Dear Current or Future Employers
Dear Employer,
My name is Lucas Weeks, I’m polyamorous and I am in love with more than one person. That’s it, the cat is officially out of the bag. I started this blog 8 months ago and I kept my name out of everything on it since I started it. I felt the need to hide who I was. I felt the need to do this for one reason: because of you. Maybe not you specifically, but employers in general. It’s actually pretty common that many of us polyamorous folks feel a strong need to hide who we are because of our employers. Most of us are already out to our families and friends, but we tread lightly in public for fear of retribution by our employer. The reason being is that polyamory is not a protected class. This means we can be fired for… wait for it… Loving more than one person.
You may have googled my name and found my blog. I’m even going to add tags in hopes that you find this post before anything else when searching my name. Why do I want so badly for you to find this? I’m putting all my cards on the table. I want you to know who I really am as a person. It’s extremely exhausting to hide who I am in a space that I spend a third of my life. I’m not asking to walk down the halls with a bullhorn announcing to everyone that I’m polyamrous. Anybody that knows me knows I don’t like to draw attention to myself and I generally like to fly under the radar. However, I also don’t want to be in constant fear that the wrong person will find out and I might lose my job. Monogamous people get to confide in their colleagues when celebrating things like awesome first dates and marriages. Why should we have to walk around on eggshells and constantly be afraid that someone might find out that we… wait for it… simply love more than one person?
I hope that when you learn I’m polyamorous that you have, at a minimum, a neutral response about it. Perhaps you could care less and all that matters is my merits as an employee and my work experience. If that’s the case, then great! That’s really all I want. If you read this and have an extremely negative response, I’ll be honest and say I might not want to work for you anyway. It’s my hope that I work for someone who can appreciate individuality and someone who isn’t afraid to go against the grain sometimes. Realistically, you probably already have polyamorous people working for you. No joke. We are seriously EVERYWHERE! In fact, I’d bet $100 you have someone in your contacts list that is polyamorous and you don’t even know it. Just saying.
As someone who is polyamorous and knows so many other people who are too, I want you to know that we’re all pretty great humans. Most of us have a lot of compassion, patience and understanding. We can manage a calendar like a stay-at-home parent with 14 children. We’re also naturally very effective communicators, team players and are all about some healthy conflict resolution. We practice radical honesty when we are in a space that we feel safe in. Don’t even get me started about how good we are at thinking outside the box. It’s kind of our thing. Seriously, there’s nothing about being polyamorous that makes us bad employees. I’d argue that being polyamorous only enhances our skill set as an employee and it should be seen as a positive thing!
One reason you would hold this against us is because you’re scared of having someone “different” around. To that, I’d say don’t be scared. Having a diversity of backgrounds on your team can be a great thing. Alternatively, you might assume we’re all just rabid sex addicts just looking for our next victim. You are sadly mistaken there. I know a lot of polyamorous people who don’t even enjoy sex and I know even more who won’t even touch someone without asking consent first. It’s a stereotype and a very wrong one at that. We are just as kind and human as anyone else is. The only difference is that we allow ourselves to be open to exploring multiple connections in an ethical way. It’s really not even that big of a deal when you think about it.
If you read this whole thing and it still freaks you out, go ahead and throw my resume in the trash or fire me. I just want to be me and I don’t want to live in fear that you’ll figure out who I am and destroy my livelihood because of something as simple as loving more than one person. If you can see that it’s not even that big of a deal then thank you so much for your open mindedness. You are the kind of person I hope to work for or continue working for.
Sincerely,
Lucas Weeks