More on polyamory and making a context for flirting

Following up on my posts, The Ethics of Being the Other One (vaguely) and Flirting Within Context, as well as Goose’s post entitled Lounge, who mentions this article from The Stranger, Seattle’s Daily Newspaper, the subject of which is basically summed up by a paragraph from the article:

Max and I were at the gym recently, and a nicely buff man working out near me asked, “So, uh, is that guy your boyfriend?” I replied, “Yes, he is.” But that doesn’t mean I’m off the market, I thought.

The link goes to a good, if basic article on a few of the basic problems of polyamory.  It’s not easy to express your openness in the everyday world.  Outside my normal safe zones of science fiction conventions, I wish I had some kind of business card or symbol that would show through to open-minded, interested souls, and to people who are already open/poly/whatever.  I think I’ve mentioned before on this blog that “polyamory” is a sticky term for me because I’ve known so many polyamorous people who use the term to refer to their love for teh drama.  I don’t know what to call it exactly, but we’re open in our own special way.

On my OkCupid profile, I have the following caveat paragraph, but note that it’s a paragraph.  As in, there’s no way I’m fitting this on a business card, and I can’t think of how to express it succinctly to other like-minded or open-minded individuals whom I would otherwise be interested in.

I’m in a committed but open/poly relationship with the most wonderful woman in the world. Open to friends, Casual Encounters, FWB, people to go out and do stuff with (with or without my partner). My feelings are that the right friend can be the right partner, and the right partner can be the right friend. That sort of thing.

My normal safe space to let my openness show on the surface is the science fiction fandom community, and perhaps the love of the drama is part of being a part of fandom.  It’s a community of passionate people who are passionate about very different things, who get together rarely, and so when we do, we all strut around like peacocks showing our unique-and-special-flowerness.  As derisive as that sounds, I don’t mean it in a derisive way.  I do it too, after all.  But polyamory is not my mission or my issue.  It’s just a part of who I am.  At science fiction conventions, you can let “who you are” show on the surface more than in other places.

Outside of my normal safe spaces, though is where I generally find the people I would actually be interested in dating.  After all, it’s where I spend the majority of my time and where I meet a majority of the people I meet.  But how do you say who you are when what you are is complicated, difficult to explain, and so many people seem to insist when they meet you that it’s their right for them to force you to explain it to them?

My quandary is not unique, by any means.  Most everyone who calls themselves poly has met that person out in the world somewhere, and has wished there was something to say just to check.

In the old days, for gay men it was long hair, then earrings, then a way to walk, then a way to talk, evolving as their fashionable signals becamse mens’ fashion and normal.  Ancient Christians had the fish-in-the-sand.  My point is these groups had ways of protecting those who were part of them from the persecution (unintentional or otherwise) by the rest of society while preserving their ability to recognize each other in the streets.

What do people in open-ish relationships have? I’ve mentioned before that many people will assume when you say you’re in an open relationship and they’re either single or in a monogamous (although I hear the term committed bandied about in an offensive manner in place of monogamous often enough) relationship that you’re either lying or exaggerating the nature of the openness to try to get them into bed or somehow fit into a group that in their opinion a married or committed person doesn’t belong in.

As I think about this question of what we have or we ought to have, I’ll try to post something in response to my own article.  If anyone else has ideas, let me know.