Whenever I travel, I type acroyoga and the name of the city I’m going to into Facebook and find the local crew. It’s basically a guaranteed workout and new friends, which is what everyone needs when they travel!
I added a few acroyogis I played with on Facebook after the Boston jam and, unsurprisingly, we had many mutual friends already. But when I saw a non-acroyogi among our mutual friends, I had to ask:
Me: How do you know so-and-so?
Them: Burner things, probably.
Me: Ah, yeah. I was just explaining to a friend that the venn diagram of polyamorists, acroyogis, D&D players, and burners is a circle.
Them: Hahaha, 3/4 for me!
Me: 3/4 for me too. It’s not a perfect circle.
I’m not the first to point this out, either. Kimchi Cuddles has a comic about polyamorists playing D&D and Click Hole ran an article pointing out that table top board games, circus arts, tech jobs, and burner parties are how one couple is expanding the size of their polycule.
I think for people not in these communities, they seem like wildly unrelated hobbies. But for those of us within these communities, this makes sense.
Acroyoga requires a lot of knowledge about your own boundaries, strengths, weaknesses, and navigating consent with other humans. The acro community is really good about asking if you want to play, asking what your pronouns are, and trusting strangers with our bodies. It’s all about teamwork so we can become stronger and lift each other up.
Table top RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons require teamwork and communication too. Players tend to be creative, using the game as an outlet for everything from music, voice acting, painting, sculpture, writing, graphic design, drawing… the list goes on. At its core, D&D is a collaborative storytelling game and players have to work together to solve hard problems.
High tech work requires a certain amount of critical thinking, large scale collaborative team work (just think about the internet as a technological achievement!), and imagination. Many techies are interested in science fiction and work to create their scifi dreams into reality. This includes utopian collaborative socialist societies like Star Trek and the polyamorist anarchist rebellions of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
Polyamory requires, above all else, communication. You have to realize that you’re on the same team as your metamours (your partners’ other partners) and not competing with them. You have to juggle schedules and solve problems and work well with others, understanding their boundaries and consent…
Are you sensing a theme?
I’m not a burner, so I can’t really speak to that community. But if you’re the kind of person who is self-sufficient enough to survive in the desert for a week while eschewing societal norms like money, leaving behind societal norms like monogamy isn’t too hard. My understanding is that the people at Burning Man are generally collaborative and empathetic humans who help each other survive the harsh desert conditions.