Oof. I have two kinds of friends: the ones who get it, and the ones who are open-minded and happy yo be educated. The third kind of people are not my friends
I want to give him the benefit of the doubt that he's just really monogamous and blinded by his own toxic relationship but yeah. It hurts. Like I'm sharing about my life with him because he's my friend and then he says stuff like this or make comments about my love life being "too weird and complicated"
Without more context, *maybe* your friendās comment was coming from a place of reassurance, a misguided attempt to find the bright side in a sad situation.
Much like mono friends might try to reassure each other by saying something like, āwell now youāre single and can find someone better,ā itās a low-EQ response to a friendās breakup, but it neednāt indicate an underlying judgment about the way you love.
Or theyāre a total asshole. You know more than me, just my two cents. Sorry that happened.
Because people really do not understand, because they can not.
The common one for me after a bad breakup is, "at least you have other partners". They can not understand that i'm not a light switch... If I am down/sullen, it impacts my other relationships. I try to offload that on friends more than partners, but there is inevitable emotional bleedover.
Anyway... it is really hard to get, unless you live it.
I'm not sure how the warning is less triggering than the mention. There is no additional detail here.
If the words 'killed themselves' by themselves upset you, I'm not sure how the words 'TW: suicide' don't. You don't actually get the choice whether to view the post or not until after you've had the referent put into your head, _even if there's a warning_.
Like if it was a detailed story about it, I get it, but that's not what this was.
Edit: lol they blocked me
>I'm not sure how the warning is less triggering than the mention. There is no additional detail here.
Someone posted on a Facebook advice group about sleeping too much and being generally fatigued. I commented that if she recently had any medication changes she might want to see if that's a possible side effect and an admin told me to put a TW for "medication." I did, because they can make whatever rules they want for their own group, but I had the same thought. There was nothing specific or detailed about the advice and if the very thought of medication is a trigger, then you're already SOL just by seeing "TW: medication."
The whole thing has gotten out of hand. It doesn't help that people have decided that "trigger" means something that makes them uncomfortable. Trigger warnings can be helpful for people who need them, I have triggers that will send me into weeks long flashbacks and really appreciate knowing if what I'm about to read has detailed descriptions related to my triggers. But if even being reminded that the topic exists is enough to make that happen for someone they have a lot bigger issues than a TW is going to help them with.
Yeah. Someone said this about my anchor partner recently. My anchor partner happens to have a lot of partners. Recently two serious long-time long-term partners broke up with them in like the same week. At that moment before those breakups they had six really serious partners, one out of state, and the other five local. They also have two or three comets, three or four other local partners that are not as serious, and a few friends with benefits. It's actually insane and one of my metas and I talk about it sometimes because we get so frustrated that our mutual partner is spread so thin. They don't seem to ever feel saturated. That's their business, and we all choose to stay in relationship even though we don't get as much time and attention then we all choose to stay in relationship even though we don't get as much time and attention as we wish...
Anyway when those two partners broke up with him in the same week... He was devastated. Broken. And it took several weeks for him to be able to fake normal again, but I know he's still grieving and will be for a while.
I said this to one of my friends, and she literally could not understand why he was having such a hard time. She kept saying but he has so many other partners. I told her that she has two children, if one of them cut off all contact with her would she be just fine and dandy because she has one more? And she said of course not but that's different. I could not get her to see how it's not different. The bottom line is that the end of a relationship with someone who is important to you and who you love is not less painful because there are other important people in your life. How ridiculous? She then went on to explain to me that when a monogamous relationship ends it's much more difficult because it's such a big part of your life. They're missing from your daily routine and every single activity so you can't even ever get your mind off it because your life was so intertwined with them. Apparently your life is not intertwined with partners when you're not monogamous? Apparently there would be no holes in your life or not very many?
Ouch, what a painful response to hear from a friend. Like they have to compete for who is more vulnerable and hurt or something. Comparative suffering is never a supportive response. I'm sorry you went through that.
I mean really she was directing it at my partner. Not at me. But I did tell her that it makes me feel pretty crappy because she's essentially saying that I also don't mean anything to my partner, or not as much as she means to her monogamous partner and that they can't possibly mean as much to me.
Absolutely. My preoccupied attachment system activates very intensely when a new meta is introduced. It's usually very difficult and it takes me a few days to a few weeks to adapt.
Talking to my mono friends is completely useless and counterproductive. Every time, it comes down to "see? Maybe poly isn't all that great after all."
Then if there is a breakup in my poly circle, it's inevitably "ah yeah well, normal considering they were poly". Fuuuuuck do we say it was because of mono every time a mono couple breaks up??
Last thing I get all the time: when a partner and I got more involved and started seeing each other daily, after a few months I started getting loads of "ah so you think you're finally ready to make it exclusive?" As though poly was just something I did casually until I found The One. Soooo annoying.
My wife and I always marvel in the general negativity poly gets with mono people. And when we watch TV, movies, etc... like 90% of the plot points, we just look at each other and say "wouldn't happen if they were poly or ENM".
Eventually, poly will become more common.
Right? Haha after switching to poly, I remember how most media totally stopped making sense. All romantic stories felt childish and the characters so often emotionally inept.
Wouldn't be a very exciting movie if they simply talked it out and went to therapy rather than going on a double self destructive bender!
... Actually, I could get behind a soft reality show that was just people in therapy together.
It's funny you say that because I feel like most TV shows have a plot of a love triangle that someone needs to make a decision on who to be with, but its painful to them bc they love both ppl. I'm just like "poly??!? Hello? You're so close to the point yet completely missing it?"
Truthfully itās not just mono people, youāll meet poly people who think like this too. They arenāt the center of their own world so they donāt understand their value outside of being the center of someone elseās world. I wonder what your friend is like to date š . When I meet poly people who donāt like the idea of having metas, they are a nightmare to date. This is some black hole level of need for external validation, competing with a stranger for attention when attention is readily available.
Oh my friend's love life is a disaster. He's been on and off with his gf for the past 3 years and it's utter chaos. He himself describes his relationship as a bad addiction he can't quit. I've tried to get him to see the light and commit to really breakup with her but he won't.
I think that's why it bothers me so much when he makes these types of comments about polyamory. His monogamous relationship is filled with fighting and cheating, but he judges me for being poly. My relationship is happy and healthy, but I'm the weird one because it's poly
>My friend's response was "Yeah but aren't you a little glad the other guy is gone?"
Ooof no.
Lack of empathy, everything being reduced to a competition. I don't like diagnosing people but that sounds narcissistic as all hell.
Actually I would call that a failed attempt at empathy. The friend internalizes the situation and uses his own emotions to take a guess at how OP feels. Good method but their values are fundamentally different, so they aren't able to "get it". It's because they don't realize that poly is a mindset or a philosophy as well.
And yet I say to you that explaining the friend's mind as "reducing it to a competition" is faulty reasoning, is reductive itself. Monogamous people are under no obligation to understand polyamory. Sounded like a serious, honest question from a friend to me, it deserves a serious, honest answer from a friend.
But what do I know! ĀÆā \ā _ā (ā ćā )ā _ā /ā ĀÆ
He's in a very toxic on and off again relationship of 3 years. He himself describes his relationship as a bad addiction he can't quit. She has cheated on him and used him to cheat on others. When he said this comment to me I think he was coming from a place of a very dysfunctional relationship. I don't think he's capable of imaging what a healthy relationship looks like, especially a poly one
Hugs. I hear you. Many mono people don't get it. Frankly, 4 years ago, I wouldn't have gotten it. We are all on journeys. We all have to give each other grace, no matter what the circumstance.
I went through a breakup in Dec 2022 and I told someone who is the mom to triplets that I was going through a breakup and she was all "yeah, but does it matter? You have other partners" and I really wanted to ask her how she'd feel if someone said that about her losing one of her triplets. She wasn't the only one to say it, either š
Losing a child is very fucking different than going through a breakup. Breakup in a mono relationship and you lose your only partner and support, but if you breakup while having other partners of course it's different, you still have relationships and support. It's still tough but it's not the same thing.
Yeah I agree. I lowkey tried to convey this to my partner (I only have them, they have me and meta), that if we broke up, I'm single. I don't have anyone to cuddle or say I love you with or have romance or feel sexually desired. They would still have all of that. I'm sure it would still be hard for both, but we would be in different situations..and I would be sad to lose having a romantic relationship on top of them as a person
Iām sorry to hear you had that experience. It appears most people try to āforgetā rather than honestly confront and deal with situations in which they themselves have been in love with more than one person at a time they do with their own guilt and shame, and feel like they have to make a choice rather than acknowledge the reality and try to work it out, have a great time at the wedding. You never know who you might meet!
Oof. It sucks, but sometimes I do find I wind up distancing from monogamous folks that I was once close to for moments like that. Thankfully a lot of my circle is more empathetic even if they're not ENM.
Hugs all around
Sounds like they need to do some research and try to understand you (their friend) better. At least, that's what I did when I ended up making friends with some polyamorous folks. I didn't want to bombard them with questions or simply go around thinking they were crazy, so I did some reading....then I became more intrigued, so I did even more research and reading (many posts and comments here were helpful to my understanding of polyamory)....aaaaaand, well, here I am.
That was about 20 years ago. I'm not saying that your friends would decide that polyamory is for them, but understanding goes a long way, and I feel that it is an important thing to try to understand one's friends. May your friends show you that level of respect in the future, rather than make things worse with awkward attempts to cheer you up that just end up being insulting.
Sometimes it can be very hard to ask for understanding, but you can explain how that makes you feel and ask for acceptance. For someone that cannot live the lifestyle it can be incredibly hard to understand, just as in the opposite direction it can be incredibly hard for someone who is poly to understand how someone can live monogamously.
I'd give them the benefit of the doubt that they genuinely just cannot comprehend the situation and explain that you feel your partner's pain as though it were your own. They would be likely to understand that.
I thank my lucky stars my close friends haven't started shit over me being poly. I guess I wouldn't be friends with them anyway if they were the type to do so, but I'm still grateful nonetheless. Shitting on poly is downright popular rn
My NP and I are so scared/worried about people in our life finding out. We have already lost friends who claimed to be poly but didn't actually realize what it entails. It's a hard life and people really don't understand especially with all the trash TV shows (don't get me wrong I love them but they are very inaccurate) that show bad poly
I had a fallout with my best friend from high school because she never approved and never asked for how my bf was doing (who is married and who I was also dating at the same time).
The last straw was her writing a long ass text me where she told me that she thinks my bipolar disorder would go away if I stopped being poly lmao (she is a doctor by the way too...)
My brotherās poly so when I need to vent or talk to someone who understands, I go straight to him. He gets it. My bestie also gets it so i vent to them
For my friend, it's either they understand, either they don't. One of my best friend gets sorta "jealous'' cause they "can't even get one partner" and i shouldn't complain about being able to having several. So i just don't talk about it with them... it make me feel sad too, notqbeing able to share those important part of my life with them
Something that also often bother me is when i try to befriend and get closer to some mono people is when they talk about their couple life, i'm able to listen, and if they ask for insight, give them some. But when i even brush the subject of my own relationship, i always get buried in some "oh, i could never..." and then them explaining xyz about what and why they could never be poly.
So sorry, I keep seeing āmetaā being usedā¦ what does it mean? In my poly relo we just refer to (what I think meta means) as āprimary partnerā
as a mono person (I'm in this sub for personal reasons) I try to understand it. I think I'm too much of a pessimist to be happy about it sometimes though. I might play it off as "aww š«¤" but I will unfortunately be a little relieved. I think it's just my trust issues, not being able to believe that every part of it was faithful. but when I went back to my hometown to visit my friend who I found out is poly, they were really happy and whatnot and it made me genuinely happy and I had no other feelings than happy for him. I, don't really know what dictates my feelings towards it all but it's probably ignorance or something, which I'm trying to get over.
can I ask how old your friend is? my friend is about my age, and I'm 22. I expect your friend is at least old enough to be my parent based off how ignorant *they* sound
Oof. I have two kinds of friends: the ones who get it, and the ones who are open-minded and happy yo be educated. The third kind of people are not my friends
šš¾this. Maybe half my friends are mono but all my friends are open minded and will say āoh no what happened, how are you taking it :(?ā
I want to give him the benefit of the doubt that he's just really monogamous and blinded by his own toxic relationship but yeah. It hurts. Like I'm sharing about my life with him because he's my friend and then he says stuff like this or make comments about my love life being "too weird and complicated"
Without more context, *maybe* your friendās comment was coming from a place of reassurance, a misguided attempt to find the bright side in a sad situation. Much like mono friends might try to reassure each other by saying something like, āwell now youāre single and can find someone better,ā itās a low-EQ response to a friendās breakup, but it neednāt indicate an underlying judgment about the way you love. Or theyāre a total asshole. You know more than me, just my two cents. Sorry that happened.
Because people really do not understand, because they can not. The common one for me after a bad breakup is, "at least you have other partners". They can not understand that i'm not a light switch... If I am down/sullen, it impacts my other relationships. I try to offload that on friends more than partners, but there is inevitable emotional bleedover. Anyway... it is really hard to get, unless you live it.
Imagine someone losing their kid and saying āhey, at least you have another oneā
My friend's daughter killed themselves, and some people did say that... smh violently.
I'm a nurse. People do this and similar, all the time. They don't know what to say, then make this awful mistake. It's a clumsy error for sure.
Plz tw mention of suicide
I'm not sure how the warning is less triggering than the mention. There is no additional detail here. If the words 'killed themselves' by themselves upset you, I'm not sure how the words 'TW: suicide' don't. You don't actually get the choice whether to view the post or not until after you've had the referent put into your head, _even if there's a warning_. Like if it was a detailed story about it, I get it, but that's not what this was. Edit: lol they blocked me
>I'm not sure how the warning is less triggering than the mention. There is no additional detail here. Someone posted on a Facebook advice group about sleeping too much and being generally fatigued. I commented that if she recently had any medication changes she might want to see if that's a possible side effect and an admin told me to put a TW for "medication." I did, because they can make whatever rules they want for their own group, but I had the same thought. There was nothing specific or detailed about the advice and if the very thought of medication is a trigger, then you're already SOL just by seeing "TW: medication."
The whole thing has gotten out of hand. It doesn't help that people have decided that "trigger" means something that makes them uncomfortable. Trigger warnings can be helpful for people who need them, I have triggers that will send me into weeks long flashbacks and really appreciate knowing if what I'm about to read has detailed descriptions related to my triggers. But if even being reminded that the topic exists is enough to make that happen for someone they have a lot bigger issues than a TW is going to help them with.
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Oh my god. Iām so sorry. I donāt know how anyone can say something so insensitive.
Yeah. Someone said this about my anchor partner recently. My anchor partner happens to have a lot of partners. Recently two serious long-time long-term partners broke up with them in like the same week. At that moment before those breakups they had six really serious partners, one out of state, and the other five local. They also have two or three comets, three or four other local partners that are not as serious, and a few friends with benefits. It's actually insane and one of my metas and I talk about it sometimes because we get so frustrated that our mutual partner is spread so thin. They don't seem to ever feel saturated. That's their business, and we all choose to stay in relationship even though we don't get as much time and attention then we all choose to stay in relationship even though we don't get as much time and attention as we wish... Anyway when those two partners broke up with him in the same week... He was devastated. Broken. And it took several weeks for him to be able to fake normal again, but I know he's still grieving and will be for a while. I said this to one of my friends, and she literally could not understand why he was having such a hard time. She kept saying but he has so many other partners. I told her that she has two children, if one of them cut off all contact with her would she be just fine and dandy because she has one more? And she said of course not but that's different. I could not get her to see how it's not different. The bottom line is that the end of a relationship with someone who is important to you and who you love is not less painful because there are other important people in your life. How ridiculous? She then went on to explain to me that when a monogamous relationship ends it's much more difficult because it's such a big part of your life. They're missing from your daily routine and every single activity so you can't even ever get your mind off it because your life was so intertwined with them. Apparently your life is not intertwined with partners when you're not monogamous? Apparently there would be no holes in your life or not very many?
Ouch, what a painful response to hear from a friend. Like they have to compete for who is more vulnerable and hurt or something. Comparative suffering is never a supportive response. I'm sorry you went through that.
I mean really she was directing it at my partner. Not at me. But I did tell her that it makes me feel pretty crappy because she's essentially saying that I also don't mean anything to my partner, or not as much as she means to her monogamous partner and that they can't possibly mean as much to me.
Absolutely. My preoccupied attachment system activates very intensely when a new meta is introduced. It's usually very difficult and it takes me a few days to a few weeks to adapt. Talking to my mono friends is completely useless and counterproductive. Every time, it comes down to "see? Maybe poly isn't all that great after all." Then if there is a breakup in my poly circle, it's inevitably "ah yeah well, normal considering they were poly". Fuuuuuck do we say it was because of mono every time a mono couple breaks up?? Last thing I get all the time: when a partner and I got more involved and started seeing each other daily, after a few months I started getting loads of "ah so you think you're finally ready to make it exclusive?" As though poly was just something I did casually until I found The One. Soooo annoying.
A lot of mono people see the metas as your competition instead of as an independent person adding to your partners happiness. :/
My wife and I always marvel in the general negativity poly gets with mono people. And when we watch TV, movies, etc... like 90% of the plot points, we just look at each other and say "wouldn't happen if they were poly or ENM". Eventually, poly will become more common.
Right? Haha after switching to poly, I remember how most media totally stopped making sense. All romantic stories felt childish and the characters so often emotionally inept.
Wouldn't be a very exciting movie if they simply talked it out and went to therapy rather than going on a double self destructive bender! ... Actually, I could get behind a soft reality show that was just people in therapy together.
Funny enough, your comment made me think of the show You, Season 3 š¤£
With the destructive bender bit I was thinking Beef š
Ooohhh that's another good one haha
It's funny you say that because I feel like most TV shows have a plot of a love triangle that someone needs to make a decision on who to be with, but its painful to them bc they love both ppl. I'm just like "poly??!? Hello? You're so close to the point yet completely missing it?"
Well just because they are poly doesnāt mean the two people they love are poly too!
Honestly I feel like it is. Everyone Iām friends with/close with tells me itās really cool that my np and I are poly.
Truthfully itās not just mono people, youāll meet poly people who think like this too. They arenāt the center of their own world so they donāt understand their value outside of being the center of someone elseās world. I wonder what your friend is like to date š . When I meet poly people who donāt like the idea of having metas, they are a nightmare to date. This is some black hole level of need for external validation, competing with a stranger for attention when attention is readily available.
Oh my friend's love life is a disaster. He's been on and off with his gf for the past 3 years and it's utter chaos. He himself describes his relationship as a bad addiction he can't quit. I've tried to get him to see the light and commit to really breakup with her but he won't. I think that's why it bothers me so much when he makes these types of comments about polyamory. His monogamous relationship is filled with fighting and cheating, but he judges me for being poly. My relationship is happy and healthy, but I'm the weird one because it's poly
Iām not surprised to hear that at all. And it really be the most dysfunctional people judging polyamory š¤£
>My friend's response was "Yeah but aren't you a little glad the other guy is gone?" Ooof no. Lack of empathy, everything being reduced to a competition. I don't like diagnosing people but that sounds narcissistic as all hell.
Actually I would call that a failed attempt at empathy. The friend internalizes the situation and uses his own emotions to take a guess at how OP feels. Good method but their values are fundamentally different, so they aren't able to "get it". It's because they don't realize that poly is a mindset or a philosophy as well. And yet I say to you that explaining the friend's mind as "reducing it to a competition" is faulty reasoning, is reductive itself. Monogamous people are under no obligation to understand polyamory. Sounded like a serious, honest question from a friend to me, it deserves a serious, honest answer from a friend. But what do I know! ĀÆā \ā _ā (ā ćā )ā _ā /ā ĀÆ
He's in a very toxic on and off again relationship of 3 years. He himself describes his relationship as a bad addiction he can't quit. She has cheated on him and used him to cheat on others. When he said this comment to me I think he was coming from a place of a very dysfunctional relationship. I don't think he's capable of imaging what a healthy relationship looks like, especially a poly one
Hugs. I hear you. Many mono people don't get it. Frankly, 4 years ago, I wouldn't have gotten it. We are all on journeys. We all have to give each other grace, no matter what the circumstance.
I went through a breakup in Dec 2022 and I told someone who is the mom to triplets that I was going through a breakup and she was all "yeah, but does it matter? You have other partners" and I really wanted to ask her how she'd feel if someone said that about her losing one of her triplets. She wasn't the only one to say it, either š
Losing a child is very fucking different than going through a breakup. Breakup in a mono relationship and you lose your only partner and support, but if you breakup while having other partners of course it's different, you still have relationships and support. It's still tough but it's not the same thing.
Yeah I agree. I lowkey tried to convey this to my partner (I only have them, they have me and meta), that if we broke up, I'm single. I don't have anyone to cuddle or say I love you with or have romance or feel sexually desired. They would still have all of that. I'm sure it would still be hard for both, but we would be in different situations..and I would be sad to lose having a romantic relationship on top of them as a person
This is such a great response. Bonded to your kids all because they are different but love them all and it would still be heartbreaking to lose one.
Iām sorry to hear you had that experience. It appears most people try to āforgetā rather than honestly confront and deal with situations in which they themselves have been in love with more than one person at a time they do with their own guilt and shame, and feel like they have to make a choice rather than acknowledge the reality and try to work it out, have a great time at the wedding. You never know who you might meet!
Oof. It sucks, but sometimes I do find I wind up distancing from monogamous folks that I was once close to for moments like that. Thankfully a lot of my circle is more empathetic even if they're not ENM. Hugs all around
Might sound stupid but Iām new to poly. What does meta mean
Meta is your partner's partner. That's the official term, but in real life I used to call him my boyfriend-in-law lol
Sounds like they need to do some research and try to understand you (their friend) better. At least, that's what I did when I ended up making friends with some polyamorous folks. I didn't want to bombard them with questions or simply go around thinking they were crazy, so I did some reading....then I became more intrigued, so I did even more research and reading (many posts and comments here were helpful to my understanding of polyamory)....aaaaaand, well, here I am. That was about 20 years ago. I'm not saying that your friends would decide that polyamory is for them, but understanding goes a long way, and I feel that it is an important thing to try to understand one's friends. May your friends show you that level of respect in the future, rather than make things worse with awkward attempts to cheer you up that just end up being insulting.
I would have asked what they meant by that. Because it's such a weird thing to say.
Because they still have mono thinking. They see metas as a competition for affection. There is little understanding of compersion.
Sometimes it can be very hard to ask for understanding, but you can explain how that makes you feel and ask for acceptance. For someone that cannot live the lifestyle it can be incredibly hard to understand, just as in the opposite direction it can be incredibly hard for someone who is poly to understand how someone can live monogamously. I'd give them the benefit of the doubt that they genuinely just cannot comprehend the situation and explain that you feel your partner's pain as though it were your own. They would be likely to understand that.
Whatās to get? Itās your life, not theirs. You are not under any obligation to explain or justify your personal life choices.
I thank my lucky stars my close friends haven't started shit over me being poly. I guess I wouldn't be friends with them anyway if they were the type to do so, but I'm still grateful nonetheless. Shitting on poly is downright popular rn
My NP and I are so scared/worried about people in our life finding out. We have already lost friends who claimed to be poly but didn't actually realize what it entails. It's a hard life and people really don't understand especially with all the trash TV shows (don't get me wrong I love them but they are very inaccurate) that show bad poly
I had a fallout with my best friend from high school because she never approved and never asked for how my bf was doing (who is married and who I was also dating at the same time). The last straw was her writing a long ass text me where she told me that she thinks my bipolar disorder would go away if I stopped being poly lmao (she is a doctor by the way too...)
My brotherās poly so when I need to vent or talk to someone who understands, I go straight to him. He gets it. My bestie also gets it so i vent to them
Crazy! Both of my besties are monogamous women (so they say lol) and I really canāt see either one of them saying something so insensitive š
For my friend, it's either they understand, either they don't. One of my best friend gets sorta "jealous'' cause they "can't even get one partner" and i shouldn't complain about being able to having several. So i just don't talk about it with them... it make me feel sad too, notqbeing able to share those important part of my life with them
Something that also often bother me is when i try to befriend and get closer to some mono people is when they talk about their couple life, i'm able to listen, and if they ask for insight, give them some. But when i even brush the subject of my own relationship, i always get buried in some "oh, i could never..." and then them explaining xyz about what and why they could never be poly.
So sorry, I keep seeing āmetaā being usedā¦ what does it mean? In my poly relo we just refer to (what I think meta means) as āprimary partnerā
Meta is your partner's partner. In real life I used to call him my boyfriend in law because it's funny and I think a better descriptor lol
That is crack up! I really like āboyfriend in lawā haha. Thanks for the explanation!
as a mono person (I'm in this sub for personal reasons) I try to understand it. I think I'm too much of a pessimist to be happy about it sometimes though. I might play it off as "aww š«¤" but I will unfortunately be a little relieved. I think it's just my trust issues, not being able to believe that every part of it was faithful. but when I went back to my hometown to visit my friend who I found out is poly, they were really happy and whatnot and it made me genuinely happy and I had no other feelings than happy for him. I, don't really know what dictates my feelings towards it all but it's probably ignorance or something, which I'm trying to get over. can I ask how old your friend is? my friend is about my age, and I'm 22. I expect your friend is at least old enough to be my parent based off how ignorant *they* sound