Reactions to a Life of Many Loves

Have you you ever been in a situation where you were going through something, and wanted to share it with the whole world?

One of the hardest things about becoming polyamorous for me was telling my friends and family. Truly. I was super-nervous about it. More nervous, in fact, than I was about dating other people. Silly, I know. But I am a very open person; I love sharing my day-to-day stuff with people, and I was hoping to have a bit of support. Everything feels better when you've got friends to back you up, yeah?

As it turned out, I was very surprised by the reactions I got when I told everyone. I'd had predictions about who would act what way. But for the most part? I was completely wrong.

I absolutely thought that my friends would support me. Maybe because we were all in our early 20s, I thought they'd get it. After all, wasn't our generation very open-minded about love and dating? Assumptions, assumptions. Anyway, I guess I was taking it too far with my new lifestyle choice, because the responses I got were, "I just don't think it's right," and "It won't work, it's a bad idea." It was all very upsetting, and I felt a little sick to my stomach to know that my friends thought so negatively of what Aaron and I were doing. My father was none-too-pleased about it, either: "I don't want to hear anything about this!"

But I won't get all doom-and-gloom on you; it wasn't all negative feedback.

My mother, of all people, completely supported my decision. My mother! This was the woman who would cringe and say "Gross!" when she'd see people French kissing in a movie. It was the strangest thing. She said to me, "Well, you know what you want. If it makes you happy, then I say go for it." It meant a great deal to have her behind me on this.

My coworkers were also quite supportive as well. In fact, to this day, they will still say to me, "I am so impressed that you and Aaron are doing this!"

I still occasionally deal with disapproval. My brother has probably had the most difficult time accepting my lifestyle. We're close, so I sometimes forget myself and just start blabbing about dates that Aaron has, or people I'm going to hang out with. When that happens, my brother tends to just get upset. So we drop it, and that's that. I can appreciate that polyamory is unsettling for some.

...That doesn't stop me from messing with Dad, though: "Hey, Dad, I've got a date with a really cute guy this weekend!" Hehe, I'm sick sometimes.