When Should I Tell People?
Libby talks about when you should tell potential partners that you're polyamorous or nonmonogamous.
Transcript
Here's a question that I get a lot from my clients and from folks who come to my discussion groups, which is when you're out in the world trying to date and you're polyamorous. When should you tell your potential partners, should you put it prominently on your dating profile? Should you tell them in those first few messages back and forth, should you wait until the first date or wait even more until you get to know each other? And is the answer different based on whether you are solo, poly, or already partnered? I have some thoughts, you know, that I do. And I will tell you on the other side,
I'm a new podcaster and it's just me making these. So I'm still working out the kinks in my process. And I really appreciate your understanding. Some other announcements real quick, I'm doing some traveling in the early part of this year. I'm going to poly living in Philadelphia, winter, poly Wonderland in West Virginia. These are some really cool events and now is the time to solidify those plans. And you, if you're coming because they're in February, also February 29th, I'll be in Atlanta teaching a relationship transitions class. And then later in the year, I'll be at Southwest love Fest in Tucson in April and also relate con in Boise, April 24th through the 26th. Also, if you're in the DC area, I haven't forgotten you. We, I will be resuming my monthly discussion groups at GSD work club. I decided to take January off, but on February 12th we'll be there and we will be talking about the anatomy of trust. Okay. That's all the announcements for now. So let's carry on the conversation.
So I'm not gonna hold back. My answer for you. My answer to anyone who asks me, when should I tell my potential partners that I'm polyamorous is always the same. The answer is for me as soon as possible, what that often looks like for a lot of folks. And what I encourage is to put this information prominent on your dating profile, or at least in an initial message before you meet, or if you're meeting the potential partner, not via a dating app or website, I encourage you to tell them when it's clear there's interest, but before you go on an actual date, okay, that's it. That's all I have to say. End of episode, go forth and, and tell everyone that you're gonna go on a date with that. You're polyamorous. I'm just kidding. I know it's not that easy. So some of y'all may have heard this advice before, or maybe you've considered doing this, but something about it is making you uncomfortable or uncertain.
And so you have held back or maybe you are out as non-monogamous on your dating profile and it's crickets, not a single message or response is coming your way. And you're wondering if you should suppress that information. You know, people match you then unmatch, or maybe that's your fear. You're scared that might happen because right now the action you're getting on the dating apps and websites is already limited. And so you're thinking Libby, your advice is terrible. If I let people know I'm non-monogamous upfront before they even meet me, nobody's even going to get to that point. I'll never get a date and I'll be alone or just with my monogamous partner forever. Okay. Just slow down their catastrophizing tiger. So I get that. You may not take my word for it. That the best thing to do is be upfront about your polyamory, especially if you are right now, listening to them, and you haven't tried that already and you're feeling resistant to it, and I totally want you to do what feels right for you and do what will get you to where you want to be and help you find what you're looking for.
And yet I am pretty non-nuanced on this particular advice to be open about your non-monogamy to potential partners. Because I think doing otherwise is not only unethical, but also it doesn't work. It's ineffective. So I'm going to lay out my case for you. First. I wanna address that outness is not equal, fully safe for everyone. And I know that some folks who have sensitive jobs or who live in a small town or have various other factors in play might not feel like it's safe for them to have on the internet, both a picture that clearly identifies who they are and have it clearly stated in their profile that they are polyamorous or non-monogamous. I live in a government town where you can't throw a rock without hitting someone with a security clearance. So I really do understand the need for privacy and the apps are basically public to anyone who is on them.
I remember a while back when someone found Julian Assange's OK. Cuban profile and shared a link to it on Twitter. And I'm embarrassed to say that we were like a 99% match. I mean, I don't know what that says about me. I didn't mess, so I would never, no. Okay. Anyway but so I, I get that. If you're in that position where you can't risk being outed because of your dating profile, that you might not wanna put anything that identifies you and identifies that you're polyamorous on a dating website, I get it, and I'll own up to the fact that I'm actually not much on the apps anymore, and I've never actually had a Tinder profile, although I have used it and looked at it and I'm, I'm familiar with how it all works. And so I can understand why you would want a picture of yourself on there.
Because when you're swiping, that's the first thing that you see is a picture. And most of the profile details that you're allowed to put in, you have a character limit. And so what you're allowed to say about yourself is generally pretty light on details. And so I can understand you prioritize, have a good picture, which might mean you wanna leave off the polyamory or non-monogamy part. If your privacy is important. My dating app of choices is OK Cupid, which does allow you to put more on your profile so that, you know, you can focus on the text, less on the picture, but I know that even OKC, these days has a picture based swipe feature that it pushes you to use. So if you're sharing a pick of you that doesn't have your face, like people might keep on swiping, or if it's not clearly identifiable in some way.
So okay, you might not wanna let people know on your profile if you're that your poly, if you're not comfortable with a coworker or a parent at your school, or one of your students or whomever finding you there, though, I do know plenty of people who do the no face pick thing, and they put all the info that's relevant on their profile. And I think that worked for them. So, you know, you have options, but either way, I still encourage you. If this is you to let people at least know in the first message exchange that you have that you're polyamorous. And also you can hint around about it in your profile. Like people have all, they're all, there's all kinds of, of code out there for like, you know, signaling who you are without putting it out there in a way that's obvious to people who don't know.
So I mean, you know, you can put an infinity heart on your profile picture. That's an idea, or you can, you know, just there, there are ways you can put some code in there. And another thing that's worth considering though, is that if you do have another partner you know, that everyone in your community knows about that. Everyone in your workplace knows about like, if you're married and then someone finds your profile on a dating site and can identify you by your picture, then they're gonna think you're cheating unless you're open about being non-monogamous on your profile. So, you know, it's tricky either way and then there are, of course, some apps that are like focused on non-monogamous folks. There's the open app there's field, there's open minds. There's there's different places anyway. So that's, my recommendation is to tell them in the first message that you're non-monogamous, but then you might be thinking, well, then what is gonna happen, Libby?
What's gonna happen. I will tell this person who messages me, that I am non-monogamous and then they're just gonna not respond and unmatch me. Yes. People will unmatch you <laugh>. And possibly often, if you're on something like Tinder, where it's a big mix of people, but that's because you are not who they're looking for. And so I'm gonna back up here and I'm just gonna go ahead and say that, I think when I'm talking about whether or not you should disclose being non-monogamous to potential partners, I think I'm largely talking to cisgender men who date women. I don't want to generalize, but my experience and the experience of many other people that I've spoken to is that if you're a cisgender woman doing internet dating, you tend to get inundated with messages from men, men who maybe don't even read your profile. They don't read my profile, cuz my profile right now says that I'm poly saturated, I'm unavailable for dates then that I seldom check my inbox, and yet I still get messages.
I also get the occasional message from women and mostly I just wish I had time to meet them cuz they sound so cool. And anyway, I think this is generally the experience of many cisgender women who indicate that they're interested in dating men. They get a lot of messages, mostly ones they don't want. And for you, my dear lovely people, a filter can be a godsend. And you know, putting in your profile at your polyamorous can be a great filter if you can get away with it for privacy reasons. It might not work perfectly of course, because it definitely can draw otherwise monogamous men to assume you're up for easy sex, whether or not you actually are, but truly any way that you can filter that influx of messages is probably the better for you. But if you're a guy who's into women, you know, even if you're also men you likely have the opposite experience in online dating.
Instead, you put your picture up, you write a nice profile, and nothing. You send messages and you maybe get a response one out of 10 times. So you might be thinking, why would you want to risk turning off that tiny fraction that you're managing to connect to before you even have a chance to meet them and then have a chance to meet you? Here's the reason contrary to how it might feel on dating apps, dating isn't a numbers game. Casting, a wide net is not a good dating strategy. If you're a person who's in sales, you already know this. <Laugh> your goal. When you're trying to market a product is not usually to appeal as many people as possible, but instead to figure out a very specific niche of customers that you will appeal highly to, and then focus all of your attention on that and dating isn't that different.
If what's keeping you from being upfront about your polyamory is a belief that potential partners scarce and that your appeal is low. And thus you're fearful of narrowing your opportunities even further that can actually end up being a self-fulfilling prophecy because you'll keep pitching yourself to people with whom you're inherently not a good fit because you just see relationships differently. You might get a, a few dates in, but then it will likely become clear at some point that you're not a good fit and you come out as polyamorous and they say, no, this isn't going to work for me. And then you're going to further believe that potential partners are scarce and that your appeal is low. And the damage that mindset does to you and your potential dating life can be substantial because what's at the core of that belief that you can't attract partners by being completely who you are.
You instead believe that if you are able to conceal unappealing parts of yourself long enough to lure someone in and get them hooked in some way that that will lead you to I don't know what a, a notch on your bedpost a relationship where your partner's willing to accept what would've been unacceptable. If they'd known upfront. I, I just don't, I don't think that can work, but I also think that this mindset is really, really common across the board in dating. We show up to date and we wanna put our best version of ourselves forward. And if you at the core, believe that your true complete self is in some way unappealing or is gonna turn off. A lot of people you'll find yourself trying to hide that part of you. And instead, put on a performance about who you really are.
The question I've always had is like, when do you stop performing and just be together and are honest about who you are because in my experience, performance in relationships is the opposite of intimacy. Performance is curated and calculating and intimacy is messy and real and very in the present moment, this mindset about dating can also be just really damaging to your own perception of yourself. Like let's say you do manage to hook someone by concealing things about yourself, like polyamory, that may be potential deal breakers for a partner that reinforces the idea that you have to deny parts of yourself to be desirable. You then end up rejecting yourself so that you can be accepted by someone else. And you can end up taking on in this perspective that you aren't enough and worthy exactly the way you are and that you can never allow yourself to be truly seen in your relationships.
And to me, that actually sounds pretty lonely. This mindset is also really shortchanging your potential partners. I mean, what if your potential partner is open to giving, dating a polyamorous person, a chance, even if they've always been monogamous or what if they've always wondered about polyamory, but haven't been ready to declare that about themselves to anyone. What if they're someone who's very busy and has always felt like they've let down their monogamous partners in the past, and they're looking for someone whose style of relating, might be a better fit I could go on. I just really think if you don't give your partners a chance to choose for themselves with all the information available to them, you're not giving them a chance at all, to show you how open they might be to what you truly have to offer. And of course, I also think it's unethical whether we like it or not, we live in a society right now where the default assumption is that if you're dating, you're probably looking for a monogamous escalator type relationship, at least that's, that's what I think, that is changing for sure.
But right now that's generally going to be the expectation, especially if you're heterosexual. So if you don't state upfront that you're looking for something different, whatever that is, whether it's a hookup or whether it's a polyamorous relationship, what then people are probably going to assume that you're looking for the default. I honestly look forward to the day when people feel the need to disclose that they are monogamous. And if you're out there in the world doing that, I really appreciate you because I think we shouldn't assume what people are doing and why they're there, but people are probably going to do that unless you tell them. So until you do you're proceeding in making a connection with someone without giving them informed consent. Now, I don't think you have to tell your partner every single possible deal-breaker to a relationship because that would probably be impossible.
Also might be potentially unsafe. And it's probably, you know, oversharing really when deciding what you ethically must disclose to a partner. What I try to think about is do they need this information to make an informed decision about what they want to do next with me? For example, I mean, here's an obvious one in my view, which is you've gotta disclose your STI status with someone before having sex with them. This would include information about the last time you were tested, what you were tested for, what the results were, and also your risk factors currently. Like, I think it's pretty important to let people know what they're getting into instead of saying to myself, well, you know, dating is a risk, everybody's a risk. You never really know. So it's our job to just take care of ourselves. Like I get that, that some people have that mindset, but how is that mindset a good one for starting a relationship with someone?
It, it just makes absolutely no sense to me. I think we have an ethical duty to show care for one another. And personally, I encourage you to take the position that actually you don't want to be in relationships with people who wouldn't want to be with you if they had all the relevant information. And I just, I just wanna say one last thing. It is true that if you put more of your deal breakers in front of your potential partners early on in your connections, that those deal breakers will turn some people off, possibly a lot of people, but here's the thing. Those people aren't your people. And if you try to present something that's like more universally palatable and hide the things that might turn people off, you're more likely to miss the people that are looking for someone exactly like you. Instead, you're more likely to attract people who are also going to be performing and hiding and who are likely to cause you harm by not disclosing something to you.
On the flip side, the more you can show up for potential partners fully and completely who you are. The more you will tend to draw out the people who are and completely who they are and who are looking for someone with whom it is safe to be fully seen. These people will also show up with deal breakers. They will be imperfect, but here's the secret. Everyone is imperfect. Everyone has pluses and minuses. Every relationship has benefits and drawbacks. The more that you can practice owning the completeness of who you are and not hiding parts of yourself to appeal to others, the more you can also accept the imperfections that others bring to the table and love them for who they are too. So to recap, I encourage you to be out to potential partners as non-monogamous or queer or kinky or left-handed or whatever, actually, as soon as it's safe for you to do so and preferably before any first date happens, I really encourage you to be open about anything that is relevant to a partner, wanting to engage with you in a particular moment, whether it's making a first date having a sexual encounter or making a longer-term commitment to each other.
This is not just the ethical thing to do. It's also likely to help you find the people who are actually a good fit for you, and also learning how to accept the parts of yourself that you're afraid of. Other people might have a hard time with can help you be more open and accepting of others, which will also help you find partners with whom you can have intimate, authentic, nourishing, and loving relationships.
