So, a unicorn traditionally has meant a hot bi babe, almost always a woman, that a generally cisgender het-leaning couple looks for to complete their relationship.
So, a man and a woman are in a relationship.
They are looking for a third who is a hot bisexual woman who will be with them exclusively.
The way that this term was created was to describe a very particular dynamic that happens a lot in open and non-monogamous and polyamorous communities where people generally much newer to non-monogamy will be seeking a closed triad as their first non-monogamy experience because they think it'll be way easier than anything else when closed triads are actually the like Olympic-level polyamory relationship structure because they're complicated and very challenging to manage.
But because it is the closest to a cis-het-monogamous pairing, folks often try to enter through that realm.
And it's usually a woman because in our culture, women are considered less threatening sexual partners to bring into a relationship than men.
Non-binary people obviously don't exist.
Transgender people would never be considered because they would just mess up all of that ability to be close to cis-het-normativity.
Unicorns usually, the couple looking for a unicorn wants the unicorn to love both of them equally, want both of them sexually equally, and they've created a space in their relationship in their life that they want that unicorn to just slot themselves right into with no outside wants or needs or other partners or other things that they're attending to.
Unicorn hunting is generally frowned upon because it is a dynamic in which you're creating a relationship with three people in it, but only two people are getting a say in what that relationship looks like.
The third person is just getting the ability to opt in or out, which is not actually a truly equitable position.
And so, it creates this power imbalance from the start where the couple is already together and their relationship is always going to take precedence and they're always going to stick by each other. And the third is there for as long as they don't rock the boat.
For as long as they don't cause too many problems, that third gets to be there.
But the second that they want something that isn't what the couple wants, that's when it becomes a problem.
It's also just pretty unrealistic to expect any one person to love and have desire for two people equally.
Just statistically speaking, there's a really funny website about unicorn hunters that looks into the statistical probability of finding a bisexual woman who's equally attracted to both of you and wants a non-monogamous relationship.
And basically, the numbers come out to it being close to impossible, which is why we call it a unicorn, right?
They're looking for something that is a mythical creature that doesn't really exist because human beings and relationships are messy and every person in a relationship should get equal say in that relationship.
And that's like directly in that relationship.
If I'm dating someone and then they separately start dating another person, I don't get a say in the relationship they have.
I get a say in the relationship I have with this person, but not a say in their relationship, because that's not my relationship.
I'm not in it.
But every person in a relationship should have equal say.
They should have equal power, equal decision-making ability.
They should be able to come to it with the same level of empowerment and the same level of autonomy and agency as everybody else in the connection.
And unicorn hunting doesn't tend to set up that kind of situation.
It tends to set up a situation where the couple has agency and autonomy and empowerment, but the other person does not.
Again, it's still very common.
It happens all the time.
Sometimes people use unicorn to just mean like a third that they play with.
I'd like to call that being a special guest star.
You just come in for an episode or two.
You have your little arc and then you leave and they continue their show together.
But I think people look for a unicorn because it feels safe, right?
It is forcing the least amount of change on the couple that is seeking one.
It is forcing the least amount of fear and insecurity and upheaval and danger of disruption because it is allowing them to pretend that basically their relationship is staying the same.
They're just adding someone else into that existing relationship. The reality is that it doesn't work that way.
Even if you find someone who wants that relationship with you, it almost never actually works that way because you can't just add another person into a relationship and have it stay the same.
When a family has another child, the family doesn't stay the same.
Everything changes within that family dynamic because that other person is there.
There was a psychologist, I think, who said once that like no two people have the same parents.
Even if you have a sibling, you were raised by the same two people, the way that each of you experienced them was different.
And so, there's no way to keep a relationship the same while you add somebody else.
Who you are when that person is in the equation is going to be different.
Who your partner is when that person is in the equation is going to be different.
The way that you do things is going to be different.
Things are going to change.
And I think that people look for a unicorn because they're trying to preserve as much as possible of their old life and face as little change and as little danger as possible when all they're doing is like kind of guaranteeing certain kinds of upheaval are going to happen.
You know, I think it's one of those things where like the more that we need any relationship to stay the same, the more we're guaranteeing it's going to face a really big upheaval because people don't stay the same.
The world around us doesn't stay the same.
Like nothing stays the same.
Everything is going to be changing and evolving continually.
And so, trying to seek someone who allows as much as possible to stay the same is just guaranteeing that there's going to be other kinds of upheaval.
And it's going to be more painful because this was a situation set up to avoid exactly that.
I think that the advice I give most people if they are already in a monogamous relationship and they are thinking about opening it up to non-monogamy is that you should think of that as you breaking up and building an entirely new relationship because you need to examine everything at the foundation and core of that relationship that went into it to see the ways in which monogamy impacted and colored those assumptions, those agreements, those understandings, those expectations.
And if you don't think of it as this complete restructuring of your relationship, you're going to end up in this space where you're trying to keep things the same that can't possibly stay the same.
You know, you can't – if you look at a stream or a river, the river is never the same twice.
You can go back as many times as you want.
It's never exactly the same.
You can't bring back the exact water you stood in two minutes ago.
It's always changing.
And I think unicorn hunting is about these efforts to avoid that change and avoid the fear associated with that change.
But you have to embrace the change instead.
And I think even for people who are monogamous, this would be a much healthier practice.
I think monogamy tells us this story that like you get to the pinnacle of the escalator and you're done.
Nothing ever has to change again.
You finished, relationship complete.
Now you just ride it out forever.
But that's not reality.
Who you are is growing and changing.
Who your partner is, is growing and changing.
The world is changing.
Everything is always changing.
And so, I think embracing change as a core component of our relationships makes it much easier to ride with the changes that come.
It makes it much easier for us to be able to deal with the big jolts that our relationships take as things change around us. I think embracing change as like a core component of relationship makes it much healthier because then when somebody wants a change, it's not this huge doomsday event.
It's just another part of what relationships do, right?
It's just something that happens.
Might it be difficult moving through that change period?
Yes.
Might it mean that the relationship itself has to change in some fundamental way?
Possibly.
But we don't know that for sure, but the likelihood of those more challenging outcomes increases, the less okay we are with any kind of change.
And so, I think embracing change, being okay with it, understanding that the relationship that you had is not going to stay the same, makes it much easier.
And I think that as people grow in non-monogamy, often they move away from that unicorn hunting because they see that it just doesn't work.
That like who they are is different, what they want is different.
That sometimes they bring someone in and one of them really gets along with that person.
The other is like not super into it.
And like, why are we cutting off one of those?
You know, I think it's important to give ourselves the space to learn and grow.
It's important to give ourselves the space for our relationships to change in ways that we didn't see coming, that we didn't plan for or hope for.
And that that's not always bad too.
That sometimes the change we didn't want, the change that at first felt very threatening, very hard, very negative, can actually still be very positive, can still be very good.
And the more that we're able to let go of that need for control and sameness and roll with change, I think the better things tend to go for us.
So again, I think people look for a unicorn coming from this very understandable place.
And it's more helpful to be able to instead embrace that that's just not how things are going to go.
The likelihood that any couple, even the hottest couple in the damn world who has done so much therapy is going to find a bisexual person who wants to be with only them and do exactly the relationship they want, it's basically zero.
So let yourself be human.
Let yourself be messy and have complicated feelings and feel uncertain about this change.
Let your relationship feel messy and complicated around the things that are changing.
And let yourself have connections that evolve on their own.
You don't know how your relationship is going to look in a month, in a year.
You don't know what kinds of relationships you're going to want 5, 10 years down the line.
So just try to be here right now.
Try to be with what you have, what's feeling good for you.
Try to give yourself the space to just embrace what feels right and to continue showing up to the people with whom you have agreements and commitments and being honest with them about what you have available and what you don't, being honest about what you want and what you need.
