Hi, everyone. Welcome to the not defining sofa. The place where we delve into concepts of sexuality, gender, relationships and everything in between so that you can really get to your best self no matter what labels you use. So this is a classic not defining article. I’m going to be talking about the label polyamory. So misunderstood people think that polyamory is this thing where you have multiple partners, and you have open relationships and stuff like that. It might be those things, but here’s what polyamory really means and here’s why I think it’s so important that we all accept polyamory for the helpful concept that it is. So if you think about it, whether we are straight or gay or bi or whatever, there are so many rules and regulations in our society about how we’re allowed to have relationships, right?
There’s all of these expectations, not only marriage and stuff like that, which is obviously the legal aspect. But in dating, it’s like if you go on a date with somebody, it is different to go on a friendly outing with somebody. If you kiss somebody, that means that it’s a romantic connection. And therefore you’re probably on this treadmill towards expecting to become monogamous partners, right? There’s all of these norms and roles and expectations like, oh, we’ve been going out for like a month or two months or six months. Therefore, it must be heading towards whatever. We tell ourselves in society that if we don’t find the love of our life and have a lifelong monogamous relationship with one person, then somehow we failed. If we don’t get married, we failed. If we don’t have children, we failed.
And we kind of look down on people we’re like, you haven’t found the right person and all of this. So for people like us here at Not Defining who fall kind of outside that norm, polyamory is such a great concept. Here at Not Defining, we talk about those ins and outs of things. Like we talk about what things actually mean rather than just what their label is. And this is the best way to actually applying them to our lives in a way that’s going to make our lives better. If you want to join us and hear all about that in detail, then please hit the subscribe button. That’s why I created this account. Polyamory at its base is just about saying I am a human and would like to connect with other humans on my own terms. So much of what I believe in and what I talk about on this channel is connecting with your own inner guidance system, listening into your body and what it needs. So you might feel affection with somebody, you might feel platonic feelings with somebody.
You might feel sexual attraction with somebody. You might feel lustful, you might feel a fantasy but not want a relationship. You might have a fleeting romance. You might fall in love. You might want a lifelong partnership. You might want more of a practical arrangement, but there’s not so much romantic emotion involved. Yeah. And there were so many more infinite feelings that you could have towards another human being or human beings. Those things don’t have to all come at once with the same person forever for the rest of your life. It just doesn’t work that way. And we hone ourselves into these boxes where it’s like we put all the pressure of everything onto one person. All of our sexual desire, all of our emotional needs, all of our need for commitment, all of our financial and practical and life needs.
They will be the parent to our children. They will be together with us forever. They will own a house with us. They will listen to how my day was when I had a bad day at work. They will cook with me, they will sit with me, they will be with me for all time. And that doesn’t even get to the stuff about gender roles and what men and women are supposed to do. Whatever. There are so many expectations from one person and actually, in so many cases, that is impossible to live up to. And we have people feeling so down, so much damage, so much heartbreak, so much stress, so much grief and anxiety, because we can’t live up to this artificial conception of what a relationship should be. Now, I am not against monogamy, actually. I think finding the love of your life is something beautiful. Having a lifelong partner is something gorgeous.
And particularly if you’re kind of raising kids, or you’ve got responsibility, having someone who you know is going to stay around long term is very important. None of these things are bad. What I think is bad is that we are expected to follow that one route to the exclusion of all others. And if we don’t, then we feel like we failed. That is such a toxic belief, and it’s going to set us up for failure. What polyamory is about saying, I’m a human being. What would I like in a partner? Would I like one person, or would I like two people? Or would I like one person to be my primary and maybe somebody else as well? Or would I like to have different experiences? Or would I like to be the kind of person who doesn’t have a relationship? It’s particularly important, I think, for people like Asexual, people on the ASE spectrum, people on the bi spectrum, fluid people like myself.
I am bi plus multisexual on the Asexual spectrum. I’m a fluid person. I have very, very weird ways of interacting with people. I’m also neurodiverse. I suffer from anxiety disorder and stuff like that. And so I am not really able to fit into that heteronormative coupling structure. It’s very, very traumatic for me, and it’s very, very traumatic for a lot of people. So polyamory is really about saying, whoever you are, whatever feels good for you, then you can have that. As long as it is consensual, as long as the other people are happy with it, just like any relationship, then that’s okay. And it took me so long to get my head around this because I thought polyamory that’s this weird word. I actually think it’s beautiful. I think it’s wonderful. And I would really like to move, hopefully to a society where we can all just think for ourselves about what we would like and how we would like our relationships to look, if we would like relationships at all. So I’d love to know what you think. That’s my little piece on polyamory, if there’s any polyamory people reading. Hi. Welcome. Please join us. I’m going to be talking lots more about relationships, alternative of relationships and much, much more. I will see you very soon. Bye for now. Bye.