Gay Monogamous Relationships? Why so Rare?

[fenrix]

For the longest time I've been leaning toward finding myself a monogamous relationship (when I haven't been trying to run from interested people at least). Honestly though, I'm finding it very difficult to even find anyone else who's looking for that. Why are monogamous relationships so rare? When I do find someone who might be interested in one

Comments

[schnee]

Hmm, are they that rare, actually? In my impression, closed relationships are actually not that uncommon at all (although open ones aren't, either), although it depends on what you define as "open" or "closed" - most people seem to not mind things like their partner RPing with others online, for instance, although I imagine there might also be some that wouldn't want that in a closed relationship.

Other than that, I think there's some sort of selection bias at work there, too. If someone's been in a happy, closed relationship for 10 years, you're just not gonna hear about it as much as you will about someone else's new mate every 6 months; the latter will likely be more "present" for you and skew your feeling of what things are typically like.

And of course, most furs *are* pretty young. Shorter relationships at least can probably be explained at least in part by that, too.

[fenrix]

Typically I'm okay with online RP for a mate. Being open in terms of that isn't hurtful because you know they're still devoted to you. Around me though, closed relationships are common but I've seen a lot of closed relationships "open up", then fail not too long afterward (I had this happen to me once).

Yeah, definitely about the younger furs. Most of them really don't know what they want, so they jump from one relationship to the next, trying to find what they really want. Most don't even consider dating as an option too I've noticed. Jump into a mateship, find out they don't work out, and end up breaking up (online and RL.)

[schnee]

*noddles* Correlation and causation, though - did they fail because they "opened up", or despite "opening up", or was that fact entirely coincidental? I'd hesitate to draw too many conclusions there - if anything, it seems like one of those "strawberry ice cream leads to violence"[1] situations to me.

1. Consumption of strawberry ice cream actually is statistically correlated to violent crime, but the reason is of course not that eating strawberry ice cream will make you violent - rather, it's that when it's summer (and therefore hotter), people will be more likely to eat strawberry ice cream *and* more likely to be aggressive, both due to the heat. A correlation between "opening up" in and failures of relationships is probably not entirely coincidental, but I doubt that one is directly causing the other (and that the other would go away if the one went away).

[fenrix]

Well, from what I saw, the relationships were already in the process of failure when they did "Open up". They weren't getting enough sex or something else in the relationship, so they made it open. Not too long afterward they were breaking up, and getting together with someone they played with outside the relationship.

[schnee]

*noddles* In that case, "opening up" may actually well have been an attempt to save the relationship.

[schnee]

Oh, and as for dating, or the lack thereof - that's a very interesting point. Thanks for pointing that out!