Meeting the Metas

Photo by Heber Vazquez on Pexels

There are various approaches to metamour relationships in the non-monogamous dimension. Some folks prefer to never interact with their partners’ partners in an arrangement known as parallel polyamory where folks are aware of each other’s existence in a mutual partner’s life but one or more of them has decided they do not want contact. In other set-ups, metamours have a lot of interaction and many form strong friendships. Regardless of the structure, the odds of meeting someone your partner dates is pretty high, especially if that relationship grows over time.

Getting to know your partner’s other partners can be beneficial in a number of ways:

• Meeting someone in person goes a long way towards alleviating the compulsion to compare yourself to someone who can seem perfect in the absence of evidence to the contrary (not that you should be looking for the defects for Pete’s sake! You know what I’m getting at here . . . )
• You’re a quality human, so chances are pretty good your partner finds themselves smitten with another quality human. Can you really have too many quality humans in your life?
• Ganging up on your partner in playful ways is such a rewarding pastime.
• Over time, metamours can develop into a solid support system.
• Collaboration is useful when it comes to ensuring you’re not getting your mutual partner the same gift or you want to go halfsies on a big ticket item for them.
• Special occasions and social gatherings become much more comfortable affairs when everyone knows each other.
• If you’re running low on empathy for this other person, knowing them as a fellow human being and not just an abstract concept can help you get back into that charitable head space. When I’m feeling like I wish a meta didn’t exist, I make myself do something nice for them. (Dear metas: no, this does not mean that when I do nice things for you I wish you didn’t exist lol, I’m just saying . . . sometimes when I’m feeling less than charitable, I force it and I’m never sorry.)
• Sometimes it’s just nice to know who the other important people in your partner’s life are! 

When one of my partner’s needed surgery last year, his wife and I were both at his side in the hospital and I sent updates to his long distance partner each step of the way. It felt like I was part of a support team while our important person went through something painful and it felt good to have others present who I knew cared as much as I did.

That’s all well and good, of course . . . but what’s a good way to meet this person, and what if you’re anxious or have other concerns?

Look: most of us live in societies that have told us our whole lives we should be competing for the love and affection of a single individual, and that territorial feelings are a sign of devotion. Maybe they are, I don’t know – I don’t like how they feel in my body, so I let that guide how I think of them; they feel gross and I don’t want to feel that way. On the flip side, I abhor being “fought over” and viewed as property by folks who vie for my finite resources against each other. YUCK. 

Are you having feelings that make you feel gross? Super normal. The other person probably is, too. And if they’re not? Perhaps they’ll become an ally you can turn to for support as you work on letting go of yours. 

As with most first impressions, being yourself is the best possible approach. One or both of you could be nervous, but nothing says you have to be friends or even like each other. And hey, that actually bears repeating: you do not have to be friends. If you’re going into meeting someone under pressure like that, you’re doomed to fail. 

Here are some other things to watch out for:

• If your relationship with your partner is contingent upon being approved of by their established partner(s), this is not a carefree meeting of equals: it’s an interview, and you don’t have to put yourself through that. 
• If all of a sudden meeting your new interest’s established partner is presented as a “package deal” relationship where you must date both of them or neither of them, run. Just . . . I shouldn’t even have to tell you this is fucked up. This is BAD, m’kay? These are bad people. 
• If meeting your partner’s established partner turns into a seminar on what you can and cannot do with your mutual partner, then this is a bad-news situation and you probably want no part of it. Advocate for your relationship as a separate entity and if that’s unacceptable, chalk this up to a bullet dodged and don’t look back; you’re nobody’s doormat, I don’t care HOW good the sex is.

Even actively avoiding all of these things won’t necessarily mean you avoid an established-couple trap. Sneakearchy is rampant, and while the person you’re meeting might not have veto power per se, their influence over their partner might as well be. This is not said to scare you, it’s just a thing you need to be aware of because the failure in those situations is not yours, it’s your partner’s failure to honor their autonomy in the face of fear. You can’t fix that in someone else, but be gentle with yourself if you end up bruised by someone else’s shortcomings. It just happens sometimes. Challenging the dominant narrative is hard and not everyone shows up well all the time.

So what are some tips to have this meeting go well? Lucky you! I have some!

• Make sure you both want to! It sounds so simple, but if one of you has no desire to meet the other, then don’t. No one should feel pressured to interact with anyone else for any reason. I used to harbor this deep need to meet everyone my partners dated because I thought that knowing them would help me feel safe. Over time I completely changed my mind and now prefer not to meet until my partner deems them a significant part of their life. And if I’m the casual partner in this scenario? I likely won’t meet any of my metas, and that’s fine! 
• Meet somewhere neutral, like a restaurant or coffee shop as opposed to someone’s home. It can be really intimidating to meet someone’s established partner for the first time in the home they share together.
• Leave your partner behind. Wait, what? You read that right. You don’t need a chaperone and neither do they. There are so many things that can go sideways in a three-way meet up I’m not going to bother to lay them all out here, but suffice to say the majority of anxiety newly minted metas might be feeling can be avoided by cutting out the mutual partner. Shit, they’re probably more anxious than either of you anyway.
• Be yourself. I know I said it before, but please . . . do that most of all.

I am a very guarded person, but I feel a lot of affection for the people in my partners’ lives who bring them happiness. I haven’t met even half of the people my partners have dated over the years, but I know they’re good people and they care about someone I care about. We don’t need to be friends, but we can be if it works out, and letting that work itself out organically is the best possible route to harmony.

Photo by Ioana Cristiana on Unsplash

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