The provided image is fairly bad, but there is another part of this thread where some guy is unironically trying to science and logic other people about how “unhealthy” polyamory is, and how it is a “choice” and therefore should be discouraged.
Plus the hundreds of upvotes on deleted comments that were likely … not so good. Though I have no idea how to view deleted comments.
And yes, feel proud of me. I blocked r/neoliberal. A small step towards better mental health.
Polyam is a bit of an umbrella term and there’s many different flavors of it, so I’m not sure what you mean by polyam having or not having the “correct” idea. That’s not really how relationships work anyhow.
It sounds like you’d be a fan of the idea of “relationship design” though - it’s about regularly discussing the design of a relationship collaboratively rather than falling into any template of what a relationship is “supposed” to be or look like. Not just the relationship escalator template, but even ideas common in the polyam community like not adding monogamous people into a polyam network.
I’m trying to wrap my head around why anyone would add a monogamous person to a poly network. Seems they would always be causing issues, no?
The idea behind relationship design is that if they agree that it works for them, then it’s valid. I know a couple people online who have discussed being on either side of such a dynamic. If the monogamous person wants to eventually marry etc. then perhaps the relationship has a planned expiration time - that’s okay too. Or the polyam person could be fine being married to that person so long as they’re still allowed to have their other relationships still. Point is that they get to decide for themselves what they’re okay with. It could also just be that the monogamous person only wants one partner, but does not mind that partner having more than one.
Of course, I should also mention I’m using the term “relationship” but part of it being intentionally designed means it could look very different than what you’re envisioning. Like the polyam person could be ace but desires multiple romantic relationships, and the monogamous person might think that’s fine. Or maybe the monogamous person is really just monogamous wrt child raising, and wants only that dyad to be co-parenting, but if otherwise open to other forms of relationship. Etc.
A related idea is relationship anarchy.
I hadn’t run into that term (“relationship design”) before but that sounds like more or less what I have in mind. I first started thinking about it while using the apps (years ago - perhaps things have changed) and noticing how many users seemed to have in mind not only the exact type of person they were after but also the exact relationship model waiting for said person to neatly slot into. that seemed backwards to me - ideally you would meet people based on shared interests or values, chat/meet and see if there’s potential, and proceed from there as it makes sense for all parties. at least in my experience this kind of progression seemed to be disincentivized in favor of the “job interview” model.