Why and how did you get into poly?

What type of poly origin did you have?

  • I've always had poly tendencies and never really took to monogamy

    Votes: 42 12.7%
  • I've always had poly tendencies and tried to be monogamous before

    Votes: 119 35.8%
  • I fell in love with a poly person and have adapted to the lifestyle

    Votes: 50 15.1%
  • I read or heard about someone else's poly experiences and thought it could work for me

    Votes: 42 12.7%
  • Other

    Votes: 79 23.8%

  • Total voters
    332
When in relationships I have always struggled with having feelings for other guys. I've been married for over 7 years now and tried my very best to just ignore those feelings until someone came along who was very difficult to ignore. When trying to get my head around all of this and figure out what to do, I stumbled across an article about polyamory on my Facebook newsfeed. I wondered what it was about so I read it and it was like a lightbulb moment and I felt it made sense to me and was a relationship model that I would quite happily partake in.

Still in the poly-closet though...
 
My husband, Roger, and I started dating very young and have been together ever since. It was about 5 years ago when he started "teasing" me about how much I liked Jack, a mutual friend of ours for many years, and then encouraged me to explore things with him. I took that leap of faith sharing my feelings with Jack, who reciprocated them, and we were FWBs for a couple of years before we fell in love. I told Roger of my feelings for Jack, knowing that we didn't open up our marriage with even the possibility of falling in love with other people on our radar, and he was surprisingly fully supportive. At some point around then, I googled something like "in love with two people" and stumbled across the word "polyamory," but never read more into it. In the last year, I started reading more about it through here, other websites, and More Than Two after Roger shared his interest in Taylor. Roger had been open to other relationships for the last few years, but didn't dating anyone until he met Taylor and developed feelings for her.

It's interesting to read about different people's journeys as polyamorous - such diversity! :)
 
Peer pressure. :D

I found out when I made a bunch of poly friends. When I moved into the area that I live in now, I met a particular woman at work who I really hit it off with, and she introduced me to her friend group. A number of them were poly.

Before then, I had told partners that I was comfortable with hook-ups and one night stands, though none of them took me up on it - so I never discussed anything further with them, though I did think about it (things like "what if my partner really likes that other person too? what happens?").

I wrote a whole blog post about it that describes it better than I can recap in a post, if you're curious:

https://learningmanyloves.wordpress...entary-chapter-1-starting-the-journey-part-1/


I think I was always pretty friendly to the concept of polyamory. I've always loved creating close, loving relationships with people and until Jon, I never really experienced relationship jealousy. I think that's because most people - even people that I've really deeply loved and had a strong connection to - didn't get enough of me that I felt like there would be an irreplaceable lack in my life if we stopped being close. I would (and have) grieved when some people have left my life because no one is replaceable by an identical person, and I feel like it's all those quirks that make a person into a unique individual that fosters whatever particular type of love I have for them. But even so, usually when I grieve for the loss of a person, it's tempered by knowing there are a lot of other wonderful people out there - even if that's a cold and empty comfort at first.

Beyond that, I tend to be pretty pragmatic about death - any of us could have an aneurism at any time, really. Or get hit by a bus. Have an accident. So I try to keep that transience in mind.

Jon is the only person who really understands so many parts of me. I remember the first time that Jon came to my apartment and met my (at the time) partner Rachel. She was making small talk with him and asked him what he liked to do on weekends when he's feeling lazy. His response was basically the EXACT thing that I like to do on weekends, down to even saying something like "and when I'm feeling like I *really* need to chill, I order in hot and sour soup and singapore mei fun and also get a pint of either lemon sorbet or Steve's Salty Caramel ice cream to top it off." Basically, every single thing he described was the exact thing that I watch/do/eat when I want to relax and this is before he and I had talked about any of those things. Jon and I had to both swear to her that we didn't rehearse that because she was floored that we'd like the exact same thing like that. Jon and I were both pretty floored too. We're on the same wavelength to the point that his family and my family have also both thought we were putting them on about the sheer amount of things we have in common.

Um, so what was my point? It was that Jon is an anomaly to me in terms of jealousy and feeling like I have a level of connection with him that I'm not sure if I'll ever have with another person. But in terms of becoming polyamorous, had I learned about it earlier in life, I think I would have become poly then. It definitely feels like the right choice for me emotionally and mentally and physically it's pretty enjoyable for me too. :)
 
In the 90 s my live in boyfriend was also dating his boyfriend. This set up worked for us. Jake and I were friends we both loved Marc and he loved us. We grew up and moved apart amicably, but I learned I loved the multi person connection in a relationship. I didn't have a name for it then. I shifted through various relationship styles for years and learned I liked multiple connections. I was monogamous for a while but felt trapped. I knew open relationships for me and learned to get over my southern social constructs. Heard the word polyamory through swinger stuff. Started research. Ended up happy.
 
Honestly, I can't remember not knowing about polyamory. I may not have always been aware of the technical term, but I was aware of the practice. I think my introduction came as a teen through a poly-friendly movie... plus a neighbor who had a poly relationship around the same time, and an older, married cousin with an open relationship. I can also remember being fascinated by polygamy (had a grandmother who had two husbands.) That was the 80s,

It's the practice of poly that's new to me. Understanding what something is intellectually is very different from experiencing it. Blue is my first poly relationship. I'll be honest that I think I'm more mono than poly. So far, I've discovered that while I can handle having relationships with a man and a woman at the same time, I have no desire to date two women or two men concurrently. I'm also content to just date Blue... but my life is very full with kids, work, and hobbies and I don't have the free time that Blue has so it's possible that could change. I really enjoy having metamours assuming the relationship is amicable. Just more people to love :)
 
I've a friend that I've known for nearly ten years now who has always known himself to be polyamorous. He first introduced me to the concept, and I always found it intriguing.

In college, I met my female partner L, and we were each other's first sexual experiences when we were 19 and 20. A year later, that blossomed into a relationship, and we have been together int hat official capacity for three years now. A year ago I first brought up polyamory or, at the very least, an open relationship to her, and she confessed that she had been thinking of it as well and we immediately agreed to open up. A couple months on OKC later, we were both dating the same man, Y. The rest is history: these are my life partners, for better or for worse.

I am an INTP, L is an ENFP, and Y is another INTP.
 
I always knew growing up that monogamy wasn't for me. The idea of marrying someone and being with only that one person for the rest of your life sounded positively dreadful. I didn't really practice polyamory when I was younger and dating because I tended to get pretty wrapped up in my relationships until they ended. But I knew I wasn't looking for the whole you-and-only-you-death-til-we-part thing, which I assumed meant I didn't want to get married. I was in my early 20s when I really heard about polyamory as a "thing" and became pretty obsessed with it for a while. Then things settled down and it just became a part of my dating style.
 
I learned about polyamory online in my early 20s. I thought it was totally stupid. I did not connect it at all with my vast experience with being in love with more than one person, perhaps because I mainly was before starting serious relationships at 19. Intersex my 2nd serious relationship I fell mutially in love with another man who was also in a relationship. Instead of us breaking up and getting together, we stayed with our original partners while somewhat exploring our love. At that I point, I had gotten more positive images of polyamory and had even reluctantly joined a website. After that went south, I thought I still wanted another man. Then I met my wonderful mono boyfriend. That was more than one and a half years ago.
 
I can also sign that statement: "The idea of marrying someone and being with only that one person for the rest of your life sounded positively dreadful.". However, I have married my wife quite young and she was strictly monogamous for all the years. There was no discussion possible. Until ..., well until she fell in love and came to me in her dispair and tears not knowing what to do. Suddenly the idea of trying it polyamorous didn't sound so dreadful to her anymore but was rather a saving ;-).

I have still to discover, how it feels to have another love. I am very curious.
 
I first heard about polyamory from AVEN, but it wasn't until I met a friend in college who is poly that it all really clicked for me. I'd grown up around serial monogamous christians, and this new friend was the first person who didn't treat me like a second class citizen because I wasn't in a relationship with her. I've never been in a romantic relationship yet, but I know if I were to I wouldn't want to give up my monthly movie night with (another) friend; I feel like the only way I could guarantee that is being Poly.
 
How did you come to poly? A poll!

In an introduction thread I wrote

"From personal experience it seems like there are three groups of people. People who always had poly tendencies and just never really spent a lot of time with monogamy, people who had poly tendencies and were either serial monogamists or cheaters or preferred to have lots of casual partners instead of settling for one until they learned there was another option, or people who fell in love with a poly person and learned how to make the lifestyle work for them. "

This has got me thinking, how many people fit each description? Or are there other types of poly people that I missed?
 
I don't fit any of those descriptions. I was always in mono relationships, and with my husband DarkKnight, I was faithful and mono as well. We had a sexual incompatibility so he suggested I give being poly a try. It turns out I'm just a super horny chick, because I have yet to find a match for me sexually, but I have found a few guys who match up with my heart. I definitely identify with being polyamorous now and I don't think I could ever be mono again.
 
Djinn and Mal were sometimes swingers. She suggested to Mal that he might proposition me. Turned out to be more emotional rather than just sexual, which none of us expected. All three of us are now, 11 months later, struggling though what that means.
 
None of these seem like the right answer for me. I guess the closest would be "I fell in love with a poly person and have adapted to the lifestyle", but that's not true either. My poly life did begin with falling in love, but me and rory were both in open relationships with our then-partners and it grew from having sex to falling in love. So neither of us was poly before, but we became poly together. Before opening up my relationship with my then-partner I was happily monogamous with him for 7 years and never cheated.
 
My life has been all about monogamy, didn't realise there was a different way. So once I found out about polyamory, I realised that I could identify to loving more than one - and that it is how I would like to live my life. Rather than painfully trying to stay mono/failing at mono.
 
Always poly, never strictly mono.
 
Always poly, never strictly mono.
Same. Both relationships I've been in were defined as open/poly from day one, and I wouldn't have entered them otherwise.
 
I've been mono for most of my life but have always been attracted to many people and have had many intimate emotional relationships. After realizing that cheating was just not acceptable and congruent with my true identity, it is such a relief to become comfortable and enthusiastic about loving more than one person.
 
I've been attracted to the idea of multiple partners from as long as I can remember. However, up until Blue, I've been in mono relationships. Now that I'm actually in a poly relationship, I've found that it's more difficult than I thought it would be, lol.
 
None of the choices fit me either.
 
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