend Hinge, which has more specific prompts than other apps. You don’t need a dating app photo shoot, but choose photos of you in action, on a hike or at a conference. Try starting by spending 10-15 minutes at a time on dating apps, and in a moment of uncertainty or overwhelm, it’s never a bad idea to show your profile to a blunt but kind friend.

When it comes to messaging, I will console you with the fact that dating app conversation is a little awkward no matter who you are or how long you’ve been on the apps. All you need to do is connect with someone in a low-stakes way. Comment on something that they wrote in their profile or ask them a question about an interest they listed, and then invite them out to a low-stakes hang, like coffee or a museum, with the plan to meet up with a friend afterwards. If it’s weird, you can leave after an hour.

Dating apps aren’t the only way to meet people. Think back to how you met past partners. Was it through work or school? What made you receptive to them? Sometimes what prevents us from meeting people is the fear and the belief that we never will. Sometimes it’s not how we meet partners, but the fact that we are open and receptive to meeting people in general.

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So recently I got ghosted and it made a whole host of feelings come up. I’m always honest about my mental and physical health struggles without getting into too much detail. Now I'm wondering what the balance is between being honest about what's going on or keeping it to myself? The fact is in the past I've been accused of being “too much” after laying a majority of the cards on the table so to speak. I'm too needy has also been said to me though when speaking of my past and health issues I make sure to state that I mainly just take care of myself. It would be nice to have the support of my SO but it's not always needed. Then jump to the other side where I keep this close to the chest and don't divulge in the beginning. I'm then told that I'm dishonest and not open. Worse, I have been called manipulative because I let the issues come out organically. I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't. Queer dating is hard enough. Add in that all you want is to find that one person in life that is willing to accept you just like you would them. Help! What is a 40+ Queer Femme to do?

There’s a lot of shame about being a “needy” person that really needs to be dispelled. As a self-and-other-identified needy person, I was reading the book Attached alone in the park, an undisclosed amount of time ago. The book delves into attachment theory, which explores how our attachments to caregivers early in life influence our romantic relationships in adulthood; attachment theory is also something that people obsess over in adulthood when their romantic lives are really not working out. On dates everyone claims to be secure, but alone on my bench, I once identified myself as an anxious-attacher (a person convinced that they will be abandoned) and I came across a part that read that “we are only as needy as our unmet needs.” Which ranks as one of the most validating things that I have read in a long time. Needs are relative. A request that would be needy to one person is a request that another person would be happy to fulfill. “You’re too needy” is a statement that we use to shame ourselves and others for being too much, and sometimes that’s true, which doesn’t mean anything negative about either person, but that the two of you are probably not compatible in a romantic relationship.

Mental and physical health struggles do make you needy and that isn’t a bad thing at all. Knowing your needs and limitations is far better than not knowing and realizing far too late that you are with the completely wrong person. Dating is really just a process of finding out whether your too-muchness or not-enoughness fits with someone else's expectations. Given that you have mental and physical health struggles, I can only imagine how frustrating it is to continually need to bring this up to see how people respond. How much do you divulge? And how early on?

You don’t have to tell the person (or people) you are dating immediately. Bring it up as you are getting to know the person and sharing information about yourself. Every relationship involves some kind of adapting to the other person. Imagine what it might be like for the other person who is encountering all of these cards on the table. Some people might not respond well initially, but end up being great and understanding partners. Others might seem responsive, but realize that they need to bail early on. Some people might have a lot of experience dating people with physical and mental health struggles, but a lot of people don’t. Imagine if you were in their position. What might it be like to encounter all of these cards on the table? Give it time.

You write that on dates you make sure to state that you mainly just take care of yourself, but you don’t need to. Figure out what you can reasonably get from yourself and what you actually would like from this other person, which I imagine might feel painful, as it is painful to want things from another person and be uncertain if they can give it to you. You don’t need to perform unnecessary independence on dates — that is what could be making you get misread as “manipulative.” Transparency isn’t manipulation. Be honest about what you want and you’re likely to weed out the people who you aren’t compatible with anyways. The mutual dependence in a relationship is especially transformative for people who have mental and physical struggles: don’t shy away from wanting that.

Yes, queer dating is hard, but if you continue to dwell on it, you are just going to hit the same wall of sadness every time. Are there also ways that you can feel supported either through friends or community that can help alleviate the pressure of finding a romantic partner? Feeling secure in yourself while you seek out a romantic partner is actually kind of great.

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I feel like I should get my life/mental health in order before I seriously date, but at the same time, I’m lonely and crave companionship. I don’t enjoy casual sex without a sustained emotional connection, so I’m not looking for one-night stands. In other words, how do you recommend seeking out companionship/navigating dynamics with someone who is more than a friend, but not a Relationship? Additionally, do you feel it’s healthier to fix one’s fraught mental health/self-image before pursuing romantic entanglements? HELP!

At the beginning of relationships, people become what psychologist Lori Gottlieb calls, an ambassador of the self, a confident spokesperson for who you are and what you’re about. This period lasts for a couple of months until people feel comfortable enough to show their actual flaws and vulnerabilities. It’s hard to be a good ambassador of yourself when you feel like your life is imploding and every date essentially requires you to carefully avoid reporting on the disintegration of your life. However, I do feel like when we hit rock bottom, we can actually be a better ambassador of the self than when we feel that we have everything figured out because there is less pressure to perform. This can give you a kind of confidence because your only option becomes honesty.

My first serious relationship began right when I went through a mental health crisis, got laid off, and less importantly, got a serious piercing infection. This made dating easier because I didn’t have any hope of being able to pretend like I had my life together. Let me emphasize: a piercing infection that required two rounds of antibiotics and also pliers. I felt like I had less than nothing to lose, and because of this I was able to be more honest about who I was, which is a big part of why the relationship began. Not to sound like a total simp: but it was the redemptive force of love that helped my mental health. I have zero tolerance for the “you need to love yourself first before you love someone else” sentiment because it implies that we can only be loved by people when we are lovable ourselves. You would never say, I need to fix my mental health before pursuing friendships, because friendship is the very thing that does often fix our mental health, but when it comes to relationships, there is a lot of pressure in having everything figured out before seriously dating.

That said, sometimes taking a break can be good. We often attract unavailable people or shut down potentially good opportunities when we are operating from a place of insecurity. When we push ourselves to date when we are truly not ready, this can lead to using other people as unintentional rebounds or getting burned out.

So, how do you navigate pursuing a relationship with someone that isn’t totally transient but also doesn’t have the gas pedal taped to the floor? Going into hardcore partner acquisition mode and setting up two to four Hinge dates a week isn’t necessary, and from your question it seems like a one-night stand will probably have a suboptimal impact on your mental health.

You write that you want companionship and sexual connection, but without the pressures of a capital R relationship. You can’t have closeness without risk. You don’t need to fix your mental health and self-image in order to date. You need to figure out (and communicate!) which risks you’re willing to take and the ones you want to avoid.

Let yourself be open to the possibility of relationships taking their own shape as opposed to fearing the possibility of Seriousness.

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I am a 27-year-old queer woman and I know a lot of queer people are able to be friends with their exes and are neutral about them dating other people. I’m finding it extremely difficult to do this with my exes — do you think that some people just aren’t able to be friends with their exes? Even if they are queer? Or do I need to work on my attachments and self esteem?

My ex-girlfriend and I used to say If we broke up, we would still live together. We’d be tight friends and maaaaybe have sex occasionally. We were certain that we could remain in each other’s lives in the extremely unlikely event of a breakup. Staying in each other’s worlds would be easy, because, as we heard from friends and saw from media, lesbians are always good at being friends with their exes, able to rise above the pettiness of a breakup to preserve the love that remains, or if not, then to die trying.

Among lesbians, being friends with an ex is almost a cliché. Clichés exist for a reason—they’re mostly true. But if you fall outside the cliché it can leave you feeling like an outlier.

Having an ex as a friend can be invaluable. A former partner has access to your flaws, idiosyncrasies, an intimate and complicated knowledge of you that no one else has. In the best cases: they’re less like a friend and closer to a family member. This transition isn’t always complicated; some relationships naturally transition into friendship as the romantic and sexual element fades away, but in many cases, the move from partners to friends isn’t easy. For every queer woman that is officiating her ex’s wedding there are also restraining orders, torched cars, and exes trapped in lease agreements together. Because humans are human and we do crazy shit.

I assumed that being friends with my ex would be easier because as a gay person it’s supposed to be in my DNA, but there is real danger in assuming that just because you no longer want to be in the relationship that you’ll be able to be good friends without doing some work first.

I made all the classic mistakes: showing her a story that I happened to have based on her, hanging out on a fairly regular basis, talking about people that we were dating, all after a month of breaking up. These things that would have been fine with a regular friend but not a friend who I recently ended a long-term relationship with and whose entire sock collection I still have and accidentally never returned. Had we processed the end of the relationship more, had a real period of no contact, or eased more slowly into friendship, things likely would have worked out differently. Friendship might have been possible had we handled things another way. This experience is one of my only real regrets.

The short answer to your question is yes, it’s possible to be friends with an ex, but it depends both on the person and the relationship.

You need to lay a foundation for the post-breakup friendship to thrive, the same way you would lay a foundation for any relationship. If possible, communicate what you need to communicate in order to have closure. If you haven’t already, I’d suggest breaking up fully and cleanly. Have a period of no contact. People process breakups at wildly different speeds. Being friends is possible, but you both need to have sufficiently moved on from the relationship in order to re-enter into each other’s lives as friends.

It doesn’t just boil down to fixing your attachment style or having higher self-esteem: being friends with an ex, and not just friends as in friendly but friends as in close friends is difficult. The problems in the relationship don’t just go away if you address them by segueing into friendship.

Be honest about your motivations for wanting to stay friends with your ex. Do you want a friendship in order to sustain any kind of connection with this person? Are you hoping that you and/or your partner will eventually change and that will lead to being in a romantic relationship again? Do you still like and respect this person? Just because you are struggling to be friends with your ex now doesn’t mean that you always will. Not everyone is meant to be in the center of The L Word relationship web, nebulously connected to a network of friends, lovers, and those existing precariously in between. Let yourself be human, but also be open to the different kinds of relationship paths that being queer allows for.

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I’m a straight woman who recently had a bad breakup with a guy. Given that I thought I was moving toward my future, I know I’m not ready to date again. Actually I feel pretty good about that decision. Still, I’d really like to do something this Valentine’s to celebrate. I have good friends, but “Galentine” notions feel very cliché. Can I celebrate self-love? How does one begin a romance with themselves?

I’m a bad millennial. I hate the concept of self-love. Or rather, I hate the valorization of individualism that comes with it. Building a future with someone can be so beautiful and life affirming. Self-love feels like a consolation prize for the single. You don’t have a partner? Here, have some self-love as a little treat. This kind of messaging at the single, particularly women, to aggressively celebrate their singleness through Galentine’s Day can feel a bit condescending. I love Amy Poehler, but I cannot condone Galentine’s Day.

All that said, I’ve softened my stance on self-love and while I do think that there is way too much hype around Valentine’s Day, in truth I’m kind of a fan.

I’m going to suggest that you think of Valentine’s Day as a kind of New Year’s. A romantic reset for the year to come. Write down the highs and lows of love within the past year. What was good? What was difficult? What do you want in the future? To develop a romance with the self, consider the ways you have succeeded in love, and the ways in which you can support yourself as a partner might. Poly people often talk about this idea of being one’s own primary partner, in other words, offering themselves the kind of centering and care that they would experience in a primary relationship when they aren’t in one. At the risk of sounding totally cheesy, be the person you want for yourself. Engage in the activities that you would never let another person witness. For me, it’s lying naked in bed while eating hot dogs off my chest like an otter and listening to Tenacious D, but you do you.

I’m a queer man who has had a lifelong aversion to relationships—especially relationships built around possessiveness and control. My problem is no matter how upfront I am with my dates about being...well, a slut...they will start to form attachments and think that I will change my ways. And this isn’t just the women I’ve dated. This happens even with men I’ve met on the apps built for slutty hookups. When I (re)explain this to people, feelings are hurt and then I feel bad. I understand that sex for some people is really bonding, less so for people like me, yet I feel the guilt. Is there a way for me to stay true to myself and make sure there’s less hurt going around?

If your goal is just sex, I’d suggest doing the opposite of whatever Pavlov did to his dog. Don’t establish any kind of regularity or routine. Never bring food. Don’t let your lovers associate sex with acts of care. There’s certainly a cruel way to do this, to make sure not to engage in any kind of relationship-adjacent behaviors, but this often leads to confusion and hurt feelings. This impulse also makes sense: it’s hard to tell someone who’s developing feelings that you just don’t want that with them, but there’s a kinder way to do it.

Be up-front about your sluttiness, the fact that you don’t associate sex with love, and that you associate it with its God-intended purpose: coming hard. In the early 2000s, there was an explosion of films like No Strings Attached and Friends With Benefits that popularized the term friends with benefits. These movies (unsurprisingly) all ended with one person catching feelings, but it doesn’t have to be this way.

You say that sex isn’t bonding for you, but do you want any kind of bond? Do you want to hook up with the friends who you are hilariously romantically incompatible with but very sexually compatible with? Or do you want to hook up with people you don’t know outside of an app context. Having concurrent friends-with-benefits relationships is very different from a series of 1–3 night stand encounters.

Still, even though you have no intent to have a relationship with these people, I’d suggest treating your trysts the way you would treat a romantic relationship. Communicate. Think about what you need and want from each other. How often will you see each other? Will you sleep over? Will you tell other people about this person? And if you do develop a connection with someone you see frequently, check in with them regularly.

You can find like-minded sluts, you just need to treat these non-relationships a little more like relationships.

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I’m a 30-year-old queer guy who falls in love easily and I love connecting with people. I have noticed that I introduce new romances into my friend groups too quickly, which then makes things awkward afterwards. I’m seeing a new person I met on an app and feeling this intuition to keep him to myself, away from the circles I move about in, at least for a bit. But I’m also doubting that intuition, and wonder if you have advice for this?

I’m someone who separates all of the food on their plate because mixing them makes me want to throw up in my mouth a little bit. It also took me until my twenty-eighth birthday to introduce friends that I’ve had for years to one another. The experience felt like bringing different breeds of dogs to a dog park and hoping that they would all get along with no nipping or humping.

All this to say, I understand your desire to compartmentalize.

Bringing someone to your apartment where they may brush paths with your roommates is a lot different than inviting them to the birthday party of a close friend. A good friend of mine actually went to a birthday party on a second date. I thought, How could that go well? And yet, my friend discovered that she really liked this person, partially because of how easily, even early on, she melded with the friends of her date. They’ve been together for almost two years and have gone to many more birthday parties since. My editor in his forties seconds this open approach. “We think of our friend groups in our 20s and 30s as being settled with all their little hierarchies, but they end up really fluid.”

But let’s examine your intuition.

What is your hesitancy of introducing this new person to your friend group? Are you worried that you’ll introduce them prematurely and then feel embarrassed if the relationship doesn’t work out? Will this person join the graveyard of generically nicknamed acquaintances such as “Tech Guy,” or “Unicorn Tattoo Guy,” or “Bent Penis Guy”? Is it the potential future social embarrassment that’s stopping you, or are you just not sure what this relationship is yet?

Making these steps can be a good thing, but sometimes early feelings of excitement can blindside you. I once dated someone whose friends I felt super awkward around. As a person who must sometimes take themselves on a walk around the block before attending social events, I initially chalked up these feelings to anxiety and to the fact that the relationship was moving at dyke speed. (Which is somewhere above light speed.) And then, I reasoned that my nervousness had to do with the fact that I was a very different person from her. People are amalgamations of those closest to them and I eventually realized my unease around her friends meant I was uneasy with many parts of her.

Still, I don’t regret unsuccessfully and aggressively trying to merge our lives. It’s always better to be an over-eager romantic than a tentative cynic in a dating landscape hardened by appification. In some ways, timing doesn’t actually matter as to when we make those big decisions, like moving in together or merging those friend groups. Whether early or later, we can be blindsided by the reality of the relationship.

Relationships don’t exist in a vacuum, they exist in relation to others. If someone is right for you, meeting their people, even early on, will feel good. But if they aren’t right for you, you’ll always feel alone with them.

Until then, death is inevitable, so why not just stop over thinking it and get coffee with your date and your most chill friend?

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I’m newly ENM, a gender nonconforming married bisexual cis-man, and 47. I have so far found apps like Hinge, Tinder, and Feeld to be unsuccessful in finding dates or other poly people to connect with, nor are the majority of my friends open to being open. How can I meet more people like me, both for community and to date?

Dating is its own flavor of hell for everyone and dating as a married, newly poly man comes with its unique hurdles. I hate to tell you this, but it may be tougher for you for a number of reasons.

To a poly woman, for example, you could be seen as high risk, particularly one who doesn’t want to be you and your partner’s training wheels. People who are new to polyamory are going to be less experienced in setting boundaries and managing conflict with their partner while having another relationship. Poly women in particular have to sift through a lot of attached poly men who have no idea what they actually want or what they can realistically offer. I’m certainly not saying that you are one of these men, but that these are the stats you are fighting against. On the flip side, while it might be harder for you to be a first round draft pick on dating apps, the people that you do match with are likely going to be more invested.

Doing time on the apps and vesting your relational future to an algorithm may not be the best route for finding what you’re looking for, but I wouldn’t swear off dating apps entirely. Make sure that your profile reflects what you could actually offer to a potential partner.

Back in real life, however, focus on finding your community. By cultivating community, you’re likely going to meet people who also want to date you. There are many joys and difficulties that are unique to polyamory, and it can be so grounding to share them with people with whom you don’t have to explain or justify your relationship orientation to. People find community when they are living their lives more deeply and intentionally and getting to the place where you can just be will help you to feel not so damn thirsty. A friend recently told me that she met her partner the second that she decided to stop dating, because she wasn’t actively searching for a partner, she was able to welcome new people into her life organically. As someone who has attended events for the sole purpose of meeting my future wife, I would highly recommend going to events in which your primary goal is not to find someone to date, but ones that you genuinely want to go to. I did not act natural. My dream wife was not there. This might sound obvious, but try to put dating out of your mind as you search for community.

I’d recommend going to readings or panels hosted by poly writers and speakers, if that’s your thing. Play parties are another place where you can safely assume that the majority of people there are cool with some iteration of non-monogamy and polyamory. Many places that have play parties also have community events for poly people looking to connect with others.

In my own experience, I’ve met people because I’ve gone just slightly outside of my normal routine: talked to a stranger I was working next to at a café or stayed slightly later at a reading and been introduced to someone by a mutual friend. I’m not saying that you should stand outside of a play party and repeat affirmations to yourself, but that if you broaden your social horizons just a little bit, you will find people organically.

The dating and relationship industry has us believing that if we just spend a bit more money to be exposed to more people and more potential relationships, or if we just learn how to play the hidden rules of dating games, that the relationships we want will blossom in our lives. Like any business model, the dating and relationship industry is predicated on the idea that we are lacking and that we must devote time, energy, and resources in order to acquire whatever’s missing. Developing any kind of relationship is much simpler than that. It happens when you realize you have something to give someone else.

My partner and I are in a serious, long-term, committed, nesting-partner relationship. We are both lesbians. Last year we became friends with a lovely group of new humans via an activist/organizing space where I volunteer. [My partner’s] crush is in this friend group and activist sphere. We both generally feel okay about this, and the crush has been communicated to the human, but if this crush works out into something more, neither of us are sure what this means for parties, group hangs, activist events. If my partner and their crush start dating, how do we all share space together in the future? How do we take care of everyone's feelings? I personally am not always the most comfy in groups, so I'm specifically worried about being extra on-edge, self-conscious, and awkward in a newish friend group situation, or feeling abandoned/unattended to by my partner. Though I also want the crush to feel comfortable and okay too! Halp!

The crush has been communicated! To the person! Halp is on the way!

I’m going to start off by saying that you’re jumping the gun pretty hard. You don’t yet know what shape your partner’s relationship with this person will take, but whether the dynamic becomes a brief tryst, an FWB situation, or an ongoing relationship, here are some things to consider if the relationship gets more involved.

It’s great that this person is already a part of the spaces that you and your partner inhabit! You’re already socially integrated to some extent. Think of interacting with this person the way that you would with a new close friend of your partner’s. You don’t necessarily need to be super tight, but start by getting to know them one on one. Meeting a metamour— a partner’s partner—is an interesting experience. You know so little about them, and yet the two of you are both intimately familiar with your shared partner’s quirks and you both know about the weird birthmark on their butt. There’s an unspoken intimacy to this bond.

By getting to know them individually, you’ll be more relaxed when you hang out with them or interact in group settings. This will also free your partner from getting caught in a game of telephone with the two of you as you collectively freak out over how to interact with each other at events.

I wonder if you’ve also buried the lede a bit. You admit to anxiety in groups and maybe this is your biggest worry. At the risk of slipping into Gen Z therapy speak, I encourage you to accept all of the feelings that come up both with yourself and your partner. Based on your question, it seems that you are new to polyamory and I encourage you to start slow. Opening a relationship is a process. It’s possible that you may feel jealousy, but whether or not you do doesn’t mean that you’re not meant for polyamory. Jealousy exists on a scale and everyone falls somewhere on the spectrum.

When it comes to making the crush feel comfortable, be transparent about the power dynamics that exist. You are in a long-term relationship with your partner. You live together. You have an intimacy and security that this outside person will likely never have with your partner. Support this person in cultivating their own relationship with your partner and discuss what needs, desires, and boundaries you all have. Would you rather die than go to a poetry reading? Then maybe that’s a space for the crush. How do you all feel about public displays of affection at group events attended by all? How does this person want to be introduced at events? Are you your partner’s default plus one at events or does this switch off between you and your partner’s crush? What do you need from your partner to feel secure at events? A brief check in before? Plans to debrief after?

Being in a relationship is a skill and taking part in a non-monogamous or polyamorous relationship requires these skills twofold. Prepare yourself for lots of conversations about feelings. Polyamory is full of people who love to analyze relationships. Many of these people have also written books. I’d highly recommend checking them out.

I assure you that this is going to be so much less weird than you think it will be. If you find yourself suddenly socially inept at an event with your partner’s crush, just go to a failsafe topic of conversation: So about that birthmark…

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Dear Poly Hannah,

I am an asexual lesbian. My experience with dating apps has been very hollow. The conversations tend to be tepid at best and I find myself trying to force romantic interest in strangers. Is there something I should be doing to improve my experience on these apps, or are they better for casual hookups anyway? How can asexual people get into relationships?

What are dating apps if not the attempt of trying to force romantic interest in strangers?! It’s a high bar to assume that any person could develop real romantic interest for someone whose sole context they have is a few messages and three to five highly curated pictures. When you’re mostly looking for sex, it’s easier to gauge whether or not you’d be attracted to someone based on a few pictures, but when romantic compatibility is the primary thing you’re looking for, it’s going to be harder.

That’s simply because the most popular apps are built for the sexually utilitarian. Dating apps like Grindr are exceptionally efficient if you are looking to have sex with someone within the next two hours who lives within two miles of you, but also a little unnerving when you see the profiles of people you can track like an alien closing in on you. One hundred feet…50 feet…10 feet…HairyBear87 is in the room now!  For the sake of directness, I do sometimes wish that I was a horny gay man browsing photos of headless torsos, but I’m not and neither are you.

While it’s true that the apps are easier for hookups, it’s not impossible to form a long lasting romantic and completely non sexual romantic relationship from someone that you meet on an app. I’d suggest making your asexuality clear in your profile (no pussy for you) and highlighting non-sexual elements of yourself, so someone who might message you is reaching out because of shared interest, as opposed to that killer swimsuit pic.

It's good that you already know you are asexual. Many people don’t realize this until years down the line and whatever our identity is also happens to be the best part of ourselves.  Put that in the front, as you’re better off dating other asexual people rather than trying to find a compromise with a sexual person. (Even those who experience physical attraction run into major relationship issues because of mismatched libidos.)

So much of queer culture is dominated by sex. It is an important part of our liberation, but I can imagine, for an asexual lesbian, this could feel quite isolating. Queer spaces, like bars, can also be pretty sex focused, but even sexual people are not looking to fingerbang in the bathroom stall every night.  We have our Wednesday nights too. For you, my answer is fairly straightforward: focus on meeting even more people, exploring your own interests, and in the pursuit you’ll likely find someone who wants the same passionately non-sexual relationship that you do.

Dear PolyHannah,

I went out with my trivia friend, had a nice time, but he kissed me and it didn’t do anything for me. If he weren’t someone I knew, I’d probably give it another shot to make sure it wasn’t just first date nerves, but since he’s my friend I don’t want to lead him on. Do you think I cut this off now, or go out again?

Dating is literally a strange social experiment involving placing a stranger in different scenarios and based on your physiological and emotional response to them, deciding whether or not you want to spend a significant percentage of your life with them. Whether you’re trying to figure out if you’re politically aligned, romantically aligned, or sexually aligned, it’s going to take more time than one date, and more than one kiss. “No time wasters” is a trendy term on dating apps, but I suspect the people who state that are probably the worst offenders. Finding out if there is a connection, more often than not, takes time—so enjoy it.  It’s not leading someone on to continue dating them if you had a nice time but are still figuring out your feelings. What would be leading them on, was if you were certain that you didn’t want anything with him, but wanted to keep him around because he has a niche area of knowledge that you needed for your trivia team.

You’re not leading him on, you’re still figuring things out. As opposed to torturing yourself about one peck,  I’d recommend making out with him more and in between kisses casually ask, “Do you know who crowned Napoleon emperor of France?” Make your decision after that.

Got a question for PolyHannah?

Dear Poly Hannah,

My partner is married and I’d like to live with her and her husband as I find it would provide me a lot of security I’m looking for, but neither of them want to do it. She recently told me that the answer to the request to live together is “no” for the sake of everyone being on the same page (as opposed to “maybe someday”). This is after they brought up that they might be moving at the same time I am and getting a bigger place and inviting a fourth roommate into the dynamic. The whole thing just really hurt my feelings. My question is: how do you manage expectations as a person dating someone who is married when your relationship with them is pretty serious but there’s a practical cap on growth in the dynamic?

Congratulations! By telling you that she doesn’t want to live together, your girlfriend is freeing you from emotionally masturbating about the possibility of cohabitation. But also. Oof. It must be so hard to see your girlfriend and her husband hunt for another roommate, while you are moving at the same time, and would gladly fill that space, in New York City.  

As someone who is a chronic emotional masturbator, I am giving you advice that I often fail to give myself: take her at her word. By being direct, your girlfriend is being kind and I urge you to wholeheartedly accept that living together isn’t a possibility.

However, just because you and your girlfriend make great partners, doesn’t mean that you would have been good at cohabitation. And that doesn’t necessarily reflect anything positive or negative about the relationship itself. There are plenty of people, monogamous and polyamorous, who choose not to live with their partner. My grandparents stayed together monogamously—to my innocently limited knowledge—for decades because they both loved art and not spending money. But they did not live together because, under the circumstances of cohabitation, my grandfather was a huge curmudgeon to be around. I’m not saying that you are impossible to live with, but I am saying that your girlfriend’s decision doesn’t necessarily need to impact your relationship. 

In polyamorous circles, there’s a lot of talk about getting off the relationship escalator—the ascending steps of dating, moving in, and getting married—that are often legally reserved for two people.

The escalator works for some people. It can fill others with anxiety.  And certainly non-primary relationships often don’t follow this trajectory.

There’s freedom in getting off the relationship escalator, but there can also be grief. I’m not going to lie, living with a partner can be a wonderful thing. It is an odd privilege to experience the irritating mundanity of someone’s bathroom habits and to bask in the tenderness of feeding them berries nightly on the couch. Nothing prompts you to work through challenges in a relationship like being legally bound to live in the same place together. Obligation creates security.

So. Security. How do you find it in your current relationship structure?

By being married and living together, your girlfriend and her husband have a security that you won’t have with her, and right now, you’re running up against these boundaries hard. So, what do you do when your emotions outsize the logistical constraints of your relationship? How else can you find that same security? And how can you manage these emotions?

First. Acknowledge the power imbalance. Your girlfriend and her husband have the built-in advantages both being married, and knowing who eats all the hummus. You’re currently grieving an imagined future that might not ever exist. It’s certainly worth having a conversation with your girlfriend about these feelings and how she can support you.

You may not live together, but cohabitation isn’t the only way that you can create security in your relationship. Are there other ways in which you can merge your lives, logistically, professionally, or creatively, that might give you a similar feeling of security that living together provides? Relationship coach, Laura Boyle created an infographic that breaks down all of the different ways that we can be connected to someone in a relationship. I’d highly recommend taking a gander at this and taking stock of what kinds of connection you want from your girlfriend, and what you might want from someone else.

And finally, I urge you to think in the big picture. What do you want your sexual/romantic life to look like in the next year? In the next five years? What I’m hearing from your question is that you do want to live with a partner. The good news is that lots of people want to sign leases and engage in the wonderful and irritating bullshit that comes with living with someone. Hunt these creatures down!

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