#27: Dating monogs as a non-monog

What do I say when they ask how they fit into my weekend schedule

I was tempted last week to jump in on the Luigi Mangione discourse— the internet’s adoration toward a vigilante with abs and his manifesto critiquing healthcare industry greed— but couldn’t find an obvious throughline to hedonism. Any connection felt like a stretch, and anyway, Magdalene J. Taylor already wrote a piece about Luigi as our sexual cultural avatar.

I had mega writer’s block last week, but a workshop with Julia Edelman (who writes for the New Yorker and pens the excellent Eyewitness Newsletter) helped me work my writing muscles. And I kept coming back to this topic I’ve been wrestling with. What happens when us non-monogs have real chemistry with someone who’s only ever known monogamy?

After a many-month stint of feeling like I wasn’t meeting anyone new I vibed with, a guy I met at a party slid into my DMs asking me on a date. On our first date, I launched into my usual explanation about my long term partner and how we date other people. He had never met anyone practicing non-monogamy before (kinda common on some of the normie dates I’ve been on), but instead of the usual awkward reactions, he stayed curious. We developed this amazing rapport over many weeks of dates, falling into deep conversations that would last hours.

But eventually he told me what I had been anticipating. He was looking for someone to “settle down” with, and it felt unnatural to him to be going on dates with me while also seeing other women who wouldn’t want to know about me. Ironically, he kept talking about how refreshing it was to actually be able to talk about his other dates with me, someone he was dating. But he said our connection, while exciting and meaningful, became a distraction from his goal of finding a traditional partner. And he didn’t even know how to end things with me because he wanted to keep our connection but felt like it was derailing his path.

This is a pattern I encounter often— genuine sparks with people who have not really questioned the relationship escalator, the conventional progression where a few dates leads to exclusivity, moving in together, marriage, kids. I think that trajectory works well for a lot of people, but it doesn’t have to be the default, and it doesn’t have to be for me. When I meet someone and the chemistry is real, the connection is strong, I feel fulfilled just to deepen the relationship without having to move into the relationship escalator, but other people don’t always feel the same way.

Another guy I had a strong emotional and physical connection with for years abruptly stopped our daily chats when he jumped into his first serious relationship in years. His new partner didn’t want him connecting with me, and because our relationship wasn’t really defined (at least by monog standards), I think he didn’t feel the need to “break things off” with me. That lasted for a year, with stilted communication. After his relationship ended, he came back and we resumed hooking up, but the feelings had dissipated for me by this point. It’s a strange liminal space. When your connection doesn’t fit into conventional relationship categories, there’s no protocol for endings or boundaries or what anyone owes each other, something I talked about in my audio post “What Do We Owe Our Weak Tie Lovers?” The very freedom that makes these relationships beautiful can also make them precarious.

Even now, I’ve found myself on a date with someone new, who I also met at a party, who has also never heard of non-monogamy (idk! I’m meeting them in like, progressive Brooklyn spaces too. Sidebar, certain corners of the internet would have you believing big media and current dating culture is trying to shove polyamory down everyone’s throats…but mad people don’t know even know what it is). So as I go through answering the usual questions with this latest guy, while we have good chemistry, and he’s a real sweetie, I can see him making calculations about what kind of emotional investment he wants to put into this. But he did say something about how he thinks connections are meaningful in your life even if they are fleeting. That’s such a refreshing perspective which makes space for different kinds of relationships without forcing them into traditional boxes.

Louis has been navigating similar challenges. He has a friend he’s hooked up with and bonded with, but she’s voiced concerns about wanting to be with someone who could give her his full attention. She doesn’t want to be “competing” with anyone. This idea of competing has come up more with Louis’ dates, which I think might be gendered, though I’m wary of drawing too broad a conclusion. Because Lou and I don’t live together, we’ve structured our weeks so that we spend weekends together and the rest of the week apart. Our limited time together is very intentional, thoughtful, planned, romantic. It fuels me for the week. It’s not a hard and fast rule, and we’ve gone on weekend dates with other partners or have spent these days apart but this structure has worked for us. But this woman in his life told him she wants weekends, or at least more than the occasional weekend, and now they’re at an impasse. Louis and I discussed it and understand where she’s coming from. It doesn’t feel like an unreasonable desire, but we’re hesitant to restructure our weeks as well. I always say here that love is limitless, but time is not. If only we had more time to all the things and see all the people.

We’ve noticed an interesting pattern in how potential partners react to learning about our non-monogamy. The men I meet often stay curious, asking questions and seeing where things might lead. But sometimes (and not always!) when Lou meets women, he frequently encounters immediate resistance. It makes sense— how many of us have met men claiming to be “ethically non-monogamous) when they were actually cheating? Even when these women confirm that yes, I know and support his dating, many express discomfort at the idea of dating someone who has an existing partner. This isn’t just about casual hookups versus serious dating— it seems to reflect deeper cultural conditioning around relationships, attention, and emotional investment.

The same structures that teach men to be comfortable with casual connections often teach women to seek certainty and commitment. When I explain my relationship style to men, they might struggle to imagine where they fit long term, but they’re usually willing to explore the connection. When Louis explains his to women, they often decide immediately if they want to move forward at all. I want to be careful about not making sweeping generalizations about gender— everyone’s relationship to intimacy and commitment is shaped by their unique experiences. But it’s hard not to notice how these patterns mirror broader societal expectations about how men and women should approach relationships.

I sometimes wonder if these connections end prematurely not because they lack potential, but because we lack cultural frameworks for them to exist. Our longest-lasting relationships outside our partnership have been with non-monogamous people. Either couples we’ve dated for years, or non-monog individuals. These relationships lasted because we all made space for each other’s intimate connections rather than seeing them as threats. When you remove the expectation that one relationship needs to fulfill every need or follow a prescribed path, it actually creates more room for connections to evolve naturally, but to endure as well.

The irony is that by trying to protect relationships through exclusivity and rigid definitions, we often make them more fragile. Our connections with other non-monogamous folks have shown us that relationships can be both meaningful and undefined, both lasting and flexible. But these examples are rare in a world where most people we meet are still operating under different assumptions about what relationships should look like.

I’m going to keep finding myself navigating the gap between what connections could be and what people think they need to be. When that guy told me he couldn’t continue seeing me because he needed to focus on finding someone to ‘settle down’ with, I wondered if he was ending something real in pursuit of something prescribed. when Louis’s friend says she doesn’t want to compete for his attention, I understand she’s working with the relationship frameworks she’s been given.

These collisions between different relationship paradigms keep teaching me something about desire and possibility. Every time someone stays curious instead of pulling away, every time someone questions their assumptions about what relationships should look like, it creates new ways of connecting. So before the monogamy police go accusing us of being greedy— I think these cross-paradigm connections force us all to examine what we actually want versus what we think we’re supposed to want. And that’s valuable.

So I still don’t know how to make these connections last when people want such different things, but I guess I’ll keep oversharing on the internet for you. If I made it easier for some people to imagine different possibilities for love, it will have been totally worth it. Thanks for reading 💙

Q: I started dating someone in an open-marriage. We’re in love and they’ve been completely honest about their situation from the start. But I’m hesitant to introduce them to friends or talk about them with family because I don’t know how to explain our relationship or how they’d react. What would you do?

A: It’s unfortunate that we all have to spend so much energy managing other people’s reactions to our relationships. The question “what are you two?” is kinda annoying when your answer is going to unintentionally shock them.

My move is to be confident and matter-of-fact. When I talk about Louis with people, I say “my partner” because that’s what he is. When I talk about other people I’m seeing, I just…talk about them. “I’m going on a date with Alex” or “James and I tried that new ramen spot.” Most people take cues from how comfortable you are discussing it.

That said, not everyone needs the full rundown of your relationship structure, and you definitely don’t need to share with people you know won’t be receptive. I don’t discuss my life with super conservative folks, for example. For others, if I sense there’s an openness and genuine curiosity, I’ll answer matter-of-factly. Sometimes “we’re seeing each other” is enough of an answer.

As for family, that’s entirely your call. I’ve written before about how I handled coming out to my conservative mom. Some people never tell their families about their non-traditional relationships, others are completely open. The most important thing is to talk with your person about how they feel about being out in different contexts. Some people are private about open marriages, others are totally comfortable being introduced as a metamour at social gatherings. Just make sure you’re aligned.

1. This piece from Women's Media Center about SNL's post-election mess articulates something I've been feeling but couldn't name - the betrayal you feel when you turn to comedy for escape from everything only to have it miss the mark and throw your pain back in your face.

“Maybe it’s because I’m a lifelong comedy nerd that SNL’s aggressive contempt finally drove home the heartbreaking humiliation of being a woman in America now (no less a feminist witnessing the progress we fought so hard to secure being dismantled piece by piece), only for a comedic escape to essentially spit in my face and tell me I deserve it.”

2. This lovely documentary about Mats "Ibelin" Steen made me cry so much - it beautifully captures how real and profound online relationships can be, following a young man in Norway with muscular dystrophy who built deep friendships and found love through World of Warcraft. The way they recreated his in-game experiences through animation, using actual chat logs and memories from his guildmates, was so cool. His parents thought he’d never fall in love or make friends but they were proven wrong after his death, and five of his online friends even flew to Norway for his funeral . Get the tissues ready.

3. Gotta plug this wonderful interview my friend Ryan did with me for her incredible newsletter In Tending. She got me talking about everything from growing up as a caregiver to how running Chinese Dinner has shaped my approach to community-building in ways I hadn't fully articulated before. And stay tuned - this week she’ll publish my tips on building community through consistent gatherings, based on lessons learned from 100+ Chinese Dinners.

I ate Georgian, Burmese, and Yemeni food all within a few block radius in Bay Ridge last week. Gotta shout out this khachapuri from a Georgian restaurant called Cheese & Bread. The name sums it up well. The bread was perfect, filled with so much cheese, butter, and egg. I loved this cozy winter meal.