In polyamory, dispersion is any benevolent, non-
jealous, relieved, or contented feeling toward the other partners of your own partner, because your partner'
s time
spent with them gives you and your partner time apart, which introverts need to feel comfortable. It was coined to provide a more specific variety of compersion, benevolent and non-
jealous feeling toward one's metamour (your own partner's partner). If compersion is being
happy to share your partner with somebody else, because it makes them both
happy, then dispersion is being happy that your partner is spending time with somebody else, away from you, because it lets you have space and solitude.
Dispersion was coined to be used in this way by
redditor /u/TooShortToBeStarbuck, on 17 March
2016, in the /r/polyamory subreddit.
Quoting from the reddit
post in question:
"Comperson has been retroactively justified as 'comperage + person + compassion,' or some combination thereof.
Why not dispersion? Yes, it's an actual word, but it both works in a literal sense and in a morphological sense. 'The action or process of distributing things or
people over a wide area.' Dispersing one's emotional, social, and other relationship needs across multiple partners allows any one partner to avoid shouldering too much social burden.
The 'com' in 'compassion' is 'with.' The 'dis' in 'dispassion' is 'apart.' The compersion you feel, as a result of being able to get away from each other, is dispersion."
Brad was feeling socially overstimulated when Jennifer wanted to spend every evening at home, but now Jennifer is also dating
Angelina.
Brad enjoys great dispersion toward Angelina, catching up on his favourite shows on nights the two women go out together.
