DEAR DR. NERDLOVE : Long-time reader, first-time writer. Here’s the situation: I’m in my late 20s, nonbinary and polyamorous. I started off as non-monogamous and preferring relationships without an expectation of sexual exclusivity, and have done so for a good chunk of my adult life, but over time I came to realize that I’m poly, not just ENM. It took time to figure out that I was having fully loving relationships with multiple people, not just FWBs and once I could accept that, my love life got much better.

Unfortunately, this is where things took a bit of a turn. While I wholeheartedly believe in what polyamory is all about, the particular style I prefer seems to be a rarity in the community. Many folks I meet or date seem to gravitate towards a more interconnected form of polyamory (the kitchen table style), where there’s an expectation (or at least a hope) of forming relationships, or at least friendships, with their partner’s other partners. While I respect and understand that choice, it’s not quite my jam. I prefer a style where my relationships are more individualized. In other words, while I’m more than okay with my partners dating others (that’s the whole point, right?), I don’t necessarily want to form relationships or deep connections with my metamours.

This preference isn’t about jealousy or being territorial; it’s just what feels right and authentic to me. But trying to find like-minded individuals has been a challenge, especially in the poly community in my town and online. In fact, for a while it seemed that every time the topic came up, I was being told that I was doing polyamory wrong for not wanting a kitchen-table style commune or not necessarily wanting to have a close relationship with my metas. If I mentioned that I prefer keeping those sides separate, I’m told that I’m being selfish or not truly poly or having a mono ideology and shouldn’t be dating until I’m over it. This has made it hard for me to feel like I can date. I meet wonderful people who I connect with, but I end up getting stressed because I’m expecting to be lectured about how I’m Doing It Wrong again.

I’m getting incredibly tired of how often this happens, but I also know I’m not able to date like I’m monogamous. How do I navigate the poly community and find partners who share or at least respect my style of polyamory? And, when I do meet potential poly partners, how can I effectively communicate my preferences without coming off like I’m getting judgmental about their model?

Looking forward to your guidance,

Poly with a Twist

DEAR POLY WITH A TWIST: A quick question before we get into the meat of your answer, PWAT: are you encountering this pushback in person, or is it more part of the online communities you’re participating in?

I ask, in part because this may come down to where you’re meeting people and where you’re spending your time online. In online communities (in general, not just polyamorous ones), there’s often a tendency for people to cluster in specific communities that all more or less agree with one another. That’s not terribly surprising; despite what Paula Abdul and MC Skat Kat told us, opposites don’t attract. We tend to be drawn to people who are similar to us, and that frequently includes things like how we conduct our relationships.

One thing that often comes up in online communities is that there’s a tendency for the loudest or most vehement voices to set the tone, especially if there aren’t significant efforts at moderation. It’s all too easy to fall into a pattern of just letting the loudest have their say in part because they’re the most willing to cause headaches for everyone else.

This often ends up leading to a pattern of divisiveness and reinforcement. There often ends up being cycle after cycle of incidents or arguments that encourage people to stake out increasingly inflexible and extreme positions – whether to signal in-group membership, position themselves as being more “virtuous” or true to the ideal or just to try to establish themselves in the social pecking order. Members find themselves being encouraged to divide themselves into camps, with the loudest and most divisive segments dominating all discussion and dictating the tone of the group. This, in turn, means that the more moderate crowd or the folks who may disagree but don’t care enough to fight about it tend to leave (possibly even dropping out of the community entirely) and the community itself becomes more and more strident until either there’s a schism or it falls apart under the weight of the internecine warfare.

And this is before one gets into the question of just how many people take it that seriously or just get incredibly spun up online, how many have actually lived their declared values or just have very strong opinions about How It All Should Be Done and so on.

To steal a line from academia: the fighting is the fiercest because the stakes are so incredibly low.

I bring all of this up in part because… well, there’s a difference in how much impact a lot of spun-up strangers in a Discord server or Facebook group will actually have on your dating life versus in-person communities. However the advice on how to handle it is more or less the same: leave ‘em behind and go find a better community that isn’t so focused on being The One True Way. While the number of non-monogamous or poly people overall is relatively small in terms of overall demographics, if you’re in a sizable city, the odds that these groups are the sum total of the people you might be able to date is pretty low. It’s easy to mistake volume for numbers, especially in a closed community.

With that out of the way, what you’re dealing with is the difference between poly models. There’re about as many different ways to have a poly relationship as there are people in them, but a few tend to be the most common. You’re running into people who prefer what’s colloquially known as “kitchen table” polyamory, when you’re more interested in a “garden party” style of relationship. You’re not interested in one big communal living group or being expected to have a tight relationship with your metamours (your partner’s other partners), and that’s fine! That’s not definitional with being polyamorous. It’s just a lifestyle choice. What you seem to be interested in are a series of parallel relationships. You have your partners, your partners may have partners of their own besides you and the two rarely overlap. That’s also an entirely legitimate way to conduct polyamory. You aren’t required to be BFFs with everyone your partner dates or sleeps with, any more than they’re required to be besties with yours. It’s nice if it can work that way but to my mind, it starts running headlong into Geek Social Fallacy #4: all friendships are transitory. Just because you and Person 1 are both dating Person 2 doesn’t mean that you and Person 1 are going to get along. It takes more in common than sleeping with the same person to make a friendship happen.

What I’d recommend is that you make it clear that your preferred style of poly is parallel or “garden party”, whether you’re meeting people in person or online. Having the phrase “garden party poly” in your dating profile, for example, will help folks understand what you prefer. Ideally, the folks who are hoping for a kitchen-table style community will see this, recognize the incompatibility and move on. The ones who don’t and choose instead to lecture you on how You’re Doing Poly Wrong, however, are showing you that they’re emphatically not right for you and rude besides. You can feel free to ignore them or block them as you see fit.

In person, you should prioritize groups that don’t have the One-True-Way philosophy and not linger in the communities that insist that theirs is the only way to do it correctly. Even if they’re also of the garden party style, the more stringent they are about how one can “do” polyamory, the more likely it is that you will fail some other purity test and be badgered and criticized for your supposed moral failings. 

Now, I want to give a caveat to this: there’s a difference between “to be truly poly, you have to follow this long list of rules” and then there’s “being polyamorous or ENM doesn’t mean that you get to go around doing whatever the f--k you want without regard for your partners’ feelings”. If you’re being called out for being a shithead to your partner(s)… well that is probably some time for some self-reflection. But if the complaints are that you’re conducting your relationships by According to Hoyle rules… well, it’s worth seeing if those rules even actually apply to your relationships, but you may just not be a good fit with that group.

The other thing I would suggest is that you don’t necessarily need to date within the organized poly community. It’s easier to meet people who’ve self-labeled like that, yes. But even when it feels like they’re the sum total of poly people in your city, I can promise you: there are more options out there than you realize. There’re are more people who are willing to try poly or ethical non-monogamy than you’d think. They may not be part of the organized community, they may not use the label or may not have realized that this was an option for them… but I promise you, there’re more of them out there than you’d think. It may mean that you need to look harder for longer, or possibly guide someone through the initial steps, but that’s still a much better option than trying to fit into a community that insists you conform to exactly one relationship model or else.

Good luck.

Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE : Would women think that I’m odd and be off put because I have no friends?

Basically, I don’t have any friends. There has been times when I have noticed women who are attracted to me, but I have never interacted with them.

I just think that if I went on a date they would think that I am some kind of weirdo.

Should I just bite the bullet and tell them? Just ‘own it’?

If I did have a group of friends this wouldn’t be an issue. But making friends as an adult is really difficult.

Any help and advice would be great.

Johnny No-Mates

DEAR JOHNNY NO-MATES: Can I be real with you for a second, JNM? I always find the framing of these questions a little annoying because it assumes that there’s going to be one universal answer among all women, everywhere. And there really isn’t. It’s all going to be down to the individual.

Some women may find it odd. Some may be put off by it. Some might be sympathetic and understanding. Others may find it weird but would understand if you talked it out. Still others might feel pity, but not revulsion (but also not attraction).

I suspect you’ll find that more people will feel sorry for you or empathize. It’s not as though this hasn’t been a long-running issue. We’ve had enough stories and media coverage of the loneliness epidemic, especially among men, to fill a football stadium with enough left over for an epic tailgate in the parking lot. Hell, I Love You, Man was all about this when it came out in (checks notes)2009.

This is going to be something of a pink flag for many – not a red flag, but it will be a cause of concern. Not, mind you, because it means that there’s something wrong with you, but more that they may find that they’re your sole source of emotional and social support. That’s a lot to take on in a marriage, never mind from someone you just met.

Now if I’m being honest here, JNM, I think you’re worried about the wrong things. It seems to me like the issue you should be focusing on here really isn’t “how do I tell women I want to date that I don’t have any friends” but rather the fact that you don’t have friends. Worrying what to say about the issue is very much a cart-before-the-horse kind of situation. You would be doing far better overall if you worried less about how to handle the topic if it comes up, and more about fixing the problem.

And yes, I really do mean overall. Building a social network is a holistic form of self-improvement. It will improve pretty much all aspects of your life, from your emotional well-being to your physical health. It’s really not an exaggeration when doctors say that loneliness is literally worse for you than smoking. People experiencing chronic loneliness have higher levels of heart disease, dementia, diabetes, self-harm, addiction, anxiety and depression than people with strong connections and friend groups.

Focusing on trying to date, when you already feel that you have to manage a sizable drawback, is really missing the point. Yeah, it can be harder to make new friends after college; the circumstances of life when we’re younger are more conducive to making friends. But there’s a reason why harder isn’t the same as impossible. The biggest difference between college and now is simply time. Making friends is as much a matter of time spent as anything else; it’s just easier to devote that time when you’re in school. Now it requires intentionality and deliberate action.

But then again: so does dating. And the same skillsets apply to making friends as it does to meeting women to date. So if you’re that worried that having no friends is going to be a drawback to meeting women and dating… it makes more sense to focus on making friends. Having friends makes it easier to date; having a partner doesn’t necessarily make it easier to make friends. And it certainly doesn’t alleviate the issue of the strain that it can put on a relationship. There’s a reason why the most successful relationships are the ones where everybody involved have their own lives as well as their lives together.

Do yourself a favor, JNM; the next time you’re looking to try to talk to women and see about getting a date… take that effort and see about meeting some folks you might be able to start being friends with. I think you’ll find that the payoff is going to be much greater, both in the short term and the long run.

Good luck.

Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE : Recently, I wanted to introduce myself to a woman who goes to the same coffee shop as me. We typically go there at the same time every Saturday morning and sit fairly close to each other on the comfy couches. I have crippling social anxiety and a completely unreasonable fear of being a creep, so I talked myself out of it for a bunch of Saturdays. To psyche myself into making the move, I posted about it on my blog, and two weeks after that, I did It — I approached her. We had a pleasant conversation, and it ended gracefully, and we’ve said hi and exchanged small talk since.

My readers, mostly family and friends from high school, college, and my six-year lost weekend in New York, treated me like I was asking her out, despite that I am asexual, borderline aromantic, and severely touch-averse. I’m not even in the closet about it. I’ve made it clear to everyone that I have no interest in sex or even dating. I just wanted to say hi. I feel like little kids whose parents ship them.

My best friend tells me I’m obsessed with sex because I’m drawn to things and people that are sexy. I used to write erotica, I draw hot women and men (mostly women), and it’s hard to take my eyes off of attractive people (I didn’t watch the live action One Piece for the plot). I haven’t done it in a while, but I love to flirt, and I develop crushes. Also, I’ve had (a lot of) sex before.

But even though I look for any excuse to get my characters to make out in a novel or a painting, I think kissing is the second-grossest thing a person can do with their mouth. The only time I’ve had sex is when I’m manic (i.e. HULK SMASH!), and I’m currently on an obscene amount of drugs to keep that from happening again. I don’t put any real value into a person’s looks; I was married once, and she is not my physical type, nor is the girl from the cafe. And besides, if Sanji lost his suit, there too would go his appeal.

This is an advice column, so I should ask a question. How about this: why won’t anyone believe me? It should be enough for me to say I’m ace for everyone to accept it. Am I really ace even, if I like sexy stuff? Is there a way I should dress? Act? I am beyond frustrated about this. I’m constantly told that a lack of interest in sex is normal for my age (47), as if to give me an excuse not to be ace. But I like being asexual. It’s a huge part of my identity. The abbreviation LGBTQ is actually an abbreviation of LGBTQIA, and as a result, I’m afraid I’m going to get kicked out of Pride.

The only thing I know about the lady in the cafe is that she likes iced coffee. Since we’ve made contact, we haven’t clicked at all, just enough to ask each other about our weekends. Everybody’s disappointed, but it’s fine. I didn’t want to ask her out. Why won’t people accept that? Why won’t people accept me?

Can a man even refer to Angelina Jolie as his girlfriend and still call himself ace? I need clarification.

Latte on my Mind

DEAR LATTE ON MY MIND: Let’s work backwards on this LOMM: yes, you can be ace if you’ve had sex or like sexy stuff or you occasionally get crushes or write sex scenes or whatever. Asexuality isn’t just a spectrum, it’s a multi-axis graph, and there’re a lot of different ways that people’s asexuality presents itself. There’re folks who are sex-repulsed, whether because of trauma, cleanliness issues or just thinking that sex is gross. There’re people who have no desire to have sex but will still masturbate for various reasons (including prostate health). There’re people who only want to have sex once in a blue moon, people who will have sex for the sake of their partner, but not because they’re into it, people who like the closeness and intimacy of sex but don’t necessarily care about the orgasms… there’re a shitload of ways to be ace. ��Kinda like how there’re a shitloads of ways to be queer, and just as many people who’ll argue about that.

(As a cis straight guy, I have no real insights worth sharing into the discourse about what does or doesn’t belong at Pride.)

You may not be what people imagine when someone talks about being asexual, but hey, that’s fine. You aren’t responsible for someone else’s idea of who you’re “supposed” to be, and if you don’t measure up to their image of it… well, that’s their look out. You never agreed that this was who you were; they’re the ones who are stubbornly refusing to admit the truth, not you.

And yeah, you can be uninterested in sex for yourself but still find other people aesthetically appealing, even sexy. You can find sex great as a literary trope or as an engaging part of a story, even if you’re not interesting in putting any of your meat bits into other people’s meat bits. I know folks who are ace but write and draw absurdly hot porn because they just like it as an art form.

In my opinion, that’s not that different from folks who can read and enjoy romances or stories about relationships between characters who don’t share their sexual orientation. If you have empathy and just grok people, then hey! Love is love, relationships are relationships, sex can be hot and fun even if you’re not into it yourself.

(Also, I have no idea where the hell “it’s normal not to be interested in sex at your age” came from. I’m 46. My interest in sex may not be at the all-consuming fever pitch it was when I was a hormonal teenager, but it sure as s--t ain’t zero, either.)

Now that having been said: yeah, a lot of people are going to find asexuality unusual and they’re going to have a hard time turning off the allosexual filter in their brains. Not because it’s inherently weird or bad or whatever, but because ace people are a fraction of a fraction of the population and most people haven’t had to actually engage with what asexuality is or what it might mean for someone. It’s not unusual that most people are going to see things through the lens of their experience. Even if they know, intellectually, that you’re ace, it can still require some deliberate effort to not immediately default to allosexual dynamics.

Especially in a situation like the one you presented. I mean, even in the way you framed it to me, it sounds like the story of a guy with a crush on the cute girl  finally working up the guts to talk to her and maybe ask her out. It’s very Coffee Shop AU meet-cute.

It, admittedly, doesn’t help that English doesn’t have a lot of vocabulary for things like non-sexual, platonic attraction and fascination for someone. I’m not exactly a fan of calling those “squishes” �– it’s a little too self-consciously twee for my taste – but the lack of words for it is an indicator of where the culture is, at the moment.

Would it be nice if folks didn’t immediately assume sexual or romantic interest? Sure. We’re just not there yet. You’re not just working against a cultural and demographic difference, but decades upon decades of storytelling tropes and lived experiences; if your readers aren’t already ace themselves or primed to see this as platonic interest rather than romantic or sexual, it’s not that surprising that this is the filter through which they see the world. So your frustration is understandable, even justified… but it’s worth remembering that a lot of people have little experience with this. They have to make a conscious effort to reframe how they think about things. That takes time and effort, especially if the concept isn’t a regular part of their every day lives

What is annoying, however, are the folks who keep pushing a romantic angle on you. That is presumptive and rude. I get icked when folks do Real-Person Shipping to celebrities; it’s even weirder and ickier when it’s done to folks who’re just, y’know, talking their lives. That’s the part where you may want to start laying down some boundaries about discussing your social life.

What we may have here is failure to communicate. If it sounds like a meet-cute setup to me, even knowing that you’re asexual, the way you wrote it may sound more so to your readers. It may be helpful to talk a bit more about why you’d be nervous talking to this person… reasons that don’t have to do with wanting to bang.

I suspect if you approached it from that angle, your friends and readers might understand a little better. Almost everyone can relate to being nervous around someone they think is cool or awesome and who they might want to connect with, even in a platonic way. I mean, s--t, there’re people I know, people who I’ve hung out with and who’ve reached out to me, first, and I still get annoyingly nervous trying to talk to them because I think they’re cool and want to be friends. I suspect most people can relate to that. Maybe giving more voice to that feeling will help people understand precisely what was going on with you and your iced coffee buddy.  

The other thing I think that may help, especially for folks who don’t understand how you could write love scenes or get all “NOW KISS” with your characters, would be to send them to the Asexuality Visibility and Education Network at asexuality.org. They have a number of FAQs and overviews that may help folks understand how being ace and borderline aro works and why it doesn’t just mean being a shapeless blob instead of a complex and complicated human… just like everybody else.

A little education might go a long way for a lot of your readers… as well as the people in your offline life too.

Good luck.

Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com