Stoya calls them ‘comets’: those people who orbit your life at a distance, occasionally blazing into it for brief yet bright moments of sexy joy, before whooshing off back to their own. I don’t think it’s always easy to be a great comet – it requires a tricky balance of charm and composure. You need the ability to connect well in a short space of time combined with a casual detachment that allows you to say a cheery goodbye without worrying you’ll be forgotten the second you’re out of sight. I think it’s tough to be a good comet, but let me tell you about a brilliant one of mine.

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When I was young – maybe ten or eleven – one of my Mum’s friends gave her an entire display box of Mars bars to say thanks for a favour she’d done. Incredible, right? In case you aren’t familiar with them, Mars bars are tasty sticks of nougat with a layer of chewy caramel on top, enrobed in delicious milk chocolate. And thanks to my Mum’s friend, our family now owned an entire box of them! What?!

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I have a lot of friends who embrace nonmonogamy – i.e. relationships where you are both open to the idea of forming romantic/sexual bonds with more than one person – as opposed to monogamy, where you pair off with one person, avoid shagging anyone else, then eventually cement your bond with matching clogs and a National Trust membership. Naturally, as someone who moves in sex-positive circles, I run into loads of people who have taken the traditional ‘scripts’ we’re taught we should follow when it comes to relationships, and torn them up in favour of writing their own. I love this, and I think the more people who do it the better. However, when I talk to other people about different relationship styles there’s one argument for nonmonogamy that rubs me up the wrong way.

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Lockdown fucking sucks for so many people, and I recognise my own luck in being able to weather the pandemic trapped in a house with someone I love, despite their occasional adventures in finding new ways to drive me up the wall. But how do you deal with non-monogamy and Coronavirus? Lockdown living that actively pushes you into monogamy? Today’s guest blogger is Molly Quell, and she’s here to tell you about her experience as a non-monogamous person during Coronavirus.

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I’ve been honoured to host some fab guest blogs on ethical nonmonogamy over the years – like this guide on how to cultivate compersion or this lovely piece about the realities of open relationships. Often, though, it’s as intriguing to learn from other people’s mistakes as their successes. So just as I’ve tried to write guides on how to be bad in bed before, this week’s guest blogger, Alex, is here to tell you how not to do polyamory. Or in his own words…

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