Monogamy. What a goddamn joke. Used to be, it meant one person for life. Till death do us part. The penguins do it. The swans. But humans? Nah, we ran that word through the wringer, chewed it up, spit it out, and now it means whatever the hell we want it to mean.
These days, monogamy is just a polite way of saying, “I won’t fuck anyone else… until I do.” It’s not a vow; it’s a placeholder. A temporary ceasefire in the never-ending war against loneliness. You’re monogamous until the ex calls, until the office flirt stops just being friendly, until you find yourself drunk on a Tuesday, scrolling through your past mistakes, thinking, “Well, maybe one more round won’t kill me.”
And yet, the fantasy remains. The big white wedding, the vows, the illusion of forever. A bride glides down the aisle like some divine offering, purity draped in lace, and everyone claps like it’s her first time at this rodeo. But you look closer, and there’s three ex-husbands in the crowd, two of them probably still paying alimony. Maybe she’s got a couple of kids from different fathers watching from the pews, confused as hell about who they’re supposed to be calling “Dad” this time.
And we all pretend it’s the first time.
It’s not about truth. It’s about branding.
I keep seeing these women, two, three, four kids deep, different last names, different fathers, still swearing up and down that they’re looking for a “monogamous relationship.” Sweetheart, I hate to break it to you, but monogamy doesn’t come with a punch card. You don’t get to reset it every time a new guy walks through the door.
At some point, the word stops meaning anything. It’s like calling a used car “new” just because you washed it.
I had a friend—hell, still have her—who jumps from guy to guy so fast, I started calling her the relay race. The baton barely hits her palm before she’s sprinting off to the next. And every single time, she insists, “This one’s different. We’re monogamous.”
Of course you are.
Until you’re not.
That’s the trick, though. Women still can’t admit they sleep around. Men still want to believe they’re getting something special. So we keep using the word, keep repackaging it, slap a bow on it, and pretend it hasn’t been sold a dozen times before.
The old deal was simple. Monogamy was an unspoken contract: the woman offered youth, devotion, maybe even innocence. In return, the man bent over backwards to provide, to protect, to promise forever.
That was the trade.
Now? Now, it’s just serial exclusivity. You’re “monogamous” for a year, maybe two. You stay faithful just long enough to make it look respectable. Then, as soon as the chemistry fizzles, the mortgage gets tight, or the sex starts feeling like clocking in for a shift at the factory, it’s on to the next.
And we all clap. We all pretend. We all act like the contract hasn’t been rewritten a thousand times over.
Polyamory, at least, is honest. It doesn’t try to dress itself up in old church bells and white dresses. It says, “Hey, I like options.” But modern monogamy? It’s just polyamory in a cheap tuxedo. A sleight of hand. A bad magic trick where the rabbit’s already been pulled out of the hat a dozen times, but we all pretend to be amazed.
I don’t say this to be an asshole—at least, not more than usual. I say it because I’ve been in the trenches. Since my divorce—going on fifteen years now—I’ve had a front-row seat to the shitshow. I’ve watched the revolving door, the ex-lovers recycled into new lovers, the same lies repackaged for the next poor bastard who still believes in the fairy tale.
Monogamy? It’s just musical chairs with sex. And when the music stops, you just hope you’re the one still getting laid.
So let’s call it what it is: we’re all in polyamorous relationships, whether we like it or not. We just keep pretending otherwise. We stay “exclusive”—until we don’t. We say we’re monogamous—until something better comes along.
We’ve rewritten the rules so many times, no one even remembers what the word used to mean. And maybe that’s the real trick—keep redefining it until it doesn’t mean anything at all.
But not everyone’s buying it.
Some of us still remember what monogamy used to mean. And it sure as hell wasn’t “until something better comes along.”
