I’m not sure if being “a little bit poly” is akin to being “a little bit pregnant” (meaning, you either are or you aren’t), or if it’s actually applicable to my life. I like the phrase because I fall somewhere in between those who are bedding new partners as often as they meet them and serial monogamy.

Though I should know better, in my head, I associate myself identifying as poly as meaning that I’m up for, if not everything, quite a bit. While I know that’s not really what it means, I fear that if I tell potential lovers I’m poly, they’ll think I want to constantly be seeking out new partners. That’s not my thing. I like to see who I wind up meeting and deal with my attractions as they come, if you will. If I’m with the right person, I don’t tend to feel unfulfilled, though I do still like to look and fantasize.

My most recent ex once said to me, “I know you’re polyamorous…” and I just couldn’t shake the idea that that’s never a word I’d use to describe myself (even though it might describe some of my relationships). For instance, while we were dating, I went to a party and made out with a beautiful woman and floated the possibility of having either a one-on-one fling with her or a threesome, but later, I realized that as attracted to her as I was, when it came down to it, I preferred to keep that in the fantasy realm.

Now that I’m single, juggling dating and casual kink has gotten a bit more complicated. I’ve been playing with a friend I’d hooked up with a few times before, and the kink and the sex are totally hot. Where it gets tricky is that we are, as the host of a burlesque show we recently attended put it, “insignificant others.” We’re friends who are attracted to each other. There’s nothing wrong with that…except that ultimately I know I want more.

I’d like to be in a real relationship, the kind where there’s hot sex and you feel comfortable going to that person with your highest highs and lowest lows, where you don’t have to tiptoe around each other’s feelings, where you are trying to build a future together; the kind where it’s assumed you’ll be spending most of your weekends together, and my friends recognize that person as my partner, not just my plaything.

Because he’d made it clear he wasn’t looking for a relationship with me, and that’s what I want, I joined a few online dating sites. While it’s not my preferred method of meeting people, it’s been successful, and I’ve gone on a few dates and have a first date coming up. Something about the arrangement, though, feels constraining, the very opposite of the freedom polyamory is supposed to provide.

My ideal relationship would be what I do think of as “a little bit” poly in the sense that I would have a primary partner, and if the situation arose, we might share sexual experiences with other people, but both of us would be involved in both the action (even if one of us was just watching) and the planning. To me, that’s very different than trying to maintain multiple relationships or even flirtations—which feels draining.

The fact is, even when I’m seeing only one person, they will always have competition from my job, or, more accurately, jobs. I wouldn’t say I’m a workaholic, but I’m busy. I have a full-time office job five days a week, run a monthly reading series, post daily and answer emails for a popular blog, and do freelance writing. Promoting my books and events also takes up a significant chunk of time, and I’m overdue on a novel and a non-fiction book.

For me, juggling so many responsibilities always means there’s something I haven’t done (yet), and sometimes I feel guilty for neglecting work, even if it’s for sex (I turned down a booty call to work on this column!). As Amelia McDonell-Parry put it at The Frisky, “A busy career and the excitement of a new relationship are hard to balance at the same time.”

Now, that’s my problem, not my paramours’, but it means that when I’m juggling dates with three different people in a week, sometimes the mere prospect makes me want to curl up along under my covers. It has nothing to do with how much I like the people as individuals, but rather that trying to be “on” in so many different stages of getting to know someone, makes me feel even more scattered.

Speaking only for myself, I can safely say that when I’m seeing multiple people some of the erotic energy and intimacy from one usually winds up getting diverted to another. I won’t say it’s inevitable because I know plenty of people in successful poly relationships, but for me the part of being in a relationship I miss the most is the sense that it’s us against the world, that even the worst day can be made better by turning inward into the relationship, and that’s especially true of the erotic side of it. I can’t access that in a friends with benefits situation, and I’m not sure it’s fair to other people I meet to start off already partly involved with someone else.

At the same time, I do get sexual fulfillment out of my current “relationship,” and it’s not a “Wham, bam, thank you, Ma’am” situation at all. We’re friends, and we do talk, but not in the same way I would with a boyfriend or girlfriend.

In my ideal world, I’m open to being in a non-committed relationship where we each have outside lovers, but I’m not sure it’s practical for me. Though I’ve fantasized about watching various exes with other people, I also have a big jealous streak. I found that out when hooking up with a married man, who’s in a poly relationship.

I went into it thinking I knew exactly what our dynamic would be and being okay with hotel trysts and risqué emails, and I was, for a while. But the line between what was healthy for me and what was part of our D/s relationship got blurred in a very problematic way. We didn’t have a baseline friendship to fall back on and I couldn’t call him to discuss things. He wanted to keep things strictly in role and it just wasn’t satisfying to me after a while to be in second (or, really, third, after his wife and his career) place.

I’m not into mainstream society’s insistence on absolute monogamy at all costs, to the point that even checking someone else out or flirting can be cause for concern. That works for some people but for many others, it doesn’t, and certainly wouldn’t for me. I want to be with someone open-minded enough to entertain the idea of sharing ourselves sexually, even if it never comes to fruition. Maybe that’s a totally greedy idea, but if so, then I’m a greedy bitch…and I’m perfectly okay with that.