I am, I suppose, arguably both. I'm part of something that's more like a clan than anything else - there are ten members currently and each person's relationshi

I am, I suppose, arguably both. I'm part of something that's more like a clan than anything else - there are ten members currently and each person's relationship with each of the others is somewhere between friend and full partner, though most of us are partnered to at least two of the rest (and myself and the strongest personality female partner are both partnered to most of the rest as well as each other - I'm currently writing this sat on her flat's deck in PDX). This doesn't prevent any of us having partners outside the group, either, although if I expect to emotionally commit to somebody I try to at least introduce them to the rest since these are the people that I trust with my life and my future. I, personally, seem to have been gifted with a very minimal capacity for jealousy; the other members vary, and it's not really a problem - anything that makes anybody unhappy is taken as something to be understood and resolved by conversation and change. The cross-support possibilities help a lot, especially given that a number of us have fairly high velocity lives and can disappear for days at a time dealing with work (though a number of us are in IT of some form so sometimes we lean on each other for help during crunch times too). All relationship patterns require lots of effort to work well. All relationship patterns involve drama sometimes. The difference in my experience (I've done monogamy, open - i.e. single emotional, multiple sexual partner, multiple-independent-partner poly, and now clan) is what sorts of drama, what sorts of effort, and what sorts of people. Currently the clan approach is my favourite, but then again at any given time the approach I was using was my favourite. I don't generally go out of my way to broadcast my choice of relationship pattern, but I also don't go out of my way to not mention it - to refer to one of my loves as my partner without making the existence of the rest clear seems to me to be disrespectful to the other people that I'm in love with. This hasn't, so far, caused a problem with any client to my knowledge when it's come up in social conversation - but even if it did I'd simply stop discussing my life with the person who found it troublesome, it wouldn't make me any more willing to lie about who I love and why if asked a direct question. I'm not really sure what else I should cover - it's hard to know which things people will find remarkable about your life when you're in the middle of living it. I'll try and monitor replies here though (or I could start a Tell HN in the reddit IAMA style if people preferred)