So, my fiance and I have for quite awhile come to terms with us being poly, primarily myself but she is cool with it.
Thing is, we've been together for 13 years now, are getting married soon, and while we have agreed that if we ever met someone we clicked with, we also have come to terms with the fact it feels like that won't actually ever happen.
We're both very introverted and keep to ourselves. We aren't actually party goers, and the wildest nights we have are the extremely rare night where we host a board game night with like, maybe 4 friends. And that's a "rager" for us, comparatively.
We've looked into some dating apps but the results are... abysmal. Non starter really.
And since we are both so far along in our life together, it feels more and more like it would be impossible to "Fairly" include another person anyways. They'd forever be "second" in that me and my fiance have thirteen (and counting) years of history, whereas the new person would be starting completely fresh. That doesn't seem like it could ever work anyways, no matter how hard we tried right?
We've talked at length about this and agreed that it just doesn't seem like it could even work, despite us wanting it to, and that we're sorta just gonna have to be cool with being monogamous poly, which is weird but I dunno how else to describe it.
The only situation I've considered that would work is if it was another couple that both of us click with both of them, and everyone vibes with each other in every direction, which then means at least everyone has someone else they have history with, and someone else that is new, which feels more like now everyone is on "equal" footing if you will, removing that feeling of imbalance.
But then of course we have to confront the fact that the odds of two people finding two other people and everyone vibing with everyone else is... well incredibly low. And when I say vibing I'm talking "we want to have a close committed intimate and romantic relationship" level.
So, I guess I wanted to send out some feelers on if any other folks are in this sort of state, how are you navigating it, how do you feel about it, lets talk about this sort of state.
Something to noodle on:
Is it morally wrong to try and initiate a poly relationship with a third person, when the other 2 people have a "fallback" of each other, such that the third person forever will be subjected to the 2v1 power imbalance, that if things broke down the 2 would quick the third out, forever putting them at a disadvantage?
Cuz, personally, I feel like I can't morally subject someone to that myself, I'd forever feel "off" about putting another person (no matter how willing) into that position, it feels... wrong.
For the relationship where everyone is with everyone, and the introduction of a new person requires everyone to be into them (and thus each addition becomes exponentially more and more unlikely, as the group gets bigger), I refer to this as a "Pod", where its all one unit of people together.
Whereas when its not everyone connected to everyone, and its more open ended and people come and go, I refer to that as a Polycule (from Molecule), as in a "chain" of connections.
Typically the former simply just never gets very big, because it inherently gets very strained as it grows beyond even 4-5 people at most. Humans just cant sustain that many intimate relationships at once.
Polycules can go infinite though, cause any one specific individual in the "chain" of people can simply just be with only 2 or maybe 3 themselves, but that infinite chaining can just go on and on and on, without any individual even knowing how far it even goes.
I personally am not into polycules, Ive never seen one actually sustain and long term, every single polycule Ive witnessed disintegrates and fractures over time into different groups, it can get petty, people can get hurt, I just personally try to steer clear of such stuff cuz Ive yet to actually see someone long term defy the pattern Ive seen.
And by long term I mean 10+ years.
If the polycule is purely transient and people can just float in and out and everyone involved is cool with that, thats fine, but I consider that less of a polycule at that point and more just a bunch of open relationships. To be a Polycule in my eyes it has to have longevity and be non transient, each individual "link" of the chain is people going steady. A whole buncha people just having transient relationships, friends with benefits, one night stands, etc, thats not a polycule, thats just swinging.
Which is cool and I dont hate on it, but it's just not the same thing and I try to ensure that distinction in lexicon is consistent.