Many Loves: Yes, Polyamory is for Everyone
many loves
yes, polyamory is for everyone
it only takes a few hours, or sometimes, a few days, if we are really connecting. no matter how great things are going, at some point, the moment does come:
“oh, I’m not poly.”
maybe they finally read my profile, or we start talking about relationships and I’ve mentioned that I am invested in loving many people, in many ways.
no matter how it comes up, in that moment, I can feel that the relationship changes immediately – where things felt open and light before, they now feel closed and defensive. it becomes a trial, as if I have done something criminal. laughter disappears and is replaced by a tangible expectation that I have some explaining (apologising?) to do, if the relationship’s going to move forward from this point.
so, here I am to explain this for the last time, to anyone who has ever uttered “I’m not poly”:
yes, you are – or more honest yet, yes, you do.
like most of our sociology/interpersonal connection, polyamory is less about something we are and more about something we do. you don’t need to take my word for it – look at your own relationships, for example:
when’s the last time you touched or were touched by someone, in any form? a hug, being held, a handshake, a kiss?
who do you make sure to reach out to every day? each week? someone you are messaging constantly, or who you spent a lot of your time with?
who do you look to when you need laughter? a favor or errand? what about advice? someone you know will help you get shit done? someone you feel safe crying with, or someone whose company you enjoy? who’s there to nurse you when you feel sick, or to tuck you into bed at night? someone you feel a future with, who helps you feel excited to be alive?
who have you thanked recently? who have you shared your resources (time, money, care) with recently? who has given you something recently, physical or otherwise?
I really want you to pause here and go through these questions again; take some moments to make sure you have read and responded to each part.
Once you’ve reflected, you will probably notice that there is more than one person who fulfills the different parts of these questions, and likely you didn’t just think of one person who fit every single question – that’s because you don’t just love one person, you love many people and are loved by many people, and you do it constantly.
that’s what polyamory is, or could be: many-loves.
an affirmation that all love is love, that every connection we experience is meaningful and important to our thriving.
love is knowing another.
love is witnessing.
love is giving, sharing.
love is commitment.
love is agreeing how to hold each other.
love is calling my parent to talk about our days and what we experience.
love is sharing gifts with my siblings to say I love you even when I am not there.
love is resting with my partner beneath the stars, just breathing.
love is taking a few moments to make sure we are okay, and together.
love is visiting the grave of a loved who is still there and near, just harder to see now.
love is smiling at a stranger to let them know I see that they exist.
love is making eye contact because I want them to know I exist.
love is listening, and someone holding my hand so I don’t fall apart.
love is receiving my groceries from someone who took time to bag them carefully.
love is touching myself to remember that it is safe to inhabit and find pleasure in this body.
love is dancing and laughing and sweating and crying with me.
“okay, but each of those is a different type of love!”
yes, that’s true, they can be different types of love – and it doesn’t make them insignificant. if anything, it just magnifies how beautiful it is that we can give and receive such a wide array of connection each day.
in a lot of radical spaces, there is a resurgence of talking about love in more complex ways, identifying that love is not just “romantic” love. many bring up different forms of love identified by “the ancient Greeks” (who is that, exactly?). among them, we find definitions for energies of love such as:
- eros, sexual passion
- philia, deep friendship
- ludus, playful love
- agape, love for everyone
- pragma, longstanding love
- philautia, love of the self
while a lot of these radical spaces urge us to reclaim the importance of platonic love (which strangely doesn’t appear in this list as an explicit term) – of friendship – I am invested in imagining love far beyond that. categories are exceptionally great for teaching us how to imagine something more than what we already know, but at a certain point, they become limiting, the only ways we know how to define things; at a certain point, we forget that all of these categories come from the same essential energy: the desire and need to experience connection.
no matter what we call it, we are capable of enacting and experiencing hundreds of forms of love each day, and we do so naturally. part of what it means to be animal is to be constantly negotiating our needs and feelings through our connections with others. there is no animal on this earth who lives life independently from the world around them, who does not directly depend upon their environment or community to help them survive; those who are exceptionally well-connected not only survive, but thrive and live more abundantly. humans make the mistake (one of many) of thinking we are distinct in this, when actually, it is only by giving and receiving many-loves each day that we continue to exist at all.
“okay, but i am committed to my partner!”
are you? what does that mean to you, to be “committed”? so often, people tell me “I’m just a committed kind of person” or “I want a real relationship”, each of which is immensely disrespectful and immensely unreflective (see: ignorant). of course, people don’t necessarily understand what they are saying when they say these things, but that’s my point: they should know what they are saying. it is uniquely your job to know why you use the words you use to describe your relationship, to be accountable for what difficulties they introduce.
so, what does committed mean? what is a real relationship?
perhaps what people mean by committed and real is “monogamous” (polyamory isn’t the opposite of monogamy, but I am referencing monogamy the most as it’s the structure most people think they identify with). however, if I look at what happens in most relationships I see, I find that they are cheating. lying. breaking agreements, disappointing each other. dishonesty. lack of connection with their partner. inability to communicate vulnerably, even after knowing each other for months or years. little to no accountability, ways of healing pains once they occur. not understanding how to bring back feeling once it has left.
is that committed? is that a real relationship?
my intention isn’t to say that monogamy is those things – dishonesty, poor communication, lack of vulnerability, accountability – but rather to say that it isn’t not those things. monogamy will not resolve these issues and does very little as a structure to nurture and heal.
similarly, because there is a general pattern that most societies do not teach us to honor relationships, but rather to treat them as disposable and not worth re-working, we see these issues regardless of the structure; non-monogamy and non-traditional relationship structures will also not cure pains in your relationships. and actually, they require more skill to navigate than traditional models – which is what will heal your relationships: having the skills to process and grow along with your relationships as they change. if you are in a monogamous agreement and experiencing fulfillment, know that that fulfillment is likely due to your devotion, care, and other-awareness.
when I think of what commitment means, I think of agreements, how we decide we will hold each other in relationships. I measure the strength of my relationships by how much I can trust my agreements with another person, that we can name what we want and need and that those things will be honored and fulfilled; that we have defined expectations and ways of holding each other accountable when we don’t meet what we’ve agreed to; that we are making the choice to stay together, which means working together when things are difficult and planning ahead before they get to be difficult.
if you are thinking that “commitment” and “expectations” and “planning” are heavy, serious words, not things you want or are ready for in most of your relationships, consider that actually, they are things you want because they are things you are already doing every day.
if you go about your relationships thinking you’re not making commitments, expectations, and plans already, either one of two things is happening:
(1) you’re saying you just let others make decisions about you for you, or
(2) you’re actually enacting structures on the relationship without communicating them or being accountable for them (which is a form of interpersonal abuse; this is something I see a lot of men and masculine folks doing, thinking they are low-maintenance/”go with the flow” when they actually manipulate the relationship in tangible but indirect ways; they are saying “I’m open to whatever” but really mean “let me do whatever I feel like, but it will definitely be a problem if I don’t like what you’re doing”).
alternatively, we can benefit greatly from defining our agreements more explicitly and sharing exactly what kind of experiences we are seeking together, so that we know what commitments we really are hoping for and holding each other to. rather than allowing traditional patterns and systems to define what happens in your relationship, why not create what you actually desire? when two or more people connect, they are able to create beautiful things together; what would you like to experience, create, explore, feel with another person?
“okay, but what if I get jealous?”
then, feel jealous. jealousy is a very real and meaningful part of the experience of being an animal in relationship with other animals; if you didn’t feel it at all, that would suggest a problem. however, we don’t have to celebrate jealousy as a form of devotion; being possessive doesn’t mean that you love someone more. practicing mindful polyamory doesn’t mean you won’t feel upset seeing someone you love experiencing fulfillment with another person – that comes from years of being taught that exclusiveness creates meaning, which is a challenging topic on its own. be patient with yourself as you re-learn ways of existing fully, honestly. I feel a small pain in my chest and stomach as i’m writing this, and that is okay. what it tells me is that there is work i still need to do.
if you choose to keep something exclusive, know why you’re doing it - just as you don’t receive only one form of love from one person, if you are invested in your loved one’s growth, then you are also invested in them finding the nourishment and care they need to grow, regardless of where it comes from; we can be invested in helping those we love identify things that really support and further them, which is a very different thing from being defensive of anyone trying to connect with someone you love. come to understand that when your partner gains, you aren’t losing; you both gain. love is not a finite resource; capitalism teaches us it is, as one of many ways to convince us of scarcity, a way of controlling and having us invest in its only-one-can-stand model of love. what would we create if we actually understood that there was no lack, that love and fulfillment were constantly available, always within reach – and we just had to ask for it?
polyamory is simply another way of talking about the million ways we can connect, interpersonally. in fact, it’s not a term I even use often because it’s so mundane; asking me what I think about “polyamory”, connecting openly wherever I feel connection, is like asking me what I think about “breathing”: both have been fundamentally necessary for me to continue existing.
polyamory is a word which summons up the spirit of connection, something we have forgotten and allowed to become a stranger. fortunately, this opens an opportunity for us to meet that spirit again, to learn more about it and remember that it is us.
you are practicing polyamory when you take your relationships seriously, when you are present and sincere in every single connection you experience each day. you are practicing polyamory when you choose to be vibrant, intimate, vulnerable, honest, and curious no matter who’s in front of you in a given moment. you are practicing polyamory when you say “thank you for letting this relationship be something beautiful, for deciding to be with me, for trusting me and letting me place trust here”. you are practicing polyamory when you reflect on the agreements you have with others and ask yourself: which ones did we make, intentionally? which ones did we make because that’s what we were taught? which agreements did we make out of trauma?
rather than continuing to ask “why are you polyamorous”, let us ask: why are you not doing it? why are you not receiving what polyamory has to share, and allowing yourself to be nurtured by the billions of potential connections you can experience on this earth? what’s keeping you from finding meaning in what’s already here?
let us find meaning together.
may we create and grow together.
may we witness together.
may we heal our wounds together.
may we dream together.
may we be animal together.
may we be of many-selves, and of many-loves.
Amani Michael
intuit.hue founder + guide
