'Well I'm sure there's plenty of girls like that on pof, but I'm not one of them. I want more than just friends with benefits, which is essentially what you're offering'.
Then I try to explain why it's not friends with benefits...it can be a committed relationship like any other, but without the unnecessary locked in monogamy...
Even though I've been seeing a poly man for 15 months now, I'd be interested to hear what kind of commitment you envision offering, and what commitment in a poly relationship means to you, and what you told her about how that differs from friends with benefits.
I talked with one poly man on OKC who explained thoroughly in his profile all the benefits
he and his wife would be getting out of him dating another woman--but he apparently had no answer as to what the woman was going to get out of dating a married man.
To be clear, I'm quite content for many reasons with seeing a married man, as long as it's all above board with his wife. I get many benefits out of
the particular man, but I think it's a question you need to be prepared to answer if you want someone to consider a poly situation.
Also, although BF sees himself as being 'committed' to me,
I don't see him as being in any way committed to me, for a few reasons: he's not going to pay my bills if I get sick. He's unlikely to be here with me in my old age. He's not going to share his retirement with me. He's not going to help me with my children.
And here's a big one: If he gets offered a promotion or transfer that requires moving away,
he and his wife are going...together. He's not taking me and my kids, and I don't expect he'd turn it down to stay here with me.
So, what does commitment mean
to you when you tell a woman you can be in a committed relationship with her while seeing other people, that it's not just friends with benefits?
And when would you normally bring them up?
Others, speaking from the poly point of view, have said immediately. I think that answer is also true from the non-poly point of view. I would be
very unhappy to be trading e-mails with a man, and go to meet him, only to find out he was married and hoping I'd consider it. I'd feel like a bait and switch had just been pulled on me. Upfront, right there in the profile from the get-go is the only way.
all to no avail.
How do you people approach these discussions? And how do you know when you're dealing with someone who isn't going to come on board, no matter what you say, vs someone who needs some time to process what you're saying, but may come around in time?
Are you asking how you can convince someone to see sense, and change their ideas to match yours? I've bolded some of the words that hold those connotations. (And I'm perhaps overstating just a little, to make the point.)
The first answer is to tell people from the start you're poly. The second is to accept people
as they are rather than coming at it from an angle of trying to make them 'come on board'
your train. Accept that they may like, and have every right to ride, their own train and to want a person who will be monogamous with them.
It sounds like you and this woman are not a match. Many women are not going to want polyamory, and that's okay. Don't try to convince them to accept a relationship style they don't want.