“If you are capable of more than one emotionally intimate connection that goes beyond friendship, then you ARE polyamorous by nature. Whether or not you choose to act on it and BE poly is a different question entirely.” – HartlessUK, UK Poly Discussion.

Polyamory (from Greek πολύ [poly, meaning many or several] and Latin amor [love]) is the practice, desire, or acceptance of having more than one intimate relationship at a time with the knowledge and consent of everyone involved.

Emotional Intimacy
To me being Poly is about accepting that you want to have some level of emotional commitment and intimacy, beyond that of friendship with more than one person. You can share your inner self and introduce parts of yourself that you hold back. To me if you date a poly person you at least expect that they are poly because they want that connection, it may not happen for a while. That connection is called Love and when it starts to happen it brings with it a whole heap of positive and negative emotions, from happiness, Joy and fun, to anxiety, paranoia and sadness, and probably a lot more to boot. But that emotional rollercoaster brings a lot of energy and can be very draining at the same time. The energy is termed New Relationship Energy (NRE), or as I call it the Honeymoon Period, where everything seems to wonderful, so you’re looking at every aspect of what is happening searching for a problem. Like all relationship. You’re going to want to spend a lot of time with the new person, it’s taken for granted. They are the new and wanting to spend time with them is okay as you’re getting to know them as well. They may have other commitments and partners, but if there is a connection you will do as much as you can to spend time with them.

I have only ever fallen I love three times in my life, but I knew what was happening and enjoyed every minute of it. I have started to fall in love more times but usually something has really been wrong as what I want from a relationship has been to radically different. Being in love is the greatest thing in the world knowing someone out there truly loves you and cares for you and having the same feeling back. It’s addictive. But to me this is what poly is about, that honeymoon period then the connection afterwards.

Long term Relationships
I’m not a commitmentaphobe, in fact I treat every relationship like it will last a long time if not for ever. I always state this to people, but to me if your poly this should be expected. Even if I only see that person every 12 months, if we still have feelings for each other than that’s fantastic. As having loving long distant relationships is a possibility. Remember it’s not just about sex.

Now we come to the whole primary and secondary relationship issue, those are bad words to describe what each relationship is. Primary give the impression there can only be one, which is wrong as I feel there can be many. If your goals hopes and dreams mesh on some level then there is primary potential. That’s the only difference between each relationship, all should be treated equal. Only when questions of the future and making changes to reaching your primary goals, should the secondary relationship take a back seat.

All things being equal primary and secondary works, but nothing is ever is equal. If a secondary is in a car accident and you’re having a meal with a primary, you going to go to the aid of the secondary, to do anything else is cruel and heartless. You should only differentiate if all your partners secondary and primary are in the same accident.

Openness
The core of any solid relationship is communication, the better the communication the better the relationship. It’s even more vital in a poly relationship if anything is ever going to work. I may not want to know every detail but I might do, I at least want to know who my partners are with and it would be nice to meet them and to some degree be friends. I want to know that attracts my partners to them and what they offer. Not because I jealous, I’m just interested in my partners. This is me to a tee.

I’ll tell my partners what I’m up to as well, mostly because I feel it’s important for my partners to know what I’m feeling and I’m going through. A big part of me wants to protect my partners from harm and nutters, so meeting their dates is important for me to be happy, I’m a fairly good judge of character so can make a fast decision., but mostly I want to get to know them and be friends.

This is Me!
I have always known I have been capable of falling in love with more than one person, but never really sat down and had chance to look at myself and my relationship style until now. Some aspects of being poly I already practice, it’s just the seeing other people bit which is new. Even though it’s new it doesn’t feel wrong it’s a bit scary and weird at times, but that can be gotten over. It’s not like I suddenly woke up and though I’m poly, it’s more of a gradual realisation that I have been like this all along but never really looked at it this way.

Many years ago I heard about the theory of the spare arm, it interested me and intrigued me and until recently I had little or no chance to personally experience the cause and effect nature of the theory.

The core concept is that any given number of occupants on sleeping device, have a probability of an infinite number of spare arms. The larger the number of occupants in a bed the higher the probability and thus the number of spare arms can and will increase based on the occupental capacity of said sleeping device. The number is spare arms is only limited by the number off occupants thus an infinite number of occupants will produce an infinite number of spare arms. As the number of occupants may or may not be known this creates a paradox where the number of spare arms is also unknown, thus we conclude that the number of spare arms is indeed infinite, until the quantifying factors are discovered.

This leads to the discovery of the quantifying factors, of the occupental capacity of said sleeping device. Direct observation is first and foremost the most accurate for determining these factors. For instance a king size bed is only rated for two occupants but you can comfortable get three, so it’s occupental capacity is unknown until observed in the applicable state. This goes for all sleeping devices, as there supplied ratings are almost always incorrect, leading to the need of direct observation and experimentation.

Once the discovery stage is over the following conclusions can be drawn as all factors will be known. So should the observed occupental capacity of said sleeping device be one, then there is a 0% chance of a spare arm. Should the occupental capacity of the device be observed at two then there is a 50% change of there being a spare arm. If the observed occupental capacity of the device be three then there is a 100% chance of one spare arm and a 50% chance of two spare arms. As the number of observed occupants increases there is a 100% change of the number of spare arms being a factor of two less than the observed occupental capacity and a 50% chance the number of spare arms being one less than the observed occupental capacity.

Number of Spare Arms = Observed Occupental Capacity – (1 + Xr)

Xr being determined to be either 1 or 0 by factors relating to chaos theory.