Dating and App Culture: Options, Acronyms, and WTF is Compersion?

Romance has gone through a big operating system update recently. Now that Erin’s been released from captivity (aka her long marriage), she’s giving us a highly subjective, hopefully handy survival guide to this new, evolved ecosystem of love. But in order to redefine our beliefs around love, romance and dating, we’ll first have to define some terms. It’s easy to get tangled in the wires of all this new-age romance, especially when there’s all this new, at times nerdy terminology that goes with it (WTF is a polycule?). Open your notebooks, everyone, because today we’ll be giving you lessons such as:

1. The 411 on dating apps: which ones are right for you, depending on your wants and needs
2. What it means that people are questioning monogamy–now that partnerships are lasting longer than ever
3. What it’s like to begin that process of unlearning implicit biases around relationship structures and opening your belief system to consider options other than monogamy
4. How people in unconventional relationships may be using layers of language to intellectualize something that’s likely to be very challenging emotionally
5. There’s not just one way of being, anyone can re-assess and re-define what they think about love and monogamy at any time–and you can do that too!
6. When it comes to love and desire, all bets are off. It’s a choose your own adventure life now, and it’s time to make the most of yours

Here’s an index of terms we discuss in this episode, for reference:

GGG: “Good Giving and Game.” Someone who is good in bed, committed to giving equal pleasure, and is up for anything

ENM/CNM: Ethical/Consensual Non-Monogamy. People who want to be/sleep with multiple people at a time, but don’t want to be dishonest about it.

Polyamory: The practice of engaging in multiple romantic (and typically sexual) relationships, with the consent of all the people involved.

Primary/nesting Partner: The partner you are most committed/attached to in a polyamorous relationship. If they are your “nesting partner,” that means you live with them.

NRE: “New Relationship Energy.” That feeling in a new relationship when you’re deeply infatuated with someone and it’s borderline obsessive

Compersion: Experiencing or feeling joy for your partner when they are excited about a new relationship or turned on by a new sexual thing they’re experiencing with someone other than you

Polycule: A group of three or more people in a relationship together

Unicorn: A third party sexual partner that you and your partner bring in to your sexual and/or romantic relationship

Relationship escalator: A relationship that builds upwards towards linear goals (ie. moving in together, having children, etc)

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