Nichole: Laurel, can you do your um, Pump him up, exercises again.

Laurel: Yeah, there

you go.

Daniel: I'm going to narrate this at home for our listeners. These are the same arms that Kermit the frog does

Laurel: I feel like this is a Rock'em Sock'em robot.

Nichole: Yes.

Laurel: Yeah.

Daniel: Yeah. Daniel's going to pretend he knows what we're talking about. I know a Rock'em Sock'em robot. That was before all of our times. Was it? Yeah. , Rock'em Sock'em robot, started in like the seventies. Really?

Nichole: Maybe.

Daniel: Pause for Rock'em Sock'em robot research.

Song: Talkin bout love and sex and power, All our polyamateur hour.

Nichole: Do you want to know the debut date?

Laurel: For Rock'em Sock'em?

Nichole: Yeah.

Laurel: Yeah.

Laurel: Is Daniel wrong?

Nichole: We're all wrong.

Laurel: Oh, shit.

Daniel: 1876.

Daniel: It was the Rock'em Sock'em Automaton. Yeah. Of the World's Fair. 1964.

Nichole: 1964.

Daniel: Yeah, so I was most right. I was

Nichole: most correct. I was most right.

Laurel: I

Daniel: was least wrong.

Laurel: I bid one dollar, Bob.

Daniel: Is this the merch that we should really start out with is like, , polyamateur puppets, right? Of some form or another. Maybe we need boxing puppets. That's a,

Laurel: That's a good idea. Cause I don't know if either of you seen this like internet sketch where it's it's like, Oh, my roommates they're all conflict avoidant and the only way they can do it is with puppets.

Laurel: So there's this whole scene of like a person walking through the house and it's just like people passive aggressively talking to each other through Muppet. Oh my god. So maybe This is how you resolve your polydrama.

Daniel: Oh my god, I just had a wave of fear that our, our new relationship therapist is gonna make us do this. Use puppets. She had like this weird keychain like, of, um,

Laurel: I should have brought it for you, Nicole.

Laurel: What? Relationship

Daniel: skills. Yeah,

Laurel: it's like, um, when you put together like flashcards for yourself for school, and they're on like the index card, And then there's a hole punched in it and then like a little key ring put through it and it's like, like a keychain of therapeutic skills.

Nichole: Is there a function to them? Like you choose one a day?

Laurel: It's just

Laurel: like, Oh, your go to catalog if you're struggling or whatever but it's inconsistent thematically. Like

Laurel: the last 10 cards are just like different hotlines you can call.

Daniel: couple of examples of ones that we randomly like turned to last night after we got home from the sex club was Turtling

Daniel: Excuse me.

Laurel: I was like, turtle. And you're like, what's that? And I was like, when you poop a little bit.

Daniel: you're feeling a little stressed, just sit on the toilet for a while, like Laurel does, door open, and let, let the turd just, just Just poke its little nose out.

Daniel: I hate this. I

Nichole: hate

Laurel: this. This is rude. This is a rude. I hate

Daniel: Okay, turtling in S context was actually just take care of yourself in many ways, like turtles do. I

Nichole: was like, what? Famously, the most self care advocate animal on earth, right? Like turtles, just like, they know how to do a spa day, they have their therapist on speed dial.

Nichole: What the fuck does that mean?

Laurel: I don't know.

Daniel: Honestly, Turtle seems like a really bad example for like how to take care of yourself.

Daniel: One. Okay. Just go into your shell and like shut your little world up.

Laurel: You're just saying that cause you don't like my self care technique, which is to turtle inside of my shell. Stop pretending like it's not therapeutically sound.

Daniel: Turtles also, well I guess taking things really slow, that's good.

Laurel: Listen,

Daniel: I Eating a mostly vegetarian diet.

Laurel: I think of turtles like, basking on a log in a botanical garden. And that sounds pretty fucking great.

Nichole: Yeah, Yeah, that's a good one.

Laurel: What was the other self care technique? There was one that was like Like remember RAIN. That it exists?

Laurel: Is an acronym. I can't remember what the first three letters stand for. , It, you know, it's like RESILIENCE.

Laurel: You don't remember RAIN. I don't, yeah, I don't remember.

Laurel: All I remember the last one is,

Laurel: not assuming this is forever or something. what? Yeah! It was just the first letter was not and then a whole sentence after it.

Laurel: Wow. And I just think an acronym doesn't really work if one of the letters has to be an entire sentence. Correct.

Daniel: Yeah.

Laurel: Yeah.

Laurel: Yeah, there was just something a little lacking in

Laurel: these, these

Laurel: index

Nichole: cards.

Laurel: But we got some of grandma's well water.

Nichole: Was that on the cards?

Laurel: No, that was just something our therapist provided pro bono for our case. Excuse me?

Laurel: We got there and they had like they had just run out to their car and grabbed a jug of water, like one of those whatever, two liter things of water and let us know that it was from their grandmother's well.

Nichole: And

Daniel: it was labeled. It was a big jar that said With a sticky note on it.

Daniel: That said, Grandma's Well Water. And I'm surprised that we didn't ask more questions.

Laurel: Okay. We weren't there to ask questions. We were

Nichole: there

Laurel: to answer.

Nichole: For bad behavior. You two were making allusions to grandma's well water earlier today. And I just decided to ignore it. Thinking that it was some kind of allegory that the therapist like, took you through.

Nichole: Of like, Don't

forget grandma's well water. She's so wise that she built this well and for generations,

Nichole: return to the source. I'm like, what does that have to do with your relationship?

Laurel: No, it was literally grandma's well water. And she made us tea with it.

Daniel: Maybe it is just a really like long game of a object lesson.

Laurel: It's not really from their grandmother's well. You guys have

been drinking tap

Laurel: the

Daniel: whole

Laurel: time. Much like your

Daniel: relationship.

Daniel: This is why curiosity

Laurel: is good. Stop making assumptions about each other, you idiots.

Nichole: Oh, I like this therapist thing

Daniel: you do. Surprise, you all have giardia. Damn it. Welcome to Polyamateur

Nichole: Hour. I'm Nicole.

Laurel: I'm Laurel. I'm Daniel.

Nichole: What is our first segment today?

Laurel: I want to do Is This Polly first. Great.

Song: Is this Polly or not?

Laurel: I want to jump into it because we just watched the remaining four episodes of the first season of Love Off The Grid.

Laurel: We only watched the quote unquote poly couple.

Nichole: We did.

Daniel: Yeah.

Nichole: We did. We did. So

Daniel: Last time on Is This Polly? Love Off The Grid Edition. We left Joe and Myesha on their Homestead. Under construction in Alabama.

Yeah.

Daniel: And they were just beginning to, one look forward to the coerced Wedding on Joe's part, Joe does not want to get married. He just wants. to be his own pastor and priest and cult leader. But Maisha is quote, boss, bitch, quote, queen bee, . Um, So they're getting married and two, we left off with them planning to basically like audition another partner to come live with them.

Daniel: On this homestead.

Clip: We're looking for someone to jump off this cliff with us, to build this property up to everything that we know it can be. Someone we can get along with, working, playing, playing and playing.

Nichole: Yes so we get into the fourth episode of the season with Mia coming to visit the homestead

and Mia

Nichole: Seems a little young to me a little impressionable And she describes her relationship as dating both Joe and Myesha.

Clip: My name is Mia, and I'm dating Joe and Myesha. Joe's bringing me out to the property for the first time today, and I'm equally excited and nervous. being in a potluck relationship because I feel like I have a lot of myself to give. I'm a very big lover. So, being able to split my time between two different people is, I like it.

Laurel: Like Mia does seem young, but also she sort of talks with like a little bit of a baby voice. And I didn't know if that just made her seem even younger.

Nichole: She was wearing one of those Those chokers! The like From the 90s. Yes! So

Nichole: the woven plastic necklaces that just like cling to your neck. Yeah. And everyone wore them in the nineties. Yeah. Yeah. Like

Laurel: they expand to fit over your head and then it's like a Chinese finger trap for your

Daniel: neck.

Daniel: Oh, I remember them. Maybe that's why I found Mia kind of like attractive is cause it like, Um, immediately put me back in, like, the, the time when I went and got french fries with the hot goth girl.

Daniel: Um, you know. At the

Laurel: mall.

Daniel: Yeah.

Laurel: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Checks out.

Daniel: She was also the one that I went to a, uh, a Diamanda Gloss concert with.

Nichole: A what?

Daniel: She is like an experimental goth shrieker and pianist,



Laurel: is like shrieking is that actually like a

Daniel: genre, sub

Laurel: genre of goth?

Daniel: I have no other way of describing.

Laurel: Okay. I don't know, but if I asked. A goth, ask a

Nichole: goth.

Laurel: This week on ask a goth. It's

Daniel: operatic shrieking. .

Laurel: If you're a goth, please write to us.

Laurel: I'm afraid we're going to gloss over something very important. Oh, yes. Which is at the very beginning when they bring Mia onto the property, and then talking about the livestock that they're going to have.

Laurel: And Mia asks, are we going to name the cows? And Maisha goes, no, cause then we can't slaughter them. And then Mia says,

Clip: but I want one to be Melissa.

Laurel: and that was the most relatable thing on the show.

Nichole: That was also her contribution. That was her,

Laurel: yeah.

Nichole: Steading.

Nichole: So they're on the homestead and they're, the task is to deworm the goats, which involves grabbing the goat by the head and placing the deworming syringe full of deworming formula or whatever into their mouth.

Laurel: It's like giving a cat a pill. Yeah. Like you just got to shoot it down their throat.

Nichole: Basically like Joe has to convince both of them to help him, because it's a two person job. And Myesha is like, which one are you gonna take?

Nichole: And Mia says, I'm not gonna do it. I'm just not gonna do it. And we get the one dramatic cutaway in the course of three episodes. And a musical sting of Myesha going like, huh?

Clip: I think Mia only does what she wants to do, and on the homestead, you gotta do things that you don't wanna do.

Daniel: this is the first instance of like some side comments.

Daniel: Cause they, they keep cutting away for like annotation from Myesha for the most part. It's all this stuff where she's like positioning poly lifestyle as having all these abstract expectations built in, but she's really just talking about her own fucking madcap structure that she wants to impose on it, where she's like, you know, you know, you can't come out here and not want to deworm a goat and say that you're poly.

Clip: The poly lifestyle is not just about sex for me. It's about community, having sustainability, having people to all come together and help each other out.

Clip: Like, at the end of the day, Anybody that comes into my relationship at this point, you need to be able to pull your own weight. You gotta have something that you bring to the table.

Nichole: And at the same time positioning herself in the hierarchy, right? And imposing a hierarchy. And so toward the end of the episode, after Mia doesn't help here Maisha spends quite a long time telling us about how she is the queen and anyone who comes into this situation has to know that she's the queen and they have to treat her like a queen

Daniel: And not treat her like an equal.

Clip: Joe and I, we are the head of the relationship. He's the king, I'm the queen. And it's With Mia, I don't think she looks at me as like her queen or the person that's over her. I think she looks at me more just like I'm her equal and I'm like, no bitch, I'm not.

Daniel: The degree to which she was asserting hierarchy was staggering to me. That it felt like she was actually saying that she wanted a, Maybe a clear 24 7 BDSM sub DOM relationship but it was, none of it was stated explicitly in those terms.

Daniel: She acted like it was just all Common knowledge or just the assumption that's how it should be. I was like, I kept expecting it to get more abstract, like into their fucking cult. And like, well, you know, you can't say that you're Polly and not be down to be like human furniture.

Daniel: I can't believe, I mean, she says she's Polly, but like, is she down for bloodletting?

Clip: But you know how many bitches say they're poly and they're not, though? Oh, that's why we do it on a trial basis.

Laurel: There's even a point where Joe is trying to like explain to Myesha that maybe she can't be so picky about people's physical appearance. Like Joe's basically saying, listen, we're going to have to date some uggos here.

Laurel: Cause like we're already narrowing our pool to like, People who are, consider themselves polyamorous, and people who are interested in homesteading. Our dating pool is pretty small.

Daniel: You're dating for free labor.

Laurel: Yes, and Maisha's like, fuck that, like only hotties, which like, you guys gotta check out Joe, man.

Laurel: Hooooooey.

Daniel: I described Joe as having a golem body type.

Nichole: Yeah. It didn't help that he was squatting in a creek at one point.

Laurel: Biting into a raw fish.

Nichole: So Joe and Myesha attempt to have a conversation later Like over a fire.

Nichole: Basically Joe's like, so what do you think went wrong with Mia?

Nichole: In one of the interstitials, the direct to camera interviews. She talks about how poly relationships can go sideways real fast. Yes. So communication is super important, but you make one mistake

Clip: Poly relationships are not easy. They're hard, and you can go from having, like, a great one to a horrible one just with one mistake.

Nichole: , it was so wild to me because I, yeah, obviously communication is very important, but the idea that there's like a minefield out there, that's like if you stayed. You're just

going to stumble onto. Yeah.

Nichole: And again, arbitrary rules that like, you don't know that you're breaking.

Laurel: That was the other thing where like in, yeah, in one of Maisha's direct to camera things, she's like,

Clip: When you enter into a poly relationship, any rules are laid out up front.

Laurel: Like, one, that that's a given, two, she seemed to imply that there were, like, Like golden rules that were like

Daniel: universal

Nichole: written down somewhere.

Nichole: Yeah.

Nichole: Yeah. And

Daniel: you don't mix, you don't mix platinum Paisley. Um, no, no white shoes after labor day. Um,

Laurel: But it seemed like, it seemed like my show was queen was like one of the rules, like we should all know. In every polyamorous relationship, Maisha is queen.

Regardless if she's in that relationship or

Nichole: not. So in our relationship, Maisha is queen.

Laurel: But I'm trying to imagine how she wanted to be treated.

Nichole: I can't. I can't imagine that.

Daniel: I don't think that there's a like, acceptable situation or an acceptable way that Mia could have acted. That would have made her okay.

Laurel: Yeah, that's fair.

Daniel: There was such a wide scope of things that Myesha was upset about She was upset that Mia was not willing to be free laborer on second date on their homestead. Um, she was, following Joe around too much. She wasn't giving them enough alone time.

Laurel: Yeah.

Nichole: The rest of the vignettes that we saw was just them talking about their fucking wedding and then Having a little like ceremony on their property. Whatever whatever like

Daniel: but the ceremony so so this non Legal, but I guess spiritually acceptable ceremony for both of them he sets up some tiki torches. Come back to that. And a little, like, a

Laurel: blanket with some fairy lights. Yeah.

Daniel: Yeah. And then, Wakes her up from a nap and then is like, hey, I just set this up for you so we can do some vows.

Laurel: Yep. , my impression of it was like, Oh come to this cute little thing, like I have a little surprise for you. And then he starts like sort of, professing his love in the way that he does, and then she just starts repeating phrases back to him.

Clip: You are the missing piece that I need to make this dream a reality, and I vow to you that I am everything that I said I am.

Clip: I vow to you that I'm everything that I said I am as well. You don't have to repeat after me, but I like that. That does work.

Laurel: And he's like, you don't need to do that, but I guess you can.

It was

Laurel: so

Daniel: uncomfortable. It was really uncomfortable.

Laurel: Like, what did he say? Like, I want to, I want to raise your strong children or something and then she's like, I want to raise your strong children.

Nichole: What about the tiki torches, babe?

Laurel: Okay. He's just going to make a comment about. Redneck in Alabama, hunting Jews with tiki torches.

Daniel: I mean, as a Jew with an anxiety disorder, it is foremost on my mind, in most situations. Um, no, I wasn't making this all about the Jews.

Laurel: I don't believe you. That's a different segment. I don't, all, it's all about the Jews, where we like do kind of like a reverse conspiracy

theory thing.

Daniel: It's all about me. And anybody who has a problem with that segment, you're fucking anti Semite.

Daniel: Uh, no, but yes, Tiki Torches, white guy, Alabama, setting up a super hierarchical free labor situation for his homestead. That so far consists of black women. Exclusively.

Nichole: And it was the tiki torches that really set that off for you.

Daniel: No, it was the tiki torches that shined a light on it.

Nichole: Yeah. So is this

Laurel: Polly?



Daniel: No.

Nichole: Yeah. There doesn't even need to be a pause. No.

Laurel: I've never heard Polly mentioned so much on television. And, cannot find it anywhere in the episode. I know,

Nichole: very uncomfortable.

Daniel: It's so uncomfortable.

Nichole: And just, you know what? It's straight up wrong. Yeah, it sucks. Yeah. I'm getting a little mad about it. Because Joe is a pathetic asshole that is like building his harem which is also like free labor for his homestead and positioning himself like he's this like free thinking guy.

Nichole: And Myesha is falling victim to that. And also, passing along that toxicity to judging other people that they bring into their relationship as literally less than her. A

Laurel: really like, great metaphor for Like class warfare. I was

Daniel: thinking the same thing.

Laurel: Yeah, because it's like you've got Joe at the top And all he has to do is convince my Isha that she's better than everybody else.

Laurel: So that's what she spends her time Concerning herself with is just making sure she's on top of whoever's below her while totally missing the point that Joe doesn't give a fuck about her.

Yep

Laurel: He's got

Daniel: all the hard power, right? Like he's got the He has the land. Exactly. And the money. And she is like a the class right under the, she's wealthy.

Daniel: Yeah, but she's like desperate for whatever any kind of power that she can impose on others Yeah, she can't have the hard power.

Laurel: He's the billionaire she's the neighbor in the suburbs With the like yacht timeshare.

Nichole: Yeah. Yeah.

Laurel: And Mia. Is you and me.

Nichole: Mia didn't deserve it. Mia

Laurel: did nothing wrong.

Laurel: Mia did nothing wrong.

Daniel: Mia, if you'd like to come on the podcast, please write to polyamateur hour at gmail. com or visit our website where you can fill out a form anonymously, but please tell us who you are.

Laurel: Should we should we ask the amateurs?

Song: If you got questions, don't demur, it's time to ask the amateurs.

Laurel: All right. Hi, polyamateurs. I have a situation. I've been in a long term relationship with my partner Timone for a long time. Seven to eight years. Timon has been with my meta, Pumbaa, for around two years. There are others in our lovely mix, but not relevant to this situation. I like Pumbaa. We get along.

Laurel: We talk, we laugh, we have fun together, we support each other, we disagree and work through it. It's a good relationship. Between the three of us, we practice kitchen table poly. Others are at our kitchen table too, but there are also others we have more RA type relationships with. None of us live together, but we all live close by. Pumbaa both grew up in Catholic households. Neither of them are religious or practice religion themselves anymore. I grew up without any religious practice or pressure. Timon and Pumbaa have recently started talking about getting married.

Laurel: They've talked with me about it too, but the conversations haven't gone far yet. Not because anyone doesn't want to talk, This is very recent, and it's mostly me trying to take time to understand how I feel first. Of course, the first question is, why? I have asked that, and they have various reasons.

Laurel: One of the reasons is that their families want this, and they want to make their families happy, and I understand that. I see how their families nag at them. Their families both know about our poly lifestyle and know me. They aren't the most supportive, but they also aren't fully dismissive. The fact that they aren't rude about it is enough for me.

Laurel: I see they care about their children and I'm glad Timon and Pumbaa both have families they care about. It would put both their families minds at ease to see their children married. I understand this too. My own family would like if I were married, but I think that I care less about what my family wants than they do.

Laurel: They think this too, and have made comments about how it's different coming from a Catholic family. I guess I can't or don't understand that well yet, because I didn't grow up that way, and I haven't done much reading or other secondary experience into what growing up in a Catholic family is like.

Laurel: I feel left out. We don't do hierarchies, and this feels like hierarchy to me, but I don't know if this is coming from a place of jealousy or not. Marriage is not that important to me. I think, but as a kid growing up, I did always imagine myself married too, and only in my own journey to Poly did I start to change that imagined future for myself.

Laurel: I asked how this would change our relationship and was told it wouldn't. Why do I still feel left out? Is marriage more important to me than I think? Do I not trust them when they say their relationship won't change? Does a marriage not imply hierarchy? Part of me thinks about how the world will perceive their relationship as primary with this change, and that stings.

Laurel: I don't know. What should I ask them? How do I continue these conversations productively? What should I think through on my own? Any thoughts or guidance you have, please share. Sincerely, Zazu. Also, I may be part of your own network. I'll tell you who I am if you want to know, but part of me likes the anonymous advice.

Daniel: Heh. It's sexier that way. I know, yeah.

Laurel: Behind the sheet,

Laurel: you know.

Nichole: oh god.

Laurel: Behind the aluminum wall of the bathroom stall. Yeah.

Daniel: Um, I can also tell that the Stubert knows their millennial audience in U2, right? With the uh, Timon, Pumbaa, and Zazu.

Nichole: The Lion King. Okay.

Daniel: So it's really interesting that this comes right on the heels of our why did you get married? Answer for yourselves episode.

Laurel: Yeah. Yeah. Cause yeah, I think that there's probably stuff that the Stubert could take from that episode as well,

Daniel: so Stubert, please go back and listen to.

Daniel: Under threat of kindness and moving on

Daniel: And now for our final segment um, so the first thing that I thought of was that making things easier for family is a valid reason to get married. It was one of the reasons, I think, that me and Nicole got married. But, one of many. Yeah.

Nichole: Yeah.

Daniel: And from this question, it seemed like that is the only reason that has really been presented by Timon and Pumbaa.

Laurel: Yeah.

Daniel: And so, some of the other possible things that could play into this is like, are they intending to cohabitate now? Are there plans to combine finances? Are there plans to have children? Just the fact that pleasing the parents is the only reason that is presented in this would also give me pause were I in your situation. Shoes, stupid. Because.

Laurel: But you don't understand because you're not Catholic.

Daniel: Yeah, yeah, Jews, I don't think that we have the same kind of pressure to get married. It's fine if we just live in sin with somebody as long as they're a lawyer or a doctor.

Laurel: Yeah. Yeah. God.

Nichole: So this is. This could be, as far as like continuing the conversation with Timon and Pumbaa, investigating a little bit more as to reasons why to get married.

Laurel: Yeah.

Nichole: It's worth exploring that line of questioning of like, yeah, but what else?

Laurel: Like I think it's really easy to say like, oh, this isn't going to change our relationship, that can be a red flag to me. If you're insisting or promising that it's not going to change things when you can't promise that necessarily.



Nichole: They can't promise that because that's not true. It will change things. Maybe not the day to day function of your relationship, but the fact that none of you have financial ties or legal ties to each other at all right now, and then suddenly two people will,

Laurel: Yeah.

Nichole: That does actually change your relationship.

Laurel: Yeah.

Nichole: So if Pumbaa has only been dating Timon for two years and Zazu Stubert has been there for seven to eight years, that to me would bring up some things, right? Like, it, it, it Would be as if Daniel and I never got married. And

Laurel: then suddenly Daniel wants to marry me and is like, it's just because of family pressure.

Nichole: Yes. Yes. Yeah.

Laurel: I wonder what conversation Zazu and Timon have had about marriage in the past.

Laurel: Did Timon always just make the assumption that Zazu would never do it because it's not really a priority for them? And then for some reason never felt enough family pressure to try and ignite those conversations with Stubert Zazu.

Laurel: It's also like two years you can still have NRE alive and kicking.

Nichole: Correct.

Laurel: And then be like, oh, coincidentally, we both come from Catholic families. And this is just convenient.

Nichole: And that's not to discount the feelings that they have for each other.

Nichole: . Aziz Ansari came out with a book Modern Love several years ago where he interviewed a bunch of social scientists and presented all of the data. Yeah. That comes with marriage and divorce. Yeah. So very heteronormative. Yeah. Very, mononormative data set, but the majority of young adults get married around the two year mark.

Nichole: Because that is when NRE is starting to fade. NRE being new relationship energy. But that is when the chemicals that we receive and give off from being in relation with somebody starts to wear off. The return is not as great.

Laurel: Yeah.

Nichole: And socially, we think, okay I'll get married. And that will spark something again, like it will shift.

Nichole: It'll reignite

Laurel: our relationship. Exactly.

Nichole: And again, that's not to invalidate marriage, but that is also why I had the arbitrary rule of not moving in with somebody until I dated them for two years that I immediately broke with Daniel.

Daniel: You son of a bitch. It seemed like fucking two years, honestly.

Daniel: Rude.

Laurel: Rude.

Nichole: Part of this question is, how am I feeling about it? I know that I feel left out. Do I feel jealous? You might feel jealous. Yeah.

Nichole: Yeah. And that would be perfectly valid. Yeah. But you might have to do a little bit of investigation on that. What this brings up for you personally, and that's not to say to fix it immediately. And that is also not to say, go directly to your partner and tell them exactly how you're feeling.

Nichole: Right.

Laurel: I was trying to think what I was asking myself when you two were going to get married. And I think there were some elements of it where it's like you, you both were entwined already in certain ways, like cohabiting and I believe sharing finances or I assumed you were.

Laurel: That was already a known factor to me and I wasn't worried about those elements changing because they already existed. I had mentioned in that other episode that like, I had that initial pang of oh Daniel will be less emotionally available and then I like, Logic through that.

Laurel: And I was like, no,

Daniel: You wish ,

Laurel: Daniel is, Daniel is way too

Daniel: emotionally

Laurel: available for everybody . And so there was already a paradigm of a certain amount of entanglement between you two that was set. And so like, I felt very secure and confident of like, if things were to change or shift I could handle that.

Laurel: They weren't going to happen in some kind of crazy, catastrophic way that would preclude me from being in relationship with Daniel. I don't think I ever asked you if our relationship was going to change. I hope I didn't, because, you know, Like, I don't think you could answer that,

Daniel: I don't think that I said that it's not going to change, but honestly, I think that I told you that our relationship was going to grow and become

Laurel: more committed. Yes, definitely. You did that. Yeah.

Laurel: Stubert says he was saying like, marriage isn't that important to it But is it more important to me now that i'm upset about this other thing?

Laurel: It is worth like extricating this situation from your actual values cause I, I get the FOMO, I get the like, Oh, but they're going to have this neat little special thing that I don't get. But if you really like drill down to like, no, I fundamentally actually do not prioritize that in my life, then that's probably a clue.

Laurel: Like, Yeah, you're just having some FOMO and like, you can work on that and you can work through that.

Nichole: This question, you could replace marriage with any other step on the escalator for this specific question.

Laurel: Yeah.

Nichole: Because right now everyone is kitchen table.

Nichole: Everyone lives apart.

Laurel: Yeah.

Nichole: I don't think it's the marriage question. I don't think it's actually them considering marriage. I think it's them considering a next step in their relationship and not giving a lot of information or. Reason why

Laurel: right

Nichole: so replace marriage with we're gonna move in together, right?

Nichole: Okay why are you moving in together if? Timon and I have been dating for seven to eight years and we haven't moved in together Why do you two want to take that step?

Nichole: Like I think marriage is a convenient like cultural foil To like cast like oh well, it's just not important to me.

Nichole: Yeah, it might not be important to you I don't think that's the actual question though. I think there is more investigation that needs to happen around your relationship and their relationship, and they might need to just be a little bit more honest with you.

Laurel: Yeah. Yeah. There definitely is the like, , my longterm partner is escalating with my relatively new metamor in a ways that we never escalated and like why is that happening?

Laurel: Why do I feel shitty about it? It's fair.

Laurel: There also might just be the like The hard reality underneath it might just be that for various reasons, they just want to escalate their relationship it'll feel bad that your partner wants to do that with somebody who isn't you

Laurel: But it's also worth looking at like, well, you guys didn't do that. And there's reasons you didn't do that. And maybe those reasons are because you both made assumptions about each other. And now that ship has sailed, or it's because you really didn't want that, or it wasn't going to work between the two of you.

Laurel: And now you get the unique Polly perspective of seeing it work out with somebody else in that way.

Daniel: And I think it's not enough, Stuart Sazoo, for your partner to tell you, Oh, our relationship is special. I think that you should want to be shown how the relationship is special, too. In your position, I would really want to be given just that kind of psychic, emotional connection. connection that gave me faith in the enduring closeness of the relationship.

Daniel: Don't think that information exchange or reasons is really going to be enough in this situation. I think that You also have to look for loving kindness that is going to kind of let your animal brain know that this is a relationship that's going to last. I

Laurel: thought you were reading a Mary Oliver poem for a minute.

Nichole: No, he was just giving poetic advice. Yeah.

Daniel: This is what happens when I enter into a recording session. dead tired but extremely wired on coffee. I just start going into poem chants. I was just about two steps away from rhyming and going into freestyling Mary Oliver.

Laurel: That was beautiful.

Nichole: Yeah.

Laurel: Thank you. I think if you've, I don't know if you finished your thought but you did now because it's time for Unicorn Hunter Hunters.

Song: Do you wanna be there?

Daniel: All right, so I found this unicorn hunter profile as usual Laurel did bring in one once I did you brought in one. Yes. Yeah. Yeah And I have brought in all the rest.

Laurel: This is

Daniel: true. Which, the result of that, the unintentional result, is that we really get a lot of Unicorn Hunter profiles that are not classical, archetypical Unicorn Hunters of the, ideal platonic world.

Daniel: variety. But today I think I found one that's pretty close. , I thought for a change we would just do a real basic bitch of a unicorn hunter profile.

Nichole: Great.

Daniel: And It's not long, but I feel like there's some things to dig into in the details here.

Laurel: It's not long, but Daniel's going to make the lead up to it.

Nichole: Cause he knows that we're supposed to be wrapping up right now and

Daniel: I just need you guys to know where the muesli is. Is that a call back to episode one?

No, episode two. Oh my God. What a

Daniel: classic. Episode two is a knee slapper. Go back and check that out.

Daniel: All right. Looking for our. Unicorn

emoji. Finally, some fucking

Daniel: unicorn hunters who admit it off the bat. Or a cool couple to hang with looking for a cute girl to put between us. We love to explore restaurants. And all types of food, like with your hands, just to explore food. I just love the way that this one is written. As a writer it just begs a lot of questions, you know, for me. So we love to explore restaurants and all types of food space.

Daniel: comma space, and for the remainder of this description, all the commas have spaces on both sides.

Laurel: It's gonna

Daniel: fucking haunt my dreams. It's gonna haunt my dreams. I bet it's

Laurel: some swinger code.

Daniel: We also like outdoors, family, hiking, fishing, health, food, again, boating, Nicole's always looking for people on a boat, walks, concerts, slash festivals, movies.

Daniel: Thrift stores, farmers markets, and much, much more! Exclamation point.

Wow.

Daniel: , four twenty friendly, four exclamation points. And I'm just unwilling to yell into this microphone at that volume. I'll let you guys finish the sentence. Don't be afraid. We don't bite.

Laurel: Unless you ask. Ding ding, ding.

Daniel: Laurel for two points.

Daniel: Little about us, redacted is 6 foot 190 pounds, and redacted is 4'11 95 pounds. We are 28 and 26, if that matters.



Nichole: Age does matter. Age does matter. Age does matter. Age, it matters. . It matters.

Laurel: It matters to me more than height, for sure.

Daniel: Yeah. This feels to me like, there are things that are just so vague in the interests that I'm like, was it written by an alien?

Laurel: That's what I was gonna say.

Laurel: . 'cause I was, Like AI would just be like, weirdly specific, but flat. But this feels like someone who just has no reference for human behavior besides what they've seen.

Nichole: Yeah, it was just plopped down in the middle of a like mid sized metropolitan city and just pointed at things and looked around. Yeah. There was a

farmer's market.

Nichole: Yeah. There is a movie theater.

Daniel: My favorites were. Health as an interest walks no, no like, descriptor or anything just, just walks any direction any location.

Nichole: This is a, this is. baffling. It's a, It's a baffling profile because it is, it's incredibly vague. About who they are as people. It also makes no mention of who they're looking for, except for a, what? A nice girl.

Laurel: Yeah. Nice girl to put in between them.

Laurel: Cute girl. Doesn't matter. Does not matter if she's nice.

Nichole: That's the only thing that they say as far as what they're looking for. It's a cute girl to be between them. They do know that they're looking for a unicorn. To me, I don't know that they're one experienced enough or two.

Nichole: I don't get the sense that they know what they're asking for.

Daniel: They don't know what they're in for.

Nichole: Well, Just they put the unicorn emoji because they heard tell like that's what that's called

Daniel: on earth.

Nichole: Yeah. Yes

Daniel: so I think one of the more fun and baffling things about this profile is also the photographs. So usually we wouldn't go through the photographs in detail, but these are just so evocative. Of the genericism. Yes, but also there's something in the facial expressions. So this one

Daniel: So. oh no. Most of these appear to be in bleachers. There's several bleachers shots. He's wearing a Bass Pro Shops cap. Bass. That would be a bass. Yes. I'm sorry. Musician here. I thought that he was going to a, I thought that it was a fish themed music equipment store. And they both look to me like, you know, the look on like hostage tapes.

Nichole: Yes. Yeah, they both

Laurel: look under duress, but trying to pretend like they're not.

Nichole: Yeah.

Daniel: This is really arguing for the alien thing because

Daniel: it's like the aliens in Men in Black who, like right before they're about to lose control of their frickin uh, human forms. Yeah. All right.

Nuts.

Daniel: She is, in this next photo, at the helm of a boat.

Laurel: Oh! Oooooh, yeah, I was like, that's a weird car.

Daniel: At the helm of a boat, with in her hand A vape? A vape. Boating and vaping simultaneously. Nice.

Nichole: Alright, what's next?

Daniel: Festival? Nice, Nice. She is on his boat. Shoulders. Shoulders.

Nichole: Yep.

Daniel: With a pink cowboy hat. So I think this is like one of those, like one of those like Country EDM fests? Is

Nichole: that a thing?

Daniel: Whatever that festival that all the contestants on Bachelorette and Bachelor go to.

Daniel: Stagecoach.

Nichole: Yeah. Yeah. It's the Coachella of country music.

Daniel: Yeah, here is a second photo that appears to be on bleachers.

Laurel: Oh yeah. Her mountain of hair. What the fuck?

Laurel: Her hair is at least as tall as her boyfriend.

Daniel: It looks like she's got religious quantities of hair like she was, she took a vow, 20 years ago and has, has to like carry this around in some kind of special satchel.

Laurel: Wow. That's impressive.

Daniel: Um, wait. I love these

Laurel: people. I love them.

Daniel: More bleacher shots. I just have to, we just have to count them now. It's just like, let's count the number of bleacher shots.

Laurel: They didn't even mention sports at all, did they?

Nichole: Yeah, they didn't list that in there.

Laurel: Yeah, but they clearly love some sports. Yeah.

Daniel: Maybe they just love like, they're uh, they're really fans of the architecture of stadiums and they just go and take selfies in all their favorite stadiums.

Laurel: That would be interesting.

Daniel: That would be. They

Laurel: should put that in their profile.

Nichole: All right. So we rate the Unicorn Hunters on. Three categories. Bombacity, arbitrary rules, and would we unicorn?

Daniel: Yes.

Laurel: This is like a negative. Like it is so generic. and boring. I feel like it is a negative bombastic self aggrandizement score. Or is it so generic that it hits a 10

Nichole: on the scale? I don't know. No I was also leaning very low, almost zero. Yeah. I'm going to give them a one because there is one photo of her driving a boat.

Nichole: Yeah, that's fair. That's fair.

It doesn't

Nichole: appear to be a yacht,

Laurel: but. But it's still a boat. But yeah.

Daniel: Yeah, there is no self aggrandizement at all. It's a little like looking into the hollow eyes of a mannequin.

Nichole: So what number would you give?

Daniel: I'll give it a 2 for the presumption that anybody would be interested in them.

Nichole: Wow! This is also on a scale of 1 to 10. Yeah. Yeah. Alright, arbitrary rules.

Laurel: Also None. Be a cute girl. I mean That does rule

Daniel: out a lot of people. Or a couple. Yeah. But they immediately follow that up with The cute girl like between us thing, which makes me think like they will tolerate a couple so that they can extricate the cute girl and put the cute girl between them for their photograph in the bleachers.

Daniel: I was

Laurel: imagining like a giant claw machine just like comes in and picks out the cute girl.

Nichole: Yeah, I don't, I didn't see any rules in there.

Laurel: Yeah.

Nichole: I didn't see anything in there.

Laurel: Alright. I

Daniel: didn't see anything at all.

Nichole: I didn't. Zero.

Daniel: I'm actually going to give them a three, not for rules exactly, but for the arbitrary parts of it.

Daniel: Because there's just so much arbitrary like, like, what? Health?

Laurel: Health. Health! Yeah, I'll just go cozy right, right in between you two at a two. Alright.

Daniel: What would we unicorn for?

Laurel: Um, I don't believe there's anything there to unicorn for.

Laurel: I still think this is an alien trying to catfish me. Or

Nichole: maybe it's

Laurel: a draft.

Like, This was their outline. A breeze coming

Daniel: through. No, we all interpreted this in different ways. She's like, it's an outline you're like, it's a breeze, an empty, burst of hot air. I was thinking like draft plus aliens equals the last starfighter.

Oh,

Daniel: where they're going to, with the

going to draft people to join the starship, like to intergalactic

Laurel: armada. Yes. This is why communication's important, and you should never make assumptions that you know what your partner means.

Nichole: Um, Yeah, that's a hard no for me.

Daniel: Yeah,

Laurel: Mostly because I just think it would probably be boring. Boring as fuck. Yeah.

Daniel: Yeah, okay. I'm not gonna say yes. Oh, but he's not gonna say no either? Bye! I am so curious about these ones because like, I want to, I want to like, touch their faces and see if they are

Laurel: Peter.

Is that you, Peter? That is a millennial reference that Daniel will not get. I thought that you were just talking about Talking about your dick?

Laurel: Take it as a new thing. Like I learned the other day that Daniel refers to his penis as Peter.

Daniel: It's totally arbitrary too. It's like, It's like you is like catching you making the fish sound. Yeah. Sometimes you're just like, Hey,

Daniel: he

likes to

Daniel: be talked

to. So you thought Laurel's reference to. The movie hook was about your penis.

Daniel: That's the hook.

Song: This has been Polyamateur Hour, a production of Risa Records. If you have a question for Ask the Amateurs, or a recommendation for Is This Poly, please email us at polyamateurhour at gmail dot com. If you enjoyed the show, and you know you did, you perv, please subscribe to us on your podcatcher of choice, leave us a five star review, and most importantly, tell at least one person in your life to check us out.

Song: But we hope you tell three. Remember, the advice given by the amateurs should not be followed, unless you are prepared to be ecstatically happy, successful, and strange. Until next time!