The difference between dating and polyamory.

redpepper

Active member
Why is it that younger people are calling themselves Polyamorous?

When I was in my late teens to mid 20's I dated a lot. I had several long term girlfriends and boyfriends. If you can call a year a long time (I certainly did then!), but in between times I saw several people at once and felt I loved them... I never called that non-monogamy, poly or anything. It was what one did at that age and to me and everyone else around it was simply dating.

As a general question to the world... Why has that changed??!!! Please tell me you younger ones who read this. Why bog oneself down with those terms such as poly, when you are supposed to be fucking everyone! Falling in love at the drop of a hat and getting your heart broken just as much.

Today at my parenting course we were going through the ages and stages that children and young adults go through. The last of which happens at 21 apparently and is the one where people finally realize that others are a "me" in the world as everyone else is... there is kind of happy empathy time where the person feels one with the world and those in it. Many activists are around this age for this reason... it's all new to them to actually realize they are one of many and we are all "me's" and that others are not being taken care of properly or the planet isn't being taken care of properly... whatever cause they decide is most relevant to them.

I would think that because of this young people should just date and experience that for awhile before settling into marriages, poly relationships and the like. There seems to be too much out there to make young people (and children) become adults before their time. Does this include young people defining themselves as Poly too?
 
I think it depends on how you date. Sure there are probably young people out there who date lots of people and claim poly, but that doesn't mean some of them aren't. When I was "dating" I never had more than one boyfriend at a time. I didn't date other people when I was with one guy. If I was involved with someone else, it was with permission, a one time thing, and our relationship was considered "open"; not poly.

I don't really consider myself "young" anymore (I'm sure some of you do). I'm 25, married two years. I've been with my husband for five years but that certainly doesn't mean this stuff never comes up. Once we started looking at this type of lifestyle we realized this is one reason why you don't fit the "normal" perimeters of a relationship. We've both realized that there have been times in the past where we have been with one person and loved another, but felt ashamed for feeling that way.

So if young people are dating multiple people in a kind of casual manner and calling themselves poly, they're probably missing the point. Greenearthal is right, they're just using the term because it seems to fit their behavior.

So...that's my thoughts on it.
 
I am only 25,
so i guess it wasn't so long ago i was 21,
i had to grow up extreemly fast, got kicked out of home at 16, was homeless for a little while, and at 20 i met C, who at the time was 23, we fell in love very quickly, and moved in together after 6 months, so by 22 i had bought a house, was in a steady relationship with a dog and a cat and was very happy :)

we where together for 3 and half years before we considered making our relationship poly and we had one disastor at the start and then finally we got it right and now we are both very happy.

so i never did date lots of guys and experience youth in the sense that you did,
sometimes i wish i had
sometimes i think that i am making up for it now in a sense

but then i think about what i do have, a loving supportive partner, and a new relationship that i feel is really going somewhere.

Jools
 
I think perhaps there is a certain freedom in using the term poly for younger people. Think back to being in hi-school and the judgement of girls who "played the field" vice the cool reps of guys who were "studs".

I'm not saying adolescent dating is poly in nature, but it does certainly de-slut the ability to enjoy one's sexuality without conforming to traditional ideals of what relationships should look like or the "higher ground" of monogamy.

If it levels the playing field and reduces judgement then by all means use it. The important thing is that younger people try not get all caught up in the idea of lifelong commitments and intense balancing when they should be having fun and learning simply to develop relationships.

And yes…this is in fact Mono speaking. Just because things don't work for me, doesn't mean they don't work.
 
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Hey Ygirl..your comment disapeared but for the record, I joined the military at 19, got married at 20, had a planned pregnancy at 23....I was all about the long term!

Marriage lasted 16 really good years; daughter is an amazing young woman who hardly conforms, been in the military for 19 years with one to go hopefully. I generally commit pretty hard...Redpepper is doomed!
 
Due to the fact that I'm 21, I'll throw in on this one.
In my personal experience, it varies from person to person. I know some people who have been in several long term commited poly relationships. I know 10x more people who claim to have been, but they really are just sleeping around without the title of 'slut'

I am a relationship person. The definition of relationship can be whatever I and my partner wish it to be. But they are relationships nonetheless. I stick with people. I do not sleep around, unless it's a night of fun with a partner and someone we find attractive.
I have a serious partner and a not-so-serious partner. This doesnt mean that I am just sleeping with the second mentioned, it just so happens to be that we tried many dynamics and this one works best for us. I am very very close with both of them.
There are other factors that help define my relationships. I have a 3 year old son. I am in school full time. I have almost NO free time and so building my relationships takes much longer than others.

I think it's all relative. Likely the reason you see so much frivilous behavior in younger folk is because they are young, and young adults, regardless of being poly, mono, straight, gay, smart, dumb, whatever, are just not really ready to be in the type of relationships that most of you are in.

It's all a learning proccess, I guess.
:D
 
Instant Gratification....

Because it's the Now generation.

Because it's the Me generation.

Because it's the Hip generation.

Because it's the Pepsi generation.

Because it's all about instant gratification and being able to flip open the cell phone and instantly talk to anyone and everyone in the world generation.

Cell phones are Evil they're evil I tell you. And when you all turn into Zombies and start coming after me to eat my brain then I'll tell you I told you so. Sorry been reading too much Stevie King "Cell".

Where was I .. oh yeah. Well you get the point.
Just my humble opinion, I could be wrong, and usually am.

Just Me,
Tim
 
Cell phones are Evil they're evil I tell you. [/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]


They are banning the use of Cell phones in cars here in British Columbia. Experienced drivers will be allowed a hands free device usage and anyone caught texting/emailing gets even more serious penalties....this will kill some people when not that long ago we didn't even have these things :eek:
 
They are banning the use of Cell phones in cars here in British Columbia. Experienced drivers will be allowed a hands free device usage and anyone caught texting/emailing gets even more serious penalties....this will kill some people when not that long ago we didn't even have these things :eek:

Birthdays coming up Mono! Thank goodness, I need some help on this one! What am I going to do while sitting in traffic?? Ahhhh!

Great comments so far! Food for thought for sure!
 
I have to agree with ramfish. Alot depends on how you date. I also only dated one guy at a time. I only once went out with two different guys at the "same" time but they were just "a date" and not "dating". I think that that can be a big difference to some people. It's all in how you or they define things.

I also think that because this is still a mainly mono-culture, claiming poly allows youth to date more or gives them a reason why it is okay to date more than one person. If they are doing it openly as an "adult" poly relationship should be than why can't they call themselves poly as well?
 
I'm 24 and among my peer group, no one ever casually dated. You were either single or you were in a committed monogamous relationship. Maybe it was because we were all so poor in college, but no one dated. Almost everyone's relationships started when they decided to make-out one night and then the next morning they were in a couple that was exclusive. There was no playing the field, seeming more than one person or dating. Anyone I knew that was outside this mold considered themselves to be polyamorous.

We occasionally talk about how no one dates. The usual reasons we come up with are a lack of money and a culture obsessed with finding your one and only.
 
Different strokes for different folks, different cultures, upbringing, maturity, etc... I've been a "serial monogamist" since I was 17. I can honestly look back at my mindset and different experiences and say - "wow - if only I'd grasped the concept of poly way back in my early 20's, things would've been much easier". I don't think there's any problem with younger people identifying as poly, as long as it's not just an excuse to fuck around.

In a similar vein to the first sentence there - I know people in their mid 30's with several children who are less qualified to be in a relationship than most 19 year olds. I also know my little brother met his GF when they were both 15, she was his first gf and he her 3nd ever bf, and they've been very happily married for 10 years now, just turned 30.

So it's going to vary by person.

In the U.S., our culture is hard to comprehend even if you're here; everything sexualized and sensationalized - but so much is so conservative and so much lip service paid to values and morals. The two can co-exist - I am all for morals and values and want to see more of it! - but it's like America has it backwards. We liberalize the wrong shit and stick in the mud on the stuff we should be moving past. As a result, teens are raised in a culture where everytig is about sex, unless you're very conservatively raised dating more than a few times is synonomous with having sex, so by extension if you're dating around, you're sleeping around - which isn't cool by some bass akwards social ideology still pervasive here. You are expected to settle down with a bf or gf very young now. If you don't, either something is wrong or you're a slut. :shrug:
 
You are expected to settle down with a bf or gf very young now. If you don't, either something is wrong or you're a slut. :shrug:

Slightly off topic, but it is relevant to current twenty-somethings' viewpoints, I think...

This reminds me of a conversation I had yesterday with a younger girl in one of my classes who was surprised that I got married at 23 ... she thought that was really young for someone to get married. It was just a little weird to me, I guess, because it seems to me that when people find someone in college and then graduate, they'll get married. It just didn't seem that unusual at the time...but I guess that was just my own perspective.

However my husband and I were living together for three years before we got married, and most of that time, we were living with a male roommate. I never felt like a slut ^_~ The only time I had to defend myself was to my grandparents when my grandma commented that if we were living together, what surprises would be left after we got married? ...why would I want to have surprises after we got married? Wouldn't I want to know what it was like to live with this person? =P
 
Ill be 26 in a couple of month :p lol

Anyway, I guess for me: ive been with my now husband since I was 17, and we always had a very open and communicative relationship. We were in a serious realtionship from the get go, but thats how i work anyway. I dont do anything by halves!

So, a couple of years ago, a year into our marriage, he starts to discuss the idea of an open marriage, I was keen as I felt the same way, but we realised that we didnt want meaningless sexual experiences. We wanted the opportunity to fall in love with and love other people. We didnt know what it was called, only thats how we felt so we lived it. Then we discovered the word for it :p

I have never wanted to sleep around, i have never wanted to be 'free' so to speak. I had a fairly traumatic youth so security, love, stability? they were what i wanted and sought and i found it in my teens :) I consider myself very lucky to have the love of my life and the ability to love more then one too...

I guess 23 is young to get married but we had our reasons. to make a long story short: I wanted to be married before we started a family, i also wanted my family finished before 30 due to health and a familial history of downs syndrome and neural tube defects with age.. He agreed, so we married, and started TTC. Turns out im infertile anyway.. eh, these things happen...
 
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I concur with many of the ideas raised. Greenthal makes an excellent point: youth is a time of experimentation, trying on different personas, styles, philosophies. I had a friend who told me she was poly who is now monogamously married and living in Japan.

I was much like happiestmanalive and ramfish, I would sleep with one girl at a time and generally relationships started via physical interaction which somehow magically made us a couple. I thought of it as a way of not feeling bad for having sex, it was our way of saying "no look, I really am a serious person, I'm not frivolous" which is what having sex with someone attractive just for fun would be considered.

I like that "poly" is used more and more, maybe it's being misused a little, but at least it's getting out there. I want it to get out there by hook or crook and we can debate and clarify definitions later. I think it is a beautiful idea that needs to be shared, like HappiestManAlive I wouldn't have minded coming to it sooner!
 
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