n my 20th birthday, the first person I’d ever been in a long-term relationship with proposed to me. We’d been dating for almost three years. I said yes. Everyone we knew was shocked. Even at 20, I’d made it clear I wasn’t the type to believe in traditional relationships. I spent most of high school quoting Simone de Beauvoir when friends asked me for relationship advice. It turns out being pretentious is the most dangerous gateway to polyamory. When my partner proposed, he knew the deal. We were both queer, weirdos who were happy to explore. We had multiple discussions outlining our boundaries. We read books like Tristan Taormino’s Opening Up and thought we had our open relationship figured out. We agreed to be honest and share everything. We wouldn’t sleep with close friends. We could have emotional connections with our other partners, or it could just be sexual. As long as we were each other’s primaries, it didn’t matter. Sure, I thought most people who decided to get married at 20 were rushing into a mistake, but we were different. We had rules. Of course, we were not different. Two years after the proposal, we would break up after a number of rules were broken. Our shared copy of Opening Up was left in a Goodwill donation bin, despite the personal inscription from Taormino herself wishing us luck. Don’t let anyone convince you people in non-traditional relationships are more evolved or have things figured out. Freshly single, I started identifying as solo poly. Solo polyamorous people have no boyfriends, no wives or open marriages; no primary or secondary partners. Instead of using labels, the needs, rules and responsibilities of the relationship are agreed with each partner you have. To sum that up, basically, my relationship status is almost always: I’m seeing people, but I’m also single. The people I’m seeing know this. I’m also bisexual and date people across the gender spectrum. Alternative relationships have been around for forever. Over seven years, I’ve redefined my rules and expectations multiple times based on my needs as a queer black woman. At this point, it’s easy to spot the red flag the second someone thinks I might save their marriage or spice up their life. I stick to my rules and I don’t have to waste my time. In solo polyamory, I am mostly able to embrace my isolation. It’s hard to explain, but my favorite part of having eight partners is being alone. To others, me being a young, black woman identifying as solo poly seems the most shocking thing imaginable. People will diagnose insecurities, internalized traumas or a hyperactive sex drive as the source of my lifestyle. I couldn’t just be polyamorous because I am an adult who has made an informed decision. I get that it’s hard for people to believe: when men are so stupid, why would I want to date more than one? Dating as a queer person is hard enough, why add the Rubik’s cube-like difficulties of polyamory and scheduling to the mix? But being solo poly in quarantine has made it clearer how little those projections mean to my experience. Even though I’m forced to spend most of my time alone, I’d still rather be solo poly than partnered right now. It turns out, I just like the time to myself. It’s pretty difficult to use polyamory for sex when you can’t actually have sex or date. Quarantine revealed how appallingly lame and mundane my polyamory truly is. Wild sex? Drama? No. Efficiently scheduled video chats and phone calls? Absolutely. When the world was forced to isolate, I realized my real motivation for being poly. It’s not my single-parent upbringing or some dark tragedy I survived. It’s not an insatiable need for drama or outsider status. It is an absolutely boring love of rules.