New to this forum from the KC area

LOBBS

New member
Hello all, I'm the male of an open marriage. We have been married for over 12 years and have done the swinging thing off and on throughout. About a year and a half ago, we decided to open our marriage.

She has had no issues meeting guys so I don't know how often she will frequent this forum with me. She has had a few encounters since we opened up. One was strictly a glorified FWB that carried on for a few months, one that turned out to be a one-timer and another with whom she had a longer term poly relationship and also was a bi-bottom that we both played with a bit. They have all since moved on but she has a few options at present that she can choose to pursue if she likes.

I work quite a bit so that she can be a stay-at-home mom and to complicate matters I'm on the night shift in an all-male shop. I have found it incredibly difficult to meet new people. I have placed ads on Craiglist and surfed the more popular dating sites. I have found that there seems to be a great deal of mistrust of married men stating they are in an open relationship when dealing with online ads. Many women automatically assume that you are nothing more than a cheating husband and quickly dismiss any further communication. Occasionally, I will meet and have chat/text relationship but with my difficult schedule they usually fizzle out before we meet physically. I did have one long-distance relationship where we both developed strong feelings for each other. Due to each of us having commitments to our own towns that prevented us from pursuing our relationship in any greater depth, I felt it was best to break things off from a romantic perspective. I am happy to report that she has become recently engaged and I wish her the best.

My inability to easily meet new partners has been a minor source of friction in our joyful pursuit of the poly life. She, at times, feels guilty or will not act at all knowing that I am oftentimes left out of the fun. Many times over, she has stated that she'd be more than willing to "straighten out" any doubting prospects as to my availability to play if for no other reason than it eases her mind when she wants to pursue her own endeavors.

I apologize for the overly long intro and I hope to find some resources that may make it easier for me to enjoy this lifestyle a bit more.
 
Greetings LOBBS,
Welcome to our forum.

It sounds to me like you're bound to have some difficulties finding people to hook up with, both because of your work schedule and because yes, gals frequently have more luck than guys on dating sites and such. I think it would help for you and your wife to make peace with this reality, to whatever extent you can and in addition to whatever you can try to improve your odds a little.

In the following list, are there any dating sites you haven't tried yet?

http://www.pof.com/
http://www.okcupid.com/
http://www.polymatchmaker.com/

Another thing you can do is look for poly meet-up groups in your geographical area. Try googling "polyamory" with the name of your state or city, and also see if any of the following links might help:

http://polyamory.meetup.com/
http://www.polyamory.org/SF/groups.html
http://polyevents.blogspot.com/#localgroups

We have a Dating & Friendships subforum on this site that might help.

A few more thoughts:

"As for where to meet poly people, if by some chance you are interested in anything alternative like Renaissance fairs, goth culture, sci-fi conventions, indie music, bdsm, or any small fringe group, you will be more likely to meet people who have at least heard of poly and are accepting of it."
-- SpaceHippieGeek, http://polyamoryonline.org/smf/index.php?topic=5412.msg57394#msg57394

Even if it's not an "alternative" type group, if there's a club or something in your area that does something you're interested in, you can always join that group and it just gives you a way to get out there and meet people. If you meet someone on a platonic level and get to talking about poly, then they can decide how they feel about it without any "pressure to agree." Then if they do decide poly doesn't bother them too much, and some kind of romantic connection subsequently develops, you'll already have "had the poly conversation" with them.

Do the best you can, and have lots of patience.

Regards,
Kevin T.
 
Yes, we have begun to come to terms with the fact that it will always be a bit more difficult for me to meet someone. Our social circle is "tapped" so I will have to look into ways to expand it. I took a quick look at our metro area on Meetup and found two poly groups in the KC area.

As far as dating sites go, I know for a fact that POF has taken a strong, public stand against married men on their site. A few months ago, they sent out an e-mail stating that all profiles of married men were to be reviewed and if it was found that one was looking for any kind of non-platonic relationship it would be deleted. Their reasoning was that there were "so few woman looking for that kind of relationship" and that essentially married men were a nuisance. I, being quite open and frank about my status as the male half of an open marriage had my account deleted. All further attempts to establish a new account have also been deleted within 15 minutes even when taking care to avoid any kind of sexual references as outlined in their new TOS. Funny thing is that my wife's account in which she is also quite clear about her open relationship has never been touched. So evidently, it is OK for married, or otherwise committed, women to use their site to find men but not vice-versa.
 
Wow, I didn't realize that about POF. I'll remove them from my "recommend list;" that's the second ding I've heard about them just in the last couple of days.

What about the other two dating sites I listed, have you tried them? OKC gets mixed reviews: Some people have great luck with it, others, not much luck at all. I'm pretty sure it's got a good track record for tolerating poly folks. PMM, while having the disadvantage of considerably less membership, does specialize in poly relationships so of course they won't give you a bad time.

It's hopeful that there's a couple of local poly groups in your area. If you try them, let us know how you like them and if they help.

Best of luck sent your way,
Sincerely,
Kevin T.
 
.

As far as dating sites go, I know for a fact that POF has taken a strong, public stand against married men on their site. A few months ago, they sent out an e-mail stating that all profiles of married men were to be reviewed and if it was found that one was looking for any kind of non-platonic relationship it would be deleted. Their reasoning was that there were "so few woman looking for that kind of relationship" and that essentially married men were a nuisance. I, being quite open and frank about my status as the male half of an open marriage had my account deleted. All further attempts to establish a new account have also been deleted within 15 minutes even when taking care to avoid any kind of sexual references as outlined in their new TOS. Funny thing is that my wife's account in which she is also quite clear about her open relationship has never been touched. So evidently, it is OK for married, or otherwise committed, women to use their site to find men but not vice-versa.

I think it is worth directing a Poly advocacy group towards this as it really is rather sexist to delete married male Polys and not female ones. Either all married people should be disallowed or allow all Polys.
 
Yeah, turning a "guy bias" into a site policy is pretty bad.
 
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