there are shades of polyamory that range from "bob and jan at the swinger's club" to "emily, emily, daisy, and emily in the 1-bedroom portland apartment" and they all come with different commitments and different sets of baggage. you both have things you want and things you don't want: just talk to each other. the only discovery that polyamorists have made is that relationships are contracts and if you want to get what you want, you need to put that shit in writing

who are you coming home with at the end of the day? does anybody get placed higher in each others' hierarchies? are you a couple +X associates, or a eunuch's court of supposed equals?

do you feel comfortable with dating somebody who's having sex with other people? do you feel comfortable dating someone who's potentially developing some emotional connections with other people? are you okay without the guarantee of "you're my number one and my only one, I'm not gonna even try to get into any potentially compromising situations because that's how important you are"? because that's what the difference between bob and jan and the rest are, you know what i mean? being poly is different than just sleeping around

there's only so much love in you to go around, and so much time in the day to go around. the more you divvy it up the more (at a minimum) complicated it gets. you can't just be open to it, you have to want it. you have to want an open relationship actively and enthusiastically more than any other option for it to work, because otherwise it's something you're going "wellll, maybe until... for now i can... if it's what they want then..." in your head the whole time