I'm in all three. I second the LW study group formation.

A victory for rationality, today. I feel truly happy about this.

I would have to decide, for myself, that I wanted to be polyamorous before meeting some polyamorous male that I desired. That is the only way that I can reasonably trust myself to make a decision in my own best interest.

That sucks. A compatible partner that is successfully poly is some evidence that poly could also work for you, as well as being something that brings the possibility to your attention. Yet by meeting them you have instead cut off the whole possibility. You'd be better if you never laid eyes on them! :P

This is just the way I like to relate to myself but I'd decide I was allowed to switch to poly if it was a good idea but that I'm not allowed to date poly-inspiration-X. For at least as long as a limerance period could be expected to interfere with judgement and also long enough that I could see if poly worked for me without the interference. That way my infatuation biases don't get to subvert my decision making either by temptation or by defensive reaction.

I would have to be convinced that there was no asymmetry. I believe this is my primary repulsion to polyamory. I envision myself in a situation where I want primary access to a partner who does not similarly wish primary access to me. I also envision lots of emotions and stress involved in deciding what "primary" even means.

That's a massive deal to me too. I am far more careful with shielding myself from asymmetry when playing poly. My primary partner also has to be able to accept that us having other relationships means that she will get less of my attention. Bizarrely enough not everyone gets this. Seriously... being poly doesn't add extra hours to the day!

For myself I am also reluctant to get into situations where I'm seeing multiple people within the same social circle. Or, more to the point, where my partners are seeing other people within my social circle. Simply because it changes the nature of my interactions with my friends. Sex begets competition. It makes people more like humans (status hungry monkeys) and less like 'people'. It's hard enough balancing egos and rapport with potential rivals when you aren't fucking the same girl (or guy). That just isn't the kind of game I like to be playing with my own friends. I prefer Settlers of Catan.

Fortunately most of my core circle is made up of (awesome, open minded but sincere) Christians so there is no chance that we'll end up with love pentagons. Just lots of couples and me doing WTF I want. :)

I find this very interesting. Polyamory is something that I've toyed with intellectually for a while, but I have several ugh fields around it. Namely, and this one has been borne out by this very post, that "going polyamorous" seems like the kind of thing monogamous females do in order to acquire polyamorous males. Perhaps if one was a sufficiently status-y female, one would be able to convert the polyamorous male to being monogamous. Of course, this comes with all sorts of issues (namely, making the polyamorous partner unhappy). I just haven't been sufficiently convinced that being polyamorous would make me happy for any reasons other than using that polyamory to attract a high-status mate that I wouldn't have otherwise been able to attract. I, like you Alicorn, have been too long seduced by the monogamy aesthetic.

Now, I will try to imagine the conditions sufficient in order for me to hack myself into being polyamorous. I imagine that they would be thus:

• I would have to decide, for myself, that I wanted to be polyamorous before meeting some polyamorous male that I desired. That is the only way that I can reasonably trust myself to make a decision in my own best interest.
• I would have to be convinced that there was no asymmetry. I believe this is my primary repulsion to polyamory. I envision myself in a situation where I want primary access to a partner who does not similarly wish primary access to me. I also envision lots of emotions and stress involved in deciding what "primary" even means.
• I need to be convinced, for myself, that becoming polyamorous is not a status-lowering move.
• I'm concerned about the exponential increase in exposure to STI's as well. Of course, I've had partners cheat on me in so-called monogamous relationships, so I'm aware that this is not something that a monogamous relationship necessarily shields me from.

As it stands, I haven't been in a monogamous relationship wherein I desired within that relationship that it was open so that I could date others. I also haven't yet desired someone who was (to my knowledge) polyamorous. I have already decided that I do not want the latter condition to be the catalyst for changing my worldview, so right now, I consider myself open to the possibility in the future, should I find myself in a situation where I wanted to date multiple partners. So thanks Alicorn, I am now significantly more luminous!

I vote "ad signatures are okay on posts but not on comments".

Sorry for the late reply, but yes!

Is this happening again this Saturday, the 11th?

Any chance of a regular meetup getting started in the DFW area?

Edit: Before anyone tells me to start one myself, my intention with asking this question was polling to see if anyone else actually lives there.

It sounds like she needs therapy. Antidepressants and exercise will help take the edge off until she can get the therapy, but mental illness needs to be treated by a medical professional.

Keep a regular sleep schedule.

This is something I completely failed to learn so far. Sure, I have some issues with procrastination or a lack of certain time-management skills, but even if I create a schedule for my whole week in advance and manage to follow it through for a couple of days at some point I completely mess it up because I sleep through half a day since I stayed up until 4AM the night before. Or I end up not getting enough sleep for several days in a row and getting sick (which happens far too often). Mostly, if I wake up at a certain time I don't get tired early enough to get a sufficient amount of sleep before I wake up at the same time on the next day (and unfortunately they don't make these time-turners yet).

It seems like every failed attempt to establish a working day routine can be mainly narrowed down to this single thing. I managed to get through High School and still get good grades even though I missed a lot of school days (due to being sick or too tired to go) because it was easy. Even at university it's still possible to pass the exams when you miss half of the lectures (although your results probably will suffer). However, I'm already afraid of my first real job.