Today we’re discussing something I’ve had on my mind recently….open relationships. Not necessarily for myself, but for my potential future partner. As a single college gal, I am now in the dating scene. And by dating scene I mean I can have slightly romantic crushes on people I barely know and never talk to. It’s fun to have crushes. It’s fun to imagine my future partner. It’s fun to think flirting is liking someone’s story on Instagram. Well, fun…pathetic…pish posh. 

Before I discuss my own thoughts on these three subjects, I thought I would give definitions, and we could have some reflection on prejudices, stereotypes, and internal bias. 

Polyamory: the practice or desire for a romantic or sexual relationship with more than one partner at the same time, with the consent of everyone involved. 

Open Relationship: an arrangement where someone has one or more sexual or romantic partners at a time. 

(From my understanding, this differs from polyamory because you could have as many partners as you want, and be free to take new partners whenever you please. This is typically a sexual relationship, not romantic).

Non-monogamy: (ethical non monogamy) refers to a relationship where partners agree to have other partners and are fully aware and agree to those partners. 

Now…I often feel that people are quick to judge those not in typical monogamous relationships. Let’s do some internal reflection, hm? Did you automatically think that this was weird? Gross? Wrong? How about we instead open our minds to the idea of diversity in relationships, and celebrate differences, rather than judge people for their differences. 

Okay. That’s enough of that. Time to bring this post back to everyone’s favorite topic; me. 

Polyamory: as far as I am aware I am not interested in a polyamorous relationship. Obviously my sexuality is up for changes, but at this point in time I think I would be happy having one partner and my partner not having any other romantic partners. I want to be that one person for my partner who they confide in, live with, and possibly get married to. 

Open relationships: here is where I have some comments. For myself, I am very much not interested in an open relationship…what would I do? I don’t want to have sex with people. I don’t see myself in multiple romantic relationships. This doesn’t apply to me. However, it could apply to my future partner. Just because I’m ace doesn’t necessarily mean my future partner will be. Although it would be nice to have an ace partner, the universe might throw the perfect person in my life and they could be allosexual. And, I figured it would be very unlikely for an allo person to be completely happy with a totally nonsexual relationship. No sex. No kissing. No funny business. So, if my hypothetical perfect person was interested in sex, that would then bring up an ~open relationship~

If my future partner wants to have sex…they can. Obviously this would be a very long discussion, but in general I don’t have a problem with my partner having sex with other people. As long as they’re in a committed relationship with me, they can have a sexual relationship too. This obviously isn’t something I’m in love with, as I would prefer that my partner could be fully happy and satisfied in a relationship with yours truly, but for some strange reason people want sex and I guess I can’t stop them. 

And to touch on non-monogamy, well, I said I’d be fine with an open relationship so if my partner has a sexual relationship, that’s fine. I personally don’t feel the need to be in a non-monogamous relationship, and I know I would be happy in a monogamous relationship. 

Okay. That’s all this ace has to say on that. I do find it interesting how many people, specifically straight, cis, monogamous, allo people are usually the ones  a bit quicker to judge non-monogamous relationships, and I think my own experience in the queer community has definitely opened my eyes to the joy people find in different types of relationships; plus the importance of clear and  confident communication in a nontypical relationship. 

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