That’s what’s on this week’s episode of Non-Monogamy Help.

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Podcast Transcript

I seek some basic fundamentals. I know you build a relationship uniquely. I have referred to relationship anarchy smorgsboard but my current date is resisting claims its restricting.. Help.. I need dummies guide to RA..

Response

So I feel kind of wholly not super qualified to give you a dummy's guide to relationship anarchy, because to be honest with you, I'm a little bit of a dummy about it myself. If I'm being really real, like I said earlier in the episode, I started off in polyamory—when I originally chose polyamory, I was interested in polyamory because I wanted to have like six children, which is crazy to me now, and I knew that having that many children would require the attention and economic support that I felt that only two people would not be able to provide. And I thought, wouldn't it be awesome if I could have multiple parents and that sort of thing.

And I wanted to have, even when I decided that kids weren't for me, I still wanted to have that live-in partner, because I have a disability. I'm blind in one eye, and I have really terrible vision in my other eye. It is very, very likely—well, they think that it is very, very likely that I will eventually be fully blind. But it's not for sure. My vision has kind of stayed in the same place for quite a while. It dipped really badly when I was like eight, and they were like, "This is—shits getting real. You're going blind now." And they really thought that I was going blind, which was fun to experience as an eight-year-old (sarcasm).

But I've always thought there may be a serious reality that I may be blind and I may need support, and I felt like it was a better idea for me to seek that support from a partner, to have a partner live with me for that reason, because I would need help.

History with relationship anarchy

Now I don't feel that way necessarily. Not only has my vision not really changed for a very, very long time—it's still pretty, I have really thick glasses, like Coke bottle glasses, but it's not had any major dips. And I mean, it could, but I feel definitely way more confident in myself to handle and take care of myself and deal with all the things that I need to deal with. And there might be a situation where I still do need assistance and help, but I can manage that myself. I don't now want to rely on my romantic partners for something like that.

So I say I am more of a relationship anarchist now, especially because I don't want to prioritise romantic relationships over friendships. And I don't like this idea that we have in society that romantic relationships are automatically more important, and it's not really in line with my values as a person to operate that way. So yeah, that's the reason that I've decided.

I was originally against relationship anarchy

But I originally was very against relationship anarchy, and that was because I met a lot of people who practiced it, who basically just said that they were relationship anarchists as a way to get out of any emotional responsibility of any relationship whatsoever, and to avoid actually planning anything. It was so frustrating for me. So I think I just found the concept really, really annoying, because I also felt like we do prioritise relationships. It makes sense to—if you have one spare evening and you have someone that you've known for 10 years and you just met somebody else, it makes sense that if someone you've known for 10 years needs your help, that you might help them, instead of prioritising someone you just met.

I didn't really get it, to be frank, I didn't really get it. So I am kind of still also new at this, and still also trying to unlearn the things that I've learned about relationship anarchy, which you might have heard actually. I was just speaking with someone the other day about the sort of hierarchy in polyamory that no one talks about in terms of assuming that all relationships are going to be sexual, and what being on the asexual spectrum of being demisexual has to do with how that sort of hierarchy affects the way that you do relationships, especially within polyamorous contexts.

And I was reading through something that I wrote about it, and I was really critical of relationship anarchy in that column. So even in earlier columns that you go back, and I bet if you search for relationship anarchy on my website and found some of my older columns and podcasts, you would have probably heard me be super critical about it, because that's how I felt.

Why I decided to answer this question

But what I wanted to address and the reason why I decided to answer this question, instead of just sending you an email back, going, "Dude, I'm still new to this as well"—I read Andie Nordgren. If you look up relationship anarchy, Andie Nordgren, as far as I'm aware, Andie Nordgren is the person who came up with that concept and came up with the words relationship anarchy. Well, not the original words, but put them together and formed a concept. Andie Nordgren didn't invent the words relationship and anarchy, but you know what I mean.

I think if I remember correctly, they are the source of—I know that there's been a lot of stuff going around about how relationship anarchy is practiced way into the past in other cultures, and that may be the case. I don't know the history of all of human sexuality, but I know that the actual term relationship anarchy, as far as I'm aware, was coined by Andie Nordgren, and they have a little relationship anarchy manifesto that you can read. Check that out.

But the reason why, as I was saying, the reason why I answered your question and decided to do a podcast about it is the specific thing that you talked about—”my date is resisting, claims that it's restricting”.

The relationship smorgasbord can be overwhelming

And the thing of it is, I think that it's important to remember—I haven't necessarily looked up the relationship anarchy smorgasbord, right? But I think it's relationship smorgasbord. You know what? I could actually look it up in one second. Hold on. Let me give a pause to look this up.

Yeah, I actually have seen this before. Okay, this is actually from multiple people, but it's being shared by my friend Laura from Ready for Polyamory.

I think that this makes—sometimes I find that when you're kind of, and maybe your partner, I don't know if your partner is neuro-spicy at all, but I sometimes find when I go into the grocery store, for example, and I see there's 300 different kinds of cereal, I'm kind of overwhelmed with choice. And I kind of am like, "Oh my God, I don't even know what—" It's too much at one time to process.

I could very easily see this type of thing, especially—the more you try to put shit in boxes, the more that I think you realise how silly the boxes are. It's actually quite hard. Humans, I feel like we really want to put stuff in boxes, and we like to label stuff, and we like to separate and organise shit. And I totally get that, because I'm very much like that too. But I think sometimes it's not always as simple as that. And I think sometimes people don't necessarily know fully where they are on this.

What the smorgasbord says

So the relationship anarchy smorgasbord—if you're listening to this, look it up, but I will read what this graphic says. "The board includes a number of concepts antithetical to many understandings of relationship anarchy. Not all who use this are relationship anarchists and those who are may need to discuss how the relational style differs from cultural norms. The categories are loose generalisations to help conversation and are arranged with those relating to the larger social/political systems towards the outside and the more personal towards the center."

So you have things like domestic which includes routines, chores, sharing a dwelling/home, sharing a sleeping space, cooking together, sharing meals. So to form your relationships, it says you and another can pick any number of items from any of the number of platters, take a huge helping or just a scoop. The dish of the two of you that you hold together is your relationship. Remember, you must agree together on what is in it. No sneaking items in without the other knowing or there will likely be conflict or disappointment. Also, it's your dish. So if you decide to change what you want from the smorgasbord later, that's cool.

Maybe they feel overwhelmed

So I feel like sometimes people are a little bit—the reason why I think people fall on cultural scripts sometimes is because it's kind of easy. You don't really have to think about it. And when you're actually presented with all this choice, I could very easily see somebody saying, "I feel like I'm being made to decide on everything right now." Do you know what I mean?

If we think about an actual buffet, we don't pick everything that we want to eat at the buffet all at once. We kind of think about how we feel, and we kind of go along and maybe want a bit of this, maybe that, or change my mind and put it back.

So maybe what your partner is responding to is the sort of feeling that they have to decide on everything right now. And maybe what you should do to reframe this is be like, "Why don't we think about—instead of trying to pick one together, why don't each of you kind of go off on your own and think about the things that you want in your relationship with each other, first, without trying to mutually decide on everything, and then bring it together." And then see if there are things that align, and then you can decide—that's when you can collaborate, because maybe it's just that they feel a little overwhelmed by having to pick from all these things right now.

Or maybe they don't want responsibility

And it could also be, if I'm going to take a less than generous interpretation, that maybe your partner doesn't want to have any responsibility for anything. I mean, there are people out there who are like that. There's a whole situationship thing that happens. I do think that sometimes people like things to be exciting and to discover things, and that's fine. But I also think sometimes people just don't want to have to be called upon, and they don't want to have to commit to anything, so they kind of use the casual thing, like, "Oh, let's not decide anything. Let's not label it." They do it because they don't want to have to—because if they label it, then labels come with responsibilities, right?

So it could either be either way. I'm not going to say that I necessarily know what's going on in your partner's head, but I can absolutely understand looking at this and be like, "Oh my God, there's so much here that I don't fully know about."

Maybe your partner genuinely doesn't know if they want to share a dwelling with you. I mean, I don't know how long you've been together, but I certainly wouldn't be able—I mean, I know that I definitely don't, but I wouldn't be able to decide right away if I was interested in—I'm trying to look at this and see if there's an example on this. I feel like there might be a better way to go about this.

Some things you can't know right away

I feel like—I'm not trying to be a dick or anything, but I feel like I have a tool, a compatibility tool, that I use in the course that I have that I feel like is a little bit better than this. Because this—executor of will, adoption or marriage—I'm not saying that you're demanding that they decide right now if they'll ever want to marry you or have children with you, but there are some things they may not know how they feel just yet. And I think it's important to remember that.

I think what's kind of intense about this is sort of "no sneaking items in without the other knowing, you must agree together on what's in it." And I think that, okay, yeah, once you decide what your relationship looks like and what it includes, then yeah, it should be a kind of agreement with each other. But I don't think that you have to know all of this right now, especially—I don't again, I don't know how long you've been together. Certainly after a few weeks, I wouldn't be able to know this kind of stuff.

But I think some of this stuff comes in time. Somebody that I've been dating a few weeks, I wouldn't necessarily rely on in an emergency, in the same way that I would a friend, but that might come eventually, within time.

Re-approach the conversation differently

So I think it's worth re-approaching them and saying, "Look, I'm not expecting you to decide on everything, but it would be good to know what kind of a relationship do you want?" The thing that I always say is, what is your ideal? What is your polyamory ideal? Because I feel like we talk about, and we think about our monogamy ideal all the time, growing up and constantly. Especially if you're socialised as a woman and you play that MASH game—we're always encouraged to really think about what we really want in monogamy.

But we kind of jump into polyamory without having this kind of imaginative, thoughtful phase of brainstorming about what it is that we want. And so we kind of are doing it really fast. And I think sometimes that is a little overwhelming.

So maybe re-approach this and re-approach this list and take it one—maybe take it one circle at a time, and be like, "Do we know right now if this is something that we want, or is this something that maybe we decide on later, or we come back to in a few weeks?" Because sometimes I do think polyamorous people, we can be a little process-heavy. We can be a little meeting-heavy. We can be a little—sometimes I do think some things should be scheduled. I'm not saying that everything has to be spontaneous, or like the films and everything, but sometimes I do—this can be done to a point where it just is a little much. Do you know what I mean?

Make sure you have mutual understanding

So yeah, I think maybe instead of deciding on all of this right now, make sure that you both have a mutual understanding of what relationship anarchy means. Make sure that you both talk about your polyam ideal, because I think that applies regardless of whether you're a relationship anarchist or not. Think about: Okay, what is your ideal in terms of our relationship? If you can see our relationship two weeks from now, two months from now, two years from now, what would that look like in your ideal world? If everything went perfectly, exactly how you want it?

And then compare and contrast and see if you're compatible or not, because two people could both be relationship anarchists and still not be compatible in terms of what they want or what they need out of a relationship.

So maybe approach it that way instead, because I don't think that you necessarily need a dummy's guide to relationship anarchy. I just think that you need to be on the same page when it comes to what you both mean by relationship anarchy and what you both want. Because you both could be on the same page with regards to what you want in a relationship anarchy, but you may not have the same needs or wants out of this relationship, and that's what's actually way more important to discuss.

So yeah, I hope that helps, and good luck.