Talk Nerdy To Me: Open Relationships

Originally, I had intended this column to be something of a Dear Abby, where people could send me their questions and I would write out some advice based on my own personal life experiences and knowledge shared by various friends and family that have traveled down the same paths. I think maybe once or twice someone has written me asking about specific things without wanting their actual emails quoted, and I’ve happily given advice to the best of my ability.

Today, my friend Adam called out for thoughts and opinions from his female friends about his current situation:

 
“So I was joking with my gf, and said that I’m pinning a note to my shirt that says you give me permission to date other women. Why? Well I noticed that a lot of women don’t want to go out with guys that are in open relationships, whether it’s dating or not. Ladies lemme hear your thoughts on this.”

 
Having been in open relationships, monogamous relationships, and even briefly one polyfidelitous quad, I thought I would share some thoughts on the subject of open relationships, along with some of the thoughts of a few of Adam’s other female friends (with their permission, of course).

I think one of the hardest parts of an open relationship is really defining what an open relationship is. According to Wikipedia, an open relationship is “a relationship in which the people involved agree hat they want to be together, but in which romantic or sexual relationships with additional people are accepted, permitted or tolerated.” Sometimes this involves long-distance relationships; sometimes sex with other people is allowed, sometimes it isn’t; sometimes romantic feelings are allowed outside of the relationship, sometimes they aren’t. Open relationships can be quite complicated, as you can imagine.

I’d like to throw in a few troll definitions of “open relationship” from my favorite website, Urbandictionary.com:

“[A] great way to set yourself up for some hellish drama, instead of being honest with your significant other.”

and “[When] two people are seeing each other and agree to see other people as well, except one of the two people doesnt (sic) really want to be in an un exclusive relationship and winds up getting hurt. To put it simply two people that are dating each other but one of them is getting more screwed than the other.”

The reason I’ve added these in is because even though they’re trollish definitions from Urban Dictionary, they’re actually quite true to some extent. Since open relationships can sometimes be quite a bit more complicated than monogamous relationships (especially if both partners are not crystal clear about what they want, what they expect, and what is allowed), that can lead to quite a bit of drama. As well, there are times when someone loves their partner so much that they’ll agree to an open relationship even if that’s not what they want, leading to the person who doesn’t want an open relationship getting hurt.

If you’re entering into an open relationship from the beginning, like Adam did, there’s probably less chance of drama and hurt, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s any less complicated. Adam asked why girls seem to shy away dating guys that are in open relationships. There may be quite a few reasons to consider.

I think that for a large majority of the single dating world, the people involved are looking for a single, monogamous commitment. I feel like a lot of women in the dating pool are out there looking for potential husband material; if you’re dating someone else and in an open relationship, that might signal to them that you aren’t looking for the same thing that they’re looking for, i.e. a potential future spouse.

I also think it’s hard for many women to define “commitment” and “monogamy” as anything but mutually exclusive terms. The word “relationship” adds a whole different context to things as far as the female mind goes, which makes it more difficult to just go out and have fun with someone in a way that doesn’t imply a serious commitment.

When I suggested that to Adam, he told me that he says that he’s dating a girl and that they are both seeing other people, he doesn’t use the words “open relationship”; he also said, “I never say date. I always say, ‘wanna go out for dinner’ and I don’t imply anything [more than] that it’s just two people out for dinner.”

My thought on this is that perhaps Adam is just asking out girls that aren’t looking for casual dating and are seeking out something more. I think our friend Jessica put it quite well when she said:

“A woman’s dating desires are based on so many different things: you might find someone who just recently came out of a serious relationship would be completely content with the prospect of dating someone in an open relationship because there wouldn’t be any pressure to commit… while perhaps an unmarried woman around my age might be searching for a marriage partner and not want to ‘share’ her man.”

She also added: “It takes a very specific type of person to be able to handle sharing a partner… it doesn’t take long for feelings to get involved and thus hurt very quickly, so maybe they know that they tend to fall for someone quickly and are guarding their heart by saying no?”

Adam’s friend Patti added: “There’s nothing wrong with an open relationship as long as everyone involved is ok with it. There’s nothing wrong with being with more then one person as long as it doesn’t turn into a competition, but its really hard to balance everything correctly so that it doesn’t end up that way. It’s hard to split time evenly if the two people you’re seeing aren’t comfortable with the other person, and its even harder to have everyone together in one large relationship unless its a Triad and not just two separate relationships. The Triad does make it easier in the long run, but its not something thats easy to accomplish either.”

Perhaps most women don’t want to be involved with someone who is in an open relationship because it is hard to share someone you love with someone else. And, as mentioned above, it can be difficult to split your time equally amongst different partners — especially if one of the partners involved lives in a different city, state or even country. There’s always the possibility of jealously, of one of your partners feeling that the other is your “favorite” or that you don’t give her as much time as you do a different partner. Even if you’re just going out on dates and not adding another serious partner to your relationship, there’s always the chance that you could fall for someone whom you’re only seeing casually, which could be detrimental to your open relationship if the other person is only okay with it as long as they are the only serious and committed partner that you have.

This can even happen in polyamorous or polyfidelitous relationships. As mentioned, I was at one point part of a polyfidelitous quad. I was dating a woman who was married and also had another partner. It was more a one-sided polygamous relationship than a true quad as all of the partnerships revolved around my girlfriend. The problem arose when I became attracted to her other partner, the guy who was not her husband — and when he seemed to return my attraction. This particular woman was okay with multiple relationships as long as they all revolved around her; the moment that other people in the relationship became interested in one another, all hell broke loose. As you can imagine, I got out of there as quickly as possible after that.

Another thing to consider is that if your open relationship involves sex with other people, you are basically sleeping with everyone that your sex partners have slept with. Germs and the possibility of sexually transmitted diseases can be a big turn-off for women who might otherwise be interested in you.

And, of course, as you can imagine, being in an open relationship requires a lot of trust. I think there are a lot of women out there that have fallen for the line of, “I have a girlfriend, but we’re both dating other people” when that simply isn’t the case. I think Patti put it best: “Most ‘GOOD’ women don’t want to f*ck up other people’s relationships… and a guy going ‘oh no my girlfriend is totally ok with me doing this’ doesn’t mean crap to those ‘good’ females. Because most not so good guys are gonna say sh*t like that. Trust me I don’t even think a note pinned to your chest would change that.”

So, to wrap up, some points to consider if you are in/want to be in an open relationship:

 

1. Make sure that an open relationship is what both partners really want.
2. Make sure that all of the rules of the open relationship are defined; e.g., is only casual dating allowed? Is sex with other partners allowed? Are other more serious romantic relationships allowed? And so on.
3. Always be open and honest with your partner about who you are seeing and what you are doing
4. Consider that while you are fine with your open relationship, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the people you are trying to date will be. Some girls still won’t want to date you even if you’re in an open relationship and have “permission” from your significant other to see other people.

 
And to Adam, my additional piece of advice is this: if you haven’t already, make a profile on a free dating site like OK Cupid or Plenty of Fish where you can explain your relationship and its rules; and hopefully it will be easier for you to find girls to go out with that don’t mind that you’re in an open relationship. I think that will be an easier way to approach casual dating than asking out girls without knowing whether or not they’re okay with dating someone who is in a relationship already, open or otherwise.