The first time I worked up the courage to talk about open relationships with strangers was when I was in Turkey, of all places, on a business trip.
While I was doing research for a travel guide in the relatively modern town of Antalya, I met a very kind local couple who invited me to dinner. They were both the same age as me, in their late 20s or early 30s. The man, I’ll call him Nazim because I don’t remember his name, was Turkish. However, his wife was an American from Los Angeles. She said locals always assumed she was Turkish because she had creamy brown skin and black hair.
For example, someone asks her a question on the street, but their words cannot be deciphered. She could only smile awkwardly and shrug her shoulders. Although she lived in Antalya for a year or two, she was not at all embarrassed by the fact that she could not even connect sentences in the local language. There was an innocence about her that was incredibly appealing, especially to a foreigner who had made her home in such an obscure and unknown part of the Islamic world.
During dinner, our conversation naturally turned to relationships. That was no problem for me at all. Just a few months ago, I had started dating a girl who was involved in an open relationship. So by default, I think our relationship became open. This is still very new to me and lately I’ve found myself coming up with excuses to brag about it.
But here in Türkiye it was different. After all, the Nazims were Muslims, not a group known for their liberal beliefs. My new girlfriend still remembers what I was thinking before blurting out that she knew and was perfectly happy with me sleeping with other women from time to time. I was thinking, “This is not good. Please stop.”
But I simply love pushing the proverbial envelope.
I always have it. She had read an interview with Drew Barrymore in a magazine where she said that her life was so boring that making fun of her people had become something of a hobby for her. I was there. I certainly couldn’t relate to her lifestyle then, and I certainly can’t relate to her now, but I knew exactly what she meant. Because I often feel that way too. “I love to make fun of people,” especially people whose buttons are easy to push. For example, a deeply religious person with little or no sense of humor.
So I took a deep breath and started telling my story. Nazim’s eyes grew wider. He was entranced. But his wife had a look that I’ve probably seen a hundred times before, from a hundred different women. It read, “I thought you were different, but you are just like any other man.”
In the end, I ended the story. Nazim glanced at his wife. Then he looked at me and said: “That sounds perfect! Who can I sleep with?” The look on his face was priceless. He looked like a little kid in a toy store. As if he had never thought of this concept of non-monogamy before, as if it had never crossed his mind.
“No, no, no,” the wife shook her head back and forth, pursed her lips and looked at her husband. “We’re not going to do anything like that.” And she looked at me as if to say, “Thank you so much, bastard.” But Nazim was still smiling and staring dreamily into space. This didn’t go the way I expected. I decided to backpedal.
“Well…” I said, looking directly at Nazim. “It’s not like I’m running around sleeping with everyone, because there are rules.”
Nazim’s forehead began to wrinkle. He didn’t seem happy with how things had turned out. So I said: “For one thing, we’re not allowed to fall in love. If we sleep with someone else, it’s supposed to be just a fling. It’s a one-time thing. We can do it.” Try not to get emotionally attached to it, and if you do, you must break it off immediately. ”
Nazim was now listening intently, his mouth slightly open.
“And there are no secrets allowed. If you have plans to go on a date, you have to tell her about it. And if the date ends up being intimate, I don’t want her to know what’s next. I have to tell you,” I said. That too. ” Nazim nodded slowly. He was transfixed. I decided to go for the kill. “And,” I told him, “I have to use protective equipment all the time. Always. Carrie said that if I slept with someone and I didn’t use protective equipment, she would never be with me again. Told.”
At this point, both Nazim and his wife appeared to be in a state of semi-shock.
Nazim quickly changed the subject, which may have been wise. His wife was thrusting her fork into the dinner plate so hard that the tongs almost broke. Then Nazim said something that made me question the very nature of my open relationship, which up until then I had only considered revolutionary. “I don’t think it’s a very open relationship,” he said. “With all the rules and everything.”
I was speechless.
After that night, it was clear that none of us wanted to bring up the topic again. A few days later, Nazim’s wife asked me if I wanted to come over for drinks sometime.
I was helpless. For the next few days, Nazim wasn’t home when I stopped by and his wife was excited to hear about my open relationship and didn’t arrange everything because she wanted me to do it. Or so she fantasized. seduce her. But of course it wasn’t. She let me drink about half a dozen beers, and the three of us ended up spending the evening sitting around the dining room table, talking and looking through old photo albums.
I never had a chance to talk about the complex rules and regulations of an open relationship with Nazim.
I couldn’t explain to him that if there were no rules, and no two people’s will to abide by them and respect each other, the alternative relationship would simply self-destruct. It would be anarchy of relationships. What’s more, the word “rules” probably doesn’t most accurately describe the guidelines that Carrie and I should follow. Because the rules are certainly allowed to be bent, assuming the situation requires it.
In some cases, the rules may be broken. And sometimes that’s okay too. After all, every encounter is different from the previous one, so with that in mind, all romantic and intimate encounters should probably be judged independently of each other.
So Carrie and I decided to share some rules of our own. By the way, if you’ve talked to your partner about opening up your relationship or want to open up, the following tips might be a good excuse to discuss it.
However, keep in mind that these are just some of the open relationship rules that we have found to be the most sensible in our relationships. Yours will probably be somewhat different. But whatever you decide, it’s very important to remember that a non-monogamous relationship will never work if you don’t seriously respect each other.
“everyone [in an open relationship] There is at least one rule,” journalist and educator Tristan Taormino said in a phone interview. Mr. Taormino writes the Village Voice column “Pucker Up” and is the author of several books. Open Your Heart: A Guide to Building and Maintaining Open Relationships.
Here are three simple rules to make our open relationships work smoothly.
1. Honesty is (usually) the best policy
This is probably the most important of all our rules, and it’s also one that my fiancée, Carrie, has always struggled to enact in past alternative arrangements. This is the only rule you should always keep in mind, and what it means is: don’t lie. Be open and honest with your partner about what makes you feel anxious.
Tell your major partner what you are most afraid to say to him. Because if he can’t respect the thoughts that occur in your mind, no matter how strange or socially deviant it may seem, then it’s unlikely that he will understand or tolerate your wayward behavior. There is no possibility that you can do it. And it goes without saying that you shouldn’t be with someone who laughs at your fantasies.
“When your non-monogamous friends say they don’t have rules, they’re full of trash. They might not say it out loud, but there are rules, and that’s the great thing,” Taormino says. To tell. Regarding non-monogamy: All this stuff is being discussed and out in the open. There are no assumptions. ”
2. Discuss the date beforehand
This is not a rule I can necessarily recommend for all open couples, but it works well for us. If one of you is planning a date, the idea is to keep that information secret. We discuss it first, preferably long before it happens.
The purpose is to keep jealousy at bay. And of course, the more you learn personal details about your partner’s one-night stand, the more you’ll realize how similar that person is likely to be to other people, and to yourself. However, this rule may not be practical in some cases. Assuming you met someone at a bar and chose to go home together that night, it’s probably not a good idea to text your girlfriend the details.
Through his research for Opening Up, Taormino met many couples with unusual rules. But no matter how strange your behavior may seem, the key is communication. For example, in Taormino I met many couples who would not allow anyone but themselves into their marital bed. “It’s kind of symbolic and literal,” she said. “It’s their bed and I’m not going to sleep with anyone else. But the others were like, ‘Whatever. I’ll sleep in the guest room.'”
3. It’s always the best when we all meet.
This is probably my favorite rule, although it’s just an extension of the previous rule. The general idea is to keep things friendly and make sure everyone knows who is doing what with whom and why. Carrie and I have practiced this rule in the past when going out for drinks with girls we were interested in. And there are hidden benefits. When three progressive girlfriends drink beer together, sparks sometimes fly in unexpected directions. average.
Dan Eldridge is a Lonely Planet guidebook writer and author of “ moon handbook pittsburgh He is also the publisher of Young Pioneers, a magazine about creative entrepreneurs. His work has been published in the Houston Chronicle, Miami Herald, Toronto Sun, Paste, and Seattle Magazine.