Polyamory requires a different level of trust for it to operate properly, straight up and down.
Monogamous dating can seem like a high-pressure job interview where the applicant for intimacy is scrutinized, analyzed, and focus-group tested by a secret committee of friends and family, and the person seeking partnership is under the microscope of hope because of their admirable intentions to make a connection. But generally, (and for GOOD REASON, let it be known it must be said) women are suspicious and cautious of random suitors, pick-up artists, and typical day-to-day sex hounds looking for a bone. This is not polyamory and it’s not even healthy relationship building. It’s just hookup culture at work and play, nothing more or less. Not to judge it at all, but to engage in low-energy-investment relationships simply requires a different blueprint for one’s trust matrix to function. Some people, if they are going for a quickie in a nightclub bathroom, only need to trust that the condom is on (or maybe that their contraceptives still function… or not), and trust the scenario enough that they are not going to be physically harmed or violated by the end of the experience. This may be able to be considered “fragmented polyamory” or “micro-poly”, if “pseudo-polyamory“, take your pick. It can consist of extremely short term relations that only provide and require the most basic amounts of trust for them to proceed forward.
But, to expand one’s long-term polyamorous web of lovers to connect hearts and souls and body parts requires a whole other amount of trust energy to be inherently locked into one’s fundamental foundation of love and faith. Each person has their own process of extending and spreading their spirit in the intention of connecting a polyamorous existence together with other poly folks, but one thing they all probably have in common, is an untraditional amount of TRUST that the person they are beginning to bring into the bosom of their beautiful joy family is not going to hurt them, exploit them, disrespect them, or cause destruction to the other poly partners in the process. It may start off with the exact same amount of trust one has for the nameless hot bod they just magically made a sexual story come to life with, but once you continue speaking, once you continue caring, once you continue the connection… it requires trust to carry the relationship to deeper, higher, happier, darker, and more truthful places.
I like to say trust is the bucket that carries the gold of Love.
The bigger the bucket, the more you can hold in it.
And some people’s trust bucket is so small, they can’t even hold one golden bar of Love in it.
The trust bucket is empty. And then how rich do you think their lives will feel?
Not being able to trust anyone is quite an impoverished state of emotion to exist in, I do believe…
And whether you are trusting an anonymous person to not tear off the condom and just get the superhot fuck session over and done with, or you’re trusting someone that they are on functional, healthy, consistent birth control so your long-term relationship plans to have tons of unprotected sex together will not cause unplanned childbirth… there is no future without trust.
So, to the polyamorous massive out there, the question I’d like to ask you is: has your trust capacity expanded since you became polyamorous?
And to the monogamous massive out there, the question I’d like to ask you is: do you feel like monogamy limits your capacity to trust others?
I trust you will tell yourself the truth, and us too, if you so feel inclined to share your thoughts about trust below!
Trust me, I will read them and reply with honesty and joy.
Sincerely yours truly,
Addi Stewart
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