WALDEN’S WORLD

Polyamo-rings: on a finger near you soon

‘It’s a what ring?” The woman I got chatting to at the weekend had to repeat herself three times before I finally got it. The ring she was wearing to a barbecue in Venice Beach (right) – a distinctive heart crossed with an infinity symbol – was “a polyamoring. You know? An open marriage ring?” I didn’t know. But it turns out – in our weird new world where people hate to be defined by others but love to define themselves

– there’s a thriving open relationship accessory industry.

You can buy polyamory rings and pins, bracelets and lockets with “compersion” – “the opposite of jealousy: the feeling of joy one has experiencing another’s joy” – and “Friday is my cheat night” inscribed.

And it’s not so much the knowledge that extra-marital sex can be excused as easily as a 17-inch pizza and a hunk of banoffee pie (“It’s only once a week, right?”) or indeed the extent of the merchandise on offer that’s most surprising, but the merchandising of oneself.

Wouldn’t simply not wearing a wedding ring do, I asked? No, she explained, because that wouldn’t alert “like-minded” people to the fact that she was available.

Got it. And, actually, it’s clear that open relationships are a very civilised and progressive way of keeping an authentic connection with your partner while allowing one another to, you know, grow. A few people I know swear by them. There’s just one problem: most of the time only one half of the couple seems to realise that they’re actually in one.