DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m a bi man in an open relationship/ethically non-monogamous relationship with another man, and I’m working on setting up a Tinder profile to try and make some friends & find some hook ups. (We already use Grindr, but I would like to meet people who don’t use Grindr lol.)
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I was reading some of your stuff because I’m used to the particular hookup culture norms of queer men, and I wanted to be prepared for culture differences I might run into on other apps. One of the articles I read was “Tune up your Tinder profile” and it felt like a real downer. I think it was fair for the writers to criticize the two polyamorous profiles, especially the “open LDR” one, but without an example of someone “doing it right” it felt like there’s no way to do it right — especially since one of the writers says “it’s just hard to put that in your profile. I’m actually not sure how you should do it.”
In that same article, I had a hard time with the comment that “He doesn’t say he’s poly. He says he’s in an open relationship. Those take out the -amory part from my experience.” I personally don’t like to describe myself as polyamorous (for complicated reasons), and since I’m explicitly not looking for more romantic relationships I feel like calling myself “polyamorous” could be misleading. But the reactions in that article make it seem like I have to call myself polyamorous in order to avoid the “red flag” of saying I’m in an open relationship.
I’m fine with the idea of disclosing that I have a primary partner in my profile; I do on Grindr, which has an “open relationship” flag. I just have zero idea how to disclose it in a way that’s acceptable in straight spaces, especially without coming off as “guy who makes being non-monogamous his whole personality”. This isn’t a “looking for the magic words to make everyone love you” thing, it’s just me feeling very unmoored in a dating culture I’m not used to, and not being sure how to disclose my relationship in a way that’s acceptable in these spaces.
Cheers,
Half Gay Half Straight All Bisexual
DEAR HALF GAY HALF STRAIGHT ALL BISEXUAL: So, there’re a few things to consider here, HGHSAB. First is a matter of defining terms. Non-monogamy is basically the umbrella term for the varying different flavors of not being monogamous or not making a monogamous commitment. It’s a bit like how parallelograms, trapezoids, squares and rectangles are all quadrilaterals, but not all quadrilaterals are squares or rectangles.
The different terms under the non-monogamous umbrella are ultimately about defining expectations. An open relationship, for example, just means that the participants are allowed to have sexual partners outside of their relationship. Sometimes that means they can have casual, infrequent sex with other people, sometimes it means they have an ongoing sexual connection with others. It may mean looking for play partners for specific activities (BDSM, for example) or for potential group sex scenarios (threesomes, orgies, etc). It’s a deliberately broad term; while being in an open relationship doesn’t preclude outside romantic relationships, it doesn’t promise them either, and most folks will assume “open” just means “not sexually exclusive”.
Polyamory, on the other hand, specifically means that the people in the relationship can or have romantic connections with other people in addition to their partner(s).
Another thing to consider is the differences between queer relationships, especially between men, and straight relationships. Non-monogamy is much more common in queer male relationships than it is in straight ones. It’s really only very recently that non-monogamy has hit a critical mass in straight culture. Even in the 2010s, a lot of folks looked at non-monogamy among the straits as being sus at best, if not an actual lie at worst.
This was actually a problem for a lot of people who were genuinely non-monogamous and why people started adopting the term ethically non-monogamous. One of the reasons why it felt hard to advertise yourself as being non-monogamous or being in an open relationship is… well, because a lot of people (mostly, but not exclusively men) were actively lying about being open or using “open” relationships as a “get out of cheating, free” card. Similarly, the way a lot of people would practice non-monogamy could be problematic; what was or wasn’t “allowed” could be nebulous at best, or one partner would put unreasonable limits on who the other could see or what kind of relationships they could have. The term “ethical non-monogamy”, at least, implied a more equitable and less sketchy relationship… even if it could still be messy as hell.
Polyamory, at least among people who didn’t reject non-monogamy out of hand, was seen as being more “honest” or “reasonable”…ish. After all, love was involved. It was still seen as being weird – those “poly is my whole personality” stereotypes exist for a reason, after all – but less like a dude who was trying to convince women that he and his wife had an arrangement… which would’ve come as a great surprise to his wife. It also had a lot of people who doubted the viability of a truly polyamorous relationship; people would make comments about being to a lot of poly weddings but not so many poly fifth anniversaries. There were multiple episodes of various daytime TV shows where poly throuples were paraded out like exotic animals at the zoo – “this man has a wife and a girlfriend and they’re both ok with it!”
These days, because non-monogamy has become, if not mainstream, then at least more recognized and acknowledged, it’s a lot easier to present yourself as non-monogamous. In fact – and getting back to the meat of your question – not only are there dating apps that cater specifically to non-monogamous people, but most of the mainstream apps like OKCupid, Tinder, Bumble, etc. have made it easier for people looking for non-monogamous partners. OKCupid allows for people in open or poly relationships to connect to their partners’ accounts, while Tinder, Hinge and others have specifically added categories like “ethical non-monogamy”, “open relationship” and “polyamory” to their relationship types.
So if you want to know how to present yourself to potential partners in straight or mostly straight spaces, you have the tools to do it. As with most best practices, you want to have this flagged in your profile (usually under “looking for” or “relationship type”) so people can search for or exclude those terms and to be clear about what you’re looking for and what you offer. In your case, you’ve got a male primary partner and you’re looking for casual female partners. You may want to make it clear that you’re not looking for threesomes and that you and your partner date separately (assuming that you do). Again, this helps set expectations and helps prevent (but can’t completely eliminate) confusion or misunderstandings.
However, you might also want to consider an app like Feeld or #Open, which are specifically designed for non-conventional and/or non-monogamous relationship models. The benefit here is that the audience has already opted in to being cool with, or actively looking for, open, non-monogamous or polyamorous relationships.
Now, will using specialized apps or being this straightforward on mainstream ones cut down on potential matches? Absolutely… and that’s a good thing. The last thing you want are people who are expecting one thing and getting surprised that you’re offering something completely different. You want folks who are going to be cool with you and your relationship dynamic, which means you also want the folks who aren’t to keep on moving. This way neither of you is wasting the others’ time. Just don’t be surprised if you get a few false positives anyway; there’re always folks who will miss or ignore even the biggest, flashiest “I am not what you’re looking for” signs.
Good luck.
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