Coming out?
May 12, 2008
Holden and I have been talking a lot lately about letting new friends know that we are poly. A good number of our friends from where we used to live know that we’ve been edging our way into polyamory, but now we live in a new city and have a new circle of friends and only one of them knows explicitly that we’re poly.
The first part of our discussion has been which friends are we comfortable telling? Can we trust them not to talk about it in a way that would cause trouble for us? Do we know that they’re accepting and open minded enough to not reject us if they don’t agree with our lifestyle? And would it change anything about our friendship if they knew?
We’ve sort of gone through our group of friends one by one and considered them according to these questions. In almost all of the cases we’ve come to the conclusion that we’re ok with them knowing. A couple of people we’ve decided we either don’t know them well enough yet or there’s some concern holding us back from being fully open with them. All of these are pretty new friendships, though, and I have a feeling that over time all those concerns will work themselves out or simply go away.
Another big question is how do we tell them? We’ve discussed a couple of options.
One option is to make it one of those “I want to tell you this thing and it might be uncomfortable, but I’m just going to come out and say it” kind of things. That didn’t seem too appealing. First of all, we want to bring it to them in a way that doesn’t automatically make them think we’re interested in them and want to start a relationship with them. That’s not the case with any of these friends yet, and besides, that wouldn’t be how we’d do that anyway. Plus, that approach seems to make it out to be a bigger deal than I think they’ll think it is, and definitely than we think it is as regards our friendship.
Another option is to casually bring it up in conversation. This may prove tricky since topics like this don’t come up very often when we’re hanging out. However, it’s not outside the realm of possibilities so we’ll keep that open as an option for the future.
So I guess we’ve concluded that we want to tell our new friends as it becomes comfortable to do so. Chances are it won’t be as scary as we fear, but you’ll hear about it here either way.
Sometimes I think there’s really no need to come out as poly at all unless you’re actually interested in someone, or they express an interest in you. It’s kind of like telling someone you’re homosexual – what are they going to do with that information except presume you are propositioning them? Yes, it’s a nice thing to know about friends (so you’re not constantly setting them up with unsuitable potential mates) but with poly, it’s like, what is someone going to do with that information? It doesn’t change in any way how you relate to casual friends, unless you are intimate enough with them that you discuss your sex life. And if you do that, then poly will probably come up in due course.
Sex and sexuality is a common topic between us and several of our friends. Most of the friends we’ve had for some time already know, and of those we’ve met more recently those topics are tending to pop up again. This is more a decision not to keep from telling people we’re poly instead of actively looking to tell people.
Also if one of our friends happens to see us with an OSO and isn’t aware that we’re poly, it might cause them some stess that could eaily be avoided.
-Holden