This is NOT authored by me. It's by someone I know and it is too well written to let it disappear into a swarm of Facebook comments. Posted with permission from the author, Diamondflamer.
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I wanna elaborate more because of quite a few people lamenting their lack of success here or in poly in general...
Yes there are fewer of us, often more spread out, but that means we just have to be adaptable and willing to adjust our strategies, not put all our hopes in just one place or one set idea of what we want and use multiple resources.
Also not expecting the moon on a stick as soon as we decide we want to date in a poly way. Unlike the average dating site/app, here you've entered a relatively small but diverse and established, cautious community all doing poly in their own way, as a new and unknown person. A community that contains a lot of folk who are wary of new to poly folk/the community due to witnessing or being on the receiving end of those who have abused poly spaces in the past and behaved in a shitty way, often more times than they can count over the years.
Publicly whining about not getting a date in such spaces without having first done the things that you're advised may help you be more successful with how you put yourself across or showing you have learned from mistakes you may have made etc. just makes you come across entitled and/or desperate and also lazy and possibly even too much of a risk for even the brave or naive amongst us to take a chance on, esp if there's distance involved as well.
But even if you do follow all the guidance, aren't a dick, show off your own brand of awesomeness, write a great ad, have cute pics, go to meet ups and make friends and become an active part of the poly community, guess what? You're still not guaranteed or entitled to get dates or interest from people you are also interested in yourself or are the same kinda poly, because it's not a transactional process. The same as if you're mono. You can only increase your chances, the rest is down to chemistry and other factors outside of our control.
You have to be OK with it potentially not working out, but those of us who stick at it and *do* successfully meet and connect with people will tell you over and over again, that even if there's some heartbreak involved and false starts and nearly giving up, we are so glad we did stick it out, we did keep trying and it is really worth it. So many folk who may appear to be living their poly dream now likely have similar times in their past where they wanted to give up or threw a wobbly about being lonely etc. We dusted ourselves off, learned, opened ourselves up again and at some point you look back and you're like wow.. this isn't where I expected I would be on my poly journey when I set out but I am also really glad of where I am or some of the places I've been and who the hell knows where things will lead next?
Sorry for the rant, but hope it's taken in the supportive "you can do the thing, keep trying" vibe it's meant vs an attack.
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