Are humans “meant” to be monogamous?
A few thoughts to begin a conversation
We talk a lot about how humans are “meant” to love — whether monogamously or not — but far less about how we talk to each other when our nervous systems are different.
Somewhere along the way, we started ranking ways of loving. As if safety, attachment, jealousy, or longing were moral choices rather than biological realities. As if one way of connecting meant you were more evolved, more secure, or more enlightened than another.
I’ve been sitting with that discomfort for a while.
This blog — The Curious Monogamist — isn’t here to argue for monogamy or against polyamory. It’s here because I’ve noticed how often thoughtful, caring people end up feeling broken, behind, or “not cut out for it” simply because the way they attach doesn’t match the dominant narrative in the room.
And I don’t think that’s a failure of love.
I think it’s a failure of framing.
The question that keeps coming back
One of the most common claims I hear in relationship conversations goes something like this:
“Humans aren’t meant to be monogamous. Look at the animal kingdom.”
It’s usually said with certainty — as though monogamy is a social mistake we’re slowly evolving past, and polyamory represents something more natural or biologically honest.
The thing is, the more I’ve thought about this — and the more I’ve read, listened, and learned — the less satisfying that comparison feels.
Not because polyamory is wrong.
But because humans are different.
We are unusual not just in how we mate, but in how we bond. We form deep attachment bonds. We co-regulate emotionally. We build identity, safety, and meaning through connection. Our infants are dependent for years, not months. Our nervous systems are shaped around relationship.
So when we compare human love to animal mating behaviour and declare one “natural” and the other “unnatural,” we’re often making an apples-to-oranges comparison — and then using it to rank each other.
That ranking is where harm creeps in.
What if the issue isn’t how we love, but how we judge it?
Here’s the thought that changed things for me:
What if we stopped ranking nervous systems?
What if jealousy isn’t primitive, but informational?
What if attachment isn’t weakness, but biology doing its job?
What if needing reassurance isn’t immaturity, but a nervous system seeking safety?
Neuroscience and attachment theory suggest that secure attachment — the ability to bond deeply and rely on others — is associated with emotional resilience, empathy, and flexibility. Distress, grief, and jealousy aren’t moral failures. They’re signals, designed to alert us to potential loss of connection.
Suppressing those signals doesn’t make someone more evolved. Often, it just makes them more disconnected from themselves.
This isn’t about choosing sides
None of this is an argument against polyamory.
Some people are genuinely wired to love multiple partners deeply, to experience security without exclusivity, and to navigate intimacy in expansive ways. That love is real, meaningful, and worthy of respect.
But that doesn’t make it more evolved.
Humans evolved both sexual flexibility and deep attachment bonds. Different people prioritise and experience those systems differently. Neither monogamy nor polyamory represents the endpoint of human evolution.
They’re different relational strategies — each with benefits, costs, and demands.
The problem starts when one is framed as enlightenment and the other as deficiency.
Why this space exists
I started The Curious Monogamist because I wanted a place to think out loud about these questions — without hierarchy, without shame, and without pretending there’s one right way to love.
A place where:
monogamous people don’t have to pathologise themselves to belong
polyamorous people don’t have to defend their capacity to love
and everyone is allowed to be human, thoughtful, and unfinished
If you’ve ever felt like you were missing something fundamental because of how you love — you’re not alone.
This is a space for curiosity, not conclusions.
For conversation, not correction.
My thinking here has been shaped by attachment theory, nervous system research, and many conversations and voices in the relationship space. What’s offered is my own lived experience and synthesis of those ideas - not as a definitive answer, but as an invitation to think together.
I’m glad you’re here.