AROOO Interview : Polyamory Couple’s Secrets

🥛 Banana Milk (aka. Bana) 30, Works from home, likes dancing and visiting cute cafes. Hates dishonesty and humidity. Is into webtoons these days.

🍮 Caramel (aka. Cara) 29, Works as a tutor. Likes meeting new people, dancing and cooking. Hates fake people. Is into self care and accessories these days.

🥛 Cara is loyal, confident and always lifts other people up.

🍮 Bana is confident, cheerful and knows what she wants and says it.

🍮  We were both working in the same small province where everyone knows everyone. a friend of a friend introduced us, I was like ‘is she hot?’ but my friend was like ‘she’s more than that, she’s confident and nice and likes dancing’. we met and I was like ‘oh damn!’ but I was too shy to really say anything. Two or three weeks later we met at a business conference and our seats ended up next to each other

🥛 Ended up next to each other, haha he sat next to me!

🍮   we ended up sitting next to each other, we chatted and got along really well, we exchanged numbers and stuff

🍮 on the long weekend I went with friends to Seoul

🥛 I asked him to come hang out with me and my friends… We went dancing and talked for the whole next week, while we were separated. Then we met in his city. Spent the whole day.

🍮  We had a date planned but we never did anything, we just talked for 8 hours

🥛 we communicated really well. And we could be ourselves.

🍮 I think the biggest thing for me was my quirkiness and weirdness, I could just be. It didn't matter. She accepted all of my strange antics

🥛 Spoke about anything, even if we got upset. Like when someone called the other one an ex’s name… Several times.

🥛 We spent as much time as we could with each other. We’ve learnt a lot of new things. Like he taught me to cook.

🍮 She’s still teaching me to dance with a partner. she teaches me how to communicate with people. Oh, that's a big one. That's why I'm such a decent communicator. Getting better?

🥛 You did a lot of work.

🍮 Visa. Strictly business? Pretty much.

🥛 I mean, at the time we were thinking of moving to the US and so it prompted us to think about how we did want to be together forever.

🍮 Here, America, wherever we are.

🥛 Then we were married during covid so none of our family could come. just a couple of friends. We got married on Christmas Eve.

🥛 Marriage didn't really change our life much because we had already been living together, doing things together. Our families knew each other.

🍮 Except that more people will recognize how important the relationship is to us. but learning to date again, though. man. I suck at dating. I don't know. I don't know how to flirt anymore…

🍮 There are different structures in polyamorous relationships. Like we don't want it to be, you know, strict hierarchy in that this is my wife, so you know, for everything I must ask her all the time. But at the same time, financially, I kind of have to you know... So, you and I, we're dating, but I'm not going to talk to you about my housing situation and stuff. Right? That's always going to go through her.

🥛 It was a long process that started with me realizing that my sexual identity isn't straight. So, I was open with Cara about my sexual identity. That I wasn't just interested in men and as I was talking with Cara about that part of my sexual identity he actually suggested that we, maybe, have an open relationship or let me try dating women or like, exploring. Exploring a physical relationship with women, maybe. And so from there. We started learning more about non-monogamy.

🍮 I didn't want to feel like because she hadn't explored that part that in the future she sort of has regrets about it, you know. She just always thought she was straight and so naturally ends up in a hetero marriage relationship that she's now stuck there. I didn't want us to just be comfortable, which we are and were. But for her to be like, “I wonder how this would have been, I wonder how that would have been.” Well, now she could have at least tried. That was the initial idea, you know, and if it was a case where she was more lesbian than bisexual even… Right.

🥛 He even said yeah if it turns out that I actually prefer women that we could change our relationship.

🍮 We would still have been very good friends because that's part of why we got married and have a loving connection. This is my homie. My G. My best friend...

🥛 So from there, we learned about non-monogamy and found out that there are different kinds. And the idea that people can love more than one person and have serious relationships with more than one person. That connected with us, that idea was appealing to us.

🍮 We looked at it in the lens of you don't just have one friend for everything. So why should one sexual or intimate relationship hold all other aspects of sexual intimate relationships?

🥛 Yeah getting all of your romance or sexual intimacy from one relationship became kind of a unrealistic idea for us. Like as we learned more and more and both of us also are learning about ourselves and our communication styles and needs.

🥛 So we tried a couple of different versions. First, we thought it would be easiest to find someone who would date both of us so that I wasn't leaving Cara out of the picture.

🍮 Funnily enough, it was kind of easy to find someone relatively quickly!

🥛 We did find people who were interested in dating with us, but. Scheduling is really hard and people have different commitments or levels of what they want. Yeah, And it's difficult balancing with three people. We were also at the same time learning more about our insecurities. And jealousies… Then we felt comfortable enough to try dating separately.

🥛 We met people on apps and in real life, by going out.

🍮  Right so it was easy and it isn't easy. Funny story….