I’m relatively new here but I have a rather philosophical question about poly which is how well it can coexist with other forms of relationship style.

I’m trying to be open minded but I worry about whether there is a fundamental issue with mixing and matching relationship styles.

So I’m not trying to define what poly is for everyone but to me I feel like I want to be free to explore new relationships without too much restriction. I want to be free to make new friends, date new people and follow that through wherever that goes. Now I don’t have expectations that every relationship will go somewhere, I fully expect that some will not develop at all, others might burn really intensely and die soon after and a few might go onto being life long! Who knows! But I like the idea of being able to explore and follow it through to its own conclusion.

That said as I’ve started dating I’ve come across a number of people that are not interested in exploring the relationships in this way, they do not want feelings but just FWB and have made it clear that they would not only discourage feelings but would close down anything that approached that Now I’d like to be clear that I’m not judging their decision, their lifestyle or anything as immoral. I just think it’s not what I’m looking for.

Often I want to talk first , build a connection and then later introduce sex, however it seems that while they will invest an amount of time on talking, the end goal is sex! if they happen to make friends along the way then it’s a happy accident so long as there are no feelings involved!

I’m wondering if these two viewpoints can coexist or whether it feels to be incompatible from the start, if any attempts at building a connection with someone that isn’t open to seeing where it will go is setting myself up for heartache or if I’m just sabotaging myself from possible friendships and connections for fear of getting hurt.