Under the lights of an American comedy club
“I’m poly, and my boyfriend slept with another woman. But she said she likes me more. So I told her, ‘Great, you can sleep with me too.’”
The crowd roared. I should have roared with them. The laugh climbed my throat—then stalled, swallowed whole. Why?
Because the joke was my story. A story that had really happened.
I had lived it. Exactly like that.
Desire crouching behind the laughter
Even while practicing polyamory, I swayed. My deepest fear was becoming someone’s option, not their first choice—merely one name on a list of maybes. Taylor’s punch line landed because it was funny. But behind the laughter crouched a live terror: the hope that the other might still pick me. That hope was nastier than any fear. When I realized my longing to be “chosen” was, at heart, utterly possessive, I cried.
Calling yourself poly doesn’t vaporize the urge to own.
Juhee, Jaehyeok, and me
Juhee was a woman I introduced to Jaehyeok—his first “new connection” after we opened our relationship. A musical-theatre actress, she had moon-crescent eyes when she laughed. I knew this because I studied them.
“Were you with Juhee yesterday?” “Yeah. We walked the Han River, then hit a wine bar.” “Wine—sounds nice.” “You should’ve come along.”
I smiled, but the stem of my glass rattled. That night, after Jaehyeok fell asleep, I scrolled Juhee’s Instagram back three years. In one riverside photo, barely visible, were Jaehyeok’s sneakers—he had taken the shot.
Next afternoon I ran into Juhee. “I had such a great time with Jaehyeok yesterday. I wish you’d been there too.”
I said it was fine. My chest burned. She seemed to like me—genuinely. That made me more anxious. Why?
Because what I wanted wasn’t her affection; it was Jaehyeok’s deference.
Second story: Hyeji and Seungyeop
Hyeji was my own suggestion. At a poly mixer she met my eyes and held them; Seungyeop gave an easy thumbs-up. We dated for a month. Then Hyeji said she felt slighted.
“Oppa, are you really okay with me seeing Seungyeop?” “Of course. That’s what we agreed.” “But your face… it says otherwise.”
I fell silent. Truth: I wasn’t okay. The night she spent with him, I drank four beers alone and waited two hours in the street for his car to pull up. When they emerged, I ducked behind a wall. That night I cried alone—the poly advocate undone by poly itself.
The pull toward the forbidden
Why, in open relationships, does jealousy still throttle us? Why does the sight of a lover enjoying another tighten the chest?
Psychologists say humans dread uncertainty above all. Polyamory is uncertainty maxed out: no promise that the person beside you tonight will stay tomorrow, or won’t find someone “better.” Yet that very dread convinces us we are alive. The heat of jealousy, the chill of exclusion—these sensations anchor us to the present. Many who practice poly are, in truth, addicted to this emotional voltage.
Taylor Tomlinson’s joke kills because we try to transmute that dread into laughter, knowing full well the dread is what magnetizes us.
Whose priority were you?
If you are negotiating “poly” right now, ask yourself:
Can you truly bless every moment your partner shares with someone else?
Or do you simply hope to remain their number one?
And when will your tears turn into laughter—or will they stay, quietly glistening, forever?