I’m a UX designer, and I find a lot of satisfaction in my work because it’s all about making software better at helping people improve their lives.
And, I like to think, it plays a small part in making the world better itself.
A couple years ago, I made a graphic to encapsulate my philosophy:
It has since been a joy to help some amazing companies turn more of their users into the “fireball-throwing” versions of themselves, to everyone’s mutual benefit.
That work has also led to lots of travel all around the world.
And, while I was away on one such trip recently, my wife went out on a date with someone else.
When she told me it happened, I wasn’t angry or hurt or jealous, largely because I knew about it ahead of time, and also because I suggested she do it, and also because the person she went out with is our girlfriend.
My wife and I are polyamorous, which in essence means that we encourage each other to cultivate multiple simultaneous loving relationships.
In simpler terms, it means that we date other people outside our marriage, and sometimes do so together.
We find it rewarding because we see affection as an inherently good thing, and think the world could use more of it in general, and find that sharing it doesn’t diminish what we have for each other, but actually enhances it.
We also find it rewarding because we see supporting each other in “exploring everything the world has to offer” as part of how we help each other become the “fireball-throwing” versions of ourselves.
It’s also, well… pretty hot at times.
If you’re curious about polyamory unto itself, this is an excellent overview:
The short version of the above is that monogamy is the only relationship model that our society currently endorses, and “polyamory” is often used interchangeably with “non-monogamy” as dual umbrella terms for the wide (WIDE) array of relationship models that fall outside of that.
A few years into our marriage, we didn’t find monogamy to be working for us, so we began to explore and experiment with alternative approaches.
It was far from easy at first. Many fuck-ups were made, most of them mine. At times it was brutally painful. And even now it still requires plenty of effort, respect, and communication (lots and lots and lots of communication), but we’ve successfully managed to navigate our relationship to a trusting, supportive, and rock-solid place that we wouldn’t trade for the world.
I can see how it definitely isn’t for everyone. But, with divorce and infidelity rates as high as they are, monogamy clearly isn’t for everyone, either.
I generally question the value in holding up a single relationship model as “the only good one”, and wonder if it leads us to impose upon ourselves an unnecessarily narrow paint-by-numbers approach to romantic morality and, in so doing, also impose it upon those we love.
On a societal level, when that paint-by-numbers prescription leaves people on the margins because they find themselves capable of loving multiple people at once, or loving someone of their own gender, or questioning their gender to begin with, I take serious issue with it.
I take serious issue because people should never be punished for conducting themselves authentically and loving others consensually: it isn’t that those who do “fail” to fit into society; it’s that society fails to include them.
We appear to be heading into a very dangerous time to be a marginalized citizen. It feels as though the world is splitting itself open in all directions, with those on its perimeter about to bear the brunt of its turmoil.
We, now more than ever, have an opportunity and an imperative to side with the vulnerable and to normalize diversity in whatever capacity we can.
So, today, I’m not only allying with people who have alternative approaches to love and sexuality, I am coming out as one of them.
To whatever extent I belong, I will proudly stand with any group of individuals who have the bravery to examine the authenticity of their identity, and the courage to live it.
When the definition of what’s considered “normal” becomes narrower and the stakes of being outside it become higher, openly “being yourself” becomes an act of resistance.
It is a visible and ongoing vote for broadening the parameters of our culture’s attitude toward involvement and legitimacy.
I understand that sharing this will probably affect my career, and that it will leave at least some people thinking that I’m perverted, or sick, or sad. I get where that’s coming from; I’m embarrassed to say that there was a time when I thought all kinds of people with marginalized identities were perverted, or sick, or sad, as well.
What ultimately changed my thinking was simply being around a more diverse array of people and seeing them as, strangely enough, people: individuals with hopes and dreams and challenges and nightmares, who conduct their lives without wanting to take away from anyone else, and who, like all of us, are simply trying to make it through this confounding world in one piece and, just possibly, while we’re at it, get to watch some Game of Thrones and keep up with whatever Beyoncé’s doing.
It is astounding how much more alike we all are than we give ourselves credit for, and it is tragic how viciously we reject that tiny percentage of difference, rather than celebrate it.
But the times, as they say, are a-changing. And at a dizzying clip.
The internet truly is disrupting the world, in both the “Silicon Valley” sense of entrepreneurial opportunity as well as the “full-scale global unrest” one.
It is up to us to determine whether that disruption leads to either our unburdening or our undoing.
I cast my faith in the former. It may be naive, but it sure as shit beats the alternative.
I cast my faith in the power of 7 billion souls all waking up to each other, and the normalization we experience when we share ourselves openly and see that there is such a prolific variety of “others like us” that we can only eventually conclude that, indeed, we all are “like us”.
When we see more and more people as normal, our definition of “normal” itself broadens, and our understanding of the human condition increases, and we as individuals grow in return.
When we love each other, we act as lights in the darkness for one another. And by that light, we learn more about both the world and ourselves.
So here is me, offering whatever light I am, with whatever light I can.
“We must,” as the poet W. H. Auden wrote on the eve of World War II, “love one another or die.”
Love isn’t disgusting. Not when it’s practiced consensually and honestly and with integrity of spirit.
Our collective sense of connection is even, perhaps, what makes us human to begin with.
Or, at least, what makes being human worthwhile.
We are all in this together, or not at all.
We truly are no strangers — none of us . And, especially now, cannot afford to be.
If this resonates, please share it widely. It isn’t my own echo chamber that I’m trying to reach.
If you have any questions about polyamory, you can email me at samuel@useronboard.com. I’m by no means an expert on the topic, but I’ve put a lot into understanding this over the years and will give you the best of whatever I have.
Also, if your company creates software designed to support minorities or diversity efforts of any kind and you’d like some UX help, holla at me at the same address and we can figure something out.
Be helpful. Fuck haters. Throw fireballs.
— Samuel
