Hi Page,
_I love your blog. You have a really fascinating way of framing topics that never would have occurred to me to even think about. I’m not polyamorous myself. I would say I’m more curious at the moment. This is a relatively new development. Even just a few years ago I would have sworn that I would never be interested in non-monogamy. _
Things change though.
I wanted to write in because I wanted to ask: How does one become part of the polyamorous community?
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So the answer to this question depends on what you’re talking about when say “the polyamorous community.” There really isn’t one big monolithic community (just like there isn’t a formal monogamous community or anything like that).
That said, there are tons and tons of local polyamorous groups. Some of them are very formal/official — like polyamory meetups. I wrote about them in an earlier article I wrote called “ How to Meet Polyamorous People.” That essay was written during non-pandemic times. A lot of meetups are still taking place virtually, however.
Additionally, there are a number of polyamory groups on Facebook and Fetlife (a very NSFW site), a social network for kinksters. Not all polyamorous folks are kinksters, and not all kinksters are polyamorous, but there’s a lot of overlap, and the kink community can be a very good resource.
What Worked For Me #
I’ll tell you what worked for me the best: I made polyamorous friends and they introduced me to their friends, and then over time, I had TONS of connections.
How did I make those first few friends? Some of them I made through the kind of local kink and/or polyamory groups I mentioned in the former section.
And others I made via OkCupid — which back when I was most active on it in 2009-2010 wasn’t just a dating site. It was also a social networking place and somewhere people went to make friends. Like… literally… my first new polyamorous friend I ever made (or polycurious anyway; her best friends were polyamorous, she and her husband were more in the curious stage) was on OkCupid looking for friends to play board games with after she relocated cross-country for work.
She and I clicked first as friends and later ended up dating. She introduced me to all of her polyamorous friends. They introduced me to a local kink org. There I met more people. Befriended some. Was introduced to other friends.
And before I knew it, I knew hundreds of polyamorous people all in the same area — and was constantly being introduced to friends of my current friends.
It’s funny… long before I started blogging daily or writing books, I was the go-to advice friend of half the kinksters in Cleveland.
Several years later, I went on to form an online community of sorts. (As of this writing, the Facebook page for Poly.Land has just under 200,000 followers.)
Bottom Line Advice: Make Friends with Polyamorous People #
But yes. My bottom line advice if you’re looking to become part of the polyamorous community is to start making friends with polyamorous people.
However you do that, whatever you can make work, make some friends (especially friends who have other polyamorous friends), and that should get you there.
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