I’ve been poly for more than 15 years, but this week was the first time I’ve been introduced to an extramarital partner’s friends as a girlfriend. I am 46 years old and the last time I was introduced to folks as someone’s girlfriend was as an undergraduate in college.
“Everyone, this is my girlfriend Melanie,” Boyfriend said to a handful of his buddies gathered around a buckling folding table, heavy with post-Christmas cookie leftovers. I had been taking off my boots slowly, un-lacing each strand, trying to delay the inevitable awkward meeting of new folks who were well-aware that their friend’s girlfriend also had a husband. When Boyfriend made this announcement, I jerked my head up and gave an apologetic greeting, as is the custom of my Midwestern people, and received warm smiles all around. I tried to remember that polyamory is much more common now, even in Rust Belt suburbs, and these new friends probably couldn’t be bothered to give a shit. I could tell that like me, they were adorably awkward with most humans. With this reassurance, as well as several day-old shortbread
cookies, I let my guard down and almost won Cards Against Humanity.
I told Boyfriend the next day that I don’t think I’ve ever been introduced as a girlfriend by an extra-marital partner.
“Felt good,” said my Boyfriend. I bubbled.
As I’ve mentioned, I’m new to having poly partners. Being polyamorous in 2005 was sort of like being vegetarian in 1990. People had heard of it, but it was mostly weirdos who did it. And like vegan chicken nuggets in 1990, I couldn’t find poly partners anywhere in 2005. Or 2010. Or 2015. In 2021 I had my first poly-identified partner since the days of foursomes with strangers. Non-monogamy has finally become more than a swingers’ world. But for more than a decade I had dated monogamy-minded dudes who tended to see me as an in-betweener, a sort of pseudo-girlfriend to have between (or before) “the one.” Polyamory is finally now considered a real orientation, and Gen Z Redditors will fight to the death over its legitimacy.
So it’s kind of wild that all of Boyfriend’s friends know of me as his girlfriend, but yeah, we do have an established relationship. I regularly visit him in another city. While I was recovering from surgery this summer, Boyfriend came to take care of me and met one of my best friends and a family member who knows I’m poly. I finally know Boyfriend’s middle name! He’s a real boyfriend.
Sometimes I wonder if I’m dead and heaven is just a place with non-monogamy and soy nuggets. All of my formerly weird desires are inching towards the mainstream. What’s next, Chocolate pasta sauce? Living in a hollowed-out tree? Highly sexualized robots that look like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s metallic skeleton in Terminator? We’ll see.
Polyamory is integrated more into my “vanilla” life than ever before. While being openly poly is easier, there’s still challenges and strains. For example, Boyfriend and Dave have never met. For Dave, it’s simply more comfortable to keep our relationships separate, and while he’s open to meeting my partners, he doesn’t really want any kind of poly group hang, which I understand. However, we both acknowledge that this separation makes our polyamorous relationship more of a thing. The fact that I still can’t tell some people in my life that I even have a boyfriend is a thing. The fact that Boyfriend can’t tell most of his family that I'm his girlfriend is a thing. So while much of polyamory is easier now, it’s still a thing, which can be exhausting and not worth it for some folks. I wonder if there will ever be a point in my life where polyamory isn’t a thing. For me, though, it’s still worth the extra hoops.
But at least for now, I’m grateful for the wins that have occurred in the last 15+ years. In increasingly frequent contexts, people I meet don’t really give a fuck whether I’m poly. Boyfriend’s friends don’t care that I’m married to someone else, they just care that I used “Child Abuse” as my Cards Against Humanity response to the prompt of “You might be a redneck if you love (blank).”
And that makes it easier to exist.
