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The hardest thing about embarking on the journey into polyamory is trying to decide which of the various poly models is right for you. The important thing to remember is that they're all just models, like templates in an HTML program, and only a place to start. You're the only one that can decide what it is going to take to make you happy.
When I first started contemplating polyamory, it seemed very easy, until I realized that I should have some kind of game plan. So I started to think about what I wanted out of polyamory. A few of the choices I could discard immediately, as not being right for me, or supplying what I wanted. The traditional triad was immediately eliminated, as was the group marriage. Fidelity in any of it's forms doesn't interest me, I don't commit unless I think it's going to last a long, long time, and the main problem with a triad or group marriage would if one of the people involved wanted children. Since I have no desire to raise children, mine or anyone else's, it wouldn't work. "Sure, you can have kids, as long as I don't have to deal with them at all." Not a good environment to raise children in.
I finally settled on an intimate network as closest to what I'm looking for at this time in my life. That may change as time goes on, and what I need and want changes, but for now it's a reasonable starting point. I discovered that one-night stands aren't very satisfying anymore. Occasionally, lust is enough, but that's becoming more and more rare for me. Trying to turn a casual lover into a friend after the fact doesn't seem to work. Meeting and getting to know someone new with expectations of how the relationship will turn out tends to blind me to the joys of the here-and-now. I've learned the best way for me to go into something new is with no expectations. If it works out like I want it to, great, if not, I may still make a new friend.
And every now and then I think to be properly poly, I should work towards an additional long-term committed relationship, but it still doesn't feel right to go out with a hidden agenda. There are a few people in my life that I know things wouldn't work out with in the long run. We're incompatible as far as basic lifestyles and having common goals in life. It doesn't mean that I don't care about them, it just means that we'll never live together. And I think of the people I wouldn't have been involved with if I was only open to committed relationships. Some of those people have meant a lot to me, even if the nature of the involvement was transitory. I've learned to accept and enjoy things for what they are, even if it's only a small isolated moment of happiness, and not to try to make them into something they aren't. By some people's standards I'm not properly polyamorous. Since their standards don't matter to my happiness, it doesn't matter. I've found a way to live my life that makes me happy.
