Can you call yourself polyamorous if you have never been in a poly relationship, and are young? (I have done loads of research into it and feel it sums me up perfectly, but I am currently sitting a levels so haven’t actively looked for a relationship)

Yes. Just like you can be gay even if you’re young and have never been in a gay relationship. Focusing on your studies instead of relationships right now is mature and responsible, and I have no doubt that you will grow into a healthy, awesome, self aware practitioner of polyamory! For now, it is totally legit to identify as polyamorous even if you’re not in a poly relationship. Good luck with your exams!

What does bipoly mean? I saw it on the list of between poly and mono?

It’s a made up word that originated on my blog. (Fun fact: all words were at some point made up!) It means someone who identifies as poly and mono, or could see themselves in a poly or a mono relationship. 

FAQ: Does [my identity/relationship] count as polyamory?

In general, if you’re wondering whether your arrangement counts as polyamory, it probably does. As long as everyone involved feels respected and gives consent, any relationship that involves more than two people could reasonably be called polyamory.

The nice thing about the identity label “polyamorous” is that there is no culture to appropriate. In general, it’s a pretty open community. If you feel like the term applies to you or your relationship, go ahead and use it.

Of course, when you’re using the identifying label of any minority, you risk being seen as a representative or an ambassador. So it is not okay to do something toxic, abusive, or unethical and call it polyamory. But as long as it’s healthy and fulfilling for all people involved, go ahead.

Remember that no one is the Official Polyamorous Identity Arbiter. There is no secure safe in France containing a True Poly Relationship that we measure everyone else against. No one else gets to tell you whether your relationship “counts” or “qualifies” according to their personally-decided-upon standard. And if someone tries, ask yourself whether their validation is really necessary for your relationship to be real and healthy for you. 

The point of naming our identity or finding terms for our relationships is to help us know ourselves and each other better. It’s so we can identify our needs, learn how to be our healthiest selves, and find people who respect us.If identifying as polyamorous (or identifying your relationships as poly ones) helps you find the language and the skills to be healthy, happy, and fulfilled, then go for it! If a label isn’t working for you, if it’s giving you confusion and questions rather than answers and security, it’s not serving its purpose.

It’s more important that you have healthy, fulfilling relationships than that you find all the right collections of syllables to describe how you prefer to have relationships. The point of identity terms is to help you better communicate to yourself and your partners how to cultivate healthy, fulfilling relationships. So words are only “accurate” inasmuch as they are useful to you when building a healthy, meaningful life and community.

Previously answered questions on this:

FAQ: Is Polyamory A Choice Or An Identity?

I believe that for some people, polyamory can be a choice: that through self-work, introspection, and education, they can become someone who is happy and fulfilled in a polyamorous relationship. But this is not who they are, it is something they do. I believe that for other people, polyamory is an identity: an innate part of who they are and how they experience themselves. 

How you experience your polyamory has a lot to do with who you are, how you were introduced to polyamory, how much self-work it took you to be okay with polyamory, your experiences with polyamory and monogamy, and how your polyamorous relationships (or lack thereof) impacts your life. 

Even though polyamory can be an identity, it is not a sexual orientation, because it is not about who you are sexually attracted to. Many people refer to it as a relationship orientation. Or just an orientation.

The main Poly Advice post about this is here: Is polyamory an orientation?

And I have been asked about & discussed this issue in other posts:

I think the important part here is to not let this become an issue that divides our community. Some people experience polyamory as a deeply felt part of who they are. These people identify as polyamorous even when they’re single, and their polyamory may influence their spirituality, their non-romantic relationships, etc. And it’s important to respect those people, to honor their identities and not attack them.

Some people experience polyamory as a choice, a behavior they engage in sometimes but isn’t a core part of what makes them them. That’s okay too, and it’s important to respect those people, to honor their choices and not attack them. If the community can’t make room for both types of experience, if we can’t co-exist with people whose conception of what it means to them to be poly, then everyone will lose out.

Other posts out there on this topic:
By linking these, I am not claiming that everything in these posts is accurate, or that I agree with them. This is just more reading on the topic from other writers and thinkers!

If someone is in both a romantic relationship with one person and a queerplatonic relationship with an other, is it considered as polyamory?

I’m not the official arbiter of what counts as polyamory, and neither is anyone else! If identifying as polyamorous (or identifying your relationships as poly ones) helps you find the language and the skills to be healthy, happy, and fulfilled, then go for it! If not, then don’t worry about it!

Be you. Be your best selves. Be kind and loving and grow together. Find labels and words and language that help you do that. Shed any that don’t. And if anyone tries to tell you that you have to identify as poly, or that you’re not allowed to identify as poly, ask yourself whether that is a person whose opinion of your relationships really matters. 

okay so i think i am poly but i’m not sure and i was wondering if you have any for sure signs

Here is a terrible, miserable, terrifying truth about the world: there are no “for sure” signs that can tell you who you are.

There are no “for sure signs” that you should invest in that bee farm, start that company, or buy that expensive shirt.
There are no “for sure signs” that you’re meant to be a librarian, or a banker, or a kayak guide.
There are no “for sure signs” that you belong in Chicago or Portland or Iceland.

The good thing is, we always have the past to learn from and the future to create.

You may be poly if you can see yourself feeling fulfilled by having a relationship with multiple people and seeing your partners have other relationships. But you won’t really know for sure without introspection and experimentation.

Identities are not like concrete, objective things that can be detected or disproved. They help you navigate reality, they don’t determine it.

Think through your “what-ifs,” read up on polyamory, be smart and safe when identifying your boundaries, and go for it. Remember that you can check in with yourself to see if a label or an identity works for you at any time.

Can I be poly (idk if I am) but still be committed to one person? I’m just in love with some people, each individually, but if things would get serious with one of them I could be in a monogamous relationship. Is that still polyamory?

I’m not the end-all, be-all determiner of who’s “truly” or “officially” polyamorous. That’s a journey everyone needs to take on their own - I can only offer advice and input. You don’t need my permission, or anyone else’s, to claim an identity. You may be polyflexible, poly/mono, or just a person who’s open to different relationship configurations.

Remember that polyamory isn’t a “stepping stone” to monogamy - it’s okay to date around until you find someone you feel “serious” enough about to be in a monogamous relationship, but that isn’t polyamory. But if you mean you could just see yourself in a mono relationship as easily as a poly one, especially if your partner wanted you to be mono, that’s very normal within poly circles. 

Don’t fret about what “counts” as what, and focus more on having relationships that are healthy and fulfilling for everyone involved.

I am in my early-early 20s and have never been in a relationship; I’m realizing now that part of my aversion to romantic relationships has to do with monogamy, and I think I’m polyamorous (I’ve third-wheeled with friends on dates, and it felt… really right to me, somehow.) I’m really new to exploring this idea. My question is this: can one know that they are polyamorous without having been in a monogamous relationship first?

Can one know that they are gay without having been in a straight relationship first? Can one know that they want to be a teacher without having tried a career as an investment banker first? Can one know they want to live in Alaska without having lived in New York City first? Of course! You do you!

Take it slow, do your homework (I recommend reading More Than Two and The Ethical Slut), communicate openly about your inexperience, and be grateful you’ve figured this out so early in your dating career! Go forth and be poly!

What is solo polyamory? I can’t find a solid definition and from what little bits and pieces I manage to find it sounds like the perfect thing for me.

Goodness, I’m not super knowledgeable on this myself. This looks like a good overview of it. Here’s another good site. It looks like the general concept is that the primary relationship in your life is the one you have with yourself, and you take new partners entirely on your own terms, without necessarily thinking that dating someone for a while, or liking them a whole lot, will make that relationship something you have to get really committed to in ways you don’t want to.

But also, it doesn’t really matter what other people say, or whether you can find a pre-fabricated definition. Only you can figure out what the perfect thing for you is. Do relationships your way, find what’s most healthy and fulfilling for you, and if you’re the only human in the world doing it that way, awesome! Then write it down so the next person who comes along doesn’t have to re-blaze the trail. No blogger, no definition, no advice column on tumblr, can substitute for your own introspection and experimentation. 

Can you be Polyamorous but still be in Two-People relationships? (Is there a term for that? I’m sorry, I’m not very well educated on this subject, hence why im asking!) Because I feel I would be fine in a Two-People relationship (Sorry again if theres a term for that) but I also would gladly be in a Polyamorous relationship. Is there a separate term for this or am I just Polyamorous/Not Polyamorous? Thank you in advance 

Hang on, let me get out my IDENTITY ARBITER staff. Seriously, though - you are you! I don’t get to tell you whether you’re poly or not poly, and neither does anyone else!

To answer you more specifically: yes, a person can identify as poly even if they’re in a two person (”monogamous”) relationship at the time, just like how bisexual people don’t magically become straight while they’re dating someone of the opposite gender. And some people can be happy in relationships of various arrangements. I don’t know if there’s a specific term for that. Non-practicing poly? Polyflexible? Werepoly?

It’s really up to you how you identify. Whatever feels right to you, and helps you communicate your needs to partners and prospective partners, is fine. The IDENTITY ARBITER staff was inside you the whole time! (That came out wrong.)

Im not sure where to start, but I’m starting to think I’m polyamorous, but Im not 100% sure since I dont know a lot about polyamory. Back in highschool I was very much in love with two people, but I didn’t end up dating them because I couldn’t choose one. I dated someone else, but still longed for others.I wasn’t happy in that relationship so idk. Since then, there seems to be a pattern of when I want someone or grow really close to someone, I still want others beyond just sex. Am I polyamorous?

No one is an arbiter of anyone else’s identity. Especially not strangers giving advice on the internet! There’s no magical wand you can wave over a person that will print a readout of their sexuality. And that’s okay! Discovering who you are is part of being a person. Being confused is an even bigger part of being a person. 

You very well may be polyamorous. For now, if you need a label, see if “poly-curious” works for you. Try it out and see! Read up on The Ethical Slut and More Than Two and see if those books resonate with you. Picture your best-case-scenario and work from there. Dip your toes into a poly relationship, visit some local poly meetups, and do what seems healthy and fulfilling for you at the time. You can always back out or go deeper - trying something out doesn’t mean you have to be that at the core of your being forever.

Good luck!

Please help me. Is polyamory similar to an orientation? what is it exactly? is wanting to be in a polyamorous relationship something you choose or just happens. I’m sorry if this doesn’t make sense. I’m just really confused about myself right now.

This is actually a very controversial topic within the polyamorous community! I fall pretty firmly on the side of thinking that it’s an orientation - that some people are just happier, healthier, and better fulfilled in monogamous relationships, and some in polyamorous relationships, and some can go either way. I do think that for many people, any innate polyamorous-ness goes unrecognized and unfulfilled by social messages.

But many people disagree with me, some vehemently (Dan Savage is a notable voice in this regard). Many believe that it’s a choice or a behavior, a way of doing things rather than a way of being. And people on both sides feel very strongly about this and associate their position on it with serious political and identity issues. So it’s okay to feel confused, and it’s okay to read dissenting voices and figure out which interpretation best fits your experiences.

I’ve been in a mono relationship for about a year now, but I’m poly. My boyfriend knows I’m poly, but at the start of the relationship we decided that it’d stay mono. I’ve recently fallen for several people, and not being able to express my poly side is almost painful in a way - how do you suggest talking to my boyfriend about opening up the relationship without making him feel offended or insecure that I’m losing my feelings for him? Thanks!

You’re in a tough situation, because you made an agreement at the beginning of the relationship that you want to alter the terms of. Your boyfriend may feel blindsided or even betrayed, which is something you want to minimize. I would recommend against bringing this up in the context of you having fallen for other people recently. That runs the risk of making it about your desire to be with other people besides your boyfriend, when the real issue is that you want the freedom to live into your full self as a poly person.

My advice would be to go slowly and gently when bringing this up. Focus on the fact that you’ve been together for a year, and things are going well. Relationships change, and people change, and that’s a good thing - there is no growth without change. Tell your boyfriend that you’d like to revisit the question of a polyamorous practice now that you two are more secure in your relationship. Make it an open conversation about the issue rather than an immediate request. 

Be clear that this isn’t about you losing feeling for him, or feeling unfulfilled - rather, that you’re so happy and fulfilled in this relationship that you think it might be healthy enough to absorb the risk of trying this new thing. Check in with him and make sure he has space to respond. Maybe he still feels exactly the same way as he did a year ago and wants to hold you to your original commitment. In that case, you have a decision to make - is the sacrifice worth it? Only you can say for yourself. Or, maybe he’s willing to entertain the thought - in which case, you have a new set of challenges to face together.

Good luck!