Free Agent

A person who practices polyamory in a way that tends to separate, compartmentalize, or isolate all of his or her romantic relationships from one another, treating each as a separate entity. A free agent often presents himself or herself as "single" or behaves in ways which are typically associated with the behavior of a single person even when he or she has romantic partners, and often does not consider the potential impact of new relationships upon existing relationships when deciding whether or not to pursue those new relationships. Commentary: Some believe there are not necessarily two distinct styles of polyamory, those of Free Agent and Family-Oriented. But rather there is a continuum with Free Agent on one end and Family-Oriented on the other. Most people fall somewhere in the middle to one side or the other, with extreme examples of Free Agent resembling casual sex partners or friends with benefits where the partners have no contact and possibly even no knowledge of each other (but an acknowledgement of an open relationship or no sexual committment); and extreme examples of Family-Oriented resembling Polyfidelitous relationships where any new partner of anyone in the Polyfidelitous group automatically has an equal relationship with all other members of the group. Some people are capable of having relationships of varying degrees of emotional intimacy and may slide along the continuum at different times with different relationships.