Coming out as polyamorous is hard

Generally, "relationship broken, add people" is not a recipe for successful polyamory.

Someone may expand on this, but I'm just about to dash out the door to work.
As a side note, i'm not saying you should switch to polyamory to save your failing monogamous relationship. I'm saying people should realize no one can make you 100% happy. If you want more happiness than what one person can give you, you should seek partners who can complement your life if that's right for you. Multiple partners can offer different views and strengths to your life. Maybe one partner is an awful mother, but another partner is a wonderful mother.
 
Right, are you polyamorous by the way?
yes ...very 👍

What problems do you see with monogamy? I think the biggest problem with monogamy is the idea there's such a thing as "the right one" that's going to fulfill all of your needs. Such a person doesn't exist.
yes it does promote the idea of finding “ the one “ or as you say “the right one “ . AND as you say that person doesn’t exist if you have the need for constant variety and change. However at the same time being poly you’re also trying to connect with people with higher levels of compatibility. You’re still looking for the right one but more broadly ( the right ones )


I also didn't like the idea of sacrificing to keep your partner happy. Let's say you have feelings for a friend and you're tempted to cheat. The monogamous approach is to limit contact with your friend and invest more in your relationship. If you can't do it, you have to choose your friend or your partner. I thought "why should you have to pick sides? Why should you have to sacrifice a friendship over a relationship? Is it even worth it? What if your friend is a potentially good partner?" With monogamy, you're not even allowed to ask those questions. Monogamous people would say "well if you're that curious, break up with your partner and date your friend." The problem is it's almost impossible for monogamous people to do. Are you really going to sacrifice years of marriage and a family to be with a friend you've only known for 1-2 years?

That's why I love polyamory better. You don't have to make many sacrifices. You're free to explore possibilities.
I think this all depends on how entangled your lives become. living together, marriage , kids every step on that escalator comes more commitment and thus some sacrifices are going to be made. If you want total freedom don’t live together or get married ...definitely don’t have kids.
 
yes ...very 👍

yes it does promote the idea of finding “ the one “ or as you say “the right one “ . AND as you say that person doesn’t exist if you have the need for constant variety and change. However at the same time being poly you’re also trying to connect with people with higher levels of compatibility. You’re still looking for the right one but more broadly ( the right ones )

I think this all depends on how entangled your lives become. living together, marriage , kids every step on that escalator comes more commitment and thus some sacrifices are going to be made. If you want total freedom don’t live together or get married ...definitely don’t have kids.
What are your experiences with polyamory?

It's unrealistic to expect your partner to be the perfect romantic partner, sex partner, wife, mother, financial partner, etc. Polyamory helps you find people who meet various needs. You can have one person who's an ideal sex partner and another person who is an ideal mother.
 
That's not an attitude that's likely to attract one woman, let alone two.
 
In my exp. the worse the attitude the more women come! Jus look at rappers and rock stars, and all the women be lining up to them!!

Women like the bad boy alpha dogs that take what they want from the world. It’s genetics.
 
In my exp. the worse the attitude the more women come! Jus look at rappers and rock stars, and all the women be lining up to them!!

Women like the bad boy alpha dogs that take what they want from the world. It’s genetics.
I don't think that's necessarily true. Women who idolize rappers and rock stars do it to escape from reality. They're projecting their unmet needs on them. That's why although famous people might have sex with female fans, you hardly hear about celebrities having successful relationships with them if at all.

Women who chase the "bad boys" have the "wounded healer" personality. They want to fix these men to heal the parts of themselves that they deemed unlovable. It doesn't matter if they succeed or not. The outcome is the same - the relationship won't last. If women fix them, they will lose attraction and break up. If they don't, the things that once attracted them to their partners will be the things they hate.

I will say though that it is true women tend to chase men who are pursued by other women.
 
In my exp. the worse the attitude the more women come! Jus look at rappers and rock stars, and all the women be lining up to them!!

This is such a confused teenager view of how genders relate to one another, it's hard to know how to even address it.

You are correct, women do in fact line up to be utilized by rappers, rock stars, and other notoriously "bad boy" men. However, in order to demonstrate that this is just a female trait, you would need to provide some kind of evidence that the vast majority of women fit into this classification. There are around 12 million women (that number could be off, I just did a quick Google search) in the US, and in order for your assertion to be true it would need to be clearly evident that what... 10 million of them have gone out of their way to get a rock star / rapper / bad boy.

Women like the bad boy alpha dogs that take what they want from the world. It’s genetics.

It's genetics?! :D I'll be thrilled to see your evidence of this bold assertion.

Are you not having good luck finding women who are interested in you and you are looking for a way to blame women for it?
 
I will say though that it is true women tend to chase men who are pursued by other women.

We live in a highly competitive ecosystem, that openly rewards boldness, confidence, charisma, and success. In a system like this it would seem normal to be attracted to someone who displays some or all of these traits.

When people are searching for traits like these in a potential partner, whether or not they know it's what they are pursuing, it's likely that "tough guy" and "jerk" qualities can be mistaken for confidence. Add to this the reality that most of these rock star hunters tend to be quite young and don't have the experience to be able to tell confidence from mean insecurity, we get long lines of young women who want to be smacked around by these dick heads.

It's a complex topic with MANY moving parts.
 
Not trying to blame women. Not saying it’s bad for women to want a strong alpha male. I was just saying a lot of women DO happen to want that! And it’s based on my observations, that’s all.
 
What are your experiences with polyamory?

It's unrealistic to expect your partner to be the perfect romantic partner, sex partner, wife, mother, financial partner, etc. Polyamory helps you find people who meet various needs. You can have one person who's an ideal sex partner and another person who is an ideal mother.
just For clarification whats the difference between a perfect romantic partner and perfect sex partner. That’s one I try to keep together or very closely aligned. What if the ideal mother isn’t someone you want you genetics mixing with and how is the “ ideal “ mother determined ?? Is this heading toward buying the best eggs and then finding the best mother to carry and deliver and raise while you divide up time between the best sex partner and the financial partner ?
 
We live in a highly competitive ecosystem, that openly rewards boldness, confidence, charisma, and success. In a system like this it would seem normal to be attracted to someone who displays some or all of these traits.

When people are searching for traits like these in a potential partner, whether or not they know it's what they are pursuing, it's likely that "tough guy" and "jerk" qualities can be mistaken for confidence. Add to this the reality that most of these rock star hunters tend to be quite young and don't have the experience to be able to tell confidence from mean insecurity, we get long lines of young women who want to be smacked around by these dick heads.

It's a complex topic with MANY moving parts.
I would like to add women who chase the "bad boys" tend to have issues with their fathers. They chase these men because they remind them of their abusive or neglectful fathers. Secure women would never do this.

There was a study done which proved this claim. I also noticed more women pursued me when I was in a relationship than when I was in single. One said she was jealous of my ex because I called her my baby and my girl without hesitation lol. Another girl didn't want to be friends most likely because she was jealous of my ex.

 
I also noticed more women pursued me when I was in a relationship than when I was in single. One said she was jealous of my ex because I called her my baby and my girl without hesitation lol. Another girl didn't want to be friends most likely because she was jealous of my ex.

I noticed this too! Pre-selection psychology. I have a pic of me playing guitar at a party, and in the background is a girl giving me bedroom eyes. I always get more matches running that pic on my tinder. Just not always the matches I want if you know what I’m saying.
 
Incel alert.
 
I would like to add women who chase the "bad boys" tend to have issues with their fathers.

A big chunk of what we learn or don't learn during our formative years is going to be influenced by whatever parental unit was present during that time. So it stands to reason that some of our partner choice (as well as literally everything else) is influenced one way or another by how we were raised.

To at least some degree this is true with men and any genders in between, though the way these lessons manifest can be pretty different.

They chase these men because they remind them of their abusive or neglectful fathers. Secure women would never do this.

People who have had abuse and neglect in their lives can have all manner of unfortunate behaviors pop up, for sure.

It is also true that these "secure" people can just as easily get tangled up with bad people. It's a tough world out there so only the most sheltered and lucky are going to make it through without making a complete ass of themselves.

There was a study done which proved this claim


That study is pretty silly but I think that their ground breaking assertion that 'humans tend to follow the crowd' can be anecdotally proven without too much fuss.

It's easy enough to argue that we tend to lean toward agreeing with those around us. This is more evident if those around us are seen as an authority on the topic, and especially if many other people already agree. So if you are asking someone to rate someone's classic beauty, and a classically beautiful person told you how *they* answered the questions... well.
 
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That's just as absolute a statement as "humans are hardwired for monogamy"... and just as absolutely wrong. _Every single human_ isn't wired for ANYTHING - some of us are naturally inclined towards non-monogamy, sure, but others are inclined towards monogamy and yet others can be happy either way.

(I fell into the "assuming everyone would be happier if I could just Show Them The Way" trap too when I first started exploring polyamory, so I get where you're coming from - no one is as zealous as a fresh convert! - but it really is far better not to make assumptions.)

It's supported by science. Monogamy is quite rare in the animal world. Many societies are polyamorous. Monogamy is a modern invention.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/...y/201605/monogamy-is-not-natural-human-beings
 
It's supported by science. Monogamy is quite rare in the animal world. Many societies are polyamorous. Monogamy is a modern invention.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/...y/201605/monogamy-is-not-natural-human-beings

I mean I've read Sex at Dawn too, I know the *argument*, I just... don't entirely think it's relevant. People do or don't do any number of things that are "natural" or "unnatural", and which category they fall into is pretty much irrelevant to me. I mean, I'm drinking a habanero-mocha iced coffee while writing this. Both caffeine and capsaicin were "naturally" poisons created by plants to ward off things that would eat them... but humans of course decided they were wonderful and cultivated them, in the case of peppers to the point of thousands of times more of the "toxin" than was "naturally" evolved.

(And I don't know of many *current* societies that are, in majority, *polyamorous* in the sense of multiple, freely chosen relationships available to both genders - one could perhaps argue the Mosuo of China, though I personally think "walking marriage" is a bit different; I don't count, for instance, modern Islamic societies where only men are permitted multiple spouses as that's quite a different dynamic... )

I think part of my pushback against the whole "but it's science!" thing is that it feels like yet another variation on "Born This Way!", which to me implies a certain level of "this is only socially acceptable if it's biological imperative"... to which I say bullshit. My queerness is a choice to be open to experience, my polyamory is a choice to love who I love unapologetically and without constraint. I don't need it to be justified by some "natural" instinct.
 
I think part of my pushback against the whole "but it's science!" thing is that it feels like yet another variation on "Born This Way!", which to me implies a certain level of "this is only socially acceptable if it's biological imperative"... to which I say bullshit. My queerness is a choice to be open to experience, my polyamory is a choice to love who I love unapologetically and without constraint. I don't need it to be justified by some "natural" instinct.

I think it best to think about this particular area of evolutionary biology in terms of philosophy rather than science. Philosophy can be a precursor to science, often handing over the baton when the scientific method may be applied. However, philosophy in of itself is not bound by the scientific method, therefor it gives one free reign to dream and try different ideas on for size regardless of validity. People often confuse the words with each other, I suppose it is natural for a philosopher to strengthen their claims by saying they are supported by science (because every human *want's to be "right"), just because someone says it does not make it so... Atheism is a good example of this logical folly; one cannot apply the scientific method to the question of whether god exists, therefor science has no opinion (because science is a data driven, experimentation based system); Atheism has no scientific validity contrary to popular arguments, it falls squarely under a philosophical thought process, not a scientific one...

Every scientific discipline has a philosophical fringe. For example the Higgs field was first theorized in the 1960s; however the scientific method could not be applied to this sort of study with the technological limitations at the time. In 2012, the Higgs boson was empirically discovered and became scientific theory, until that point in time the Higgs field was more philosophical theory than scientific. On the same note, Einstein was more of a physics minded philosopher than anything else, the unprecedented degree to which his theories were verified via the scientific method is simply astounding, he certainly earned his title as the best theoretical physicist to ever live, but there in lies the tricky distinction between science and philosophy... What title would Einstein have earned if his theories were wrong? And some of them were by the way. A majority of theories are ripped apart by the scientific method. I imagine that is why faith based philosophies are so wary of it...

The way I see it, early human sexuality is on the philosophical fringes of evolutionary biology. Every assertion about early human sexuality is a rearward projection and succumbs to whatever bias the researcher carries. Bias is possible because of an acute lack of evidence in this particular aspect of the field. Sex at Dawn was a good book, I enjoyed reading it. In a nut shell, the book cherry picks different studies and applies assertions of non-monogamy to them, it is quite compelling, philosophically speaking...

The book also ignores anything that might point away from polyamory. NRE for example, some sort of evolutionary remittent that makes a person completely obsessed with another, and it happens to last about as long as gestation.... Sex at dawn didn't touch this topic... Is it because NRE is a trait more aligned with serial monogamy than polyamory? Bonobos, our closest poly ancestors don't appear to experience NRE... Humans also experience very strong maternal instincts, and that does not fit so well within the books assertions of communal child rearing, another topic that was ignored...

Sex at Dawn is an entertaining read... However, it falls short of offering scientific evidence that early human sexuality was polyamorous. The book does attempt to confuse science with philosophy, which is so enticing for a collective group of people looking to strengthen there own poly philosophies. But this mind trick is old as atheism itself...
 
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I mean I've read Sex at Dawn too, I know the *argument*, I just... don't entirely think it's relevant. People do or don't do any number of things that are "natural" or "unnatural", and which category they fall into is pretty much irrelevant to me. I mean, I'm drinking a habanero-mocha iced coffee while writing this. Both caffeine and capsaicin were "naturally" poisons created by plants to ward off things that would eat them... but humans of course decided they were wonderful and cultivated them, in the case of peppers to the point of thousands of times more of the "toxin" than was "naturally" evolved

This is an important concept to lean into. I've seen a few examples in this thread of "I saw an article, therefor it's scientific fact" or "I read Sex at Dawn, therefor humans are hard wired for polyamory". It's hard to watch.

I want to encourage everyone to raise their minimum standards for evidence. The people who wrote sex at dawn are making an argument, not providing you with a pier reviewed scientific document. The people who put together that silly little demonstration about people being followers is just that, a demonstration to anecdotally support their argument.

I think Sex at Dawn is an interesting book and it provides some supporting data that I think is pretty clever; it's a good argument. Their examples are colorful and clearly demonstrate that monogamy doesn't seem to be any kind of industry standard when talking about our hunter-gatherer history. It doesn't prove anything, but it is a source of examples that can prompt a healthy intellectual conversation. It is in no way a silver bullet that brings down monogamy once and for all, it's just an argument that we probably weren't strictly monogamous until well into the agricultural age. What does this prove? It proves that humans are wizards at adapting our social structures according to the prevalent belief systems and environmental pressures of the time.
 
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