Can you be in love with 2 guys?

“You can absolutely fall in love with two people at the same time,” he says. “Walt Whitman was right — you contain multitudes. Someone might bring out your confident, sexy side and you'll love them for it. A second person might make you feel safe, loved and deeply connected, and you'll also fall for that person.

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Can You Be in Love With Two People at the Same Time?

What to Do If You Have Strong Feelings for Multiple People at Once When we think of love — true love, romantic love, passionate love — we tend to think of two people who mean everything to each other, ultimately blocking out the possibility of anyone else entering into the picture. And if a single person claims to be “in love” with two different people they aren’t currently dating, it’s easy to write that off as just two separate crushes of similar intensity. For many people, the notion of being in love precludes it being applied to two people at once — to them, love is necessarily a feeling you can only feel for one person at any given time.

RELATED: 5 Things Guys Still Get Wrong About Love

But is that accurate? Is it possible to be in love with two people at once, to feel intensely, madly, passionately about more than one person? To help get to the bottom of it all, we spoke with a handful of dating and relationship experts to see what they have to say about the possibility of loving two people at the same time.

What Does It Mean to Be in Love With Someone?

Before getting into whether it’s possible to be in love with two people at the same time, it’s important to try to define what “being in love” means to begin with. Love is a big concept with a long history, and it’s hard to imagine a culture without a term for it, or a person who’s never uttered the phrase “I love” about something, no matter how fleeting or small or strange the feeling. In that vein, it’s not only possible, but easy to simply love many people at once. “It is certainly possible to love several people at once,” says Tina B. Tessina, Ph.D., psychotherapist and author of Dr. Romance's Guide to Finding Love Today. “Think of family members, children, dear friends; you hold all of them in your heart at once.” Meanwhile, it’s also possible — and, again, easy — to be attracted to multiple people at once. “Love is different from chemistry,” says Laurel House, a dating and relationship coach and host of the Man Whisperer podcast. “Chemistry is a short-term chemical reaction inside your body that actually creates an intensely felt drug that makes you lose sight of clarity of thought, and can trick you into thinking you’re in deep love, when really you’re in superficial lust.” Still, that doesn’t mean those feelings won’t feel just as intense as love in the early going. “Feelings of ‘falling in love’ can exist even if you don’t really know the person,” says Jess O’Reilly, Ph.D., sexologist and host of the @SexWithDrJess podcast. “So you may have passionate feelings that are associated with your perception of this person — as opposed to the reality. Just because you feel excited about seeing someone or intensely attracted to them doesn’t mean you’d be fulfilled having a relationship with them.” “So, for example, if the feelings of ‘being in love’ are a matter of having a crush on someone, oftentimes getting to know them can quash some of the intense feelings. This is because much of the passionate love we experience when we meet someone new is associated with the unknown, the mystery and the fantasy image we create in our minds; once you get to know them, the excitement can often dissipate.”

Ultimately, only time will tell if what you’re experiencing is genuine love.

Is It Possible to Be in Love With Two People at the Same Time?

Taking the difference between “being in love” or “having a crush on” into account, being in love with two people simultaneously is certainly not the most common thing. It requires a depth of feeling and investment in romantic relationships that can be difficult for most people to maintain for more than one person at a time. That being said, according to NYC-based dating coach Connell Barrett, it’s far from impossible. “You can absolutely fall in love with two people at the same time,” he says. “Walt Whitman was right — you contain multitudes. Someone might bring out your confident, sexy side and you’ll love them for it. A second person might make you feel safe, loved and deeply connected, and you’ll also fall for that person. Suddenly, your brain is cranking out dopamine for both of them because they make you feel special and loved in different ways.” However, the accidental-seeming aspect of the phrase “fall in love” when it comes to the two-person scenario is still something to call into question.

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“You can be in love with one person because of who you see and honor in them, and simultaneously be in love with someone else for their very different yet equally resonant being,” notes House. “That being said, love is a choice. You don’t ‘fall’ in love. Instead, you choose to open your heart and see the beauty, feel the vulnerability, allow your guard to drop and your heart to open, and give yourself permission to feel and be in a state of love.” As O’Reilly points out, there are also logistical considerations to take into account. “The fact that we can love multiple people simultaneously doesn’t mean that everyone ought to have multiple simultaneous relationships that are romantic or sexual in nature,” she says. “It’s really up to you to decide what feels good and what you have the capacity for. You may not have the time, energy or resources to manage two romantic relationships at the same time; or you might have the time, energy and resources to manage many romantic relationships at the same time.” “On the flip side,” O’Reilly adds, “you may not feel fulfilled by monogamy. You may feel held back by having to limit your love for other potential partners. You may discover this by accident when you begin to feel love or attachment to multiple people at the same time.”

Can You Be in Love With Someone While Already in a Relationship?

Being in a relationship with someone else doesn’t make you exempt from feeling something for another person, unplanned or otherwise. Of course, it’s possible to develop intense feelings for two people simultaneously without ever actually dating or being in a couple with either, but it’s a bit trickier when you start out in a relationship where you love your partner, only to suddenly feel love-like feelings for someone else. “You can be passionately in love with someone while you’re in a relationship with another,” says Barrett. “A relationship is a logical choice. Falling in love is involuntary. It’s an arrow to the heart — you can’t help it. This often happens when your relationship has become more of a friendship, so you fall in love with someone who re-ignites the dormant passion within you.” That’s often how infidelity happens, too. “Oftentimes, a long-term relationship can become more like a sibling relationship, and the sexual connection fades if the couple don’t know how to keep it alive,” says Tessina. “That opens the door for falling in love (or at least, lust) with someone else.” For some people, seeking out a sexual outlet is where the cheating begins and ends. For others, it leads to developing real feelings for another, whether or not the affair is physically consummated. “You might be in an emotionally cold or distant relationship, within which you have chosen to close your heart, or never felt comfortable fully opening it in the first place,” says House. “And then you meet someone who makes you feel safe, seen and sexy, and with them you become vulnerable, real, emotionally connected and in love.”

What Does Being in Love With Two People Say About You?

Feeling like you’re in love with two different people at the same time can be nerve-wracking. For starters, our society tends to instill in people that it’s not even possible, let alone a desirable state to be in. Add in the fact that it often takes the form of some form of cheating, along with the possibility that if either person knew about the other, the whole thing would come crashing down, and you’re likely left with a pretty stressed-out person. “If you’re in love with two people at once, forgive yourself,” says Barrett. “It simply means you’re human — that two people are both meeting desires you have for connection, love and companionship. Yes, it’s complicated, but there’s no cause for shame.” Instead of seeing your feelings as a manifestation of something bad within yourself, it might be more useful to see them as a sign that something in your current relationship isn’t satisfying you. Then, you can interrogate the relationship on that basis, rather than making it about the other person specifically. For instance, if you feel like you’re in love with two people, it might be a sign that “you don’t do intimacy well,” according to Tessina, and that “you don’t know how to negotiate the deeper parts of a relationship, so instead you get distracted by someone else. It’s really a way to avoid intimacy and bonding.”

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RELATED: I Think I’m Having an Emotional Affair — What Do I Do?

Basically, if you have enough free time and emotional openness that you start falling for someone else, it implies that you’re not fully invested in the person you’re currently with. Rather than being in love with two different people, really, you’re likely not actually in love with either. You might feel love for your original partner and you might be in lust with the new person, but neither of those meets the criteria for being in love.

What Should You Do If You’re in Love With Two Different People?

Given the way monogamy is increasingly giving way to more flexible alternatives, it’s possible that you could transition from being in a monogamous relationship to a polyamorous one. However, even if your partner has generally favorable views of polyamory, kicking things off by announcing that you’ve already fallen for someone else may garner you a less-than pleasant response. Still, “what you don’t want to do is spin a web of lies, keeping both relationships a secret,” says Barrett. “This leads to stress, heartbreak and anger. If you want to consider polyamory, have an honest, transparent — and separate — conversation with both parties to see if they’re open to it.”

RELATED: Everything You Need to Know About Polyamory

Love is a powerful feeling, and most people understand that enough to use it to describe situations where they genuinely do feel powerful emotions. However, if you feel like you’re in love with two people at the same time — particularly if you’re in a relationship with one of them and developing feelings for the other — you owe it to yourself and the two people you’re thinking of to explore what it is that’s really going on with you, emotionally. “For monogamous folks, it can be very confusing, overwhelming and distressing” to be in love with two people, says O’Reilly. “Especially since dominant sociocultural scripts suggest that we ought to find ‘the one.’” If you do explore a polyamorous arrangement, however, “being in love with two (or more) people at once can be highly fulfilling,” she says. “This doesn’t, of course, mean that it’s always easy. You may not have the time or resources to dedicate to two simultaneous relationships — regardless of whether or not you identify as polyamorous.” Ultimately, how you proceed depends on how attached you are to the concept of monogamy. O’Reilly suggests asking yourself why you’re monogamous to begin with, by posing yourself questions like:

“What draws you to monogamy?

What are the perceived benefits?

What are the potential costs?

How do you define monogamy?

Have you considered other options?”

“Perhaps you’ve fallen into monogamy because of social prescriptions — and not because it’s the right fit for you,” she says. “I’m not suggesting that you need to abandon monogamy if you value the relationship structure, but it’s worth considering why you’re monogamous in the first place.” “I also think you need to give yourself grace,” O’Reilly adds. “You’re not a bad person for feeling or showing love to multiple people.”

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