Day 2: When did you first realize you were non-monogamous?

I don’t know if there was ever a single moment of realization – I did it because I needed something other than what monogamy could give me.  

When I started college I hooked up with a couple people and though that only panned out with one of them, I always had the option of finding others.  Since I was swamped and trying to focus on schoolwork at that time, for about 2 years I only had sex with one person regularly, and they were just a good friend.  Then we tried dating (not a great decision on my part because we didn’t mesh romantically at all) and we spelled out how we wanted that to look like – open for sure since it was long distance, and there was definitely no hierarchy going on.  That lasted about about 6 months, until I just realized that long distance without romantic chemistry was not going to cut it for me, and we ended on amicable terms.
I then had one lover who was in an open marriage, but it was their first real experimentation outside of their marriage, so I got the rough stuff (as far as I know, they’re still open, and seeing another couple together, and have been with them for a few years now, so good on them for getting their shit together enough to do that).  I know that I definitely identified as polyamorous by the end of that relationship (probably before then – it was some time around then *waves hand in the general direction of the past*) and had definitely latched on to the idea of non-monogamy awhile before then.

If people ask, I generally say that I’ve been ethically non-monogamous for about 10 years and polyamorous for about 7.  Those are iffy numbers, but provide a figure close enough to accurate for most people.