This is something I have been thinking about for a while. I have this huge grievance with the poly community, but I don't want to come off as saying that I don't think polyamory is real & that it doesn't actually work for some people. Maybe "community" is not the right word. I think you'll understand what I'm getting at.

Jealousy. many times I thought I was entering a poly space with a poly person, there has been so much jealousy. Most of the issues that I see posted on this forum are about... jealously. And the advice that people give for this....work through it. It's like telling someone that they just need to acquire the taste by waiting it out, until they can get over their basic response to the situation. To me, I always thought that a basic response is the response I pay most attention to when I decide what kind of things I want. Sometimes it feels like the poly community is full of people who want polyamory to be true for them, like it's a position they are taking, but not one that they naturally feel? If you were naturally polyamorous, I don't genuinely think that you would feel as distraught as how so many people feel when their partner spends time with another partner.

The argument from there seems to go... I am poly but I feel upset because society has conditioned me to be possessive. It's an infallible argument. I mean, who's to say where 'you' begin and where societies impact on you begins? No one can.

I'm on this forum because I somewhat identify with the label. I'm still exploring it and I won't conceal that from you. Jealousy is a natural human emotion and it's to be expected (within reason) many times in life. But there are certain levels of anxiety that I think a lot of people are not paying enough attention to because they are desiring and outcome, not experiencing. Almost like, the idea of monogamy has been decided ahead of time to be the wrong position to take, even though I read what some people express (or hear, when taking to people in person) and it seems so clear to me that their problems would be solved if they found a person who would be monogamous with them. Their anxieties don't seem unhealthy, they just seem to point towards a person who needs one partner in an exclusive relationship. They don't sound clingy, damaged by a society hell bent on making people aggressively attached. They just sound...like they aren't poly. This is my opinion.

Have we just decided that monogamy is by default, unhealthy and wrong? I feel that a lot of people in this community clearly express signs of not being poly. Even I thought that for a while and it became almost political to decide that monogamy isn't natural. Lots of monogamous relationships fail and I do think that it is sometimes attributed to the fact that non-monogamous people are choosing what's been laid out for them, and inevitably not able to live up to it.

I just hate reading advice that tells people to wait until they feel different. if I don't like it now, and it's not enjoyable now, why would I not just go to something else that I do actually like? What's with this virtue of acquiring a taste? Feels like jealousy is being normalized even still in the exact relationships that people say are superior because of the fact that there will be less jealously because of the fact that its the most natural option. It doesn't always seem so natural.

And again I'm not trying to hate or invalidate anyone on here. I want people to be in relationships where they feel comfortable because the relationship is a reflection of what they truly need, and not based on what other people tell them that they need. I know for myself and for a lot of people, an exclusive relationship is not what we need. but I also know that the opposite it true; it feels like, if that's who you are, a lot of people are more likely to say you are "conditioned" to feel that way and should rather try to override the feelings you have than to re-explore monogamy...for your own happiness.

Thoughts?