I understand that some polyamorists may want to “come out” to various people in their lives for a variety of reasons. I introduced my very best friends (a monogamous married couple) to my poly boyfriend and his S.O. because I’m friends with them all and thought they would all enjoy one another’s company. I have no problem introducing my “poly friends” to my “regular friends,” and in fact have good motivation to do so because I would like to include them all in my social circle. They knew from the outset, of course, that I did not intend to date anyone exclusively after the breakup of my last monogamous relationship; being generally liberal folks they had no problem with my intent. ” I told them that my new boyfriend already has two girlfriends, and the girlfriends in turn have boyfriends (you know, so they didn’t think it was a conservative sort of poly arrangement). They took it in stride. Besides which, I’m close to my parents and there is a good deal of overlap with them in my social circle, and it was my own preference to let them know.

I didn’t imagine they would have a serious objection to my dating polyamorously, but I knew it was a little “outside the box,” and so I brought it up with caution, and only when pressed for more information about “the new guy I’m dating

Work is a completely different situation. My job is extremely people-oriented. It’s a sales profession wherein I deal very closely and regularly with long term clients. The persistent credo among our sales trainers is that clients should know as little as possible about our own personal lives Wie viel kostet die 6-monatige Eharmony-Mitgliedschaft?. There are even some people in my profession who would say that clients should not even know my marital status, whether I’m married or single, and if the latter, whether I have a boyfriend. If my clients aren’t even supposed to know that I have a boyfriend, they most certainly should not know if I have two. There is no reason for clients to know about my personal life and plenty of reasons for them not to know about my personal life. That is the primary reason for the mysterious photos on any overtly polyamorous online profile. I’ve even stumbled upon the profile of one of my clients on OkCupid, and I was happy and relieved that I did have the mysterious photos. Work is a realm of caution in all of our lives, and maintaining a balance of personal and professional at the work place is hard enough for the monogamous. I am leaving polyamory completely out of it.

I didn’t have to tell them, I could have kept up the ruse that my poly boyfriend is just another guy I’m dating, but that’s just exhausting keeping track of all the loose threads, who knows and who doesn’t

And yet, some people on OkCupid still don’t seem to buy it. I still get chewed out for having mysterious pictures. Imagine my surprise, then, to join FetLife and find that most people on the site have profile photos of something besides their faces. Many prominent members of their local poly and kink communities have recognizable photos, but otherwise, most profiles have pictures of a variety of things besides their faces. From random objects to stock bondage photos to anime characters to shots of naughty body parts that do not include the face, more than half of FetLife users have mysterious photos; the fact that mine are even of me make them downright revealing in comparison.