Is your state re-opening? Congrats, you're basically polyamorous now.

Here are some thoughts from me, your friendly local ethically non-monogamous queer, on how to have those awkward conversations with your loved ones about the other people they'll be seeing.

What if your boyfriend’s roommates all swear they’ll wear masks when they go out, but you’re not sure whether to trust them? What if you don't think 6 feet is far enough? We're all going to have to think about our boundaries.

Poly/ ENM folks have to get good at negotiating with their partners about their contact with other people. (You should also ask your BDSM friends for advice on sanitizing shared high-touch surfaces, just saying).

The time to talk about how to handle the opening of your relationship is now, during lock-down. You can weigh the risks and rewards more rationally now than you can after getting a phone call from your best friend inviting you to their blow-out birthday bash.

Have the conversation in stages. First, set aside a time to talk about your desires. Talk about what you miss and what you fantasize about. When you’re talking, be honest and specific, and ignore social pressures of what you “should” want.

Maybe you want to get a pedicure much more than you want to visit your parents. Maybe you don’t miss leaving the house as much as you miss everyone else leaving the house so you can watch TV without pants on.

Don't talk about risk - yet. Instead, get curious – ask questions to help your partner explore what they want. What is it about the pedicure that they miss? Is it the colorful toenails afterwards or the foot massage during?

Really figuring out what you want and what your partner wants after opening up, whether your sexual relationship or your front door, often leads to improving what you have now.

Obviously, your quarantine partner can’t satisfy your desire for the whole world, but it might make staying at home more pleasant if you learn how to give a foot massage and they agree to pretend not to be home on Saturday mornings so you can lie on the couch in peace.

The next stage is to talk about your fears. What are you afraid could go wrong? Being specific here is even more important than before, when talking about your desires, because the temptation will be to say just that you’re afraid of COVID and leave it at that. But think harder.

Maybe you’re afraid that you and your partner will fight about your different reactions to risk, or that your partner, over-exuberant with new freedom, will spend money recklessly or will spend lots of time out of the house, dumping childcare and other responsibilities on you.

Imagining worst case scenarios is not fun. Reassure your partner that these are your biggest fears rather than things you think they would actually do.

Why do you need to understand your actual desires and fears? Because they determine how you will actually act (as opposed to what you think you "should" want or avoid).

Use your hopes and fears to 1) set your boundaries about how you will act in a re-opened world and 2) negotiate the agreements for how your partner(s), roommates, family members, etc. plan to act.

BUT - here's my most important tip - make a plan for failure. Things get messy in open relationships all the time - if you want to stay open, you have to roll with everything from a partner coming home super late from a date to them falling in love with someone else.

So, don't just plan to avoid exposure. Also plan for what happens when you're exposed, or you've acted in a way that risks exposure greater than your household negotiated for.

I recommend agreeing to be transparent about any deviations from the plan and focusing on understanding the change in behavior and rather than arguing about whose fault it was.