It was around 5 years ago when I worked in a hilly town. Alia, 24, was my coworker. Someone said she was dating two boys, but I didn’t believe him. However, one day, while having our lunch in the office canteen, she accepted she was in love with two boys, and both of them were her equally loved ones. She knew I was a part-time story writer, so she told me everything frankly. The special thing was that both Alia’s boyfriends knew each other and were comfortable with such a relationship.
Now the question is, can a person love two people at the same time?
Alia answered in the affirmative, "Yes, I am in love with two, and this relationship I am in is called a polyamorous relationship, and the practice of such relationships is known as polyamory. My boyfriends and I don’t see any problem with this."
I looked at her suspiciously.
She further added, "Now people all over the world are coming out openly about such relationships."
I asked, "Really! What is ‘polyamorous relationship‘?"
As Alia told me, "Polyamory comprises two words from Greek and Latin. Poly and Amor is a combination of two words. Poly means many, or more love. The practise of loving more than one person at the same time.
I was looking at her face in amazement as I saw no hesitation on her face.
Alia was speaking in a flow, "One of the biggest and most important conditions of polyamory is honesty and transparency in relationships, every partner involved in this relationship knows each other very well, and only after everyone’s consent does the relationship move forward."
The story of Alia and her lover, in her own words, "I was around 13-14 years old when I fell in love for the first time. We were both happy with each other. Everything was going well, and that’s when I started getting attracted to someone else. But, I did not want to leave my first partner either."
I was still curious. "But how was it possible that a girl could have two boyfriends at the same time?"
"The teenage years were very confusing and painful for me. I was going through a serious ‘identity crisis." Many of my acquaintances even gave me the tag of ‘characterless". Many said that I was habitual of meeting with different boys and that I should go to a psychiatrist."
She didn’t stop here but continued, "I also went to the counselor. My counsellor understood me to a great extent, but at the same time said that how can a guy accept his girlfriend has many more boyfriends? The counselor’s words once again filled me with guilt."
This story almost follows a classic didactic form. You explore an idea, a philosophy, in depth so that at the end readers have been schooled in that point of view. The strength of your story lies in your ability to engage the reader in a kind of dialogue, an argument, about the merits of Alia's argument. Whether Alia is correct, or immoral, or characterless is beyond the purpose of your story. Your story explores an issue and leaves the reader to puzzle over the merits of this argument. Well done.
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Interesting take on the prompt. Some societies are more accepting of such relationships, and others frown upon it. I think that communication can be a problem in a polyamorous relationship, but from what I've heard, the biggest problem is jealousy. It always leads to destabilization of the relationship when the partners begin to compete with one another for affection.
I think of the challenges of such relationship is acceptance.
Although can one truely love two people at the same time?I've never really thought of this concept before.
A big part of relationships is intimacy and I can understand why many people would not be comfortable with sharing their partners.
Thanks for this insight, a great story.