Tracy Lunquist
1 min readFeb 29, 2020

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Ambiamory does seem like a potentially useful term when you’re talking to someone who can’t seem to get their head around the difference between poly the orientation and poly the lifestyle choice. Poly can be BOTH. You can have a personal polyamorous orientation, meaning you are open to, and comfortable with, being in more than one relationship. But the fact of having the orientation doesn’t magically cause you to BE in more than one relationship. You can have a poly orientation and be in no relationships at all, just the same way you can be monogamous and still be single. And you can be a poly-oriented person in a monogamous relationship, or be a monogamous person whose partner is in more than one relationship — it’s possible to be monogamous and be OK with your partner being poly. There are lots and lots of possibilities. I am poly in orientation AND I am poly in lifestyle — I have two relationships and occasionally more. When I have, sometimes for years at a time, been in one relationship, I wasn’t any less polyamorous in orientation, just living a functionally monogamous life. If it’s easier for someone to understand that by using a term like ambiamory, then great. I support all efforts that use language to make communication work better.

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Tracy Lunquist

Comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. Buy me a Coke Zero: https://ko-fi.com/mousketracy0193