Translator: Denise RQ Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
I would like you all to think back to high school,
and I apologize if that was uncomfortable for anyone.
Remember that weird kid?
You know, zero social skills, got caught one day in an empty classroom
kissing his hand?
That was me.
For as long as I can remember, I've craved connection with others,
but I was a high school dork.
This is me at 15 with my dad.
You can see where I got my fashion sense.
(Laughter)
In high school that was my strong suit.
Maybe it's obvious, but in high school I never had a date,
never went to my prom, I hated being lonely.
I fantasized about having a girlfriend and being in love,
but I was too terrified to talk to a girl, let alone ask one out.
When you're the weird kid, risk aversion is like 80% of high school.
College was a different story.
In college I reinvented myself, I shed that awkward self image,
and I really learned to connect with myself and others.
In other words, I was on target to be giving a really cliché TED Talk.
Believe in yourselves ugly ducklings!
Thankfully, my story turned out differently.
I remember dating for the first time
as a young adult.
So much just didn't make sense.
Why are we taught to play mind games to attract partners,
rather than just being ourselves?
Why is friendship supposed to be affectionate but asexual?
If I have feelings for someone,
why am I not supposed to have feelings for someone else?
And of course, how do I know if I'm in love with the right person?
Most of my questions revolved around monogamy.
Basically, you find one partner you like and you stay together
until either you break up and start all over with someone else,
or enough time goes by
and you take the next step up the relationship ladder.
The progression goes: dating, dating exclusively, engagement,
marriage, kids, 50th anniversary, and then die married.
Now if you've done all this:
Congratulations! You win relationships.
(Laughter)
Any deviation however,
and your relationship is considered a failure.
Of course by this measure nearly all relationships,
no matter how enjoyable or educational, are failures.
But that's the standard under which we're all raised
and by which we're all judged.
Since my oh-so-awkward childhood, I've been very lucky,
and I've dated some amazing people, but none were a perfect match.
I realized we'd each need to give up some of our wants or needs
in order to fit the other's ideal.
Now, you might say, giving up some desires in order to make a relationship work
is normal.
But whether you consider compromise,
a necessary part of growing up or settling,
it still means one or both of you aren't really being true to yourselves.
Because no matter how compatible you are, the likelihood of any two people
exactly matching all the other's wants and needs
is minuscule.
Then there are the wants and needs
we don't know we want and need until our relationships teaches us.
For example, a possessive partner
might show us the value of the time we spend with our friends.
A party animal might teach us that hey, we really do prefer
spending Saturday nights home on our sofa.
The more we date, the more we learn.
Even if we do meet somebody who matches us,
people change, that's part of life.
What I want now, is not what I wanted five years ago, or ten years ago.
I imagine it's the same for most of you.
What we want in five or ten years, will be different too.
It would be great if people in all relationships
grew at the same rate and in the same direction,
but that's not realistic.
Most of us know people in unhappy relationships
which have grown apart, but stay together,
sacrificing their own happiness
for appearances, or the sake of the kids,
or the fear of starting over at the bottom of the ladder.
The worst part is, even though they know or suspect they're incompatible,
they keep climbing.
Finally, the one thing a perfect match can't be
is someone else.
Sure you can roleplay or vary routine,
but the human brain craves variety and stimulation,
and in monogamy, the only way to experience someone new
is to break up or cheat.
Breaking up and cheating is what we do.
Half of all marriages end in divorce.
Three out of every four people
will experience some form of relationship infidelity.
I think we all know people in 'successful' relationships
which may never break up but are far from successful.
Being a romantic,
I never wanted to commit to someone only to become a statistic,
or miserable because we weren't perfectly matched,
but being logical,
I knew there was no such thing as a perfect match.
I still wanted my fairy tale romance,
and I dated more and more in order to find it,
but I never did.
This being New York City, I did the reasonable thing,
and started seeing a therapist to find out why.
(Laughter)
I mean, had I just not met the one?
It certainly wasn't for lack of looking.
What was wrong with me
that I couldn't have what everyone else seemed to have?
Then I went on a date with Beth.
According to her OkCupid profile, Beth was smart, creative, and polyamorous,
and over dinner,
learning about polyamory changed my life.
Audience participation time, this is your turn.
I'd like to see a show of hands.
How many people here love their families?
Mom, put your hand up.
(Laughter)
How many love their friends?
How many love their romantic partners?
How many might still love their exes?
Don't raise your hand if this will get you in trouble.
So, how many people only love one person?
Hopefully we can each honestly say, we love many people in our lives.
Which is phenomenal.
Love is meaningful, and it gives our lives meaning.
It deepens connections, it feels great to share,
it's free, it doesn't even have calories.
So why should we limit it?
Are we only able to love one person at a time?
Not at all, we just covered that.
Besides, love is not a zero sum game.
Imagine having a child whom you love wholeheartedly.
If you have a second child,
you don't cut that love in half and give half to each,
or tell the second child:
"I'm sorry, but there's just no love left for you."
(Laughter)
At least my mother didn't do that.
You give them both all your love.
Resources are finite.
Time, money, energy, all are limited,
but the love we have to share is only as limited as we limit it.
You might say: "OK, well, I can feel love for many people,
but I can only be in love romantically with one person."
I say, being in love is simply the concept
that someone we love loves us back the same way.
Think about it.
The truth is, the idea that romantic love must be exclusive
is a social construct.
We can and often do feel romantic love
for more than one person at the same time.
We're just not supposed to.
Monogamy works amazingly well for some people,
which I find beautiful and inspiring,
but for people like me, who feel something crucial missing in monogamy,
learning about responsible non-monogamy can be transformative.
From the Greek and Roman roots for many loves:
polyamory encourages the simultaneous loving relationships of any sort
- physical, emotional, romantic -
as long as everyone involved knows and consents.
It's not polygamy which is many spouses.
What we think of as dating monogamously or monogamy in dating,
is really monoamory, one love,
where the goal is to find, and bond exclusively with,
the one person we love.
Polyamorous or poly relationships on the other hand,
are completely customized by what we call negotiated agreements,
where the people involved decide them together.
This could look like primary partners with occasional secondaries,
or multiple primaries, or any shape at all really:
a couple, a V, a triad, a quad, or this.
(Laughter)
We call this a polycule.
(Laughter)
Everyone should be communicating with their partners
regarding their expectations, desires and concerns.
It doesn't mean that A necessarily has any direct interaction with G,
but they should all be on the same page.
This relationship structure works incredibly well
for casual relationships.
It also works incredibly well for long term relationships,
raising families,
and basically anyone living normal, well adjusted lives.
Any of these shapes could change, or last for life.
So at this point, I'm guessing half of you are thinking,
well, that seems pretty good, at least in theory.
Maybe it even sounds obvious.
The other half are thinking, that can't possibly work.
But it does.
The key is our four C's, like the bread crumbs.
(Laughter)
Compersion, Communication, Community and Compatibility.
Compersion, my favorite word.
It means happiness in the happiness of others.
If you've never heard of compersion,
it's because we in the poly community
made it up
about 40 years ago,
and we don't have a PR department.
But you've probably felt it.
Have you ever run into one of your friends right after they've gotten engaged?
They are so excited, all they can talk about is the ring,
and the surprise, and the plans,
and they've got this big goofy smile on their face,
and you can't help but get excited for them.
They see you getting excited for them,
so of course they get more excited because you're excited,
you get excited because they are,
because you're -
that's compersion.
(Laughter)
Compersion works in a relationship context
by mentally shifting competition into cooperation.
One of my best friends is this guy named Sam.
My girlfriend and I a year ago met Sam at a party, and not long after,
my girlfriend and Sam started dating as well.
We have a made-up word for that too, a metamour, your partner's partner.
Traditionally, your competition.
I could've pretended I wasn't jealous.
I was.
Or I could've just forced myself to try to ignore it.
Instead, I invited Sam out to lunch.
Turns out, we had a lot more in common than just our girlfriend.
He's a hell of a guy.
(Laughter)
No, really, we totally hit it off.
To this day, Sam and I still meet for lunch every month.
I've learned that people your partner's interested in
aren't your enemies.
You can be teammates working together,
strengthening existing relationships while exploring new ones.
It's like game theory nirvana.
Everyone wins.
When this clicked for me, when I got this, my jealousy just dissolved.
But that doesn't happen without everyone being on the same page,
and that doesn't happen without communication.
Effective communication means
sharing openly and honestly and without shame.
It helps our partners understand where we are,
and what we want out of a relationship, and most people suck at it.
But it's probably not your fault.
We're not raised to risk sharing what's actually on our minds,
and can you imagine what first dates would sound like.
Even people who have been together for years, still censor themselves.
When's the last time any of you actually heard anyone say
any of these sentences to their partner:
"I think your boss is dreamy."
"I can't stand your mother."
Or: "Yes, those jeans do make you look fat."
Poly people tend to be pretty good communicators
because balancing so many relationships
we have to be.
I co-author an advice column called 'Poly Wanna Answer?'
(Laughter)
It's not that funny.
Most of our questions
revolve around poor communication or communication issues.
Whether or not you're poly, I've got four steps
which may help each of you improve your own communication.
The first step is: always take the time
to identify what is it you really want and need,
which is harder than it sounds.
Step two: share those wants and needs in ways that others understand.
Three: listen open-mindedly to others' wants and needs.
And four: clarify agreements and boundaries.
Basically, the overlaps get you what you both want.
You can see which of your needs aren't being met,
and you have a partner willing to help you expand your comfort zones.
If you choose to partner with additional people,
you can get more of your needs met and safely explore more boundaries.
Understanding that this can be both healthy and fulfilling,
is the key to polyamory.
Plus, I really love Venn diagrams.
When you combine compersion and communication,
you build community.
In the poly community we talk openly about things like sex, emotions, fears.
It's scary to be vulnerable, especially when we're so socialized against it,
but with the support of community and safe space,
problems don't have to be secrets.
Since discovering the poly community,
I've literally met thousands of poly people
of every race, color, religion, gender, orientation,
sexual identity and tax bracket,
including several I'd known all along but had no idea they were poly.
Community helped me realize I was always polyamorous,
I just never had a word for it.
For the first time I wasn't a freak
for wanting love but not feeling fulfilled by monogamy.
Being part of this community has allowed me to mentor others,
even as I continue to learn myself.
The very first publicly polyamorous house
opened in New York City right here in Bushwick, a few blocks away,
and I was one of the organizers that helped create it.
Finally, understanding and accepting
that one partner doesn't have to meet all our needs,
means that people can fit in our lives naturally,
without pressure to force or label them into something they're not,
and rather than disconnect from them because something doesn't work,
we can stay connected because of all the things that do.
Something to think about,
people confuse sex and love all the time, it's axiomatic.
We assume one implies the other,
and while it's true that sex can make love stronger,
and love can make sex better,
they can also be independent.
Assuming otherwise,
like most assumptions, can cause problems.
But what's less understood is this:
people also confuse love with compatibility.
Compatible partners are those we match
when we're being the truest versions of ourselves,
and who share our goals for the future.
Incompatible people fall in love all the time.
If we as a society persist in the romantic but false assumption
that love conquers all, and we just need to try harder,
then we're all going to wind up with more of these statistics.
Do you know what these numbers tell me?
That an incredible number of people are unhappy with their relationship.
This doesn't mean they don't love their partners,
it means they're not getting what they want or need.
Self denial might make you a better monk,
but outside the monastery it's a pretty horrible way to live.
Knowing what I know now, I couldn't do it.
My solution, love!
Wildly with reckless abandon,
don't treat love like a prize with one winner.
Love the people in your life,
be open to loving the people you meet in whatever ways make sense,
you won't run out.
Saying I love you and meaning it is one of lives greatest pleasures.
If you choose life partners,
choose compatible ones who want the life that you want.
I volunteer here in New York with a group called Open Love,
and we have monthly discussion groups at which I heard this great analogy.
We're all sailing individual boats down the river of time,
some sail close to shore, some adventure further out.
When we meet a life partner, we lash our boats together for stability,
and spend the rest of our journeys together.
But the best life partners are those who travel with you
because they want to, not because they're tied to you.
What I would like to leave you with is this little acronym.
It tells me -
(Laughter)
You should see it before we shortened it.
It tells me that polyamory versus monogamy is no competition.
Clearly the best relationship structure is the one that works for you.
My thing is not your thing, but your thing is OK.
It doesn't matter what your thing is,
but it's your responsibility to choose it.
So, what do each of you really want and need?
Good luck.