Nonmonogamy -> Monogamy. An orientation, or a choice?

If you've been keeping up with my ramblings on my relationship with J, you'll know that I've been going through some trouble figuring out if I could be happy in a closed monogamous relationship. I was concerned about this before we even got together, and initially thought that I should figure it out before starting a relationship with him, but clearly I ended up doing the opposite. I'm not going to say whether I was right or wrong on that count, I think in the long run it would have made little difference, and anyway that isn't the point.

What brought everything to a head and prompted me to finally resolve my feelings was Girl telling me that she was still attracted to me. She said that after we started hooking up, she wanted to start something deeper with me but decided to wait until after she had graduated and had gotten settled down at her new place. (We started sleeping together right before she graduated. Typical.) She knew I had started dating J, and didn't want to jeopardize what I had with him, but wanted to know how I felt about cybering/hooking up with her outside of my relationship with him. I told her I would think about it and talk to J.

All this made me finally pose the question to myself: do I want/need to be in an open/poly relationship? Or not?

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