Many Loves: What Love Fest Helped Me Understand About Polyamory

This past weekend, I attended the Mile High Love Fest in Denver, CO. Whenever I travel, I like to set an intention: this trip was focused on love and connection. I don't think I knew exactly what that was going to look like, and honestly, I think that was part of what made the weekend so meaningful. I wasn't going there looking for a particular experience; I wasn't looking for sex or a partner or even necessarily expecting to meet anyone who would remain in my life afterward. I went to Denver alone, on a full flight, sitting next to an empty seat, knowing that whatever happened there might be physically fleeting, and I think there was something incredibly freeing about that.

I've been thinking about the word polyamory a lot since.

Polyamory, in its truest form, means "many loves." And the more I sit with that, the more I realize that this is how I understand it. Many loves: not necessarily many romantic partners or sexual partners, not even necessarily people with whom I have clearly defined relationships. For me, it's become something much more expansive than that. It's about our capacity to love and connect with other human beings in ways that don't necessarily fit into the categories we've been given for what love is supposed to look like.

As a solo polyamorist, my relationship with myself comes first. I see my relationship with self as primary not because I don't want or need other people, and certainly not because I want to live without attachment, but because I've spent years learning how to love myself. This past weekend at Love Fest illuminated something new in this concept, though. I realized that self-love isn't something I keep for myself. When I'm actually grounded in it, that love flows out of me. It changes how I walk into a room, how I talk to people, how open I am, how vulnerable I can be, and how willing I am to let other people see me. And this weekend, I felt seen.

I remember walking through the conference smiling, acknowledging people around me, but also being very focused on why I was there. I wasn't scanning the room wondering who found me attractive. I wasn't trying to make anything happen. I just felt very intentionally myself. I was curious about people and paying attention to who I felt drawn toward, who felt safe, whose energy felt like mine, and what happened inside me when I was around different people.

One of the people I was drawn to was a presenter I met early in the weekend. We held eye contact a beat longer than the conversation required, and I could sense something was there. Throughout the conference, we kept having these little touch points, and as someone who is both demi- and sapio-sexual, the sparks of emotion and intellect that kept happening became very attractive. However, there was no urgency to do anything with the attraction; for the time, I simply enjoyed feeling that there was something between us.

At one point I was heading downstairs, considering attending a platonic cuddle experience. I happened to run into him in the elevator and learned that he was planning to go. But then I saw his partner in the lobby, and I remember my energy shifting slightly. It wasn't a negative feeling. It was more like an awareness: he's here with someone. I didn't know what their agreements were. I didn't know what space they had created for themselves that weekend. And I wanted to respect that.

I kept walking and ended up talking to three people standing around a box of jewellery in the conference area. Two men, one woman, and something about them caught my attention. The jewellery was beautiful, but it was also them. I started talking to them and the conversation became easy almost immediately. There were commonalities everywhere. Eventually, I remembered that I had come downstairs for the cuddle experience, and as the facilitators announced that they were about to close the doors, I excused myself from the trio and went inside.

I sat down, looked around, and noticed my presenter crush was not there. I immediately felt my energy shift, as I thought to myself, I don’t want to cuddle with any of these people. I stayed maybe two minutes before I knew: the people I actually wanted to be with were standing outside the doors by a jewellery box, talking about something real.

So I left.

I walked back out and told them, straight up: "I'd rather be out here with you." All three of them lit up, and they joyfully welcomed me back into the conversation. I ended up spending probably another 2-hours with them. More people joined us, and I found out that they were part of this larger non-monogamous community from Denver. They were former ravers and festival goers, spiritual people, ambitious people, self-employed people, people who had lived through difficult things and had clearly done a lot of work on themselves.

I remember thinking, these are my people.

They invited me to spend time with them after the conference the following night. And that's where the weekend became even more interesting. We were originally going to drive to Boulder for an ecstatic dance event, but plans shifted and we ended up going to this rooftop party in RiNo, an artsy part of Denver overlooking the mountains. There was something almost comically serendipitous about it because I had left Toronto on exactly the weekend when multiple groups of my friends were going out dancing. Had I stayed home, I probably would have been dancing Friday and Saturday night with people I already knew and loved. Instead, I flew to Denver and somehow found myself dancing on a rooftop with people I had met the day before and felt completely like myself.

There were moments on the dance floor when I caught myself comparing myself to the women around me. I was wearing jean shorts and a tank top because I hadn't exactly packed for an unexpected rooftop dance party in Denver. Around me were women in these gorgeous, intentional outfits, looking incredible. Goddess-like. I noticed the comparison, felt into it fully for a few moments, and then reminded myself of my Goddess energy. My self-love took over, and I danced. Head down, not performing, just moving because the music was asking me to and my body knew the answer. I felt like myself.

I fucking shone.

The woman I was with told me that evening that I had been the catalyst for her and the two men being together that night. Because we'd made plans the night before, they’d all ended up spending the evening together again. That word stayed with me: catalyst.

This wasn't the first time I've felt that way in people's lives. I've noticed that sometimes I move through someone's life, even briefly, and something shifts. Maybe they become more open and engage in a conversation they needed. Maybe people connect with each other. Maybe someone feels seen. And don’t get me wrong, I don't mean I can be a catalyst in a grandiose way. I recognize that I’m not responsible for what happens in other people's lives, and I don't believe I'm somehow magically transforming everyone I meet. It's more simple than that. I think I've become increasingly aware that our presence affects relational spaces. We don't just enter relationships; we participate in them. We change the environment by being there, and the environment changes us, too.

That night, there was also a lot of sexual energy around me. The woman I was with had told me about this beautiful sexual experience she'd had with the two men the previous evening and how excited she was about potentially experiencing that with them again. And I remember knowing very clearly: that's not why I'm here. I didn't want to have sex with them. I didn't want to insert myself into what was happening between them. I wanted her to have that experience again because I could see how excited and empowered she felt by it.

There was something incredibly freeing about realizing that. I could be around sexual energy without needing it to become mine. I could feel connected to these people without needing access to every form of intimacy they shared with each other. I could care about what was happening without needing to be at the centre of it.

One of the men and I had developed a particularly grounding connection throughout the evening. We had some beautiful conversations. He gave me these enormous hugs that brought me back into my body when I needed them. At one point we held hands for maybe ten seconds, and there was something incredibly connected about that tiny moment. On the drive back, I sat in the front with him, and we talked while the other two made out in the backseat. It was adorable. And at no point did I think, why aren't I the one making out with somebody? I didn't feel like I was missing the real experience because mine wasn't sexual. My experience was already complete.

Or so I thought.

Because the weekend had one more thing to say.

My original flight home was cancelled. The feeling that landed in my chest wasn't serendipity. It was helplessness. I needed to get home to my kids the next day and suddenly couldn't. They were safe, they were with their dad, but there's something visceral about being the mom who can't get home. If you've seen “Home Alone”, you know the exact feeling I mean.

The presenter and I had been texting throughout the day, trying to coordinate a drink before I left. When my flight fell through, his next message read: I think the universe wants us to grab that drink.

What saved me that night wasn't the universe. It was a person showing up at the exact moment I needed somewhere to land. Connection that felt continuous with everything the weekend had already given me, rather than a hotel room alone with my helplessness and the particular misery of being stuck somewhere you're no longer supposed to be.

So we went.

We sat in a Ruby Tuesdays near my hotel with non-alcoholic beers and talked. And then, mindfully and intentionally, with full awareness of what we were doing and why, with agreements named and honoured, with care taken for each other's health and safety, we embraced the underlying intimacy of the connection we'd been building all weekend.

I had spent four days letting things be what they were without forcing them into what they could become. Neither of us forced this either. The cancelled flight was just a cancelled flight. What we did with that night was entirely our own.

What I know is this: I arrived in Denver with an intention around love and connection, and I had no idea what that was going to look like. None of it was what I planned; all of it was what I needed. I'm sitting on my flight home now, with an empty seat beside me. I keep looking at it.

I think I'm going to leave it that way.

Warm regards,
Belle Love