By Konstantine Roccas

This past summer, I had the (mis)fortune of doing a journalism internship in Greece right as the country went straight down the tubes. It was chaotic and mesmerizing all at once.

Internship experience aside, during the twilight days of my journey I was ‘Tindering ’ (no shame), and got matched with a girl who had bought a one-way ticket out of Los Angeles to explore the world after the suffocating walls of LA had become too much for her to bear.

Now at this point, this sounds like many other women who are travelling the world and the beginning of a story of a shitty one-night stand but this story is actually one of education, adventure, and more.

You see apart from being a model, actress, writer, podcast host, relationship coach, and more, this girl was polyamorous. You know, those people who most people incorrectly label as sexual deviants who use their sexual identity as an excuse for sleeping with as many people as possible.

The odd part is that I had no recollection of swiping right on her. It must have been a result of the shitty WiFi I was working on at the time, but when I was matched with her I had no recollection of having swiped, so when checking her profile I was quite surprised to see her openly disclose her choice to identify as poly. 

Even more surprising, was that she actually messaged me first. As lazy as the concept of Tinder inherently is, 80 percent of the time I would say that it is on the onus of the male party to initiate a conversation. And no, ‘dick pics’ don’t count gentlemen.

Even more surprising was that there was actual substance behind our discussion. She asked me about my internship and the ins and outs of journalism in a country that barely functions while I asked her about polyamory and the various pitfalls that I imagined a lot of poly relationships face.

As our Tinder conversations turned into full-blown dates and adventures around Greece for two weeks, I learned a lot about the poly community as well as what it means to be poly.

I, like many, considered it more of a sexual practice as opposed to organic, healthy relationships so I was pleasantly surprised to hear her talk about the nonsexual aspects of polyamory. After all, as great as sex is, it only occupies a very small portion of your day even if you’re a porn star.

Most importantly was the issue of jealousy. As I tried to wrap my head around the vastness of the poly term, I kept coming back to jealousy. After all, if you’re dating and fucking multiple partners, how do you possibly prevent those creeping feelings of insecurity and doubt rise to the surface while trying to build a healthy relationship outside of the bedroom?

The solution was oddly simple. Jealousy is a human emotion and can rear its head at any moment, so to her, it was an opportunity to examine what was triggering this deep-seated fear and essentially providing an access point to start healing and undoing negative thought patterns. By tapping this, you can be vulnerable with your partners and build healthier relationships all around.

Another topic I breached was the issue of time. Any of us who has been in any sort of relationship, monogamous or not, realizes what a time sink a significant other is. The notion of maintaining your work-life balance with multiple partners sounded like more trouble than it was worth, even if you got the added bonus of sleeping with multiple partners.

Miss. Winston, as I called her, told me that this was probably the biggest challenge in poly relationships and that Google calendar was your best friend. Essentially, you need to be a scheduling wizard and be willing to work around changing schedules of multiple people and recognize that things won’t always work out.

Now this was a terrifying concept for someone who sometimes leans toward the lazy side of the productivity spectrum, but the reasoning and structure was likewise impressive for someone who prefers to float around like a cloud.

Aside from these mechanical questions on the practice of polyamory, I was most impressed with Miss. Winston’s high level of intelligence and emotional maturity.

As I got to know her better, I soon realized that her many relationships had contributed to her growth as a person. From my interactions with her, I got a sketch of her other partners as well and in a way, she took the best part of her experiences with each and absorbed it into her own identity.

She often told me that, "Love is infinite," and argued that it isn’t a resource in limited supply. Now this made sense in a strictly logical matter and also helped illuminate the quagmire that is polyamorous relationships. I couldn’t really argue that love was limited in supply and I couldn’t honestly argue that she was doing herself a disservice by giving that love to multiple partners.

Mechanical discussions aside, I also learned one final truth about polyamory. The concept itself, at least in a modern context, is still in its infancy. There aren’t rules or regulations that are followed by everyone in the poly community and many have different interpretations on the subject. In short, there is little agreement within the community itself with what constitutes poly.

Some poly relationships are strictly polyfidelitous which means that aside from your partners, you don’t sleep with people outside your defined relationships. Others are open, though some people in the poly community don’t consider a monogamous couple who engage in swinging technically poly.

Having written all that, polyamory isn’t perfect. As Miss. Winston pointed out, polyamory isn’t for everybody. It requires a level of maturity, organizational skills, and openness both with yourself and your partners that many people simply do not have in adequate supply. A problem with one partner can easily snowball to impact another partner if not dealt with quickly.

At the end of my journey in Greece, I was left to ponder my interactions with Miss. Winston and by extension the concept of polyamory. For all the pitfalls involved, there is a lot to like about it. The sex is great due to being involved with a variety of partners for whom you care deeply; you experience a level of personal growth that you wouldn’t necessarily receive in a monogamous relationship; and finally you get to act on emotions for other people in a healthy manner that you may suppress in a classical monogamous relationship.

All in all, I learned a lot about the poly community through Miss. Winston and I came out of it with a deeper understanding of the concept of polyamory beyond the sex.

Being poly should not be something you hide and it should not have a negative stigma attached to it. It’s simply a different way of navigating relationships and human emotion and that is perfectly OK.