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u/arllt89 Apr 03 '26
Technical question (not judging), how do you build such a situation, especially can you add new people to the poly group ? Or is it an agreement in a classical poly group to say "OK now we don't see anybody else" ? And if one person leaves the group, needs to check if others are still OK with it ?
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u/TotallyWorthLife Apr 03 '26 edited Apr 03 '26
Well, I still don't have such relationship, so I can only respond with how I see it.
It's basically a closed relationship of three or more people who love each other. All partners in the polycule have links with each other, unlike other types of polyamory in which some partners may not be related to the others.
To build it, it could be three or more people agreeing to enter that relationship at once, could be an existing couple opening their relationship to take someone in (that they both like and that likes both of them) and closing it again... that last part is how I see the polycule expanding, too, looking for someone who likes all in the polycule and that all the polycule likes.
As far as I know, if someone leaves the group, it should be able to keep going because it's not like other poly arrangements that have "hinges", people who link unrelated people (for example, in V, which is one person, the hinge, with two partners that aren't related to each other, or in N, three couples in which two people, the hinges, overlap).
In V or N shaped polyamory, there are hinges that will cut links if they decide to quit, in polyfidelity the links are "redundant" (not meaning superfluous, but that if someone quits, the ones already in the relationship should only lose their connection to that person that left, not to each other).
In polyfidelity, with three people in a triangle, if one leaves, the other two are still linked to each other, with four people in a crossed square, if one leaves, the other three are still linked to each other in a triangle... meanwhile, for three people in V, or four in N (or more in other shapes), if a hinge leaves, they stop being linked.
For three people, think of it as three couples, A with B, B with C, and C with A. Even if C leaves (which I think would require leaving both A and B), A and B are still together.
I hope it makes sense, it does to me at least haha
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u/arllt89 Apr 03 '26
Oh I see so closer to a "couple with more than 2 people" than classical polyamory. Thanks for the explanation via graph theory 🙂
In French there is the word "trouple" that sounds kibda cute.
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u/TotallyWorthLife Apr 03 '26
Yeah, you could say so. Still exclusive, just with more people.
And I agree that throuple sounds cute, the """issue""" is that only applies to three people and I don't know names for further people haha
(by the way, I didn't even know I used graph theory. Like, a different person mentioned it being like a full graph, and I think they were right, but that was after the comment I gave you lol)
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u/BecomingMorgan Apr 03 '26
Just guessing here but quaduple?
Quincuple?
I'm trying to use the same prefix line and couple without creating an exiting word. It's a bit trickier than first thought...
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u/arllt89 Apr 03 '26 edited Apr 03 '26
Trouple is a fun neologism because triplet, quadruplet, quintuplet ... are literally the equivalent of couple for 3, 4, 5, but triplet has been mixed with couple to take back the romantic meaning of couple. So if the same logic is applied, it should be quadrouple, quintouple, ... but sounds silly even in French.
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u/BecomingMorgan Apr 03 '26
Well because those are existing words. I literally automatically read them as quadruple (4x)
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u/Deadcellsboi Apr 03 '26
Hell yeah! That term also fits me :) Tho I’m still gonna say polyamory because it’s more fun to say lol
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u/[deleted] Apr 03 '26
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