TW: if s*x and dating is a trigger to you, please skip reading this.
Dating with DID is complicated. Imagine blind dating and you see the body, but its a whole other person. They look nothing like the body, the name is different, age, everything. It is complicated.
The first complication is the boundaries of dating. Alters have their own thoughts and feelings. They also come with their own sex drives. Dating as a singlet (a person with a singular identity) is hard enough. Just multiply that by however many eligible alters. When you decide the boundaries like: whether or not you are letting them date multiple singlets, one singlet partner, or a possible partner system. Then you have to decide, are they only dating 1 alter? Any alter?
Its these small minuet details in a relationship, that normal singlets just don’t think about. You go into a monogamous relationship with someone, you make it clear. You explore that relationship and learn boundaries. With a system, you don’t know where everyone’s boundaries are. It is highly important to make it extremely clear the rules and boundaries from physicality to who is in the relationship.
In our system, we allow open poly relationships with singlets. We have our partner of the system and a friend of the system who date any alters. There are rules that if your dating an alter and you want to add another, your partner must be ok with it. There’s not many rules about sex, because long distance. That will come in time. So much stress thinking about that.
One of the most difficult parts I’ve found is an alter falling in love with someone online and not knowing how to make themselves known as an alter. The utter stress and worry they feel. On average, the person knows about our DID before an alter really starts getting to know them. Other times, the alter is the one chatting with people as themselves. That is when you get the most stress and worry.
Our poor girl, Trinette, found a man online she really enjoyed and connected with. He didn’t know we were a system. They added each other. She explained she was an alter and he accepted her. Which is rather amazing and quite rare. But, dreams get crushed when reality sets in. He realizes how much pain and trauma we must have gone through and became really bothered by it. He ends up saying goodbye to her. The poor girl cried and cried till she fell asleep.
Another part that bothers us, singlets who become cocky about dating a system. They think they can handle dating 3,000 people or some crap. It’s ridiculous and foolish. They end up hurting everyone in the system. Sometimes they say they can date everyone till they learn about our openly gay male alters. Then all bets are off because they’re too straight for that.
Dating a system is difficult and can become stressful. It becomes highly stressful when they cannot see their partner for possible months at a time. I can’t imagine as the host how hard that is. But I think that’s the benefit of dating multiple alters. You can share your time and love with many. Anyways, we are all parts of a whole at the end of the day. If you’re gonna love one of us, might as well love all of us.
The last complication I would like to touch on is dating middles/teen alters. There are young alters between the ages of 12-16 years of age, who may hold sexual trauma or just be sexually curious. In the system, there may not be anyone close to their age that they are attracted to, or none at all. For the singlet partner, this would be really tricky situation. The body is legal age and so are you, but this young part is trusting you and is sexually curious. We don’t want her/him to go finding someone online. The big problem is what do you do?
Well, I don’t really have an answer for you. I honestly don’t know what to do either. It’s a hard situation to be in. If your partner is a similar sized system, they could find someone their age and be happy. But when you’re dating a singlet, the stress of feeling like there’s something shady about it. Even if that person is 100% trustworthy, it just itches at the back of your head. I believe this to be a very serious and under talked about issue within the community. Whether or not you are disordered or diagnosed. It is controversial and possibly dangerous.
I hope to hear your opinions and thoughts.
-Trina (The Masquerade System)

© trina