Last weekend, the cover of the Boston Globe Sunday magazine featured a good story about a topic I know well: polyamory. In Love’s New Frontier, Globe writer Sandra Miller did a far better job explaining this approach to relationships than most mainstream publications do. No wide-eyed, mock-shock sensationalism.

As a polyamorous person, I was rather tickled that this topic got such prominent play. I figured: Cool! There goes a chunk of the vocabulary gap!

If you haven’t heard the term, polyamory means being open to having more than one intimate relationship at a time, with the full knowledge and consent of everyone involved.

Yes, I realize any new term sounds awkward until you get used to it. So: Get used to it. Because here’s what the vocabulary gap looks like to a poly person…

WHEN WORDS FAIL

Whenever the subject of relationships comes up, if I mention something that indicates I’m not monogamous, usually I see raised eyebrows. If I clarify that I’m poly, usually I get blank stares. Most people haven’t heard that word.

…Yes, moving to the Bay Area has helped ease that social awkwardness — but it’s still surprisingly common, even here.

Usually when people first hear the word polyamory, they immediately conflate it with infidelity, patriarchal polygamy, sex-focused swinging, or dysfunction. Occasionally they may already have some grasp of some aspects of polyamory — but rarely do they possess a vocabulary for it that’s not either exclusionary (“non-monogamous”), derisive (“promiscuous,” “cheating with permission,” or “can’t really commit”), or deliberately vague (“open”).

That’s not their fault. I don’t feel personally insulted by this vocabulary gap. But it is a problem.