On Love: Being Poly Has Ruined Love Songs
A conversation with my boyfriends after a SAD day, and now I need investors for my TV series
I originally published this story on Medium on Dec 26, 2023.
Have you noticed that being poly makes like 87% of all love songs completely irrelevant?
I posted this question in a group chat with my boyfriends after having a sad day, and not being able to find any relevant love songs, it spiraled from there, and now I need investors for my TV series.
Generally, I can stretch ideas and concepts to make them relevant to my life. I do that all the time with information written for monogamous people. I feel the same way about spirituality. I’ve studied religions like a nerd, and I find them all fascinating. I can usually take what I need out of it and find something useful.
I also tend to have a soundtrack playing in my mind at any given time to go with my life. I often wish real life would be more like a musical - where people would break into song and dance to reflect the particular emotion I am feeling at that moment. I do love to dance.
It’s been that kind of day. I’ve listened to a lot of love songs recently and I’ve realized how much I don’t relate to most of them anymore. My 13-year-old self is a little sad to say this — as she is quite the romantic.
There are some songs where a single verse or the chorus gets close. I’m singing loudly in the car, feeling the love, and then suddenly someone has cheated and a perfectly good pickup truck is being destroyed in a jealous rage. Don’t get me wrong — I’m still singing along because it’s catchy and not personally relatable, but it seems a little extreme to me.
I’m not a musician and writing a polyamorous love song would not be my gift to the world. I could try…
“You’re not the only one I run too, and I don’t think humans actually belong to other humans, but I still love you…
even more so I trust you - so baby, let’s talk it through…
Oh, IDEA! I could (badly) do a remix of a few songs and add it later to this post. I have learned just enough about audio mixing from my co-parent and voiceover classes to make it tolerable to hear. I also just learned about a website called Songfinch (while listening to the Multiamory podcast) where I can actually hire a real songwriter to help me record and release a poly love song on Spotify and such and now I’m going to need some $$$ to make this happen.
>>> Stand by. As soon as I make enough money off this article to pay the SongFinch artist, I will post the link here. <<<<
Side Note - Please post links in the comments to poly-ish music that already exist.
So…. I mention all this in our group chat.
Bullfriend Jack immediately agrees, saying it is the same with TV shows.
We want “Poly Friends” (updated for 2023 — cause no one I know has a nice apartment in NYC).
“Modern Poly Family”. “How I Met Your CoParent”. “Schitts Poly Creek”.
Anchor DaddyG and Bullfriend Jack are totally in agreement with this pitch.
I would watch a kitchen table poly sitcom with character growth — There is sex of course, but it’s implied. If your 10-year-old walked in the room and saw it they wouldn’t get it — maybe, and it at least it wouldn’t be completely awkward. You can watch the show with your 16-year-old and use it to talk about relationships and stuff. A bunch of kitchen table-style poly 30 to 40-year-olds trying to navigate parenting, dating, and shared Google calendars, and save enough money to get that communal property — finally. It’s funny and the drama is there, and it’s not like most monogamous people might imagine.
Ok, plot twist. Anchor DaddyG is now trying to claim that “Friends” pretty much is poly life.
“Joey slept with more than one of the girls and they all stayed friends.”
“Phoebe was probably poly and Paul Rudd seems like he’d be down for that since they got married in the end.”
“It was as close as poly could be on TV in the 90's? At least from the straight people's perspective.”
“Maybe.”
Seriously though — now I want to create a legit polyamorous sitcom with real-world, everyday bullshit. Poly problems are a lot more boring than many people imagine. It’s a lot of communication and choosing to be mature in my responses — while on the inside I want to throw a bratty tantrum because I’m bored and all my partners are being responsible and shit. I am really practicing my DBT skills tonight (Distraction Activity: Finally set up medium blog).
I’m getting really into thinking about this TV series now…
It has to have polyplots. (Yes, I said it. I’m hilarious.) Lots of characters. Schitts Creek + Gilmore Girls Gone Poly — with a touch of Good Witch for magical fun because this is my show.
Every episode needs a more comedic conflict that gets resolved in a single episode (Story of the Week, Plot A) while maintaining ongoing conflict across multiple episodes for deep character development (Subplot, serial element, B Plot).
Example of basic single-episode conflict for my character: Both of my boyfriends are too busy to come to kill the sparrow that my poor cat has been torturing for the last 30 minutes inside my tiny house, and I just can’t bring myself to finish it off. So, finally, I have to walk across the yard to the main house and ask my metamour’s cousin who’s randomly staying with us to do it. To solve the problem, he decides to shoot this tiny sparrow twice with a 22 pistol (cause that is a totally normal thing to do, right?). The episode ends with my boyfriends having a conversation over whether a pitchfork, a shovel, or a handgun is the most reasonable way to get rid of the sparrow when I go to them looking for sympathy after my very traumatic day.
Next, ongoing conflict for my character across multiple episodes: dealing with monogamous, well-meaning loved ones who are concerned I’ve potioned all these peeps into being poly — such as attempting to convince my cousin that my relationship is legit — and that Anchor DaddyG truly does not feel emasculated when Bullfriend Jack fixes the non-functioning door handles on my car because I got it for really cheap.
I’m nailing this pilot, y’all.
Anchor DaddyG and Bullfriend Jack may have stopped paying attention to me at this point, but are completely supportive of my work.
If anyone knows Amy Sherman-Palladino — send this to her so I can pitch this and she can make it magical like the wordwitch she is.
Thinking about all this, I suppose being polyamorous has ruined a lot of rom-coms for me, along with the love songs. Most of the conflicts just leave me thinking:
“You know — if people were honest and if that person just decided to be polyamorous, none of this would be a problem — of course, without destroying the entire rom-com industry. I don’t want that. Monogamous people can still have their rom-com love triangles. I just would like more variety in my romcoms.
It’s something I’ve thought about more as I’ve gotten older and am now 6 years into polyamorous life.
Like in “Love Actually”. Kira Knightly and those two bros could have all shacked up together and lived poly-ever-after-ish. Happily-ever-after isn’t a thing, even in polyland.
Here in “Poly Love Actually” — playing inside my head right now- she’s just kissed him and now she is saying:
“This is great because we are actually polyamorous. We just didn’t know how to tell you because we thought you didn’t like me. Now, we can start dating, and after a reasonable amount of time and much communication, we can look for a flat big enough for all of us.”
Reasonably healthy examples of poly life in films would not be quite as romantic with its dialogue I suppose. In the real world, it’s really fun if everyone is willing to try to communicate. I think that’s likely true for life in general.
I would help with a poly version of Love Actually if anyone wants in. It’s almost there, sort of if you are counting the male-ideal version of it with all MPD girls in Wisconsin, which I would totally rewrite with some femdom kink in there. The silhouette in the window shot would be way more interesting.
FYI: If anyone reads this and tries to do this movie without me, you are making a huge mistake, I promise. It’s going to suck without me on the writing team. Just saying.
I will say that the one movie with Jennifer Aniston wanting the dude to help her do the dishes is still relevant though, right up until the part about the ballet. If they were poly she could just find a different guy who likes the ballet to go with while the other dude stays home happily playing the video game.
No one in Polyland wants to do the dishes either. However, more people to help do the dishes means spending less time doing the dishes and doing other more fun stuff.
Bullfriend Jack just said he’s going to bed and Anchor DaddyG is watching nature reels. They love me and completely support my vision and think I am pretty.
I suppose it’s time to wrap this up before you too, Dear Reader, tell me that while you adore me, you can no longer listen to me trying to sing a poly love song.
If any of you want to add your ideas for poly remakes of songs, shows or films in the comments, I completely support you. I can’t promise I won’t use them in my awesome PolyStudios Productions someday though.
All the Love!
Trish
-TS Wild