Growing up, I always heard about how one day I’d find “the one” — but even at a young age, the concept of only having one love of my life seemed odd to me. In life, we are bound to meet so many people, many of whom we will eventually fall in love with — but what is the point of repeatedly falling in love just to end things in hopes of finding the right (singular) person? It never made sense to me. I always wondered why we couldn’t have loves of our lives, people we loved deeply at the same time.
Dating always felt like I was incapable of following the rules and expectations that were inexplicably set for me. While the relationships I was in never straight-up told me we were supposed to be monogamous and a closed relationship, I knew that’s what my partner (and society) expected of me. So when I’d catch feelings for other people, I felt like I was doing something wrong — like I was breaking some kind of rule. It always felt like I was binding myself to something I knew wasn’t right for me, like I was trying to put myself into a box I knew I’d never fit.
That being said, I always knew I had the ability to hold multiple special romantic people in my heart at a time. Despite this, I never had the words to articulate it. That is, until the summer before junior year of high school.
Back in 2022, I was dating a girl named Caroline* for about two years when I met a boy named Sean*. Throughout the season, Sean and I grew closer, and eventually, the lines between platonic and romantic feelings began to blur. I realized that my love for Caroline and fondness for Sean didn’t compete; in fact, they coexisted. This confused me — was this possible? Was it OK? Was there something wrong with me?
I felt like there was something wrong with the way I experienced love for others, like me having feelings for multiple people at the same time was a flaw of mine — like it wasn’t right or OK.
I ended up talking to Caroline about it. I told her that I had feelings for Sean and that I didn’t know what to do. After tons of conversation and discussion, she let me try to be with her and Sean at the same time, with the condition that we’d communicate and be honest with each other. However, it didn’t work out; to be fair, sixteen-year-olds don’t exactly have the emotional capacity or tools to navigate an open relationship properly. Though it didn’t work out, I realized something important about myself: the way I wanted to experience relationships wasn’t “normal,” but the arrangement felt right in a way I didn’t know how to explain.
With this realization came a lot of emotions. On one hand, I was somewhat happy that I had figured out what felt right to me. But on the other hand, I felt ashamed and confused. Nobody else I knew felt the way I did, and I thought the way I felt wasn’t normal. I felt like there was something wrong with the way I experienced love for others, like me having feelings for multiple people at the same time was a flaw of mine — like it wasn’t right or OK. I hoped that it was something that changed with time and something that would change as I matured. I ended up just attributing what I felt to me being an indecisive teenage girl with commitment issues.
But then, I talked to my therapist about it. At the time, I didn’t have the words for what I was feeling or what happened. I just told her about the arrangement and how I was slowly realizing that I had the ability — and wanted to — be able to love multiple people and have several romantic connections at the same time. I expected to be told that I was greedy, that I should just be normal. However, I wasn’t met with judgment or skepticism like I feared I would be.
She said it made sense. I had always been a person with big emotions and even bigger emotional needs, so it made sense that I needed more than one person. She also told me that there was nothing wrong with me for this, and that there were labels for what I possibly was.
Something that I had been ashamed of for so long and wanted to change so badly became something that made sense to me, something I was allowed to embrace and accept about myself.
Knowing that there were labels for how I felt brought me a lot of comfort. I started to realize that I wasn’t the only one who felt this way about love, and I felt better knowing that I wasn’t the only one who felt this way.
Eventually, I stumbled across polyamory content on social media. I began to see and hear stories from people who shared similar experiences and feelings to mine, and found out that this was called being “polyamorous.” I also saw people being in happy, healthy, ethically nonmonogamous relationships, and that’s when I realized it was OK to want to experience relationships the way I did. It was OK to be this way; there wasn’t anything wrong with me — I was polyamorous.
The pieces began to fall in place, and suddenly I realized I didn’t have to put myself into a box that I couldn’t fit. I realized that there wasn’t anything wrong with the way I loved — it was just different from how other people loved. Something that I had been ashamed of for so long and wanted to change so badly became something that made sense to me, something I was allowed to embrace and accept about myself.
I came out as polyamorous, officially, in the summer of 2025, and ever since then, I no longer feel like I have to hide a major part of myself and be someone I’m not in order to please society or the people around me. I’m so lucky to have amazing friends, family, and the sweetest girlfriend to support me and accept me as I am.
Three years later, I’ve come to realize that love is something without limits. There’s no right or wrong way to do it, and all ways of loving are beautiful. Realizing that the way I love is not a flaw has changed the way I experience loving others — and myself.
*Names have been changed