Solo Polyamory and Relationship Anarchy with @unapolygetically
Ro Moed (@unapolygetically) is a solo polyamory content creator, personal coach, and aspiring writer. We discuss:
- Ro's polyamory origin story, and how she came to reclaim her independence through solo polyamory after a toxic relationship
- What solo polyamory is and how it is still a relatively new term with different definitions within the polyamorous community
- Digital boundaries online, parasocial relationships, and how we navigate demands on our time and space and negative comments from followers
- Our respective businesses providing 1-1 support to the polyamorous community (her as a coach, and me as a peer supporter) and what issues clients come to us with the most often
and much more.
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Ro (@unapolygetically): Instagram
transcribed by Ata Dmytrzyk
Leanne: Welcome to Happy Polydays, a series of intimate conversations about polyamory, sexuality, identity, and relationships, hosted by me – Leanne Yau of the Poly Philia blog.
Leanne: Hello everyone and welcome to day 4 of Happy Polydays series. Today I'm joined by Ro who runs the account unapolygetically and today we're gonna be talking about relationship anarchy and solo polyamory as well as answering some general questions about being content creators and polyamorous people. ??? To begin, Ro, could you introduce yourself and talk about what you do on your page and how that's been going.
Ro: No problem. My name is Ro Moëd and I’m a content creator, personal coach and aspiring writer and I like to marry sharing my thoughts with graphic design. I’m really into art and drawing so I found a simple doodle style that I can use for this content, and I like to make cartoons as well, just to talk to people about polyamory, relationship anarchy, personal growth and relationship skills
Leanne: That’s great! I remember when you first started your page, Ro, it had such a distinct aesthetic and I think that was one of the things that really stood out about it when I first came across it. Can you remind me how long have you been running unapolygetically? When did you start the account?
Ro: I actually opened the account October 2020 and then I didn’t have the courage to start posting anything until March 2021, so it was this year.
Leanne: I find it so cool. It’s black and white aesthetic but with the colours of the pan flag and - for anyone who isn’t following unapolygetically - it’s such a consistent aesthetic that my page does not have. My page is just a mess. I tried to do alternating posts, so it has this kind of grid aesthetic that some pages have, but then eventually just gave up on it because I was like ‘I post too often, I’m just gonna leave it’
Ro: To post so often as you could, that would be such a tall order to maintain a consistent style. Sometimes I post once a week and I’m really glad that you picked on the fact that it was the pan flag because that was not??? my intention.
Leanne: Oh, okay. Ro, I know you practice solo polyamory and I practice kind of general nonhierarchical polyamory though of course I have a nesting partner and we live together ??? and I think there is quite a lot of ground to cover in terms of how differently polyamory can look. Solo polyamory is a topic that isn’t covered very much in the polyamorous community, I think. Now there are a lot of content creators who are solo polyamorous and talking about it, but I very much want to ask you about your polyamory origin story, like how you came to actively practicing polyamory and also specifically solo polyamory. I’d love to hear about how that journey has been for you and what value solo polyamory brings to your life. I should also ask you to before launching into that to define what solo polyamory is for people who don’t know.
Ro: Sure. So solo polyamory is a contentious thing actually, because people have different understandings of it, so I will share my understanding of it but take that with a pinch of salt. Always ask someone what their meaning is for the words that they use because it might not always be the same. For me it’s really about rejecting the idea of relationship escalator as the only way to define whether a relationship is committed or progressing, or good, or fulfilling. Relationship escalator, for those who don’t know, is this idea that when you go out into the relationship - the idea that were sold by the society is that you meet and then you flirt, and then you date, and the you kiss, and then you get more physically intimate, and then you move in together (skipping ahead a little bit), and then you talk about marriage, and then you get engaged, and then you do get married, and then you have children, and the you die together in your rocking chairs on your front porch. That’s this idea of what a relationship is supposed to be and that’s lovely and there is nothing wrong with it. But the problem with it being an escalator, the reason why it’s called an escalator is because it’s passive. You sort of stand on it and then you go up a level till you reach the top. And the top is inherently better than the bottom.
Leanne: It’s not really relationship stairs. I think the other thing is that the original person, the person who coined this term relationship escalator - I think it was Amy Gahran - she called it specifically an escalator not just because of what you said about progressing to the top and the top being better than the bottom but also because you don’t do anything when you’re on escalation. It just takes you up and you’re motivated by the society to follow this escalator and go with the flow. That’s why it’s called an escalator and not the relationship stairs or the relationship ladder - because it’s almost effortless we don’t think about it.
Ro: It’s a script that you can just read off and everybody will congratulate you on having had a successful relationship. Whereas when you want to go to the dating stage and stay there for 30 years - that for society is less meaningful that a relationship that has escalated to marriage. It’s a really interesting idea and I wanted to say it was Amy Gahran but I wasn’t sure how to pronounce it so you just taught me ???
Leanne: So how did you come to question the relationship escalator? How did you come to... I have two separate questions: how did you come to discover, actively practice polyamory and also the deep question about solo polyamory specifically.
Ro: Just as you asked me that I kind of realised that there was a period of my life where I was just thinking about polyamory and then there was a period of my life when solo polyamory seemed like the only reasonable option for me and I was like ‘yeah, this is it’. You just unlocked that thought for me, thanks. I don’t think I knew the word polyamory, but I ideologically was aligned with it. I was talking with my friend about 6 years ago now that I don’t understand why when you meet somebody, you’re not allowed to like anybody else after that. Isn’t it a bit sad that you don’t get to explore new connections as they come up? And why should it be something that’s impossible and causes jealousy and trust issues? I was thinking in a polyamorous way but didn’t know the word. I was casually dating different people at the time, but I was hoping these things to become more serious, more committed relationships, but they were just casual. But in a way I was practicing polyamory because I was ideologically aligned with it and I was dating multiple people, and they all knew about each other. Then I met my last monogamous ex and he - and this is a story that every time I tell it I still feel a little bit of shame about it - but he persuaded me, and I agreed to, end all of the other relationships and to just be with him. I don’t like to say just ‘persuade’ because I feel like that puts it all on him. I agreed to do that as well and that was a really shitty thing to do. To be compassionate to myself, I was also at the time a very different person. I was very insecure, I just wanted somebody so desperately to choose me and I really really wanted to climb that escalator - so it was very easy to persuade me. And that is not who I am now. I can live with the fact that that happened and I’m on a very good terms with the people with whom I ended the relationship with, I’m still in touch with them. Nothing bad came of it, I think. It was all fine. That relationship lasted about a year, but it was a very formative relationship because after about six months we were living together. Terrible idea. Everybody told me it was a terrible idea and I was just like ‘no, you don’t understand, we’re in love, this is the one, he is perfect’. I don’t know why I just abandoned all of my polyamorous ideology and was like ‘yes, somebody finally chose me’. It was my insecurity speaking, I think. That relationship after about 6 months after we moved in started to get a little bit manipulative, some abusive behaviours occurring and it really eroded my self-esteem. We agreed we were gonna have a child even though I wasn’t really ready. It was a tough time and I’m really glad we didn’t get that far because that would have been a mistake for me. Then it ended very suddenly because I started to put my foot down about what I did and didn’t wanna do and started having some boundaries and they realised that they couldn’t manipulate me. That relationship ended in a horrible way and I was heartbroken about it because I still, on some level, believed this is the one. Our lives were so enmeshed. We were living together. I lost my job. I needed to find somewhere new to live. I needed to change my identity because my identity became merged with being a part of that couple.
Leanne: Yeah, that’s real.
Ro: So I had a nervous breakdown…
Leanne: Just casually
Ro: I mean, it’s funny to me that I’m more ashamed about what happened before that than about a nervous breakdown. But I don’t hate myself for having a nervous breakdown because I do understand that all my life had been turned upside down. From my perspective at that time everything that my life was, was now gone - which I know now was not true. So I had to move back in with my parents at 27 years old and that was humiliating and that was ??? and I was alone. It was a tough time, and I really didn’t think I was gonna be able to date again or to work again, or to do anything again but the as is the case with all this episodes??? one day it just stopped. One day you just realise ‘yeah, I can do it’ and after about 2 months I was okay. I’m very very lucky that I have a supportive family who took me in and supportive friends. And I just realised from that experience what do I not want from a relationship. I don’t want to be in a position ever again where my identity is dependent on being in that relationship. I don’t want my financial stability or my home security to be dependent on someone. And I wanna be independent – that’s where I feel comfortable, that’s where I feel self-actualised. So solo polyamory sort of fell into my lap. I can’t remember how I found out about it - perhaps someone I was stalking to on an app mentioned it to me. I looked into it and I joined facebook groups and I learnt and I learnt and that was only 2 years ago actually.
Leanne: Ok, wow. So in terms of kind of how solo polyamory actualises itself in your life: you live alone and you don’t… I think traditionally solo polyamorous people don’t like to think about themselves as about ??? a free agent but that they don’t belong to a couple, that they are a unit. So regarding marriage and children, that kind of things, is that something you brushed off? How do you feel about those things, those bits of the relationship escalator?
Ro: Some solo polyamorous people are married and do have children. It’s more about emphasis on autonomy and independence and being an I and not a we. For me, I don’t want children, I don’t want to live with someone, I don’t see the point of marriage. Personally for me, I’m only speaking for myself but I don’t perceive marriage as superior to long committed relationship. I don’t wanna have children not because I hate children (though sometimes) but because I know myself now, I know myself so much better that when I got into that last monogamous relationship. I know that I need space and I need quiet, I have a lot of things I want to accomplish in my life. I know that this is true to people who have children too but I know that I couldn’t be able to do those things and have children, and take care of them in a way I would want to, and that’s about my own personal limitations. I would go mad having someone living in my house for 18 years. I would lose my mind even if I loved them and they were my kid because I just need my space to be empty sometimes. Just my own mental health. You know how people say sometimes to people who don’t want to have children ‘oh, it’s so selfish’? I feel like it would be so selfish of me to bring a child to the world because I do think on some level I would resent that fact that I lost so much of my free time and space.
Leanne: I think that’s so real for you to say, because I think what people really don’t understand about people who chose to be childfree is that if you asked some who didn’t want kids to have a kid for the sake of it, that would be so detrimental to the child’s life. If you’re gonna have a kid you better want it, because it’s such a massive impact on someone’s entire existence. [You ??? bring into the world that can’t be ??? that]. I think also I wanna touch on another thing of what you said regarding wanting your space. It’s so interesting because I’ve had experiences of living alone at university. I actually lived alone for basically all 3 years. I was mostly alone with the exception of tinder dates I’d bring home but now I live with a partner, and I personally see a lot of value in having a companion to wake up next to and share the chores and that kind of thing. So it’s very interesting to see it from the other side, where I get the sense that you see you home as your own personal sanctuary that you can retreat to and be in full control over. Having to share that with someone it’s difficult to navigate. Me and my nesting partner in the early stages we had to dispute over how to put the dishes in the dishwasher and things like that. And I can completely understand how some people would just not want to bother with that. You want your ??? space, you want the full control over how to design your home, and to feel safe in it and having people in it is the exception rather than a rule. Would you say that’s accurate?
Ro: That's definitely accurate. I love having my partners come and stay with me and it’s lovely to wake up in the morning and have them there but I know I couldn’t do it every day. That’s no disrespect to people who can. I think it’s my introversion or my unique type of introversion. Also I am someone who struggles with depression and I feel that until about 3 years ago I did ??? maybe even nest. But I feel like until 2 years ago I wasn’t really present in my life and I feel like I missed all of it. I feel like I only started living at 27 so I can’t give up so much time to taking care of someone else on their journey because I feel like I haven’t had my own. I feel like I’m still very near?. So just to bring it back to what you were saying about having people in your space - it’s just made me more aware that I need to do what’s right for me and just fuck it if people are gonna think it’s weird because I need to take care of me now.
Leanne: I think that’s so valid and speaking to all ??? There is quite a lot of us content creators ??? is ultimately about self-actualisation and self-discovery. I see your narrative echoes quite a lot intents of wanting to prioritise yourself and not lose yourself in a relationship and do things that really prioritise yourself rather than having to consider someone that ??? to it and for me - while my relationship looks very escalatory - me and my nesting partner don’t ever plan on getting legally married. That’s one aspect that we’ve taken out. I suppose it’s less about relationship escalator, it’s less about kind of rejecting all of that, like you said there are some solo polyamorous people who have children and get married, but I think it’s sort of a relationship anarchy where you can pick and choose which bits of the escalator are being wanted. What types of entanglement you wish you had. Let’s say financial and you get a house together, or you get married, and domestic where you live together, or co-caregivers and you’re having children. These are just general things that you can pick from, that platter of things within relationship anarchy rather than just go ‘I’m committed to life of no marriage, no kids, no cohabitation’ and that defines how you relate. Although that is the case for some people. I feel like solo polyamory, it’s still widely contested of what the universal definition of it is and I think it’s still a relatively new term. But the main debate that’s going on in the solo polyamory community based on what I see is that some people define it as the practice of ‘no kids/marriage/cohabitation’, you know - SOLO polyamory, whereas some people identify it as more of a mindset similar to relationship anarchy, or like a philosophy, rejecting the relationship escalator and customising commitments in that way. I think that these two caps of defining solo polyamory conflict each other because there are some solo polyamorous people who believe that when you are married or you have kids then you are participating in the relationship escalator and you are not solo polyamorous. Would you say you agree with that?
Ro: The thing is, when people talk about things like that my attitude is ‘I just don’t care’. I don’t mean that in a harsh way to you. I just don’t care so much whether someone is in the group or out of the group. I don’t see why we need to be gatekeeping that term so much. I genuinely don’t care if someone uses that term in a different way to me. For me solo means not wanting to mesh with someone else but also just the general emphasis on independence.
Leanne: That's fair enough. This is a conversation for another time but I do believe there is a fair amount of gatekeeping in the polyamorous community that can lead to some very cognatic resolves. The example is wherever someone does something unethical then people are very quick to jump to ‘that wasn’t real polyamory’ and I think that brushes the issue under the carpet. Whether that has nothing to do with that so let’s not discuss it. That dismisses some people’s experiences, if you had some very abusive experience in polyamory. Abusive polyamorous relationships obviously exist, and me and Claire from polypages are going to be discussing it later in the series. I think that people tend to fall into the ‘one true scotsman’ and see it like ‘this was not the correct way to apply and therefore it isn’t like that’.
Ro: In that case, I think sometimes it does matter because it’s about morality and behaving correctly whereas the solo polyamory is literally about how you live your life and both of them are completely valid. I understand wanting to separate cheating from polyamory, those are two different things…
Leanne: Of course!
Ro: But of course like you said, people behave unethically within relationships in general, whether they are polyamorous or not.
Leanne: Exactly and you know people can’t be 100% perfect all the time but ???. I know that Ro, you came up with some questions from your followers, you asked the people to contribute anything they wanted to ask us. Prior to this call we collated??? some of the ones that we found most interesting, and I think it would be nice to go through those some of them. They are about us as polyamorous people generally, some of them are about us as content creators. I’m sure we can talk about our experiences as content creators in polyamorous spaces and how that’s been like and what impact it’s had on our lives. The first question we have on this list I have here is - how do we deal with hate comments. I think that this is a good question, because we can answer it from the content creator perspective but as polyamorous people generally we encounter a fair amount of criticism from the society. I think it’s interesting for us to talk about how we handle hate on such a daily basis. What’s your take on that?
Ro: I guess the main way I’ve encountered hate has been online because of the sheer number of people that come in contact with my content as opposed to in contact with me as a human being in the real world. Especially in the last 2 years, not a lot of going out and seeing people. How do I handle them? It’s interesting because one of my partners said to me the other day ‘I couldn’t do it if I were getting that volume of hate. There is no way it wouldn’t erode my self esteem’. I was like ‘you know what - I came a long way since that last relationship I was in when I was monogamous’. My self esteem is strong enough now to separate ??? from reality. I know my reality now. Nobody can gaslight me. I know what my relationships are like, I know that I have been in love for example - a lot of people accused me of never being in love - and I know that I do trust my partners (a lot of people say that you can’t possibly) so it doesn’t affect me personally. How do I deal with them? For the most part I ignore them, if they’re really vile and not adding to the conversation I delete them and I block them, if they’re harassing or bullying I report them ??? and if I think I have a response that is not gonna come across malicious - because I don’t believe in fighting fire with fire - and I think it might help people to see someone respond, then I might say something back but that’s quite rare.
Leanne: I think that solo polyamorous people get more criticism not just from the monogamous mainstream but also from other polyamorous people, because there is a certain trend of polyamory, that I’ve seen where they’re so intent on pushing back on the idea that you can’t be committed if you’re polyamorous that they really subscribe to relationship escalator but just with multiple people. They very much want to show people what traditional commitment looks like but with multiple people. I think there is a brand of polyamorous??? that rejects solo polyamorous people who chose not to do that with anyone and berates people like you for having avoidance issues or not being committed to anyone and essentially being single and all that stuff. So I do feel that solo polyamory do bear a lot of ??? from the communities. I take a similar approach to you in terms how I pause these negative comments. Like you said, you know your reality, you know you have experienced love and you do trust your partners. As you say, I don’t want anyone gaslighting me anymore and I very much relate to that sentiment because I think ??? I’m able to separate out in my mind. I have a very logical approach to my mistakes and I can tell that when people are criticising me on the internet they are having an emotional reaction and I used to fight against them more, I tried to engage them and explain them but now I know that fighting emotions with logic is not really gonna help the situation. I still do it these days but more for educational purposes and not fighting back at that one person specifically. As content creator it’s so important to set a digital boundary. I don’t know how much experience you had, Ro, with followers really messing with our social relations and thinking they know us much better than they actually do. You post about some bits about something in your life on the internet and they feel entitled to your time and space. Is there anything what you have to say on that? Because this is something that I experience a lot but I’ve been creating stuff like this for a little bit longer than you and I wonder how much of that you have to deal with on a daily basis at this point.
Ro: Who knows, if I ever get 70 plus thousand followers then the chances of meeting people who think they know you better than they really do are higher. So far been quite lucky and I’d say 95% of messages I get from people are really respectful like ‘I appreciate your content’ and ‘I don’t expect a reply, you must get so many messages’ - which is true ??? and I always read them, I don’t always respond because I would be spending all my time online which is not for me. So far I’ve been really lucky but every now and then you get someone who is quite demanding and expects you to answer their question and then I don’t answer them, there is no point. I think it’s somebody who kinda thinks you exist on instagram, they haven’t really ??? that you’re a whole human being with a life outside of Instagram. Can I just spring UP??? something that just came to mind?
Leanne: Of course!
Ro: It’s also related. I got a comment on a reel once saying why am I always posting about polyamory, don’t I have anything else going on in my life ??? really bizarre. Have you ever had something like that?
Leanne: Absolutely, all the time. People make jokes ‘how do you know a person is polyamorous? – they’ll tell you’ or ‘you’re only ??? on polyamory’. I’m literally a polyamory education space. This is not my personal blog. I mean, it is but it’s not my personal instagram account, this is just a specific... you get it?
Ro: It’s called an activism. It’s called a business. Why would I post about everything else? It was the most bizarre thing. I answered back saying ‘I have a personal account where I post about cats and boats and diy but this is my business, this is my activism, so why would I be posting about all these things here?’. That was just an example of someone thinking they knew me from my content but that’s just an aspect of me.
Leanne: Yes! It’s just a slice of the whole reality. You’re completely right. You know I remember when I got to 10k followers I made an active decision to stop reading my comments section and I think it massively helped my time management. Up until then I’d read 10k followers comments’, I responded to every single comment and engaged in lots of conversations and ??? that did bring value to my life in some way. It was also massively time consuming and I was ??? ‘there are definitely some things that I need to let go of that I can’t control’. I’m very lucky that my comment section is mostly self moderating. If someone has a question directly to me and I’m not there to respond because I don’t read the comments, someone else will answer it because usually poly people are very eager to help others out, and answer newbie questions, and are very patient with examinations and giving out advice, and that kind of things. I’ve been very fortunate in that sense. But on the flip side, I also have comments where people joke out??? a piece of content that they feel some type of ??? about the comment on my post ??? and then I don’t respond because I’m not looking at my comments or because I’m literally asleep because I’m in a different time zone and most of my followers are American and then they accuse me of ignoring them and being inconsiderate and not being responseful as a content creator and causing violence for nor responding to a comment. I get back like a half a day later and they’ve gone on an entire tirade in my comments about how I’m harmful to the community and I’m just like ‘god the entitlement to my space and time’. Your page is amazing and I’m sure your followers will grow over time and I think you’ll eventually find this too, get to a place where people will be like ‘why aren’t you responding to me, you’re harming me’ and then you’ll be like ‘oh my god’ because it was definitely the case for me. I think this is where the start? of the work that we do on setting boundaries and basically enforcing the boundaries, because what’s the point of having boundaries if you don’t enforce them, if you’re not??? pleasing and appeasing to the masses and needing to be liked by everyone which I feel are skills we have in the relationship and we bring to content creator space. What was all a very long, winded way of answering dealing with the hate comments. I do feel like it’s not just the hate comment but also the harassment that can arise when people feel entitled to your time and space, and see you as a person who exists on instagram and not as a whole individual who exists outside of it.
Ro: There is some unglamorous stuff, let me tell you. Not all bits of glamour like on my Instagram, thank you. I think it’s different - boundary setting online because when you’re a content creator you don’t have to explain your boundaries to everyone. You can enforce them just by doing them. So if it’s harming you to read the comments all the time you don’t have to announce that you’re not reading the comments anymore. You’re allowed to just stop reading them. Where as if you’re in a relationship with somebody you might wanna explain like ‘hey, I’m gonna do this differently because it’s a boundary form me’ and I think you just can’t do that online. You can’t check in with 70k people about whether they understand your boundary, you just do it.
Leanne: I think it’s a very important distinction to make. I can’t personally message every one of my followers and go ‘is this ok with you?’ or rather ‘this is not ok with you but this is something I need you to know now’. I’m bringing this up because I feel like this is quite topical. Shrimpteeth, another polyamorous content creator recently made a post about exactly this issue. I don’t know if you’ve seen this post but shrimpteeth has almost 100k, or I think they have reached a 100k followers at this point, and they recently talked about an interaction they had with a follower. They got 6 paragraphs on how they didn’t like the content and was unfollowing them and they were like ‘dude what’. I think all this is an exercise in digital boundaries and I think unfortunately things like this can be eroded when you’re a person who talks about your life and then people think that is what your entire life is. Anyway, my next question for you is kind of going back to solo polyamory specifically You talked a little bit about the benefits and values solo polyamory brings your life in terms of prioritising your independence and having your personal space and making choices that prioritise yourself and that kind of things. I’d love to hear more about what other benefits solo polyamory specifically brings to your life. I’d love to hear more about that and I’d love to hear whether it has any downsides. Whether there are any disadvantages to practicing solo polyamory. Of course I understand you probably made a benefit-cost analysis, so whatever negatives there are they’re relatively minor but I’d love to hear about pros and cons of solo polyamory as it applies to your life.
Ro: Honestly the lack of expectations around escalating the relationship, cohabitation, sharing finances and marriage - that is one of the big benefits to me. Other than that my relationships just look like any other relationship. I think one of the benefits is that knowing myself and what I need has allowed me to find other people who are gonna fit in with that and they tend to be people who are quite similar to me who have also lots of projects and love working on these projects, and love spending a lot of time, alone and do stuff - their hobbies - things like that, and who for personality or mental health reasons need space. There’s no expectations that we’ll spend every day together. I guess also the benefit of not living with people is gross stuff. I can leave dirty dishes in the sink if I want to, it’s not gonna annoy anyone. I have a really crafty??? floor and when there is winter and there is ash everywhere because of the fire and I clean only if I have someone over - I can live like a slob if I want to. I don’t always choose to but I can if I want to. I kind of like just being able to deal with things when I feel able to deal with them and not having to coordinate that with anyone else and not having any of those resentments about inequity and how much is being done around the house. Which happens a lot when you live with people. It’s almost without fail some kind of conflict around some kind of domestic work at some point. Being able to eat at 10:30 if I want to. You know, just little things like that. I don’t have to coordinate my life so much with someone else. I have my life and they fit into it the way they fit into it and I fit into their lives the way I fit into their lives and that’s just the way it is. I like that kind of ??? and we just naturally let it happen.
Leanne: Can I ask what a typical week looks like for you? I know, I asked you a question in the middle of you answering ??? but I’d love to hear more about what a typical week look like for you. If you’d be happy to share more about how many partners you have and how they fit into your life.
Roe: I get comments sometimes saying ‘how do you manage your time with multiple partners’ and my answer is I don’t polysaturate myself. I know I can get quite easily polysaturated. Some people can maintain relationships with 10 people with various levels of contact and commitment and they’ll be fine with them. Where as I don’t think I could. Typical week: I am coaching Tuesday to Thursday and I’m teaching Tuesday to Friday. I’m still straddling 2 careers at the moment. Monday I keep free because every other Monday I move my boat home. I have to every 2 weeks and then every other week on a Monday I have a day off. I have 2 partners at the moment and I tend to try to see them …well, one of them I see every week or every other week and the other one - at the moment we’re sort of seeing each other every week but there have been times where we don’t see each other for days but we speak every day. One of my partners is a romantic and a sexual partner and with the other one we changed it recently, and we decided it’s more of friends with benefits situation. There aren’t romantic feelings but there’s sexual chemistry and friendship. So my romantic partner I speak to everyday, one of my best friends, we do skype dates and we have phone calls everyday and we text and send each other voice notes that are longer that some of the podcasts that you find, stuff like that. So we’re very much in touch with each other, we’re very much connected. We don’t just update each other on what happened in our day but we talk about real things so it feels like we go on a date everyday. It’s been hard at times not being able to see him more regularly and I would love to see him probably once to one and a half times a week on average. And then every now and then we might do a trip that lasts a few days and we might spend a few days together. That’s sort of my life at the moment.
Leanne: To the cons, are there any downsides to solo polyamory or polyamory specifically? What would you say are the hardest parts of polyamory or solo polyamory, beacuse that was one of the questions we got about the not so glamorous sides of being polyamorous.
Ro: It does fit me pretty damn well, to be honest. I guess every now and then there will be a time where you didn’t forsee being sad about something and you’d like someone being nearby for support and if you don’t live with someone or live near them then you can’t access that support. I can’t pop over to my partner’s house for a cuddle because he’s 22 miles away at the moment. I can call him. That might be inconvenient as it comes to the separation and living on my own when I’d suddenly like someone to be there and they can’t be but that’s when you learn some techniques and you lean on people in whatever way you can. I don’t mean to rebuff your question because I’m sure there are difficulties for some people. You heard what my weekly schedule is, I don’t see my partners super super often because as a relationship anarchist I also value my friendships really highly. I see my friends almost as much as I see my partners and I just don’t think I could see my life being any other way. It just works so well for me.
Leanne: That’s great! I wasn’t expect you to ??? a list of downsides or anything like that but I think you bring up something quite key because I feel like some polyamorous people pull into the trap of collecting multiple partners because they want to just avoid ever being lonely or avoid being alone and dealing with their thoughts and being just happy with themselves on their own. Something I do say a lot with people ‘don’t use polyamory as a way to avoid being alone or loneliness’ because it’s important to be your own individual self and not be defined by your relationships and to be happy with you existing just as an individual without constantly having to be tied to someone else’s life. There are of course gonna be moments where there are inconveniences, like you said, when you ??? can’t access in the moment when you’re lonely or you’re perhaps not feeling strong because you want to lean on someone and you’re not living with someone so it’s not accessible. I think ultimately it does good in the long run as to be able to live with ourselves. I think it’s a very important skill and I wouldn’t say its just restricted to solo polyamorous people. I think on my side the downsides of polyamory, the main one for me is when you’re dealing with multiple people who are interrelated. I’m thinking about a more complex polycule I’ve been in. There can be quite a lot of drama regarding communication and boundaries and privacy and all kinds of stuff. It can be a minefield to navigate. I think they’ll be some kind of situations where you’re mashed in a situation but can’t talk about it because it’s between them two but the triangulation sort of happens. I think it’s similar to being in a massive group of friends where everyone is intertwined. Maybe it’s because I practice more kitchen table style polyamory. I like my partners to know each other reasonably well and I when I get to know someone I tend to want to know their partners and their metamours and want to know the network. Of course someone who doesn’t want to do that, I’m not gonna force them but that has been the tendency in which I practice polyamory. I use that to meet friends and I’m a very social person. A downside of that is that you get broiled? in all these social dynamics and oh my god, what is the right thing to do here, whos side should I take. That has been the most challenging part of polyamory for me. But I wouldn’t say that’s unique to polyamory, I’d say it’s just a social thing. I think someone who has a lot of friends who’ll know each other will have similar issues.
Ro: Definitely there’s some drama. I can even see that within my friendship group from school and there is very little drama ever but there is definitely more potential for people to talk about each other as opposed to having separate friends. I have a separate friend from univeristy who’s very close to me and one friend from work and they don’t know each other so there’s no drama there, just between us.
Leanne: I think that’s where is the value of parallel polyamory, of keeping certain relations separate, because then you don’t have to deal with not only your relationship with them but how your relationship with them impacts their relationship with each other. I think that’s infinitely more layers to the equation. Which is why as a mainstream polyamory advice says, don’t start off polyamory with a triad - because you have to deal with that stuff in real time. I think that can be very challenging if you’re not used to doing that kind of stuff already in friendship groups ???. I want to talk about your role on your page as a coach. You offer coaching whereas I offer more informal peer support. I do think there is a distinction between these two. My role as a peer supporter is literally peer to peer. I position myself as a friend who will not judge you and will give you a safe space to vent and I’ll give my opinion about the situation. I don’t see myself as a guide or a mentor in the same way, but I think what we have in common in terms what we offer to the community is - we offer emotional support and advice and some level of guidance on the situation and if not guidance then insight, perspective.
Ro: So as a coach I’m not positioning myself as a superior to the client in any way - if anything it’s collaborative. What I do bring to the table is a knowledge of tools and frameworks which might help the client to explore certain issues but they’re doing all the work. All the ideas come from them. I don’t give advice. A mentor would give advice ‘you wanna get to where I am - here’s how you do it’ but a coach is like ‘where do you wanna get to? Where I am is irrelevant, I will help you get there’. I think the only difference between what you describe as peer support and coaching it seems that as a coach I might have some formalised training and frameworks and models and tools and I’m sure you have your own one as well, but the only difference is that I don’t give advice. I just wanna be clear because I think it’s a big misconception and I do get clients coming to me asking me about advice and I have to tell them I don’t know your life, you know your life and I will help you think about it for as long as you need to and I can give you some information about polyamory that you might be lacking, some factual stuff and I can make observations about patterns that you’re exhibiting, I might challenge you on some points but I’m never gonna say ‘this is what you need to do’ which is what friends do. You do that because you have a different relationship where as we’re friendly but I’m not a friend in the sense I don’t have any say over what they do with their life in any way and I know you wouldn’t expect a client to follow your advice to the letter because that’s your opinion where as I would refrain from giving my opinion as much as possible.
Leanne: I think that’s a very important distinction and I do thank you for explaining that to me. I suppose I tend to avoid telling people what to do because I think at the end of day I have a very different perspective and approach. Most of the time when I elude to advice giving I’m like ‘if I was in that position this if what I would consider and these are the possible routes that I would take and the possible consequences that I could foresee from that, but I’m not here to give you answers, I’m here to help you find the answers for yourself’ and I think there is a lot of nuance between coaching, mentoring and peer support. Honestly I don’t even think there are universal definitions for all 3 of them, I think people can define them very differently but I would say I’m probably more opinionated than a coach would be.
Ro: For sure coaching is unregulated still, so there are people who just call themselves coaches and they’ve never done any training and that’s totally fine because you don’t need training to be a useful coach. I just decided to do training because I wanted that for myself but it’s unregulated so you can call yourself a coach and do whatever you want. That’s my model of coaching but you’re right, it’s not something that everybody agrees on definition of in any means.
Leanne: That was very interesting ??? most common issue that you’ve come up from your clients and how you feel about those situations?
Ro: I mean obviously not giving any identifying features and I don’t want any of my clients to think I’m speaking specifically about them because I had a lot of clients so it’s unlikely it’s just about them. I’ve had quite a few people come to me with issues around jealousy and also issues around self esteem and that creating anxious attachment in polyamory. Those are the two big things. What about you, similar ones?
Leanne: I think jealousy is obviously a big one that comes up quite a lot but regarding the self esteem stuff - I don’t have a huge amount experience on that side of moving to one mindset to another so usually in those cases I know where my boundaries are, where are my limits of personal qualifications and life experience, so when it comes to kind of mental health stuff I recommend they see a professional like a therapist. In terms of things I do, actually supporting people on jealousy is a big one. I help a lot of monogamous people actually, monogamous people with polyamorous partners or monogamous leaning clients who had a partner recently come out as polyamorous and are struggling with that. I don’t know what it is about my page that attracts monogamous people to it but I do enjoy it because I think it’s very interesting to see such a different perspective when these two kinds of world collides, what kind of conflicts arise from that. I think another one is communication stuff when it comes to metamours When they’re not having issues with their partners, they’re having issues with their metamour. You and I have discussed privately that I very much believe that 99.9% of the time if someone has with their partner’s other partner, the issue actually lies with the person in the middle, the person they’re both involved with mishandling the relationships, trying to people please on both ends and therefore disappointing everyone involved or not properly honouring one person’s boundaries and letting everyone down at the same time. Basically this are this thorny? type of situations that I tend to give support on. I think jealousy is a very big topic within the community, the big hot topic, the first question we get asked from the mainstream ‘don’t you get jealous?’ so it’s gonna be a big struggle that people have. Was there anything else or do you think these are the main things?
Ro: No these really resonate with me as well. Particularly what I found interesting is this idea of monogamous leading people with partners who come out as polyamorous and how that matches up with the metamour issue because very often in this situations there is an issue between the monogamous leaning person and the metamour because of the way that the polyamorous partner handled the polyamory. That happens so often, I’ve had that many times.
Leanne: Ro, this has been a fantastic chat and I really enjoyed hearing about solo polyamory and relationship anarchy from you and all the other things we talked about. It’s been so great. Could you please tell us where we can find you, what platforms you’re on and where they can support your work?
Ro: Thank you Leanne. I am mostly on Instagram as unapolygetically, spelled poly not polo and I’m on twitter as unapolygetic because unapolygetically is too long for twitter. I am on facebook but not really. I’m afraid of social media because I’m almost 30, unlike Leanne who’s a spring chicken who understands all this social media stuff. I’m terrified of it, I’m terrified of starting another platform somewhere else, so I’m staying away from tiktok and all of that. I just joined clubhouse as unapolygetically in order to join in a talk but otherwise mainly you can find me on Instagram.
Leanne: Go follow Ro on these things. This has been so great. I’m so happy we got to collaborate on this series and here’s to many more in the future.
Ro: Thank you so much for having me.
Leanne: All right thank you.
Leanne: Thank you for listening to this episode of the Happy Polydays series. If you’d like to support my work, consider becoming a Patreon subscriber at patreon.com/polyphiliablog. You can also follow me at @polyphiliablog on Instagram, Tiktok, Facebook, and Twitter, buy my polyamory merch at polyphiliashop.redbubble.com, or book a peer support session with me on my website polyphilia.blog. Until next time!