11 Questions People in Open Relationships Want You To Stop Asking

Chances are, if you have a friend who's polyamorous or in an open relationship, you're guilty of asking them a question they probably hear all too often. Maybe because it's a style of dating that isn't black-and-white monogamy, people in open relationships encounter a lot of curious folks who treat every poly or open person they meet like a brand spokesperson. Not only is this intrusive, but after a while, it gets a bit irritating. There are plenty of resources about open relationships and polyamory online for those who are curious to pour through.

Fielded from four people who are poly or in open relationships, here are the 11 most common questions they're asked — and want to stop answering.

1. "So you're just trying to have your cake and eat it too?" Or, in other words, doesn't polyamory seem selfish? Jase, a 34-year-old who runs the site Multiamory.com, said he feels polyamory and open relationships are less selfish than monogamy, because he's not keeping anyone to himself.

2. "Are you sure he's just not using you?" Torey, 27, said this is simply a "patently ridiculous" question that's also super sexist. "I think most folks assume the whole thing is my male partner's idea and I'm simply humoring him by acquiescing to some sort of iron-clad set of demands, which isn't at all the case," she said. "We came to this arrangement mutually and negotiate its boundaries as a unit."

3. "Are you actually in love?" Lucas, 29, said he's extremely sick of answering this question. The only answer he can truly muster is "...are you serious?"

4. "Don't you or your partner get jealous?" Matthew, 26, admitted that jealousy does sometimes come up, but that literally happens to all relationships — not just open ones. "There's even a word commonly used for the opposite of jealousy in the poly community, compersion," Matthew said. "Compersion is when seeing your partner with someone else makes you happy. I feel that a whole lot more often than I get jealous."

5. "So you just aren't ready to commit yet?" Jase said this question usually comes from someone who's trying to relate to him, but it actually has the opposite effect. "Most polyamorous people I know take their relationship commitments very seriously," he said. He added that it's common for there to be a lot of communication about relationship structure and commitment within polyamory and open relationships.

6. "Don't most open relationships fail?" Not only is this an incredibly rude question to ask anyone who's in a seemingly happy relationship, but also, a lot of relationships fail. Being open has nothing to do with it. "Statistically, so do most marriages, businesses, and governments," Torey said. "Where's your data? Not that it's at all relevant to my personal choices."

7. "How many partners do you have?" Jase said this question seems simple to those asking it, but can actually be hard to answer because the distinction between "parter" and "friend" isn't always clear-cut. "I have a partner who lives abroad and I only get to see once or twice a year when we visit," he said. "I also have a partner who I will cuddle with and kiss but we don't have sex."

8. "When do you think you guys are going to get serious?" According to Torey, this question almost always means, when are you going to close the relationship, as if only a monogamous relationship can be serious. "An open relationship doesn't constitute monogamy training wheels," she said. "If anything, it's a maturity BMX course."

9. "Does your partner have more partners than you?" Torey said asking this question is a good way to "get punched in the genitals." "Who cares?" she added. "It's not some sort of crew race with dicks."

10. "Were you born this way?" First off, this is a horribly rude question to ask anyone about anything. But Matthew referenced the book Sex at Dawn, and mentioned it makes a pretty strong case for the "monogamy isn't how humans are wired" argument that's made by a lot of psychologists who study relationships and sexuality. The idea, as explained by Christopher Ryan (the author of Sex at Dawn), is that humans didn't evolve to be sexually monogamous, but to have many partners over a lifetime.

11. "How will you explain it to your eventual kids?" First off, asking about someone's future children is extremely personal and a bit rude. "We don't actually plan on spawning, but if we did, we'd cross that bridge when we came to it," Torey said. "Also, what business is my sex life of anyone else's, including my children?"