Relationship Anarchy/ENM

This phrase refers to the fact that, though crabs climb easily, the containers they’re kept in at stores can be left open: when one crab tries to get out, the others grab onto it and hold it back. The crabs monitor and restrain each other.

When I confessed, my friends were unfazed. I was relieved I didn’t scare them away, but forced to confront my own confusion: were my fantasies just fantasies? Did I want to date my friends after all? I didn’t think I did, but sexual desire without an explicitly romantic desire accompanying it still didn’t make sense to me. I needed to feel secure i

The affection we gave to each other felt markedly different than the affection we sought from boys, and I didn’t want it to be the same. We never worried that there was not enough to go around; our love and lust felt abundant, whereas male affection felt scarce and unattainable, something you had to win and then continue to work to retain. I never

Midway through sophomore year, my relationship with M fell apart, and I entered a prolonged episode of acute anxiety. My anxious thoughts again centered around my sexuality, and the potentially closeted nature of it. I had asked him once, desperately, “But what if I’m secretly attracted to all my friends?” He looked at me, bewildered: “You definite

That summer let me reveal something to myself, in full, that I had always known but been afraid of – the line between friend and lover is so thin so as to be barely there. I have always been someone who is made anxious and upset by arbitrary boundaries. I like to know why limits are drawn where they are; I need a reason. I see nothing wrong with ke

Queerness is located not just inside me but also interpersonally, in the dynamics I seek and feel seen by. I have stopped sleeping with my friends with as much frequency, but sexual desire is no longer feared or categorically denied in our relationships. I now live with my closest friends from childhood. We met at eleven, we were children together

The platonic/romantic binary is just as false as all the others. Admitting that has made my friendships richer and more truthful. Giving my friends pleasure felt pure, a more singular kind of giving than I had previously experienced, less fraught. When I sleep with men, I tend to do so the first time I go out with them; sometimes it turns into an o