No, it’s not patronising, you’ve just got a chip on your shoulder and are sensitive about it.

Look, I’m not trying to portry polyamorous folks as relationship gurus, or anything like that. And I’m not trying to suggest that we know more about *monogamous* relationships. But monogamy and polyamory are different beasts, and I would suggests that they’re both subsets of the big wide world of relationships. Surely experiencing more than one subset gives you more experience in general?

No matter how many monogamous relationships you have one after another, it’s not going to be the same as polyamory. And frankly, I find your preachy tone a bit annoying considering that none of us (you included) used to write in any great detail about relationships before we all started being poly.

I don’t want to have a big row about this. But I also dispute this line:

If your advice works for everyone, just package it as “relationship advice”

No relationship advice works for everyone. But as a polyamorous person, your odds of encountering people with different emotional needs and having to accomodate them increase. When you first have to deal with the needs of people with very different outlooks at the same time, it’s almost impossible not to grow as a person. Of course, there are those in polyamorous relationships who completely fail to learn anything from the experience, but that doesn’t mean that there’s nothing to be learned.

I think there is a special insight to be learned from being poly. But not everyone learns it, and I guess you can’t really pass it on.