Rose Crompton of Vibrations Direct asked about poly, podcasting and my favorite sex toys. It was a fun interview and ended with my best advice for those approaching nonmonogamy for the first time.
Giving poly a go? My top tips for poly newbies:
Be prepared to meet parts of yourself you didn’t know about. You will find insecurities you didn’t know were there, and you’ll experience joy in ways you never knew you could.
Be patient with yourself and your partner(s). Remember your first attempts at monogamy weren’t perfect, either.
Worry less about rules and more about what you have to offer. As with monogamous dating, people with lots of rules and criteria rarely find what they seek, and those who are open-minded and easygoing find unexpected pleasures.
Own your shit – by this I mean baggage. If you’re not strong enough to say, “I was wrong,” “I need to bring something up” or “my last STI test came up positive,” you aren’t ready for poly. Being confident enough to own your own baggage and brave enough to start tough conversations is essential.
Start from a healthy place. Get your existing relationships healthy first. The ‘relationship broken; add more people’ model almost never works. You will have to trust your partner to tell you when you’re love-goggling, when he’s feeling jealous and when you aren’t pulling your weight.
Get a support network. Seek out local communities of real people who have real-life experience with polyamory and its ups and downs; having trusted contacts who’ve been there and can provide advice and a sympathetic ear is invaluable.
Wow, seriously?
Each of these tips could be a day long workshop in and of itself. Without any information on how to go about manifesting each tip, they are little more than oversimplified perspectives.
It would be like telling people how to drive with the following tips:
1. Wear your seatbelt
2. Breathe
3. Accelerate, brake, and turn when appropriate
4. Know the traffic laws
5. Avoid distractions
Lol, well driving usually has to be learned from an experienced teacher, and it takes a lot of practice. How much you can learn without actually trying it yourself is very limited. How much someone can teach you without actually seeing you drive is very limited. Is poly like that?
Yes, my apologies for the fly-by! It was part of a larger interview, and I didn’t have the chance to go into detail on each tip. But if there is interest, it might not be a bad idea for a show topic, to do a rundown of tips for poly newbies and do a bit of a deeper dive.