I Don't Know What a Compersion Is But I'm Pretty Sure It Would Taste Good in a Sandwich

I’m knitting squares for a blanket. This is the easiest knitting project in history. They were doing it during the Mesozoic era. When you start knitting, you make squares. That’s Grade One of the Knitting Universe, but my squares were not bloody square. The top corners were round. The bottom corners were long. I had to gather a group of Emergency Fetlife Knitters to coach me on the many and varying ways to make a square… well… square. It’s taken me a month (no really) to adjust to suit my bad knitting habits.

This is obviously a metaphor because when isn’t it? If you didn’t know that, you need to go back to finishing school.

When I found Fetlife, it was hard to find monogamous people on the site. Alas, I was to be the last living heterosexual monogamist on the planet. Seven years later, it’s hard to find poly people on the site, as well. These days, everyone is doing a sophisticated thing I call “Building Their Own Relationships™”. Some couples are made of one monogamist and one poly person. Some are sexually poly but romantically monogamous. Some couples are made up of three poly types, none of whom are deemed worthy of romantic affection. Yes, a couple can be made of three. Just be quiet.

The perfect relationship is bespoke.

As a serial monogamist, I’m not qualified to write this post. I’ve only had one open relationship my whole life. I had a threesome with a boyfriend once, too. It was hot, but as a serial monogamist, I didn’t know the rules. I unwittingly broke two of them. I don’t know what a conpenction? Concrustion? Oh, yes, compersion is because if my boyfriend shags someone else, I will cry. But I do know that perfect squares aren’t easy to knit. You have to make room for your bad habits. You’ve got to find the right tools to make up for your weaknesses. You’ve got to shape the square one trick at a time. Sometimes you even have to get advice from strangers.

There’s no such thing as monogamy and poly, just as there’s no such thing as a perfect knitted square. You can only get the right results by adapting to your own unique quirks. You don’t need to know what a compersion is to know that. It’s the 21st century, so we now know a few other things:

Sex can be intimate even when it’s not exclusive.

Long-term commitment needn’t be monogamous.

A lot of monogamous relationships are less intimate than poly ones.

Intimacy matters more than exclusivity.

You can love someone without possessing them.

There’s no single relationship strategy for everyone.

H and I opened our relationship every now and then. We were constantly adjusting to find the perfect square as our relationship evolved. We had to adapt to my insecurity and his complete disinterest in women who were not me. We had to knit a lot of squares to get our perfect, right-angled shape because my poly isn’t your poly and that’s okay. In fact my poly isn’t even poly in the first place. It’s not particularly monogamous either, but I’ll be knitting this square differently in every relationship I have because you have to adapt every time you pick up new tools.

If your partner requires you to knit as polyamorously as they do, your square isn’t going to be square. Your technique will be adjusted to their weaknesses instead of yours. Just because a strategy works for them, doesn’t mean it's going to work for you. There’s no room for monogamy or polyamory these days. You have to make your own squares one relationship at a time.