Hi. I’m kind of facing a weird time. I have feelings and attraction to one of my best friends and her boyfriend. He seems interested but I’m scared to cross that line and ask them about a relationship. Do you have any thoughts on the matter? I’d really like some advice if you can provide it.

A lot of this comes down to the context. If you know that these two people have had exposure to poly ideas and poly community before, it will be easier to broach the subject. But unfortunately, polyamory hasn’t gotten much exposure in general culture, and most couples would recoil strongly at a friend’s suggestion that they start dating other people as a couple.

Try testing the waters - bring up polyamory with your friend, without mentioning your attraction to her and her boyfriend. If you can chat casually about couples dating, triads, about threesomes, you might be able to gauge her interest. If there’s none there, don’t push. Some people operating under the paradigm of monogamy might feel very threatened by hearing that a close friend wants to get involved in their relationship.

Or, you could keep it focused on yourself - confide in your friend that you’ve been reading about polyamory and think it might be nice to date a couple or get involved with a triad (without mentioning them specifically), and see what she has to say about it. You could get spectacularly lucky and find out that she and her boyfriend have also been feeling the chemistry, or she could say something like “cool, I support you, but I’d never want to be involved in something like that” - either way, you’ll have a better idea how to proceed.

Poly folk falling for mono folk happens all the time, and it’s agonizing and frustrating, but there’s not much we can do about it, especially since we’re in the minority. If this attraction to your friend and her boyfriend has opened you up to wanting to date other couples and isn’t exclusive to them, you are in luck, though - there are lots of poly duos looking for a third.