339 - The Smorgasbord of Relationships
The latest smorgasbord
There are numerous versions of the relationship anarchy smorgasbord, but the version we’re discussing the most in this episode is version 5, which was updated by Maxx Hill in 2019.
The board is a way to determine what you and a partner want out of your relationship with each other.
“The relationship smorgasbord is meant for all types of relationships - platonic, familial, romantic, sexual, etc. - and is indeed meant to challenge and make clear exactly what we mean when we are using these descriptors.”
-thecenterforgrowth.com
Some things to keep in mind:
Relationships are complex, and what might seem acceptable for someone in a friendship relationship might not be for someone else. The board helps clarify these things for each relationship you use it for.
It’s an excellent idea to adjust, add, and subtract things in the smorgasbord to suit your needs.
Adding the smorgasbord to your RADARs is another great idea, as is taking notes.
The smorgasbord doesn’t only have to be used for romantic relationships; it can be customized and used for any relationship you would like to use it for.
Transcript
This document may contain small transcription errors. If you find one please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.
Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory podcast, we're talking about the relationship anarchy Smörgåsbord. Many of you are familiar with relationship anarchy and some of you may even practice it but do what the RA Smörgåsbord is? Today we're going to discuss it history, significance, and how you can use it in your relationships even if you don't consider yourself a relationship anarchist.
Dedeker: Whenever I hear the term Smörgåsbord in my mind I hear is that
Emily: Is that
Jase: Interesting. To me, it reminds me of some movie I watched as a kid. What was it?
Dedeker: Was it Charlotte's Web?
Jase: Maybe Charlotte's Web where the rat goes to the circus and--
Dedeker: If it's Charlotte's Web, it's the rat sings the song about Smörgåsbord. Maybe that's why. Maybe it's because the Smörgåsbord is associated with rats and surfaces--
Emily: I was like that just it makes me think of a circus Dedeker
Dedeker: Yes, Templeton.
Jase: It must be the connection to Charlotte's Web. Templeton, right.
Emily: Templeton, oh that's such a sad film in story but anyways this is not going to be a sad episode. It's going to be a fun episode about how you can make your relationship better which is basically what all of our episodes are about in one way or another. This is like a fun tact way to do it. Love it. All right. Relationship anarchy Smörgåsbord, have the two of you heard of this before.
Jase: Oh no I hadn't.
Dedeker: Oh yes. Oh, really? Oh, you hadn't.
Emily: Thank goodness. I thought I was going to be the only one. I hadn't either but Dedeker, yes you use it with your clients.
Dedeker: I do know. I saved it off the internet long ago. I think I first encountered it on Twitter probably a few years back that someone had retweeted the image and I was like, "Oh, that seems really useful. I'm going to save that. "
Then I found that it came up just with clients a lot especially clients who are forging new relationships and wanting to be much more intentional about their relationships that I found a really good resource to give to people to just think about questions to ask or conversation topics to bring up or even questions to ask themselves when thinking about what different non-traditional relationships they might want. No, I love it.
Emily: That's lovely. Just to shout out to a researcher M because they really schooled me on this whole thing. I really didn't know much about it at all, and M was very instrumental in creating this episode and really giving me their knowledge because I needed it. Thank you so much. I feel like this was very much a joint effort and the creation of this whole episode. Enjoy everyone. Let's talk about what the heck relationship anarchy even is.
Dedeker: We're going to do the brief backstory of relationship anarchy. We have covered this on a couple of episodes in the past but the term itself was first coined by Andy Nord grain in their 2006 essay titled "The short instructional manifesto for relationship anarchy." I love the manifesto for relationship anarchy. We have done a couple of talks. I probably even a couple of episodes deconstructing it. It's very very short read. I highly recommend it to everybody. I find it very inspiring. I go back to it quite a lot.
Here I'm going to read a quote from an article in mind-body green on what the heck relationship anarchy is. "relationship anarchy is a way of approaching relationships that rejects any rules and expectations other than the ones the involved people agree on. This approach encourages people to let their core values guide how they choose and the relationship commitments rather than relying on social norms to dictate what is for you."
Emily: Guess who said that?
Dedeker: Who said that?
Emily: You did to me.
Jase: So sneaky.
Emily: Yes exactly. I was like put that you did that because I was looking up articles and I was like Dedeker Winston from the Multiamory podcast. I was like, "Oh I'm going to get her on this."
Dedeker: That's really funny because when I saw it in Mind and Body I was like, "I think I'm quoted on an article in Mind and Body." Maybe yes.
Emily: Indeed you are. Yes you are
Dedeker: Well good job, me. Wows, this amazing eloquent person who put it so well.
Emily: They really did. Very very good.
Jase: Oh my gosh man.
Dedeker: Man, I got plunked. It's good.
Emily: You did. It's possible to punk you and I'm glad that was part of 2020 fun there.
Dedeker: That's not the first time that that happened. There has there was once where on Twitter like someone tagged me in like a they made an image of a quote. Well, no they didn't even tag me. I think I stumbled upon it. Then I saw the quote and I was like "Wow, they put that really well." Then it was a quote for me and I was like, "Oh, hell yes." Now please listener, do not think that means that I'm a huge fan of my own work because most of the other stuff that I write and I read I'm like "Oh you gross. Oh my God. I sound like such--"
Jase: Oh gosh, okay. All right.
Dedeker: We're not going to talk about that, anyway.
Emily: Calm down. You're fine.
Dedeker: You out there can find out more about relationship anarchy. We did an episode a long time ago, episode 150. You can find out more about relationship anarchy across our backlog. We did an episode quite a while ago 150 that was more specifically focused on relationship anarchy. More recently I did an interview with Courtney Nicole Williams that's episode 333 where they talked a lot about relationship anarchy and chosen family specifically.
Emily: All right. With that brief history and that beautiful quotation we're going to talk a little bit more about the relationship anarchy Smörgåsbord . not Shomore, Smore.
Jase" Yes, Smörgåsbord.
Emily: In an article called Your Relationship Needs a Blueprint by Sue Sutherland. They discussed the origins of the Smörgåsbord and they said, "The relationship anarchy Smörgåsbord was originally created by Lyrica Lawrence and Heather Orr of Vancouver polyamory in December 2016.
This was the first version essentially of the relationship anarchy Smörgåsbord. Then it was updated by Maxx Hill with the guidance of the relationship anarchy polyamory and solo polyamory Facebook groups in April and September of 2018. In April there was version two and three and then September 2018 was version four. Finally, January 2019 was version five. That's the one that we're going to be talking about today.
Dedeker: What this is is it's literally a chart. It's usually an image that has been shared around many different Facebook groups, many different spaces online, and the chart basically lays out these different aspects or different activities or just different ways of connecting in relationship. It's meant to be used as a tool for discussion with a partner or a potential partner in order to figure out how you want to customize your relationship.
It's essentially instead of it being like, "Do you want a relationship or not?" All of these assumptions tied up in what relationship may mean, taking all the stuff that we shove into the concept of romantic or sexual relationship and deconstructing that. Literally, the chart is a bunch of different little floating bubbles. How they all have options within them.
Jase: I think there's supposed to be plates of delicacies that you can choose from on the Smörgåsbord.
Dedeker: Like a buffet.
Emily: Yes, totally as a buffet. Yes. Essentially just a way to help determine what it is that you and your partner want out of a relationship or you and a partner, you and another person that maybe you're not in a romantic or sexual relationship with. It just takes the guesswork out of trying to determine what each of your needs and expectations are.
As you just said so many of us grow up thinking that we know exactly what a sexual relationship or romantic relationship looks like, versus platonic relationship. We talked about this in a previous episode, but this takes the guesswork out of that. A quote from the Center for Growth.com said, "The relationship Smörgåsbord is meant for all types of relationships, platonic, familial, romantic, sexual, et cetera, and is indeed meant to challenge and make clear exactly what we mean when we are using those descriptors." I like that a lot.
Dedeker: A little bit later we are going to dive into more specifically what's actually on here, like what are .
Emily: Yes, we're going to talk deeper into that.
Jase: For those of you who are wondering about this word Smörgåsbord, just as fun little trivia here. It's a word that means an assortment of things or like a buffet with lots of different food to choose from. Literally, it is more of a buffet, a big table with lots of different food that you can pick from. Then figuratively means a wide selection of things and it comes from--
Emily: More like a charcuterie.
It's like bigger than a charcuterie. Right?
Jase: Right. I think a buffet is probably the closest thing for us.
Emily: Got it. Yes.
Jase: It's a Swedish word comes from the word Smorgas, which means basically a sandwich. It's like bread and butter is kind of what it means. Then bord, which means table, like a board, like a board of wood that you put food onto, and that it is Smörgåsbord, not Shmorgasbordg. Some people put a G at the end, that's wrong.
Emily: Bordg.
Jase: Yes, I've seen that one too online, but it's bord. B-O-R-D, is the bord and then Smorgas is spelled with some fancy little symbols over the letter we don't normally have in American English, but Smörgåsbord is how it's said.
Emily: Umlaut, yes. All right. As Dedeker said before, there are a variety of different boards out there that you can use. They really keep getting reworked and updated due to the feedback from the relationship anarchy, the polyamory, and solo polyamory Facebook groups. Our researcher for this episode actually had a discussion with Maxx Hill and they are the creator of versions two through five, the majority of the versions that are even out there.
This is a direct quote from Maxx Hill, "Members have been involved in the last three versions," meaning members from all of these different Facebook groups. "Version two called RA Smörgåsbord for the spiritually minded was created because there was nothing about spirituality, which is really important in my life and something that I gauge when I'm interacting with someone." When I shared that version here, I got a lot of feedback and made version three shortly thereafter.
Version here I believe that M is referring to and Maxx are referring to the RA Facebook group, relationship anarchy Facebook group. I got a lot of feedback and made version three shortly thereafter, version four, version five grew out of feedback from this group, the solo-poly group, a polyamory group, and comments on the original post of my timeline. As you can see, it's updating and going through different iterations over time.
Dedeker: It's so thinking about, I think that we don't often track our own history as people in these weird little fringe communities. To me it feels simultaneously like a little bit sad because sometimes on the one hand it's like, "Well, it's like, we're so neglected by so many mainstream resources that it's we have to band together and like cobble together our own little resources to educate ourselves.
Emily: It's great though, yes.
Dedeker: Yes, but then on the other hand, it's also great. It's so interesting to see all the creativity and to see tools like this, like really evolve and grow and change out of time and just be born out of necessity essentially. Yes, I love sharing these tools with my clients. That's a great tool for discussion, especially early on in a relationship to see where your mindsets are at, to see what you're open to in the future, to see where you might want to go, and these decisions about what you want your relationship to look like they can be ever-changing.
Having these initial conversations is not necessarily a binding agreement, which I think is so important because a lot of our language and our mainstream culture around relationships is we love having binding agreements. The whole thing with like a marriage contract, I even get a little bit squeaked out by, there's some non-monogamy literature out there that encourages relationship contract or kind of contextualizing your agreements.
Some people find that helpful. It always makes me feel like, because as I think it doesn't necessarily build in a lot of this flexibility into it, because this tool is also supposed to act as a temperature check on things and a way to assess compatibility. Essentially it's like a descriptive tool, not necessarily a prescriptive tool.
Jase: Yes. Another quote from the Center for Growth is, "The idea of the RA Smörgåsbord is that you have a Smörgåsbord of different relational elements that can be included in different types of relationships and you and another person get to choose collaboratively exactly what you would like to include on your collective relationship platter."
Emily: I love that.
Jase: It's like you're at the buffet picking out the stuff and being like, "What do you think about this broccoli? Oh, sounds great. How about this fried tofu? Oh yes, sounds wonderful." As Emily mentioned earlier, there have been several versions of this. We're talking about version five, which is the most recent one from 2019. What we're going to do is we're going to look at it. We're going to talk about some of what we see on it and how you can apply it into existing and new relationships.
We'll include links to the board in the description for this episode on our website, as well as on our social media this week, but if you can't find it there, you can also just do a search online for it, relationship anarchy Smörgåsbord, and you'll find it. There's lots of other things like it too, other alternatives, so if there's something about this one that doesn't quite work for you.
The principle is that it puts sort of some different topics and some ideas out there to get you started. The point of it isn't to be all and all. It even has blanks on it for you to write in extra stuff yourself. It's so intended to be a starting place of how you can have these conversations and talk about customizing your relationship and how it's going to look, and what's going to be in it.
Emily: Everyone let's pull out our boards and if you're following along, or if you already have your own relationship anarchy Smörgåsbord, then maybe you can pull it out right now and take a look. We're going--
Dedeker: I imagine those felt boards like you got in elementary school.
Jase: Oh, that'd be fun.
Emily: Oh, yes, that would be lovely.
Dedeker: That'd be fun. Got to make a little felt relationship anarchy Smörgåsbord --
Emily: I love that. Yes, that would be really cute. Yes. Okay. We're just going to read from the top right here and discuss a bunch of different things that we see from it, but I'm going to read the heading. Relationship anarchy Smörgåsbord: A tool for discussion. This board includes a number of concepts, antithetical to many understandings of RA. Not all who use this are relationship anarchists, and those who are may need to discuss how their relational style differs from cultural norms.
The categories are loose generalizations to help conversation and are arranged with those relating to the larger social/political systems toward the outside and the more personal toward the center. That's interesting. Suggested notations are, yes, maybe, maybe in the future, and let's talk. Definitely, no. Those are like different suggestions for things that you can write. There's little spaces to write below each section. It says color coding and highlighting are fun too. It seems like you can do whatever you want.
Jase: Right. That you're interacting with it, going through it together that you're, and it reminds me of some other quizzes and things for like identifying your sexual desires with a partner or something like that, where the point of it is about each of you picking what are the things where I'm like definitely a yes or definitely a no, seeing how those line up.
Then with the things in between spending a little more time discussing those and seeing not only what you want, but also if this is even compatible at all, like someone's definite no could conflict with someone's, "I absolutely need this." That doesn't mean it's a failure of either of you, but just that this might not be at least the type of relationship you're thinking about having might not be a good option for the two of you.
Emily: Yes. We're going to get a little bit further after the break into ways specifically that you can use this, but yes. I'd like to just talk about some of the things that we see here, because many of them may not be a thing that's in your specific relationship, so let's dive in.
Dedeker: Yes. Closer to the center, there are things that are maybe more personal, for instance. There's a little bubble around emotional intimacy. How do we feel about being vulnerable, sharing love languages, needing to share our values, or our beliefs, physical intimacy which includes pets, massage, nudity, dancing, or includes, and notice that the physical intimacy is also separated from a different bubble that talks about the sexual realm.
Underneath that is things like kissing, giving each other orgasms, involving our genitals, or body touch, or things like that. Then we start to expand out from the center a little bit and we start to get into things like our creative connection, so like yoga or dance together, or doing theater, or offering each other companionship. Doing shared activities, having shared interests, having intellectual or philosophical discussions. Then as we branch out, even further to the outer ring of this, we're looking at things like financial entanglements.
Do we have shared accounts or shared financial responsibilities? What communication frequency do we want? Do we want daily, do we want monthly, do we want it inconsistently? How do we feel about legal entanglements? Does that include things like marriage, adoption, being the executor of my will, and so on and so forth. It is just so interesting that I think that we just don't think about all the different ways that human beings can relate, honestly, at the end of the day and we don't think about customizing these things. It becomes really clear, I think for me, looking at this chart, becomes really clear about how our traditional labels of friend, romantic partner, acquaintance, and stranger, doesn't quite cut it. It doesn't cut it out clearly how we're actually connecting to each other. I guess the ideal use case with this chart is that I can sit down with somebody that I'm just getting to know and maybe we both expressed an interest in creating some intentional relationship together.
We can go through this together and have at least prompts for discussion. Maybe we end up coming up with something like, "Okay, we're okay with physical intimacy. We're okay with sleeping together, we're okay with nudity, and we want to incorporate kink, but maybe we're not okay with actually a romantic experience or a domestic experience together." We can come up with this custom-built connection that ideally shifts and changes and we check in on constantly instead of just assuming that we're going to try to follow the same exact script without talking about it.
Jase: I think the other thing that's really powerful about this is, within each of the little ovals that's a category like Dedeker was saying, there's one for romantic, one for sexual, one for kink. That within those, each of those words within it, you also pick and choose from those. Even within the categories, you're customizing. You're not just taking it for granted. For example, the domestic one.The words on this particular oval is routines, chores, sharing the dwelling, sharing the sleeping space, cooking together, sharing meals.
That's intended to be the starting point for which of those do we want, not just, do we want to have this domestic one with everything in it or not, right? Even as you drill down, you're customizing and in this example, it might be like, "Yes, we want to share a home, but I would actually rather have separate rooms."
You might say, "No, we're not going to share a sleeping space but we are going to share a home," or you could even have that where you're not sharing meals or maybe you do want to share a sleeping space but not share a home. There's some different options that you could go about with that. That's the point, is to get you talking about those things and not taking for granted, that if I want this one, I have to do these others, or if I don't want this one, I can't do these other things that we can't have that.
Dedeker: Yes. I really like there's this note in the center, in this most updated version of the chart, encouraging people using the chart that you have to agree together on what it is that you want. It says literally, no sneaking items in without the other knowing or there will likely be conflict or disappointment later.
I think we do that all the time, I don't think we realize that we do it, necessarily. I do think that we can sometimes just fail to really accurately convey what it is that we want or if we expect things to change over time, in a particular direction, that we just sometimes fail at that, not necessarily because we're bad people and trying to deceive other people. Sometimes, we're just not great at that. Having a tool like this helps take off the burden from yourself, I think, to think about all these different aspects.
Emily: I really appreciate the intentional way that Maxx created all of the different words in the categories, the subcategories within each category. Things like labels/terms, that's interesting, that's fun because I know a lot of people care about what label is this relationship, essentially.
Jase: What do we call each other?
Emily: Yes, absolutely. This has chosen families, spouses, parent, cousin, sibling, date-mate, I like that. Date-mate, that's fun. Also, it gets into power/hierarchy, boss-employees, sponsor-sponsee, teacher-student, mentor-guide. That's really interesting having a potential Smörgåsbord talk with someone who's like a sponsor or a mentor or someone along those lines.
Dedeker: I think fortunately/unfortunately what we've learned, I think, especially from being in the non-monogamous community is that when you're in a relatively small community, unfortunately, there can be some overlap in some of these relationships. For instance, a mentor relationship. I think it is really important for people to be very clear so that no one feels like power imbalances and people are being taken advantage of or they're very aware of the hierarchy that's there. I think it makes sense to include those things here as well.
Jase: Yes, I think there's a couple of parts of that as well. On the one hand, maybe it is more of a sponsor or mentor-type relationship because in relationship anarchy, all relationships are relationships. Every single relationship has the ability to customize itself.
Emily: That's true.
Jase: I think it can be a little misleading to think oh the fact that this Smörgåsbord has a platter of sexual and has a platter of romantic doesn't mean there is any expectation, you'll pick anything from that area at all, right? You could go through this with your mail carrier, or-- I don't know why I always go to the mail carrier.
Dedeker: You could.
Jase: It's like the random-
Jase: -acquaintance relationship, but you could, right? You go, Okay, we have this power hierarchy in a way, where you're the one who handles my mail and controls that. At the same time, this is my property that you step on to, to bring the whatever. There's different ways you could do it and that doesn't mean that you have to negotiate what kind of sex to have with your mail carrier.
Jase: You don't have to go there, right?
Dedeker: You could go.
Jase: Unless you are.
Dedeker: If it's consensual and ethical, you could.
Jase: The other side of that is, and I was actually just talking with someone about this. I think this is really important to bring up is in something like a non-monogamous relationship or maybe you're more experienced with polyamory and you're dating someone who's new to it, that if you were going through this relationship anarchy Smörgåsbord, you might get to that mentoring part and that could be for you a chance to say, "I don't want to be this for you. I'm not going to be your mentor and also a romantic partner.
If that's something that you want from me, then let's not have some of these other things that we're talking about, or if we do want to have this romantic and sexual, these things from those platters, then I'm not okay with us having this one too." I think it's just really important to have all those dynamics there to really just remember, "h yes, that's something we should talk about too. Oh yes, that could affect how we can relate to each other and how those power dynamics and imbalances might play out.
Emily: Awesome. We're going to get more into exactly how to use those potential caveats things that people have brought up, and a little bit more. Before we get into all of that, we're going to discuss some ways that you can help keep the show going by going to our sponsors and checking them out, so that we can continue bringing you this show for free.
Dedeker: Welcome back, I trust that you had time over our ad break to put your little billboard away in the corner, or maybe post up on your wall in the corner next to the blocks and stuff like that in your school, home, classroom. Anyway, some things to think about when you're using this chart. I guess the first thing is just, it's okay to make it your own. Relationships are complex, whether that's your best friend or your mail carrier or your romantic partner.
Even though of course, so many of us were brought up to have this cultural understanding of "Well, this is what a friendship looks like, versus "This is what a romantic relationship looks like," versus "This is what a casual sexual relationship looks like." Everybody's views on each of those structures is probably going to be pretty unique.
There are people out there who do think, friendship that strictly platonic, no physical interaction whatsoever, but another person might be comfortable with kissing or holding hands with their friends or being nude around their friends. Again, a tool like this can help clarify what these relationships mean for each individual.
Emily: Relationship anarchy principles, they recommend customizing relationships to the shape and the texture, the feel of what's right for all of the individuals involved. It's really--
Jase: is our only option, that's for sure.
Emily: You're right, you're right. That's it, it's got to be felled. It's an excellent idea to adjust, to add, to subtract from this board, according to your own preferences and your decisions with the other person about what makes sense for you and your relationship. That again also is why we encourage you and this particular board, version 5 doesn't work for you, you can go out there and check out some of the other versions because maybe they'll align more in the direction of what you are looking for in your relationships.
Also, if you know that there are categories here that aren't applicable to the relationship, you can just cross them off the list from the get-go. It can be helpful when maybe you show your partners this board, I recommend maybe printing it out. I know Dedeker, you said that you send it off to clients. I love the idea of printing it out and handing it around like, "Okay kids, here you go. First day of school, first day of the relationship.
Emily: You get a Smörgåsbord and you get a Smörgåsbord. If you cross that off immediately, it can be helpful
to show your partners what you do or do not want out of the relationship from the get-go.
Dedeker: It can be helpful to add this to a relationship check-in whether that's something regular, like a radar or if this is a more infrequent check-in that you do with your partner. Our researcher M who is researching this episode said that they use the board generally every few radars. They also strongly recommended taking notes.
Like we described earlier, the chart that we looked at the version that we have has little spaces for writing down notes in each category. You could print it out, you could take notes, you could highlight, you could circle or you could take notes separately as well but it's really, really good to be tracking those things.
Jase: As we mentioned before the break, the board does not have to be used only for romantic relationships. Again, the whole idea is that using terms like romantic relationship while it can be useful as a shorthand explanation for other people. The point is that every relationship is unique and the people in it are unique. This is something that you could do as a regularly scheduled check-in with roommates or friends or maybe very open-minded coworkers. This is a great tool to make sure that you're all on the same page with your relationship.
I could actually see it being a great idea to make a work-safe version of it or a roommate version of it that didn't have the sex and kink stuff on it, but still did cover some of the things about like, what are labels in terms we use? How do we relate to each other physically in a more, do we touch each other at all? What level of touch is okay, how much emotional support can we expect from each other, stuff like that? I actually think would be a really cool tool to apply in some of those situations.
Emily: I think especially also for transitioning relationships, like for instance, I lived with a partner after we broke up in college and this would've been out outrageously helpful to have to kind of like, yes, like see this is what our relationship is going to look like now. This is what is not going look like now.
Jase: Yes, for sure. Another piece of advice from our researcher is that you can do it all at once or you can break it into chunks because there's a lot of different topics here. It might be good, especially for ones that you really want to spend some time digging into. Maybe that could be the whole focus of one discussion or one radar could just be, let's really look at the domestic one and really get what's a good fit for us living together, for example.
Then maybe in the next one, you could cover several others and you can break it up however much you need to. Again, especially for those ones where you need more check in about it. Then when you're checking back in doing it more routinely, then you'll probably go through it a lot quicker unless you land on one.
It's like, "Oh, you know what? We should spend some time on this one again," reevaluating because maybe some dynamics have changed in our relationship or it doesn't quite feel right yet. We want to tweak this a little bit. It's not like you have to sit down and finish the test in 30 minutes kind of a situation.
Emily: Speaking of change, there's another quote from the Center for Growth.com that talks about that change that does happen in relationships and how to apply it to this form, this not test, it's a fun thing. It's not a test, it's not a quiz even.
Dedeker: Now, that Jase brought up this like finishing the test Now, my brain goes to the weird like thunder dome version of the relationship anarchy Smörgåsbord where you have five minutes to figure out what your relationship's going to be with your partner or I'll go. Now you do that for the next 30 days. This is a terrible unethical social experiment but it's funny in my mind.
Emily: No, I love it.
Jase: Like a reality show.
Emily: Here's the quote. It is also important to note that once you decide on what elements will be included in your relationship, that does not mean that it can never change. It just means that if one of you wants to add or subtract anything on the relationship Smörgåsbord that you should approach the other person and have a conversation about whatever it is that you'd like to change. It can sometimes be anxiety-inducing to talk about changing the nature of a relationship, but the Smörgåsbord gives you an easy shorthand to start that conversation.
Something as simple as, "Hey, I'd like to take another look at what's included on our relationship platter. What would be a good time for you?" Might feel much easier than starting with, "I'd like to discuss the nature of our relationship having regularly scheduled check-ins about your relationship and time to process also helps diminish anxiety around this discussion. It most certainly does Center for Growth.com.
Jase: Yes, it does.
Dedeker: Of course, we also need to talk about critiques because you can't have anything created on the internet without people criticizing it also but that's okay. I think a common critique that comes up about honestly any intentional relationship tool or conversation is, "Oh, but this doesn't lend itself to organic relationships." Organic is such an ephemeral thing. That could be an interesting thing to do a deep dive on sometime in a future episode about that because when people want an organic relationship, that's always the question, right?
It's like, what are they actually referring to? Of course, sitting down with somebody and speaking really intentionally about what relationship you want to craft probably is not going to feel as organic as just seeing where things go, which is how most of us have been socialized to deal with relationships. In order for your relationships to go smoothly, there is a certain level of intentionality and discussion that has to happen around a lot of aspects of relationships.
That is something we are comfortable with in certain arenas, like the conversation about cohabiting or starting a family together or becoming coworkers that those are arenas where we do recognize like, "Okay, there has to be some intentionality and discussion behind this," and it's okay to extend that into other aspects of our relationships and it doesn't make it any less organic. It just means that there's communication around these organic changes happening.
Jase: I just think it's that thing that it only seems non-organic when you're looking at it from the outside, but once you're actually using it, I feel like it takes so much of the guesswork out of things. Unless your definition of organic is just like chaotic and full of friction all the time that it's kind of, by having clarity, it allows you to spend more of your time enjoying your relationship and less of your time worrying about is this how our relationship is going? Do we feel the same about this thing?
I don't like this thing we're doing but I can't do anything about it because a romantic relationship, so that just comes with it. I've got to do it. It's really powerful if you can get past that, that idea that somehow a good relationship means you'd never talk about it, which is the most absurd myth that we've all really been fed. It just--
Emily: Love means never having to say, you're sorry, which also some real bullshit.
Jase Gross. Gross. That old chestnut…Next critique that comes up for this is there's too many categories on this ding-dang thing. It's too much. It's it's too big. Actually I don't even think it's that overwhelming but I get it customize--
Emily: It still fits on one page.
Jase: Yes, it's a one page thing. Pick the ones that are to you and leave the rest. If you hate it, you also don't have to use it. The point is just that this is going to make it easier to start these conversations but you don't need it. You can still have these conversations on your own. The reason for having so many things on it is just so that you don't forget about stuff and maybe get some for perspectives on something that wouldn't even occur to you. Like a power imbalance because of your gender.
Maybe you've never really had to encounter that because of the gender that you are. That just wouldn't even occur to you but having it on the list can be a helpful thing to realize, "Oh, maybe that's something that we should talk about how that works in our relationship." I just keep that in mind that it's not like you have to go through and somehow analyze each one. It might just be an easy, "Okay, Yes. All these, no problem." Then again, at the end of the day, you get to use as much of it or as little of it as you want.
Emily: Another critique is something along the lines of, "It's missing blank," or "I don't like that this thing is under a specific category. I want it to be somewhere else. Really this is truly a customizable tool. You can add things to it. You can make it your own. You can make it work for you and whatever relationship you're are in or whatever configuration you want this to be useful for. If you hate the way that a board's set up or have major feedback, there are a number of folks who are actively updating the boards.
If you see something that feels off to you or like there's numerous conversations out there happening about possible changes, just go and maybe go try to find these groups that they're a part of the relationship anarchy Facebook group. You can have your feedback in there as well. There's a lot of creators that are actively changing the boards. T hey're really, really open about talking about things. This all came from M and they said, also that the board that we talked about today, it had a lot of community input from
folks in the RA community. That's great. That's lovely that people are really changing it and making it more cohesive for the broader masses, but you can customize it yourself as well.
Dedeker: Yes. Lastly, last critique is just straight up. I don't want to do homework in my relationship in which case I'm like, "Why are you listening to this podcast?" If you are not also a huge relationship geek who is just like ostracized that relationship school, because you're too obsessed with your good grades and getting extra credit, then you're not part of the Multiamory family.
Jase: Oh gosh.
Dedeker: That's just kidding. No, we love you.
Jase: We still love you.
Dedeker: Obviously, we're a particular breed. I think that a lot of people in like the more intentional relationship community are a particular breed in being really into these kinds of things that help to codify our ability to just be more intentional with relationships but of course, ultimately, if you don't like the tool you don't have to use it. I think the more important thing is just you're having those conversations and you're thinking about it.
Jase: Can you imagine though, if you were given homework in school and the teacher was like, here's the homework feel free to do as much or as little of it as you think is helpful for you and if you want to change it, yes. Go for it. Go nuts. If you want to tell us how you changed it, that's fine but you just don't have to, imagine how different that will experience with you.
Dedeker: The funny thing is when I was in second grade, I thought that that's how homework worked actually.
Emily: Did you try to change the assignment?
Dedeker: No, no, no. My impression was I thought that homework was for if you didn't understand the concept in class.
Emily: Got it. You're like I obviously understand it.
Dedeker: I was in class. It was like, I got it. No, I got it. I thought that the homework was optional was like for your own benefit if you don't understand.
Jase: Extra study if you wand, yes.
Dedeker: That was a little bit of a rude awakening in second grade.
Emily: You're like, "I don't want to do it."
Dedeker: I do remember watching all these kids turning in their homework and feeling a little bit, sorry for them, but you're like, gosh, they really didn't get it. It didn't seem that difficult to me.
Emily: Wow Dedeker, wow.
Jase: Who was the one who didn't understand the
Dedeker: I know, it's the irony.
Emily: Yes, indeed.
Jase: Oh my gosh. Some last few things that we wanted to say about this is that the board can be used with other people as well as being used alone. This might be something that's good to take a look at and fill out on your own, just to start getting a clearer picture in your own mind of where you stand on certain categories. Is this something that you want in any relationship or is this something you're sure that you don't want in any relationship?
That can be really helpful, even as you're starting to date even before you might get to the point of sitting down with the Smörgåsbord, you have a more of a sense of what types of things relationships can be and which ones you want and which ones you, that that might help give you some clarity, or you could potentially go through this and then have some other members of your polycule.
Say if you're in other you're in a polycule or with close friends or something like that, have them fill it out for themselves and then compare just to talk about it, just to have the fun of discussing this, even if they're not someone that you're actively doing the Smörgåsbord with yourself.
Dedeker: There's also many different ways that you can choose to express your interest in each category. It could be as simple as writing a yes, no, maybe never, maybe in the future, next to every single thing, one article suggested getting out colored pencils or crayons or using a color code system to show your interest in a category. I think there's a reason why I bring up the felt board thing is because something that I do for clients--
Emily: Is it just or is it like in felt like
Dedeker: When you were growing up in school-
Emily: Oh yes, then you stick it, okay.
Dedeker: Yes, they stick to the felt, and then you'd have act out like little stories and so-
Emily: Oh gosh, okay, that's pretty cute. I know you'd really have to make a huge board to make this Smörgåsbord work.
Jase: Yes, it'd be a big felt board.
Dedeker: The reason why it's exciting to me is something that I have done with clients in the past specifically about non-monogamous aspects of their relationship is sometimes I will have clients essentially generate almost their own Smörgåsbord of like all the possible aspects of a non-monogamous relationship like good, bad, ugly, everything in between.
Then I will sometimes have them like take those notes or those sticky notes and stick them around in a shape or in a particular arrangement that conveys how comfortable or uncomfortable they feel with these certain aspects. I think that that could be a really valuable thing with a Smörgåsbord as well. I'm just trying to speak to like the kinesthetic, the more physical visual learners out there who maybe have a harder time codifying things just by like writing, and instead would benefit more from being able to physically move things around in space.
Emily: Love that. That's great.
Dedeker: Do what you got to do get a felt board is when I illusion.
Jase: I'm also a big fan of, especially if you're doing this remotely or even if you just want to keep a record of it that doesn't have to take up a whole wall of your house as it fell forward, or as sticky notes is online things like MRO is one of them MRO. That's an online sticky board where you can put up post-it notes and draw lines between them have your whole conspiracy theory board virtually, and you can collaborate with other people so both of you can be putting stickies and moving them around at the same time.
That's something I really enjoy for collaborating on ideas with people. You can have like three boards for free or something like that and all you need is the one for this or you can even put all of your different Smörgåsbord on the same huge whiteboard if you want. Anyway, a fun free solution for that. There's other online whiteboard-type things out there too, that you could check out.
Emily: Wow that was beautiful. I love it. I really want to use this, and I want to print it out. I'd be interested to do it with you two as well.
Jase: Yes, let's do it.
Dedeker: Oh yes.
Emily: We can do it as a company. I want to do it with my partner. Yes, there's that, and now it's just fun. There's so many different ways to use it and it's just yet another fun tool that I think can enhance one's relationship so, oh yes. Hope you all got something out of this. Initially, I wanted to have Maxx Hill, who is the creator of versions two through five of the relationship NRV Smörgåsbord on for a bonus episode, but we all realized after talking with Maxx that a longer fuller length interview with them would be the best.
We're going to do that at some point in the future and this week in lieu of a bonus episode, just please check out and support Maxx's work. This is a quote directly from them about where you can find more of their work. They said this, "At this point, I have a Facebook, which is Maxx Hill M-A-X-X Hill, where I have shared the Smörgåsbord publicly and I've had discussions about it. I also have a newish Instagram for my graphic design work, which is @Maxxhillcreates, M-A-X-X Hill creates.
People can always contact me via email, M-A-X-X Hill.creates@gmail.com with RA Smörgåsbord and the subject line. I will be raising some funds to be able to put together a website where I will host the Smörgåsbord, both current and past versions and in various spiraled types, outside of the realm of social media. I am currently working on an updated version to the Smörgåsbord and welcome feedback.
The currently shared version is version five, which is most easily recognized because of the gradient of gray circles behind the bubbles. For everyone who listened to the episode, that is the Smörgåsbord that we talked about, in the episode and so you can check that out and if you want a downloadable PDF version of it, you can contact Maxx for that.
Thanks so much, Maxx, for all that information and we look forward to having you on the show at some point. Our question on Instagram this week is have you heard of the RA Smörgåsbord and do you use it in your relationships? I certainly hadn't, but I bet a lot of you out there have. The best place to share your thoughts with other listeners is on this episode's discussion thread in our private Facebook group or Discord chat. You can get access to these groups and join our exclusive community by going to patreon.com/Multiamory.
In addition, you can share with us publicly Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Multiamory is created and produced by Jase Lindgren, Dedeker Winston, and me, Emily Matlack. Our episodes are edited by Mauricio Balvanera. Our social media wizard is Will McMillan. Our production assistants are Rachel Schenewerk and Carson Collins. Our researcher for this episode is the fabulous Em Mais thank you so much for all of your help on this. Our theme song is Forms I know I Did by Josh & Anand from the Fractal Cave EP. The full transcript is available on this episode's page on multiamory.com.