Zephyra asks:

I’m real­ly glad to see you start­ing to share your expe­ri­ences with polyamory on your new blog. I have recent­ly decid­ed to be con­sen­su­al­ly non-monog­a­mous, and imme­di­ate­ly, I had dozens of offers. Like, SO many. I don’t real­ly want to let any of these peo­ple down, and it’s so excit­ing to talk to them, but I’m start­ing to expe­ri­ence a kind of over­whelm that I nev­er had when I was monog­a­mous. I don’t have any time for myself and I can tell my kids are start­ing to notice how absent I am. I had a… well it wasn’t a fight exact­ly, but it got a lit­tle crunchy… with my boyfriend—he says I’m poly­sat­u­rat­ed enough and is wor­ried that I can’t keep up with every­thing I want. How can you tell when enough is enough?

My reply:

Jar­gon non-monogamy terms I’m just going to use in this arti­cle:
Poly­sat­u­rat­ed- When a per­son prac­tic­ing con­sen­su­al non-monogamy or polyamory has more part­ners than they have the time, ener­gy, or band­width to han­dle.
Comet- Some­one who is in your orbit but only comes close occa­sion­al­ly. Often a long-dis­tance part­ner­ship with some­one who a per­son sees per­haps once or twice a year.
Kitchen-Table Polyamory- A con­sen­su­al non-monogamy dynam­ic in which part­ners feel com­fort­able enough to know each oth­er, chat, share a meal, pos­si­bly have inde­pen­dent friend­ships, and gen­er­al­ly gath­er around the “kitchen table.” This is con­trast­ed with “birth­day-table polyamory” where they know and respect each oth­er, but don’t share space very often—maybe on spe­cial occa­sions. And is high­ly con­trast­ed with “par­al­lel polyamory” in which part­ners gen­er­al­ly have lit­tle inter­est in know­ing each oth­er (beyond per­haps the need for an emer­gency con­tact) and do not min­gle.
Cow­poke (cowboy/cowgirl)- As a verb in con­sen­su­al non-monogamy dis­course, it refers to the action of some­one pre­tend­ing to be non-monog­a­mous to get with some­one who is. This per­son then will either very inten­tion­al­ly try to get them to be monog­a­mous or will be absolute­ly unable to han­dle non-monogamy and will cre­ate tox­i­c­i­ty unless they are the only part­ner.

So, Zephyra, um…. doing any­thing this week­end? No… bad Chris. BAD. I’ll be good.

This is real­ly a ques­tion that only Zephyra can answer for Zephyra, but based on how you asked the ques­tion, it sounds like that moment is in your rearview mir­ror, if I’m being hon­est.

I don’t want to leave you with some for­tune cook­ie wis­dom that “only you can answer” your own ques­tion. That shit is infu­ri­at­ing. I mean yes, you’re going to fig­ure this out.…eventually…one way or anoth­er, but maybe you don’t have to break fif­teen or twen­ty peo­ple along the way and take three years and lots of heartache… all because I want­ed to sound like the zen mar­tial arts mas­ter who told you that only you could choose your own des­tiny or some shit instead of drop some prac­ti­cal insight like a decent human being who’s been doing this for three decades. So let me break a cou­ple of things down for you.

First of all… take a deep breath. What is hap­pen­ing to you is nor­mal. Very very nor­mal. Any new per­son dropped into a non-monog­a­mous pool expe­ri­ences a “fresh meat” phe­nom­e­non. You are the inter­est­ing dish no one’s ever tried that just showed up at the potluck. Every­one wants a taste.

Okay, that’s sort of most­ly only true for women, and con­ven­tion­al attrac­tive­ness stan­dards play a huge part regard­less of gen­der. The curse for most men is actu­al­ly usu­al­ly not that much atten­tion, but what they get is very delib­er­ate and inten­tion­al. The curse for most women is too much atten­tion of inde­ter­mi­nate (and most­ly poor) quality—like the dat­ing app equiv­a­lent of “How YOU doin’?”

How­ev­er, Zephyra, a lot of folks seem to go through a “kid in a can­dy store” phase. And all of a sud­den, there’s more to life than just Charleston Chews. It can be intox­i­cat­ing and very dopamine-heavy to sud­den­ly be able to say yes to every­thing and get LOTS of atten­tion.

They like you. They REALLY like you!

The prob­lem is, if you say yes to EVERYTHING, shit gets weird. Like Requiem for a Dream meets Heathers weird. Peo­ple ghost. (They just want­ed to know they still got it.) Peo­ple are monog­a­mous and hop­ing to cow­poke you—or have a LOT of monog­a­mous bag­gage and might get inse­cure and pos­ses­sive, even about your boyfriend. Dudes are monog­a­mous and MARRIED and for­got to men­tion it. (Oh yes, Zephyra. It’s a whole ass THING™) Peo­ple just want a booty call. Peo­ple are total­ly into you, but have zero emo­tion­al avail­abil­i­ty (which might be your thing, I don’t know). Peo­ple are into you but look­ing for way way more than you’re look­ing for. Peo­ple will only be avail­able for weird last-minute plans that feel an awful lot like you are their back-up if they get stood up on the date they WANTED to have. Some peo­ple are look­ing for some­one to take care of them. Maybe some or all of that sounds great to you, or isn’t a deal­break­er any­way, but like­ly, it’s not exact­ly what you’re look­ing for.

Now imag­ine all these things hap­pen­ing at once.

So… usu­al­ly, SOME dis­crim­i­na­tion is required.

Gen­er­al­ly, at some point ear­ly on, most non-monog­a­mous folks become poly­sat­u­rat­ed. They find that they can’t keep up with every­thing they’ve said yes to. Some real-world lim­i­ta­tion or anoth­er gets in their way. Maybe it’s the estab­lished rela­tion­ship part­ner who is say­ing “I feel depri­or­i­tized when you are chas­ing shiny things four nights a week.” Maybe there are bro­ken com­mit­ments, or emo­tion­al unavail­abil­i­ty to peo­ple who are impor­tant. Maybe it is the fact that they start see­ing dat­ing as a chore and keep­ing up with their rela­tion­ships as a bur­den. Maybe they end up on a date with some­one, but are actu­al­ly too tired from their last date to real­ly enjoy them­selves. Maybe they real­ize they don’t have time to them­selves any­more, and the things they used to do for fun are being tak­en up by try­ing to jug­gle rela­tion­ships and cal­en­dar every­one who wants a piece. Maybe they sud­den­ly real­ize their kids have been on screens most of the day for the past three week­ends because they’ve been out get­ting railed in a sun­dress (which—don’t get me wrong—is a great expe­ri­ence if that’s your jam and a screens day ONCE in a while nev­er killed any­one). Maybe they real­ize they haven’t seen their friends in months.

And a lot of times the com­pet­ing pool of can­dy turns into a bit of a Hunger Games with peo­ple want­i­ng more than they’re get­ting and start­ing to get com­pet­i­tive. The Abba Zab­ba can­dy starts side-eying the Jel­ly Bel­ly’s, and the gourmet dark choco­late peanut but­ter cups are straight up try­ing to be the only thing you put in your mouth. There might even be some con­ver­sa­tions that run along the lines of, “You seem like you’re real­ly a lit­tle too busy for what I’m look­ing for…” and if that was some­one the per­son was real­ly into, that can sting—especially when the per­son they get left WITH turns out to be some­one who’s just look­ing for a fling or going to treat them as absolute­ly dis­pos­able the minute they need to “work on their mar­riage” or some­thing.

And this can often dove­tail with emo­tion­al reg­u­la­tion, attach­ment styles, psy­cho­log­i­cal sta­bil­i­ty (as the ear­ly days of non-monogamy can feel incred­i­bly UNsta­ble). Peo­ple who run hot and cold can trig­ger cor­ti­sol, which can feel a lot like insane chem­istry to folks with dif­fi­cult his­to­ry. Con­sis­tent and estab­lished some­times feels like bor­ing. Like almost any­thing, that ini­tial spike of dopamine can be used as a feel-good but­ton that pre­vents peo­ple from deal­ing with deep­er issues. This isn’t bad or wrong (well… it might be), but it tends to be tran­sient, and it maps over oth­er addic­tive behav­iors rather than being tru­ly nour­ish­ing.

So at some point, pret­ty much every­one ends up hav­ing to get real­ly clear about what they’re gen­uine­ly look­ing for, or they risk their love life look­ing a bit like a tor­na­do hit it. Mul­ti­ple tor­na­does. Mul­ti­ple times.

Tor­na­do alley of the heart.

Which is why I think you’re already in trou­ble, Zephyra. It sounds like your boyfriend has some concerns—and they seem to be com­ing from a place of con­cern about you rather than his inse­cu­ri­ties or try­ing to lim­it or con­trol you or over­ride your auton­o­my (so we’ll let him keep his face… for now). But you’re talk­ing about drop­ping things you think are impor­tant and feel­ing over­whelmed.

None of those are good signs.

Zephyra, this isn’t going to give you a num­ber, though. Because what YOU’RE look­ing for is a very “Zephyra thing.” Rela­tion­ships don’t all have the same emo­tion­al labor require­ments. If you want those full-on rela­tion­ships where you see some­one mul­ti­ple times a week and have a date night every week and they hang out with the kids for a movie night and fam­i­ly din­ner, two part­ners (maaaaaaybe three) might be the most you can rea­son­ably han­dle, even if there’s some kitchen table going on that allows for all part­ners to have the same fam­i­ly night.

On the oth­er hand, if you want to get togeth­er once a month and bang it out, there’s no rea­son you can’t keep six, sev­en, even eight or maybe even more. (Although let’s be real­is­tic about how these num­bers add up: eight peo­ple, each once a month is TWO NIGHTS A WEEK of full com­mit­ment to JUST bang­ing. Noth­ing wrong with that, but be aware—that’s a part time job worth of effort to get casu­al sex.) And of course, you might want some com­bi­na­tion of those dynamics—one or two close hard­core estab­lished rela­tion­ships and a lot of casu­al sex—then you real­ly have to start being real­is­tic about how many nights a week you’re putting into active dat­ing.

And that’s just time, Zephyra. While love might be infi­nite, a lot of resources are NOT. Not every­one has the emo­tion­al capac­i­ty to be in so many intense rela­tion­ships at once. Unless you’re VERY good at com­part­men­tal­iz­ing, they can start to bleed into each oth­er, and some of those folks are going to get real­ly resent­ful that you’re not present when you’re with them. Sex­u­al ener­gy can be finite, and what a drag it is to go into an excit­ing and high­ly antic­i­pat­ed hot date and find your­self unable to have sex because you spent the last three nights in a row get­ting fucked out of your mind.

[I mean, if you have to have a prob­lem, that’s a pret­ty good one to have, but no one par­tic­u­lar­ly wants to be on the (uh… NOT) receiv­ing end of that hot date.]

No one can tell you what the mag­ic num­ber is because no one but you knows what you want.

I had a moment after can­cer when I’d lost some weight, was MUCH more con­ven­tion­al­ly attrac­tive, and was try­ing to ame­lio­rate feel­ings of anx­i­ety and inse­cu­ri­ty with rela­tion­ships. I real­ized I was over­do­ing it when I real­ized I wasn’t enjoy­ing video games or read­ing any­more. I had no time for me. I turned inward and real­ly reflect­ed on what I want­ed out of non-monogamy. And I dis­cov­ered that, because I like to get to know peo­ple and form deep emo­tion­al con­nec­tions with them, my sat­u­ra­tion point was prob­a­bly going to hap­pen at about 2 1/2 peo­ple. (Two would leave me with some emo­tion­al avail­abil­i­ty and three would be over­whelm­ing.) I have comets (which aren’t like “par­tial rela­tion­ships” but do require low­er emo­tion­al band­width most of the time), so real­ly a cou­ple of local peo­ple is going to be my capac­i­ty. In the­o­ry, I would have more casu­al sex, flings, and/or bang my friends a LOT more, but the oppor­tu­ni­ty doesn’t real­ly present itself that often.

Some­times, this meant I had to have a con­ver­sa­tion that went like, “Hey, I think you’re great, but my dance card is real­ly full right now. Would you like me to let you know if that changes?” And some­times that was a crunchy and dif­fi­cult con­ver­sa­tion, and they got a lit­tle salty about being any­one’s sec­ond choice. That had to be okay even though I hate let­ting peo­ple down.

Also… look, I’m all for auton­o­my. I’m absolute­ly here for, “Step back and don’t fuck­ing TELL me what to do with my life!” I love that shit—especially when women are say­ing it in a patri­ar­chal cul­ture, and they’re off liv­ing their best lives while some dude who wants to con­trol them does a sur­prised Pikachu face. But rela­tion­ships involve SOME compromise—even the most rad­i­cal and anar­chis­tic of them trade away SOME of the absolute wild-west auton­o­my for SOME pre­dictabil­i­ty and emo­tion­al inti­ma­cy. So unless you want to have no inti­mate rela­tion­ships and no one you can count on, you also have to con­sid­er your estab­lished rela­tion­ships and find that balance—especially if you’re mix­ing and match­ing dynam­ics.

If boyfriend is get­ting salty, is that because he’s a con­trol­ling shit­sick­le who needs a real­i­ty check that polyamory is not just gonna be FFM three­somes that cater to his desires all day long, or is that because he would like to be able to count on a cer­tain sta­bil­i­ty and pre­dictabil­i­ty in his long-term rela­tion­ships? Is he being a jeal­ous inse­cure fuck­stru­dle about what you do with your body, or are you putting in a LOT more time, ener­gy, emo­tion­al labor, sexy out­fits, late nights, sched­ule fu, and gen­er­al care towards your new and shiny while some­times skip­ping dates or spend­ing time with him going to Cost­co in sweat­pants and talk­ing bills and kids, and he’s feel­ing (jus­ti­fi­ably) tak­en for grant­ed and not par­tic­u­lar­ly val­ued… like a pair of worn-out sneak­ers that you only real­ly wear when you gar­den or do chores in town? Because the one thing any­one can do in any rela­tion­ship, no mat­ter how fuck­ing autonomous every­one is, is to go get their emo­tion­al needs and desires met some­where else. And if you aren’t meet­ing an estab­lished rela­tion­ship’s needs, that’s what’ll hap­pen. So play­ing absolute­ly fast and loose is a good way to imper­il those estab­lished rela­tion­ships.

So yeah, Zephyra. Kind of looks like you may have reached capac­i­ty. Maybe you want to have some boundaries—or pos­si­bly high­er standards—and say “no” at least a LITTLE more. Maybe you want to real­ly sit with what you’re look­ing for out of all this. Maybe chat a lit­tle longer, haze a lit­tle hard­er, and see what they’re about and what THEY’RE look­ing for before you whip out the cal­en­dar and start to sched­ule. I hate to come full cir­cle to “you will know, Grasshop­per,” but I real­ly CAN’T do more than make you aware of the pit­falls of end­less­ly chas­ing that rush. That and maybe tell you it sure sounds like you’ve crossed the Rubi­con (even if I can’t tell you exact­ly when). Non-monogamy is best when it maps over the val­ue sys­tem of hav­ing every rela­tion­ship find its own organ­ic space with­in your life and body auton­o­my and high pos­si­bil­i­ty (but low expec­ta­tion), be it pla­ton­ic friend­ship, sexy­times fling, roman­tic attrac­tion, pas­sion­ate agape life-alter­ing part­ner­ship or any one of a mil­lion things in between. Or… non-monogamy can be pret­ty god­damned dif­fi­cult when it is approached like Pokemon—“Gotta catch ‘em ALL!”

But seri­ous­ly, you aren’t local, are you? No.. bad Chris. BAD.