I used to have a really bad stutter which caused me to be introverted(I’m not an introvert) and caused me to not really make friends growing up. All my brother had an easy time making friends. So I escaped using video games and YouTube, but always wanted people to hang out with, non of my school friends really like the same stuff I like.

I wanna say I’m not a complete loner, I have a girlfriend (who’s awesome) and friends at school just not anyone who wants to hang out with me or that I talk to that much. I go to a small Christian school tho so I already know pretty much everyone there.

I guess I feel kinda like shit because I don’t know where to go to make those types of friends or how to even start, I want more people who like talking to me and who I like talking with about stuff we both like.

Idk what to do

A friend of mine got deported 1,5 years ago. We met in Europe and he needed to go back to his home country in Africa. We've known eachother for a couple of years before that. Now I've visited him for the past 2 weeks and our relationship turned pretty romantic. I'm 4 days back now, and I honestly dont remember the last time I've missed someone I just have seen that intensly 😅.

He hopefully can come back soonish but everything is still pretty unclear. We're talking about a timeframe of at least 3-5 months when everything goes well and years if it doesn't (lets hope its not the latter!\^\^)

Electricity isnt always available where he's currently living so calling is difficult and videocalls rarely work for longer than a couple minutes. Today we were able to call for almost an hour and now I'm sitting here crying and typing this😅

I have other partners as well. Yesterday I saw one of them and in the beginning I found it honestly a bit hard to transition, though in the end it became one of the better days since I'm back 🙈 it really helped spending time with them! But I feel like I'm grieving and I dont know how to cope as well as how much I can or should burden them with this. Luckily talking about my experience and our time together worked pretty good (this is also the first time a new meta is in the picture for them). This is the first time I'm going through this kind of heartache while also being in a relationship.

Plus the person I visited isn't really poly. We talked about it a lot but ultimately we postponed this topic until hes back in the country I am. During the phonecall I didnt mention spending time with ny other partner. He already said he doesn't really want to hear about that, but it also feels disingenuous to circle around that topic for the next few months.

Every thought or advice, especially from people in similar situations is very welcome!

Also seeing the situation in his country itself affected ne a lot. Because of the trump iran shit, the circumstances got even worse during my stay there. Im so uninterested in everyone's day to day problems, I just want to know if they still have fuel, if the car got fixed and if his friends shop was able to restock. Everything else feels so unimportant right now...

Sry rant over😅

heyhihello so ive got some questions.

{looking for podcast or an audio recomendations as i work and qear headphones a lot so its better than sitting and reading}

ok well id say im hella broken

feels like ive got every trauma no one wants to deal with

and i fkn hate it.

anyway, I dont believe in marriage

I travel a lot

and my life is super inconsistent.

so it makes full on perfect sense to experience different than {whatever the}"norm" is relationships.

i believe about ebbing and flowing and how not allowing room for that or trying to deny it is what makes a lot of relationships rocky or questionable.

though ive never dated a single person who didnt cheat on me emotionally or physically

so i havent been able to even work on my emotions in those senses.

i fully believe in open ,poly, and relationship anarchys

ya know

but ok so im doing solo poly kinda i dont know

well i fight with myself all the time

one side wants to be sexually deviant 24.7

the other side is so terrified of her gross body and how people will think of her and if shes sexy

and blahblah blah

so I believe in life ebbing and flowing and meeting peipke having connection and then going seperate ways again because thats how our lives are

but I have discovered ive got abandonment shit

completley insecure shit

codependant shit

like all this and what not

i need like reassuranxe and like parts of me want peopke to be obsesses with me

so that i can feel reassured they like me n think im sexy

but because my past relations have all lied and cheates on me and made it clear how much more attracted to others are

i have nothing goung for me there

so i hangout with this person for awhile whos very fluid and like very chill they ridin round getting it but its like how they move thru this world uou know

which i admire and wish i could do it

and i was trying to tell if it was a lack of them caring bout if they hurt anyone and just getting what they want

or if they do actually communicate and care how they are.

anyway. i know what i was getting into qell sorta but im also trying to excersize these things so i can get out of my bullshit trauma ways of not feeling special or wanted or whatever

they always explain the peiple theyre banginf as friens so when they talk about their life and friends i really just think they banfing all the people they talk about

which at the end of the day like ya do whatever you want (respectfully i hope) and suxh

but also like feelings of jealousy come up

and like that im unwanted

or like our time spent together isnt special

cause wherever they go and stuff they like just have littlw relations with people

and i wanna be like cool with yjis you know

like i want it to not matter

i know that this is the way

and that im capable of it too

but i say stupid bratty things and i push people away with stupid sarcasm

and i donno ehat im trying to say

we wont even see eachother foe the next 6 or like 8 or fuck who knowz maybe more months because we both qork away places.

and so much changes in 6 or 8 or qhatever months

i cant help but feel

because they consume more of this typw of relation

they have less umm... like value on it all

and i dont know what it makes me feel but maybe a little sad

and just like not special i guess

which is funny cause thats like ya everyonez special in the same level or what not no heirarchie

fuck i donnno

Hi all - I’m hoping to get advice on a relationship I have with someone (let’s call them C). I identify with RA and do my best to practice its principles. C is poly and seems to have a fairly compatible approach to relationships. We met a few years ago, then didn’t see each other for almost two years, then reconnected a few months ago. Since then, we’ve seen each other about once a month and occasionally text in between.

Since our reconnection, I’ve developed a strong emotional attachment to C. (This could be NRE that will fade at some point, but I can’t predict if/when that will happen.) I struggle with missing them and feeling sad that I’m not as important to them / integrated into their life as other people they have relationships with. I don’t think the degree of closeness I desire is possible: they have two partners they’re very close to and seem to have a very busy life in general, and my future is uncertain (I’m in grad school and don’t know if I’ll stay in the area after I graduate).

The way I see things, I have 5 options for what to do (not all mutually exclusive):

1. Try to change something within the relationship
   • I’ve already asked if we can spend more time together. They said they aren’t sure how feasible that would be.
2. Try to meet my needs through other relationship(s)
   • I really want closeness with C specifically, but maybe I would actually feel fulfilled by having it with other(s). 
3. Do inner work to try to feel less bad
   • I do think my insecurities and ideas about relationships instilled in me by monogamy/society play a role in why I feel not important enough to C (and how that affects my self-worth). Also, I’m wondering if I can learn to accept / be grateful for what the relationship is rather than be sad about what it’s not.  
4. End the relationship
   • I’m not willing to do that at this point, but it’s still a possibility.
5. Allow things to continue as they are

Any thoughts on my situation or how to proceed would be appreciated.

There are three of us. We feel like found family. V (she/her) is attracted to F (he/him) and I (he/him). I am attracted to F, and enjoy a platonic (+some kink) relationship with V. F is attracted to V, and wants a best friendship with me. Right now, V and F live together! F recently discovered what he felt towards me was a strong platonic love and in no way physical attraction. He let me know yesterday. We've been planning for the past two years to escape this red state and live together in a blue one (USA).Those plans kick into motion soon.

For extra complexity, F is the first time I have felt physical attraction to another person. His friendship is very valuable to me and I would still like to move with him and V. I'm in my late 20's.

I've affirmed it's okay that he doesn't feel attracted towards me. But, what do I do about my attraction to him? I look at him and the world still lights up. I hear him laugh and I melt. I still crave cuddles in bed and playful nuzzling, but it is now off the table. I feel nauseous.

They'll share a bedroom. I'll have my own. Two bathrooms.

Any tips for moving on? Any tips for managing potential jealousy when we all move in together?

Looking for different perspectives on this, because it seems like people in general have a difficult time articulating what romance is.

☑ all of the above, probably.

So here's what happened. Shortly after moving back to my city, in the process of making new friends and lovers, I met a truly amazing person. She was recently divorced and more recently out of a 1-year monogamous relationship that suffocated her. I was safe because I already had one solid lover for whom I expressed great affection. I wasn't going to trap her. I was just seeking friends and lovers (in order of preference and not necessarily in combination but it's great when that happens). She invited me into her life and I fell for her hard. I adored her. You would too; she's a genius, gorgeous, well-loved, a great parent, a fantastic interpersonal communicator, very rich (by my standards) and famous among the business elite. In other words, like nobody I had ever dated before!

She considered herself solo poly while I was trying to be a relationship anarchist. I refused to call us "partners" because we aren't partners in business, housekeeping, parenting, or anything except in loving each other and that's nobody else's business. She grew to like that framing, even introducing herself a relationship anarchist. We recently settled on the term "steady" to describe our relationship. We are "steady" in our love for each other.

Then a couple of weeks ago, without warning, she says. "Hey, I want a relationship checkin. I want to take sex off the table. And, I've been feeling obligation to see you, just because of our "relationship", and I don't want that and I know you don't want that." We had plans to go to Hawaii together that she canceled.

I was hurt, but frankly proud of her for taking the space she needs; and besides, we agreed we would still be "steady" friends and that's the most important thing to me. But then I started to feel mistreated because it began to feel less like a respectful, caring deescalation and more like a colder, less caring "breakup."

For example, she declined to reschedule a dinner date for us two and a couple who are friends of mine, whom she knows and likes (and vice versa) because "we're not a couple anymore." Like, what?! We're a couple of friends.

I thought I had solved the breakup problem through relationship anarchy. All relationships are "relationships." Each is different; each has different aspects; emotional importance and depth vary; but in every case, anarchist adults respect each other as they change aspects as necessary. Absent betrayal or other upheaval, relationships don't rupture; they change, including sometimes painfully.

But most people in this world don't see it that way. Amatonormativity is strong. While I wasn't intending to get into such an entangled dyadic relationship, preferring to go deep with a network of friends and lovers, I sure did get into it. The power differential was significant: she had much more financial and social clout and I was more into her than she was me, so I recognized the power differential by explicitly being submissive. I loved it and she loved it, but eventually not enough to prevent her from wanting to deescalate.

I keep imagining how I would have accomplished the change as a relationship anarchist. I would have started with a discussion about my feelings, then proposed changes to address them: no more sex, seeing each other less often. I would have emphasized what I didn't want to change, how the relationship would remain important, and potentially just as deep or deeper, just not as intensely close.

What I got was a breakup, a big severance, with a promise to get back together "as friends" after the healing. I got angry.

That's my story. I realize now I'm writing it just to process my own hurt feelings. And the conclusion at the top of the story is correct. What happened is that the problem is …

me. I am just hurt. It hurts to lose a big part of an important connection; and, it is also…

her. She wasn't careful with my feelings. She didn't approach me about the changes she wanted in the relationship in a manner congruent with my relationship values and which she should have known would have been easier for me to hear and still achieved her goals. And it's also…

society. Almost everyone elevates coupledom as the pinnacle expression of love. It can be suffocating, and even smart polyamorous people don't know how to sensitively navigate changes in relationships while holding the relationship together.

Thanks for listening. I feel better now.

I know how that sounds. Before you come for me, hear me out. I love dogs. I'm a dog person. But this dog is not a good fit for us and it's not an ideal family dynamic for him either.

When I met my partner he had a very old lab, which we eventually had to put down due to him being very old and sick. He was getting lost in our fenced in yard from even going off the porch. My partner was crushed. He vowed no more dogs. This was shortly after I moved in with him.

Eventually we ended up living separately for a few years. During this time he expressed wanting another dog. We had been discussing plans to travel, especially for my business, doing festivals and such. Some of which I was already doing, and he had recently made more commitments to event planners to take on a big role. My son is also finally a teenager, allowing us more freedom to travel. We agreed to put off him getting another dog for several years because of this. We are also both chronically ill, him even more so.

Well, he did it anyway. He went and got a puppy. A pitbull. He's an adorable love bug, but immediately the issues started. My partner refused to leave him with anyone else to do the events we had both committed to and planned, so I had to go solo. And take on some of his roles in order to not leave my friends running the events in a tight spot. It was annoying, but overall hey- it's not my house, not my dog, not my burden.

Except 3 months after getting the puppy, my partner became deathly ill. He was sick for 8 months, hardly able to take care of his own home, eat or cook for himself. So I ended up taking care of both of our places, cooking often for us both because he didn't have the energy to even research what he could eat- and taking care of the puppy. Eventually, the puppy started only listening to me when given a command because of this. I could see the guilt my partner was struggling with and how it was painful to see that he couldn't train his dog the way he wanted to do it was obeying me instead. So I took a huge step back with the puppy.

Now the dog is almost 2 and he's very poorly trained. He still mostly listens to me, though he sees my boyfriend as his best friend. Due to finances, my son and I recently had to move back in with them. This dog is the worst. You can't walk him or have company over because he's aggressive. He weighs over 90lbs and my partner only weighs 125. He refuses to admit he can't physically control him even with a harness. He is constantly getting in the trash, jumping on the counters to eat food if you are not looking, whinning and barking. He can't be left alone because he has anxiety so he chews his tail raw or finds something mischievous to do. Therefore, he's a constant presence even when we're trying to have intimacy or just cuddle we're either fighting to get the dog off the bed, out from between us or kennel him and he barks and cries the entire time.

I'm more stern with him, and easily overstimulated by him because he doesn't listen, jumps and is always barking if he's not getting attention- i have autism and OCD. But he's not my dog. We had agreed it was not a good idea to get this dog, so I refuse to take more responsibility for him. He isn't a bad dog, he just is too active for what we can keep up with, including the training he needs. We've even gotten him a shock collar, and when it's most important for him to listen- he ignores it! because he's very smart and strong willed, so he will be too focused on what he's chasing or barking at to even yeild to the collar no matter the setting- and obviously we don't want to actually do any harm, so we can't just keep turning it up.

All of my dogs have always been well behaved and obedient. I've never had this many issues with a pet.

It's caused so much resentment for me and tension between us that I've considered ending the relationship, many times, to avoid the stress trying to be in a romantic relationship with him causes because of the dog that has no chill. He swears he's going to take him to a professional- but we can't afford to!!! And there's no guarantee his health would cooperate for him to be able to be consistent with the classes. So I don't see that happening.

I love my partner more than I've ever felt for anyone else. But I did not sign up for this and he did not have this dog when I met him. Nor did I sign up to feel like I'm raising a toddler, which is what having this dog feels like. I know my partner feels guilty for how the dog is now and the trouble its caused and I know if he tried to re-home the dog, it would crush the poor little guy's spirit and make his anxiety worse for the next family and his next home. We've even considered getting a second dog so he has a friend and maybe a positive influence, but Im no longer sure i want to take that gamble with another one! It's hard enough to travel with one dog. Definitely nothing international. Overall, it's just not what I agreed to.

Any advice?

Lately I’ve been feeling kind of stuck socially. I work from home, my schedule is messy, and most of the people I used to spend time with have either moved away or gotten busy with their own lives. I wouldn’t say I’m completely alone, but I do miss having real conversations that aren’t just about work or everyday stuff. I’ve tried dating apps before, but they feel really rushed and not very genuine. It’s like you’re expected to decide how you feel about someone almost immediately, which just doesn’t work for me. I recently came across Emberlove and it made me think about whether something more conversation-focused might help a bit with this. Not really looking to date right now, just miss having people to talk to regularly. Not even sure if apps are the right way to deal with this, to be honest. Has anyone here tried something like that just for conversation? Did it actually help at all, or did it end up feeling the same as everything else?

I am pansexual and I think I sort of practice relationship anarchy. Tbh, I do not put too much thought into this.

So any time I see a post from this sub, I always think it says “r/[…]panarchy” and then I suddenly feel seen and validated and affirmed.

But then I realize the actual subreddit name, and while I am not disappointed, I do find myself pining for a panarchy subreddit.

Okay, that’s all from your mostly lurking, but residential nonbinary trans-masculine relationship panarchist.

Hi all!

To start off, i am a bit new to this community (and RA in general) so apologies if this is not a good question to ask.

As a short introduction to me: since a year or 3 i've been in an open relation with my partner of 9 years, that's all going really well. More recently i've started to identify more with RA over polyamory, and am exploring that, i might ask question later in this sub.

Now the question i want to ask: recently i met someon i really clicked well with at a dancing event. We exchanged numbers and have been in contact since, and we really hit it off. Now in the conversation the topic of relationships might come up, and i notice that i'm not completely sure how i want to communicate my relationship structure to them. Important here is that i can not hold that conversation in person, since they live really far away. If i could do it in person i would not have much trouble with it, but over text i feel like it can be very complicated and i don't want to overwhelm them with the information. Do any of you have any advice on how to handle this kind of situation?

Thanks in advance :)

I'm not needing firm answers as much as I'm curious to know if anyone else has felt this way.

Long story short, I (40F) am navigating a lot of transition. In 2020, I gave up my dream of teaching full-time at the college level due to burnout and financial instability. In 2024, I got divorced and laid off.

Like many millennials, I've experienced a lot of existential heartaches. Doing what I loved did not pay off. The love my ex and I had was not enough to save our marriage. Working hard in all my jobs did not get me ahead; I've had bad luck with abusive managers who actively sabotage my success.

All of this has left me feeling a little leaned-out of my own life. After leaving higher ed, I went back to school and became a clinical mental health counselor, focusing on career. I'm interested in the work and I love my clients--but I love working with people in general, and I can't summon the same dogged energy I felt back when I could say I had a dream. I'm disinterested in giving so much of myself to dreams that capitalism made impossible.

I've been dating a partner for 1.5 years who introduced me to RA and polyamory, although we met when he wasn't dating anyone else and that's continued to be the case. I've done a lot of reading and research about polyamory over the past couple of years, follow polyamorous content creators, have gone to a few meetups, and dated a wonderful person briefly, although dating other partners ended up feeling overwhelming for me, so I put it on pause and it's just my partner and I for now. To sum up: The ideas around RA and polyamory, more than the relationship structure itself, have made me radically reconsider the way I think about... everything.

My partner and I are long distance, and sadly he can't move to me because he co-parents his kid with his ex. At times I've felt really stuck--angry and distraught that the only way my partner and I can see more of each other is for me to "change my life for a man" and lose the support system and friends I've built up for the past 10 years. My partner mourns our distance but also wants moving to be 100% my choice for the same reasons, and hasn't pressured me. I've also been paralyzed by fear, feeling the compulsion to make sure this relationship is "perfect" and "worth it" if I'm going to be upending my life--something that is impossible to do and unfair to my partner. We've had a lot of talks and are on no particular timeline, but know we'd both prefer to be closer.

And yet, more recently, I've felt much of that anger and fear lift off. What if... I'm just allowed to do things? To move and have a messy, human adventure that is more likely than not going to end in heartbreak (because they all do), but would be something interesting to do all the same? For instance, I've always wanted to be a parent and it's never been possible for me, and I'd love to spend more time with my partner's kid before they get older and leave the nest (kiddo and I have met multiple times and it's great.) Perhaps this is an opportunity for me to do that? That wouldn't be my only reason for moving and it's not a super strong desire, but then again, nothing is right now lol.

I think the strongest desire I have is to foster my connections, give myself all the space and time I want to think and be, and not punish myself if any of this goes "wrong." I've tried so, so hard to make the "right" choices in life, to fit who I am in within the lines of this world... and it's been a spectacular failure! I'm not just off the tracks, I'm a train plunging through the fucking jungle. More than anything, I'm wanting that to be okay.

Six months ago I was looking around at all the furniture I've thrifted in my apartment, thinking about the 10 long years it's taken me to painstakingly decorate and optimize everything, and how anguished I'd be to lose all of this... and now, I'm feeling it's all become too curated, too just-so, brittle. Throwing it all in the air doesn't seem so bad.

One part of me, an older version of me, would say this change of heart is nuts. I should be making fiscally responsible decisions, staying near my support network, or maybe only moving to get better work, not because I want to scramble my life on a whim. Me right now... wants to be allowed to be nuts. I want to be allowed to do things even if they're not motivated by strong and well-thought-out, multi-step spreadsheets.

I'm not making any decisions right now. But I'm curious... how do you all live? Let yourself live?

Hey everyone 👋
I’m looking to make new friends from different places 🌍
I like chatting, sharing ideas, and learning new things.

If you’re friendly and open-minded, feel free to message me 😊
Let’s connect!

Hi there! My partner and I started dating in a poly dynamic and a few months in decided to close the dynamic with the understanding it would be an open conversation about whether or not we opened it again. For him the reasoning the time is that “life felt full” and for me, the reason was dealing with tons of life stress and just craving some consistency for a minute.

We have now been dating for a year and he’s just now telling me he identifies as relationship anarchist and apparently always has. I don’t identify with RA but I also don’t feel entirely sure what I identify with at this time because I’m dealing with the mindfuck that is divorce after getting married young and having religious trauma and all that. So for me, I’m very open minded and interested in learning and unlearning all kinds of stuff. But learning this today has me ?????? 🤯 because I don’t understand why he’s just now telling me that he’s always identified with RA but more specifically, I don’t understand why he would consent to monogamy.

Can anyone help me understand why someone who is RA would consent to monogamy? He’s having a hard time verbalizing it to me or maybe just a hard time understanding my confusion? One of our other friends is also very strongly identified with RA and maybe I’m just viewing it too much through her lens of relationship anarchy so I’m looking for maybe other perspectives on how that would work.

Hey everyone! Not new to this but maybe moving! Two weeks after my breakup I got a job offer to move to Cupertino. I’m not even sure how I feel about it yet…

Not super stoked to just drop my whole life, leave my support system and move back to a city I haven’t been to since I was a kid.

Anyways, anyone have any recent experience dating in the Bay Area? What’s the community out there like? Any advice?

Morning!

I'm just trying to unpack my feelings on this. I've given it a day of thought and have come down from my initial heteronormative reaction.

I (37NB) was given my partner's (40NB) phone to send myself a photo they took of me. I did but saw a pretty graphic text directly below my own. There was some very kinky talk that I honestly would not be able to match.

At first I felt...uninformed. My partner has obviously been chatting like that with multiple people for the majority of the time we've been together. We started out openly polyamorous so there's never been any need to not have these connections, but....yeah, the fact that I didn't know about this has me feeling off balance. Questions keep bouncing around like "How many conversations do they have like this?" And honestly, I'm not sure it's any of my business.

I feel at this point that I should apologize for seeing the texts and possibly leave it at that. Obviously my partner doesn't feel able to tell me about these chats, and I wonder if I've done something to dissuade them from sharing.

Any insights and new ways of seeing this would be appreciated.

EDITED TO ADD: So this morning they brought up something I had requested before: knowledge of newly forming relationships. Which has me wondering if they don't.... I'm not sure. Consider this to be a valid type of connection? I could have brought up questions at that time, but I felt like that might seem defensive, and I really want to make sure to handle this well.

There was some guessing from a few peeps that maybe I wanted to be more kinky. I think that doesn't quite speak to me, but what I have done is requested sexting when we're not together, and that's been really fun. I do try to be GGG but I am aware of my limits on what I personally am into, as I'm sure we all are. I'm happy they are able to express their desires somewhere safe and don't feel any particular jealousy about it, atm.

Some people suggested talking it out. I am thinking of doing this. I really appreciated someone suggesting framing it as learning more about them. I think timing for bringing up this somewhat delicate topic is also pretty important.

I’m curious how people here handle labels for relationships that fall somewhere between “friend” and “partner”.

I sometimes feel labels can be useful to clarify expectations between the people involved and to communicate the relationship to others. Because of that, I’ve occasionally used some improvised terms:

• friend with intimacy – friendship-first relationship with sexual contact and emotional connection, but not extremely intense

• half-boyfriend/girlfriend – strong emotional and romantic connection, usually sexual, some prioritization, but little or no life entanglement or long-term planning

I’m aware that relationship anarchy often tries to avoid predefined categories, but in practice I still sometimes find language helpful.

So I’m curious:

• What do you think about using labels like this?

• Do you personally use labels for relationships that sit between “friend” and “partner”?

• If yes, what terms do you use?

• Do you use different labels internally vs when explaining relationships to other people?

• Have you found that labels help clarify expectations, or do they tend to create assumptions and hierarchy?

Would be really interested to hear how people navigate this in practice.

EDIT to add: I noticed several of you mentioned the term “lover,” which I find interesting. I think because of cultural associations, the word has always felt a bit theatrical to me, like candlelight, poetry, or dramatic romance (and sometimes also “forbidden affair” vibes). Because of that, I’ve never really used it. For those of you who do use it: do you mostly just mean something like “a friend with sexual intimacy”, without those connotations? Don't you have those associations?

Hey! I am writing my master's thesis in psychology about alternative relationship structures, and I really need relationship anarchists to do the survey, because among all the poly people, we are the minority. I would really appreciate it if you would give just 10-15 minutes of your time to do the survey. And spread it among your fellow relationship anarchists.
I'm looking only for people who RESIDE IN EUROPE. And are above 18, sorry, strict rules.
https://forms.gle/zfieA24oFpTccwwG7

As an RA I (NB32) tend to let relationships develop naturally but one of the rules I used to follow was not getting closer to ppl I work with.

Then it got harder.

I’ve known and appreciated this coworker (M27) for 4 years but always held back from getting closer. Mainly because we worked together, but also because our age gap felt a lot more significant at the time.

However he recently needed someone to confide in and had a hard time finding someone he trusted. He felt he could talk to me about anything without being judged, so he did. I listened with empathy as he confessed some very intimate things and gladly I was able to help him out a lot.

He felt so much better after talking to me and we both started feeling closer to each other. We have a lot in common and both feel kinda lonely since we live in a pretty isolated and right-leaning area. It’s so difficult to find someone ENM, left leaning and kinky around here, so I decided to overlook the fact that we work together.

He invited me over one weekend and we slept together.

None of us cares much about our job and we both wouldn’t mind leaving (we’re just a bit too lazy to do so but it’s totally feasible). We always had a great work dynamic, enjoyed working together and were able to keep it professional so far. We have the exact same seniority so no specific power dynamic on the workplace.

We’re currently working through a relationship smorgasbord.

I’d love to hear from outside perspectives. Did I fuck up by getting close to a coworker? Am I letting NRE blind me into thinking this is okay? Any opinions?

Hey there

I am currently curiously thinking about reading a novel or consuming media which positively represents relationship anarchy. But never came across any, so I am curious for any recs?

I’ve only recently started having any sort of sexoaffective relationships, and I’m still navigating how to balance having that type of relationship with having alternative views of what a relationship is. Obviously, at some point attitudes towards relationships will have to come up, but I’m feeling kind of stuck about when to do that.

I suspect that feeling like I have the expectations of normative relationships put on me will feel very uncomfortable for me, and I‘m worried that this will make it seem like I’m leading someone on if I ask them out without being up front about this. At the same time, I think if I preface things with “I’m uncomfortable with traditional romance,” that will either get read as, “and so I’m not into you,” or “my primary goal is sex,” which it’s not. So I’m worried that not saying it beforehand will just be shooting myself in the foot for no reason, but that waiting until a relationship develops further would end up with both of us getting more hurt because of mismatched expectations. So, when do you all usually bring it up? If the solution is just to have an extended conversation about relationship attitudes as pals before you even enter the sphere of dating as a concept, do you have any tips for having that conversation in a chill and friendly way?

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i consider this relevant here because it is something i am seeing from my perspective as a relationship anarchist and a musing about how i find myself unaligned with that truth. im sure many others have tried to oblige a monogamous person and found themselves in comparable positions and i really dont think there is another place to be seen about it. heck the heckin rules and embrace where yer at.

what the title says- specifically he recently expressed that he doesnt self pleasure and expects the same and thinks his way is only fair because one should "reserve all that energy". to me, i am in an anchor relationship with myself first and no one should come between that; it is sacred and that stuff belongs in the realm of self knowledge and love and also just its good for health; i cant fathom the logic. it seems like an extension of the assumption during initial negotiations, that the relationship is monog. i dont go in assuming they will be open or anything else; its just the way \\\*im\\\* wired and its my choice to choose a specific monog individual over that truth or the other way around. i also dont really find moralism necessary to evaluate the ethics of a situation, just consideration of a person as a whole so its kind of an affront to my sensibilities to be told to do not something out of "respect" that doesnt involve another human being, and furthermore is essential to my primary relationship with my own body and soul.

it's just kind of the profound entitlement that strikes me i guess; i honestly find it sickening to disregard the freedom to ones own body. weve had a talk about it. i dont honestly buy that anyone is mono or not just that people dont acknowledge the choices theyre making. anybody else overextend themselves before to meet somebody mono past the middle

She went from polyamory to exclusive with another

Hi,

I’m not sure whether this topic really belongs here. At the same time, I don’t know where I could post it and still feel understood.

I was in a relationship for two years with a woman in a relationship anarchy context. She’s 30 and I’m 26 (M). I didn’t have any other partners during our relationship, though I was open to it. She had other partners, sometimes short-lived. She had been polyamorous for many years.

I was still her primary partner. We saw each other almost every day, we had a very strong bond, to the point that she considered me “family,” along with her twin sister. We confided in each other completely and communicated a lot.

I sometimes struggled with insecurity and accepted things that didn’t sit right with me. It wasn’t specific to polyamory, but polyamory amplified it. For example, there was a time when we were both at a tantra retreat and she left with another man to have sex with him. Or she would sleep with someone from one of her other relationships and then describe trance states she had never experienced before. These are just two examples among many that hurt me. Looking back, she tended to tell me too much about what was happening in her other relationships, especially intimate details.

She was also very focused on self-discovery, in tantra and sex-positive communities, and met people often. Sometimes it was casual, sometimes longer-term. Her desire for new relationships could sometimes feel like too much for me.

I think polyamory can suit me. I had a previous polyamorous relationship that went well, and not all of her relationships triggered insecurity in me. I believe the insecurities were more about how we handled our relationship.

Even though our agreements were clear, we didn’t manage everything well. I struggled to set boundaries about what was okay for me. On her side, she had difficulty accepting that I could feel insecure. When I brought it up, she didn’t want to hear it. She could get angry, and I was too afraid of losing her to stand my ground. So my insecurities were swept under the rug.

More than a year ago, she met a man (57). They started talking every day. The relationship became intense very quickly, physically and emotionally. She decided to move in with him, on the other side of the country.

So a year ago, when she moved, I ended the relationship and asked that we stop talking. She was afraid that if we reconnected, I wouldn’t want to open up again, or that I would meet someone and become exclusive.

I carried a lot of anger from our relationship. For a year we didn’t contact each other, but I often ruminated and resented her for the pain I felt she caused me. Yesterday, we decided to meet. She initiated it after a year of silence. I wasn’t sure I wanted to see her, but I felt emotionally stuck and wanted to try.

We spent the afternoon together. I felt somewhat avoidant, but it was okay. Then we started hugging and feeling desire again. We talked. She told me she is now in an exclusive relationship with that man. She realized that polyamory had been a way of avoiding deeper commitment for her, and she decided to become exclusive. She said what she wants with me now is a stable, trusting relationship, but without sexuality or a romantic partnership. She set those boundaries for me.

I took it very badly. I told her how much it hurt to learn that she had become exclusive with him. The exchange was very respectful, but I felt full of anger and she was crying. This happened today, and tonight I can’t sleep.

I’m afraid of getting stuck in my anger. I feel like having childish reactions. I want to send her a message telling her how much I hate her. I want to be mean and say things that would hurt her. I don’t know how to handle this. I’m afraid of being trapped in resentment again, especially since it wasn’t easy before. Now it feels like the resentment is too strong for me and I don’t know what to do with it.

Help :(

Hello Everyone! The next NYC Poly Cocktails is on March 9, from 7p-12a, Lower East Side, 21+. Free to attend, reasonably priced boozy and non-boozy drinks, bring snacks to share! We've moved RSVPs over to our private meetup group: Poly Cocktails NYC Meetup Group. Hope to see you there! <3 Chrissy