Let’s say you’re a poly woman who discovers that your lover has joined a dating site, without telling you he was planning to do so, or even giving you any indication that he was having an urge to date other people. The picture he’s posted happens to be one that you took, but other than that, there’s no evidence of your relationship anywhere in the profile – in fact, he’s identified himself as Single. And when he talks about what he’s looking for in a woman, what he wants out of a relationship, it’s the standard monogamous stuff.
I don’t know about you, but I’d be tempted to end that relationship immediately, no matter how gaga I was over the guy.
Wait a just sec, you might reasonably say, Isn’t that going overboard? I mean, what’s he done that’s so terrible? So he joined a dating site. You’re poly, remember? What’s good for the goose should be good for the gander. Yeah, maybe he should have talked to you about wanting to date other people before joining a site, but shouldn’t you just assume that he’s going to want someone else in his life eventually? And isn’t it his right to advertise his availability however he chooses? I mean, he’s not married to you, so technically speaking, he IS single. Right?
Yeah, exactly: he’s leaning pretty hard on that dubious technicality. And something’s gonna break. Probably someone’s heart.
Travis and I met on a dating site, and he never removed his profile. I knew he was still on OKCupid, and it didn’t bother me. After all, my husband has an active dating profile, too. Since the advent of internet dating, just about everyone I know – including all my partners and ex-partners – participates in that scene, at least periodically. My agreement with Travis was that he could do whatever he wanted on the site, and that he needed to check in with me about it only if he was feeling seriously interested in someone and there were plans to meet her in person.
Maybe eight or nine months after Travis and I began dating, my friend Georgia was showing me some of her matches on OKCupid, and there was Travis – with a new picture, one I had taken. And, of course, he had not changed his status. This bothered me, although I couldn’t articulate why.
The next time Travis and I got together, I felt a bit prickly, and I acted the way I felt. I finally coughed up the fact that I’d seen his updated profile, and that it had rubbed me the wrong way to see him advertising himself using that photograph. It was a great picture of him. I’d taken it on a spring day, not long before: we’d been walking through masses of wildflowers – the hillsides were covered in poppies and lupine – and we were feeling very much in love. The look on Travis’s face in that picture had been for me, and now that very same look was being used as a lure in a context that erased me: I was not part of the picture.
It seemed irrational to be upset about such a small detail, but I was hurt, and Travis said he understood. He said he would remove the picture. I said it wasn’t necessary, that the picture was a gift, that it was now his to use however he wished.
We also talked about why he still listed himself as single, and I said I understood why: if you’re a guy on a dating site, you’re pretty much shooting yourself in the foot if you cop to being involved with someone already.
Poly women don’t have a whole lot of trouble attracting interest from single men. The average single guy is likely to think, “There’s no reason why I can’t have some fun with this crazy poly chick while I’m trolling around for Miss Right.” If said poly chick is married, he might feel a little anxious about acting on his bravado, yes, but as soon as he’s reasonably sure that her hubby isn’t going to show up with a shotgun, he’s cool with taking whatever pleasure is afforded by this somewhat novel situation.
Poly men, on the other hand, don’t spark a lot of interest in women who aren’t also poly themselves. The average single lady is likely to think, “Lame! What makes this creep think I would settle for just part of him? Does he think I have no self-respect? I’m good enough for the whole enchilada, and I’m determined to get everything I deserve.”
Notice that A.S. Guy and A.S. Lady are coming at this from very different places. Guy is thinking of the poly woman as a pleasant contingency, whereas Lady is thinking of the poly man as a poor substitute.
What this means is that a poly man who attracts the attention of a single woman can be reasonably sure that she’ll stick around: after all, she decided he was worth bothering with, even though she has to share him. A poly woman who attracts the attention of a single man, on the other hand, has to worry that she’s going to be ditched if someone more attractive comes along.
In fact, when a poly woman is attached to an otherwise unattached man, there is only one way to guarantee that he won’t ever exchange her for another woman, and that is to make sure there never IS another woman.
Of course, even if it were practical for a poly woman to keep a man – any man, whether husband or lover -- all to herself, it would be totally unfair, unethical, and in all other ways completely un-okay. It’s possible, in theory, that a poly woman could become involved with a very monogamous sort of man, and that he might choose never to explore a romantic relationship with anyone else, but that would have to be something he chose freely. And frankly, I don’t know that we could say it was really 100% his choice to remain “faithful” to his poly partner unless there were all kinds of beautiful, thoughtful, interesting folks milling about him on a regular basis, all of them willing to jump into bed with him at a moment’s notice, and, hmmm, strangely, he just never felt like taking any of them up on their eager offers of romantic companionship.
So there’s no way around it: the poly woman who dates a “single” man is signing up for grief.
Or, to be more accurate: a poly woman who is involved with a man who persists in thinking of himself as single, who tells himself that a relationship with a woman who isn’t HIS, and HIS ALONE, doesn’t count as a relationship, is signing up for grief.
Some people are worth the grief they’re going to cause you. Some are not.
I still think it’s a bit problematic that Travis’s dating profile says he’s single. We’re approaching the 2-year mark, after all: at the very least, I ought to be an indelible part of his romantic history. An intimacy founded on a lie, or even a huge omission, isn’t really intimacy, and Travis knows that. At the moment, he’s not taking this whole internet dating thing very seriously, so it probably doesn’t matter how he’s representing himself. If – or rather, when – he feels like actively dating, though, it’s going to make a real difference to me whether he lists himself as single or not. If, at that point, he insists on representing himself as completely unattached, it will mean only one thing: he has decided that I am expendable.
If he’s upfront with me about WHY he won’t commit to “owning” me – namely, that he’s not owning up to my existence because he plans to sever the sexual part of our relationship if it proves to be an obstacle in beginning another romance -- I will do my best to support that decision. Although it’s hard to deal with jealousy when you KNOW there’s a good chance that you’re going to be abandoned, I may choose to choke it down. I may choose to stay in the relationship until he meets someone else, even though I will struggle with feeling like a second-class citizen. I might even go so far as to agree to be “on call,” depending on how things are going in his dating life. I’ve done it before. Some people are worth it.
On the other hand, if your lover is hiding his true intentions from everyone, sneaking around with a “Date Me, I’m Single” sheet over his head, either A) he is already done with you, although he may want to trick you into sticking around for a little while longer, as his short-term plaything, or B) he’s a liar and a cheat. In either case, it’s probably best to cut your losses and run.
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