Online Dating as a Relationship Anarchist

Full Transcript:

Hi, I’m Kale! Today I want to talk about my experience online dating as a relationship anarchist.

I started using online dating around the same time that I became non-monogamous, but before I was a relationship anarchist.

I found it pretty easy to find poly people to meet up with.

I did notice a trend pretty quickly, that a lot of the poly folks I met were in hierarchical poly relationships, and looking for a secondary, which wasn’t the case for me.

That secondary position they were looking for ranged from something casual to something meaningful, but still always as a secondary.

People I met were usually in a couple, who lived together, spent most of their time together, and seemed emotionally invested in each other first.

A phrase I heard more than a few times was ‘looking for someone to have fun with’.

There didn’t seem to be much space for a new person to come in, and if there was, it was in a very specific way.

Then when I did meet someone, and they asked What are you looking for? I felt like they hoped I would say ‘An awesome second place in someone’s life!’.

I didn’t really know what I was looking for, but I knew it wasn’t that.

I never knew what to write on my profile, other than a long list of No’s:

-no monogamy

-no hierarchies

-no expectations

-but also no a casual flings.

I ended up closing my profile, because it seemed too hard to find someone who was looking for the same thing as me.

I kept it closed as I started exploring relationship anarchy, which was a lot about figuring out what did work for me.

Now when I do have my profile open, I am very straightforward about being a relationship anarchist.

I find it gets to the heart of what I want in my life more than writing ‘non-monogamy’ ever did.

So if you’re new to online dating, how do you build a profile?

I suggest being straight up about your situation and relationship style. It might be good to put those things at the top, some people even use bullet points to explain what they are about and what they are looking for.

It might be scary to be brutally honest about these things.

There is a chance you might shrink the potential pool of people sending you messages.

Or you might get people who think your relationship style automatically means you’re looking for more random sex.

On the other hand, hiding your situation or your relationship style won’t really help anything in the long term.

People like to know what they are getting into, and are more likely to stick around if they know things from the beginning, rather than having them sprung on them later.

Once you’ve got your profile done, what about going on dates?

In some ways relationship anarchy goes against the basic premise of dating.

The expectations of dates can be very goal oriented. The idea is you’ll meet someone, there will be chemistry, attraction, you’ll hook up, it’ll go from there. If not, move along.

RA might not look like traditional dating, but it can offer more opportunities to form connections with people.

For example, what if you meet someone awesome that you click with, but there is no physical chemistry?

Before when I was dating, I felt like I had to end things if there wasn’t an immediate romantic connection.

Now that I’m looking for any kind of connection, there is more chances to meet some cool people.

I don’t have expectations that there needs to be sparks, just hopes that there is some interesting conversation.

Since each relationship is it’s own thing, it has space to be that.

All in all, I would say coming out as RA has improved my online dating adventure, and I’ve had a lot more chances to make different kinds of connections with people.

What tips do you have for online dating? If you want to talk more about relationship anarchy and online dating, join our Facebook group or post in the comments down below, and follow me on Twitter. Thanks for watching, bye!