What is a Polycule?
What is a Polycule? How Many People Need To Be In One? Do I Have to be Friends With Them? And What Happens When a Polycule Breaks Up?
When we begin our journey into polyamory, there is an awful lot to learn. And that includes a whole new vocabulary. You'll learn that, in the polyamorous community, certain words have different or alternative meanings. And then, there are the words that are completely new and barely known in monogamy.
And one of the words I had not heard before beginning this journey was "polycule".
So, let's take a moment to talk about polycules, what they are, and what it means to be part of one.
What is a Polycule?
A polycule is a group of people connected by their separate relationships.
If you are in a relationship with someone, they are your partner. Someone they are dating separately from you would be called your metamour (or meta), and someone you are dating separately from them would be your partner's metamour. The four of you together form your polycule.
How big is a Polycule?
Your polycule can be as big or as small as you want it to be.
A polycule can be no bigger than you, your partner, and your metamours. If you are part of a couple and only one of you is actively dating someone else, then that would be a polycule of just three people. If you are both dating one other person, that would be a polycule of four. So the more people you date, and if your metamours are also dating other people, your polycule can theoretically continue to grow indefinitely.
Is anyone dating a partner of my partner in my Polycule?
Exactly how big you consider your polycule to be is up to you.
Even if everyone you are dating is dating someone else, and those people are also dating other people, the people you consider part of "your" polycule is up to you. For most people, they only consider the people they know and have a closer relationship with as part of their polycule. Some, however, like to think of everyone connected through the web of relationships as part of theirs, even if they don't know them very well.
A term that is sometimes used to refer to the wider spread of connection is a "Galaxy". So, while you might not consider yourself having a personal relationship or connection with someone if you are aware there is a line of connection between you both through the people you are dating, you might consider them part of your polyamory galaxy.
Do I have to be close with my Polycule?
No. How friendly or intimate you are with the people in your polycule is entirely up to you. Just as you don't have to be close friends with your metamours, you are not obligated to have any sort of relationship with the members of your polycule.
Some polycules, those who lean more towards Kitchen Table Polyamory, will be very close. They might all hang out together, organising group dinners or outings. They might all arrange to live together as a single unit. Some polycules might also have a more fluid sexual relationship, happy to sleep with each other if the situation arises, even if they aren't actively dating.
But other people, those who lean more towards Parallel or Solo Polyamory, might have no interest in spending time with their polycule. It's perfectly acceptable to only want a close connection with your direct partners and to keep your metamours at more of a distance. Somebody can be part of your polycule even if you never plan to spend any time with them.
What Happens When a Polycule Falls Apart
Like any social group linked by multiple interconnected relationships, polycules come with the risk of emotional and practical tribulations. Because if one connection breaks, it can have a knock-on effect on the whole group.
In monogamy, breakups are contained between the two people in the relationship. But even then, there is the risk of friendship groups fracturing as people take sides or gravitate to whichever side of the couple they were closer to. Now imagine that, only with even stronger emotional, romantic, and sexual connections. When one part of a polycule breaks up, it can cause a ripple effect that impacts everyone. This raised questions about what sort of relationships the members of the polycule can have, especially if the breakup is acrimonious.
If you are someone with a loose polycule, this can be fairly easy to navigate, with you only really needing to support your partner while navigating the change in social dynamics. But if you have a close-knit polycule and have formed close personal friendships and connections with each other, a breakup within a polycule can create a massive disruption in people's lives.
Polycules, to me at least, are one of the unexpected benefits of polyamory. As I've discussed elsewhere, the best part of polyamory for me has been the friends I've made, and often, those connections have formed because they were dating one of my partners. And even though I might have become friends with someone independently, the fact of being part of a polycule together has forged something stronger that might not have existed before.
But that's just me. While this connection is something that polycules can offer, they don't have to mean anything to you beyond a recognition that these are people your partner is dating.
But at the end of the day, however you choose to connect and interact with your polycules, they are a wonderful reminder of the new ways that polyamory presents new and exciting opportunities for connecting to the wonderful community that polyamory creates around us as we build our relationships.
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