The Big Why

Among all the questions I am asked when I disclose I'm poly, the one that I'm perhaps least prepared for is the Why. One syllable that opens a whole tanker of worms. Mononormative worms.

Brainstorming potential responses, the sharpest but least effective might be "Why are you monogamous?" It's philosophically defensible but can come across as simply defensive. Not to mention, lazy. It's likely to close down a conversation without really 'winning'. Winning means taking raw curiosity and refining it.

The only way to fully answer this question is to fully expand it. The expanded version goes: Why do you reject the ideal of The One: A single relationship that exclusively fulfils your sexual and deeper emotional needs?

You cannot explain why you are declining a particular relationship model without declaring what you understand to mean. The Why thereby turns into a What.

Since my 'kink is integrity', monogamy would mean truncating any relationship with anyone with whom I am sexually/romantically compatible way before it gets into a danger zone. Danger varies for different people, but it often involves meeting someone outside of a group-chaperoned context purely for the pleasure of their company. Extra red flags if you show some vulnerability or share some personal feelings.

And, separately, sexual monogamy means finding the things that you both like doing in bed and only doing that for the rest of your lives. If that doesn't work for you, you can bin the relationship (serial monogamy), suck it up (unhappy marriage), or cheat (infidelity).

Of these, serial monogamy – especially casual dating – is the socially acceptable workaround, so long as it's viewed as a trialling phase to find The One. It has the perk of potential continuous NRE surges but also fills your failure bin of exes. It's also an audition. You might be outstandingly interesting/funny/hot, but unless you tick boxes across the card, then you are blocking the space reserved for The One.

If I say that I like multiple people because of their distinct qualities and therefore want to maintain ongoing relationships with them, the response might be: this is what friends are for. What's the counter to that? Can men and women be close friends? How close can they be? I don't want to patrol the grey area noted above, between emotional and physical intimacy. Obviously, emotional intimacy can drive physical intimacy (and vice versa). And you can obviously have one without the other. When it comes down to it, I want meaningful connections to find their fullest, natural form. And monogamy doesn't allow that for me.

Why is non-monogamy so common? Cheating, even temptation? Why is it disapproved but widely accepted? Why are Love Triangles so common?

I posed ChatGPT the question of how well it worked for others. It picked on the love triangle as an anchor point and does it much better than I:

Right then—let’s put monogamy in the dock and call the love triangle as witness.

If monogamy were natural and inevitable, we’d expect:

People would “pair off” neatly and stay satisfied.

Attraction outside the dyad would be fleeting, ignorable noise.

Triangles would be rare glitches, not a universal cultural trope.

But instead, what do we see?

Every literature, every culture, every soap opera has love triangles. From Arthur–Guinevere–Lancelot to Bridget Jones, the theme is ancient and global.

They endure because audiences recognise themselves in them. It’s not exotic; it’s relatable.

And they create drama precisely because the “rules” of monogamy clash with the actual experience of multiple attachments.

So triangles are evidence of what I’d call overflow: love, lust, and attachment don’t fit neatly into one vessel. Like water in a too-small jug, they spill—into longing glances, guilty secrets, or tortured indecision. The narrative tension is not “can A love two people?” (clearly yes)—but “how can A do this while still calling themselves monogamous?”

That’s why they’re endlessly mined by storytellers: the dissonance between abundant feeling and restrictive structure is inherently dramatic. And why monogamy, as a model, depends on moralising (“you must choose”) rather than observing reality (“you clearly love two”).

To put it more provocatively:

Triangles aren’t outliers—they’re the cracks in the façade that show what’s underneath.

Their persistence across cultures and centuries suggests monogamy isn’t a seamless fit for human psychology, but a patchwork discipline we keep stitching over our messier instincts.

Now, triangles that don’t collapse into tragedy or betrayal—when all three find a way to coexist—quietly stop being “triangles” in the literary sense. They become polycules. But you’ll rarely see that on the big screen, because harmony makes for poor box office compared to forbidden longing.