I also don’t want to lose them or try to change them, but…
Q:
I’ve been dating someone for six months. We never put a label on it, but we spend a lot of time together and like each other a lot. I can see myself falling in love with them but I’ve kept a lot of walls up because the problem is that they are poly and I am monogamous. We’ve talked about this being a problem, and we’re both allowed to see other people since we aren’t official, but I haven’t been and I don’t ask them if they are seeing other people, they know I don’t want to hear about other dates. Now it’s been long enough that I think we have to either break up or become official girlfriends. Can it work?
I don’t want to be polyamorous. But, I also don’t want to lose them or try to change them. I don’t think they’ve been dating anyone else besides me, so I do wonder if maybe they are not as poly as they think they are.
Summer: The decision of whether you’ll have a monogamous relationship or not is pretty fundamental to the structure of a relationship. In my books, having a match in that area is a prerequisite to a successful relationship. AKA, it’s a deal-breaker if I can’t find a match with my partner about this topic.
It’s possible to make mixed modality relationships like this work. But it would be making it work despite your differences, not wielding it as a strength you can share. That’s a tough call since you don’t yet know what other challenges the relationship can offer in future that might rattle the situation.
You don’t want to be poly and that’s perfectly cool. Nobody should be pressured into sexual engagements or relationship dynamics they don’t want. But with that in mind, the only way to ‘make’ it work is to be comfortable with the idea that your partner is poly and you don’t engage. Otherwise, you’ll have to impose an expectation on your partner to give up their way of being for yours — I think you know how that might feel stressful or violating.
Lastly, just because they might not be actively poly at the moment doesn’t mean they aren’t poly. Our sexual modalities don’t just get switched off when we’re not doing them actively. A single poly person is still poly, just not actively so. It’s best to trust that she knows herself well enough to report her interests honestly and work from that information. And all that information points to a serious challenge of incompatibility should you try to take this further. Not impossible to manage, but it’s starting a relationship on Hard Mode.
Drew: I think it’s possible for people with different relationships to monogamy to be in a relationship with one another. But I do not think it’s possible for one person to want monogamy and the other person to want polyamory if both relationship dynamics are important to each individual.
I’ve watched A LOT of couples struggle with this. And my conclusion isn’t that two individuals need to be totally aligned in their desires, but they have to be close enough that any compromise doesn’t feel excruciating. Even if you love someone, it doesn’t mean you’re compatible for a serious relationship. It’s tough, but I think it’s like any other major difference. No one who doesn’t want kids should have kids just to please a partner. I think this is more similar than a lot of queer people want to admit.
It’s really hard to end a relationship when the issue isn’t that you don’t like or love them but only that there’s some fundamental difference in how you want to operate in a relationship and live your lives. Unfortunately, I think it’s better to be honest about your desires and their desires because eventually it will be a problem.
Kayla: I echo a lot of what both Summer and Drew say. I am a staunchly monogamous person, and I would never be able to be with a poly person, even if certain concessions were to be made by either of us. It just wouldn’t work long-term and would ultimately be unfair to SOMEONE. I was in a monogamous relationship where my partner at the time then wanted to transition to polyamory and I said it was a dealbreaker for me, but that was the truth. It sounds like you already know it’s a dealbreaker for you, too. I know you like them, but you’re doing yourself and them a favor by being true to who you are and what you want. It’s best to end things and move on and hopefully find someone better aligned with your relationship goals and desired structure.
How can I break out of this cycle of rejection?
Q:
I’m an early 30’s queer who has only been in one three month relationship. I try to not let it get me down, just keep putting myself out there in different ways, but I don’t generate much interest. I’m always the one initiating and end up getting rejected at some point along the talking phase. Part of me thinks this is tied to my lack of experience and awkwardness when it comes to romance but I don’t know how to shake off feeling like I’m just a kid trying to play it cool at the grownup table. I’ve gotten so in my head about it that I’m not sure how much of that energy is felt by others or how much is a projection of my own insecurity.
Do you have any tips about how to break out of this self sabotaging mindset and get my brain to be chill?
Summer: As common as the advice is, we all benefit from improving ‘ourselves’ before focusing on relationships. From my experience, when factors like my ‘attractiveness’ and financial stability were equal, I always formed more successful relationships when I was emotionally well.
Part of it is because initiating relationships involve a huge number of interconnected factors that we can’t control. Scheduling, desires, yellow flags, other people, etc. There are also countless social cues at play. Some of those cues can be picked up on (desperation, misery) and make us seem less approachable.
Working to improve our well-being and lives can often be a direct path to improved relationships because the acts of improving our well-being coincide with the things people look for in a partner. People are drawn to people who have a grasp on their mental and emotional distress. People look for reliability and comfort in potential partners. People seek out those who have passions and interests that happen to intersect with theirs. As trite as it seems for people to tell lonely people to ‘work on yourself’, there’s truth in it. I just hope I’m presenting an adequate case of why that advice is handed out. You’re certainly mature and confident enough to know what parts of your well-being are areas of improvement. We often need the understanding of why it matters to others.
As to ‘being in your head’, that’s the normal outcome of repeated (perceived) failures and missed expectations. Those negative aspects can be confronted actively with things like reflective journaling and therapy. They’ll also lift slightly when we put work into other areas in our life. Sometimes they lift because we forget about them while diverting energy to gainful pursuits. Other times, they were linked to the overall shape of anxiety in our life that can lessen with work.
It’s fine to be insecure about our place in the dating pool. Almost everyone is. It’s also fine to feel a bit withered when your goals aren’t being met. But you definitely have the ability to make adjustments that’ll brighten your life and leave you in a better position to seek out relationships. And a better position to weather the all-too-common rejection when it does happen.
Kayla: Summer’s advice is great! It’s a tricky situation, because there really are so many factors that go into dating, and I think our brains immediately jump to the problem being ourselves, even in situations where that’s far from the case. Remind yourself that dating can often truly just be a numbers game. Your inexperience doesn’t mean others won’t connect with you, but I understand why you feel like it’s holding you back. Remind yourself that experience doesn’t matter as much as being present and putting your best foot forward in getting to know someone, and maybe that’ll help you feel less insecure about that lack of experience.
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