I've been thinking about this topic for a long time.
I noticed that for the first three years in a relationship, I barely even look at other women, but then I usually do and are attracted to them, a lot. I've never cheated. I was often wondering if it was possible to have a relationship and be with other people, but I have to say not for me. The degree of involvement just wouldn't be the same. I can buy into the whole social conditioning thing, but still we're conditioned like that and it would take many generations of different conditioning to change that. Open relationships are fine, but as I said, I don't think the degree of involvement is the same. One of the posters mentioned he wanted to be happy for the girl if she met somebody she really liked and had sex with him. I was often wondering if I could do the same, would it be the ultimate unselfish and unconditional love and is it just our egos that prevent us from living like that. I still don't know. I've done a lot of self-work to diminish my ego as much as possible, but when it comes to this, I still couldn't handle that. I asked myself, if there was no reason to feel insecure about it, if there was theoretically no chance my GF would leave me for the other person, would it be ok? And it still wouldn't. It may be the love that binds us and not sex, but as Mack2.0 pointed out, romantic love is characterized by sex, without it, it's only friendship. I'm perfectly happy when a friend has a good lay, because the friend still loves me, it's the love that binds us, not sex. There is no way I could feel like that if it were my GF. Exclusive sexuality is what makes a romantic relationship special. It's a gift so to speak. You mutually give each other the one thing you share with no one else. Everything else is shared in non-romantic relationships, except for sex. If you sleep with other people you're basically just friends with benefits. It could be a great thing too, but again, the degree of involvement is just not the same. I sometimes think the whole romantic love is bullshit and we would all be better off if it were different, but it is what it is, especially if the nucleus of our society is family. Without sexual exclusivity, it wouldn't be possible. So this is the social conditioning we get, but if we're not living in some tribes, I don't see it can be any other way. Even if we were living in a tribe for example, where everybody can do everybody, it's still exclusive to a point, because members of the other tribe can't get in on the action

Ok, I'm digressing now, but it actually is like that. For example, if we lived in extended families, tribe-like setting, everybody takes care of everybody's children, all men provide for the whole tribe, everybody shares sex. What binds them all together is love, trust, empathy, care and again exclusive sex within the group. Ok, enough of hypothetical tribal orgies.
Anyway, I prefer to be single for the moment and just date. Because I know when I'm with somebody, no more poontang on the side
