Oh sweet juicy intellectualicious observer...
Ah, Lindy. A significant percentage of what you said is accurate; the remainder is due entirely to faults in my argments that I didn't see until you pointed them out. TOUCHE! I'll clarify now.
How do you figure that "society restricts the dating pool?"
2 methods: legislative and prejudicial. The former is being seen today as various law enforcement agencies are shutting down swinger clubs and on-site premises due to vaguely defined obscenity laws interpreted by moralists who have the money to influence political figures. The 2nd is by instilling within the people the OBJECTION to alternative interests. When you go to a dating scene, you have to put on your game face. Part of that is maintaining the PRETENSE OF STARTING A RELATIONSHIP. If you tip your hat to what you want, it makes the encounter seem cheap and sterile, and the other person tends to feel uneasy, objectified, or even threatened.
Example: say you're a single male in search of a fuck buddy. Nothing special or outlandish, just a regular source of sex that with someone you might actually like as a friend. If you state your intention within the first few minutes of meeting someone, you'll get slapped, and you're lucky if that's all you get. Instead, you have to maintain the illusion that you MIGHT want something else, and wait until the right moment to broach the more...lascivious nature of your interest. Now, if dating were segregated to monogamous bars, poly bars, niche bars, and done so openly instead of relying on the underground circuit (where exploitative criminal elements tend to feed) to advertise, the conflict over relatonship intentions might shrink by as much as 50%.
What do you suggest?
Nothing definitive yet because I haven't done anywhere near the research necessary to begin. But the basic premises are:
1.
Reduce cultural imperatives on dating. You can see it in the grass-roots traditionalist movement where a very mechanical and business-like approach to marriage is taking place: get marriage rates back up, and restore the family. What this is basically saying is "get hitched and outbreed the immigrants before they outnumber us and inherit the land!" Nobody in these groups talks about the PEOPLE in the relationship or even the quality thereof, only numbers. And that effects people's idea of what they should do when meeting someone romantically...you follow conditioning instead of instincts.
2.
Teach people conflict resolution. People aren't used to thinking in emotional matters and that's a problem. Emotionally vulnerable people are easy to manipulate, which is why cultures endorse them, but it prevents people from accepting honesty, and so people spend most of their time avoiding it. You ever seen a couple get into a fight over the dumbest shit you ever heard, and blame each other for everything EXCEPT what's really bothering them? People mistake honesty for assault or rejection, when in reality, most of the time its just an unpleasant truth. We're smart animals...we should be able to figure solutions out rather than jumping to conclusions and lashing out.
3.
Expand social horizons. It's one thing for people to experiment with their sexuality...it's another thing entirely to say "it's alright to do that." A lot of people DO want sex and sex only...but they CAN'T SAY IT. Create avenues where various peoples can meet, and wider standards of what you can say and maybe then searching won't be so hard.
Everything else involves other stuff like health care reform and economic adjustments. But to divide territories up for socializing is expensive and UN-PC, so this is hard.
Similarly, sexual jealousy might have been advantagous to our evolutionary ancestors...but in the modern age of birth control, trust, and verbal communication, jealousy doesn't have to control our behavior now.
People don't like modernity; modernity looks at a sacred cow and says "it's just a cow." Yes, a lot of these tools are obsolete, but they're tied to cultural traditions, and culture is what people use to define themselves and measure their worth. Once you start renovating familiar institutions, institutions that people use to determine right & wrong/good & bad/acceptable & un-, they start freaking out because they don't know what to think...people kill for beliefs, and belief in their identity is probably the most precious thing to them. Traditions and their belief systems also influence our economies...and changing the flow of money, even if justly done, can upend people's lives enough to create armed resistance.
Besides, there's still some biology involved in jealousy; you ever get jealous about someone and no amount of logic or argument could change your emotional responses? I'm not a jealous person at all and even THAT's happened to me. It might be similar to the feeling a dog gets when a hand reaches for his bowl; something instinctual says "(s)he's gonna take your stuff."
Say you meet a person who is perfect for you in every way except one, like tickling. It takes a lot of pressure off that person if you can fulfill that need with someone else.
You know that song "I Just Wanna Be Your Everything"? Well, that's the way everybody feels in a relationship, and for different reasons. Males feel diminished if they can't provide everything...some preternatural feeling that you're open to being overtaken by another competitor, or that you are lacking, and therefore, lesser than and disposable. I don't know what the deal is with females, but they seem to feel attacked or instantly devalued if they are not "THE SOURCE OF HAPPINESS" in your life. I speculate it might be a kind of insecurity conditioned within them to gain acceptance by pleasing others, but I don't know because I'm only a male. Another thing is that women tend to interrelate; if the male finds delight in company with another female of "undesireable" traits, most women feel that they've been lied to and perceived as an "undesireable" themselves because if their man likes "that", then they must be a "that" too. Men get cravings a lotta times, and those are about as detached as you can get from anything...women seem to not have figured this out yet.
It seems to me that no matter how great your life is at home, you'd still be able find "extra" enjoyment outside of it.
The only reason I contest this is because I think there may be other possibilities. Keep in mind I said "possibilities" not "probabilities". You ever see 2 people "in total wuv" and think its cute...and then see them years later and they're still "In total wuv" and you say "Damn, how'd that happen?" Maybe it's something restricted to probability that we don't have the math to draw the equations to, but it does seem to happen in rare instances. Now can EVERYBODY do this under the right conditions? Maybe. Maybe not. I'm not ready to close the book on this because it's unsolved. But the "In total Wuv" high tends to wear off when people become familiar, but in the soulmmate couples, the "In total Wuv" high seems to come BECAUSE of familiarity. CAN people do what you mentioned and work? Oh hell yes, but not everyone, and it requires far more introspection, open-mindedness and security than people have, and more than society is willing to give.
sexually rewarding activities don't have to involve the exchange of bodily fluids.
Yeah but...it's REALLY fun when they do.
Somehow, the morally-outraged keep trying to claim that polyamorous relationships are broken in some way, because we can talk about our needs openly, and because we don't hate each other for sharing intimacy with more than one person. If you ask me, it's the relationships where people can't communicate honestly about what they need that have some growing to do.
Check out http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=79105&page=8&pp=15 as it seems to have more relation to this than belongs here.
.
Dude, I thought you disappeared off the face of the earth?!? Somebody told me you moved to Alaska. Whatever the case, you are a sight for sore eyes, buddy! But Jesus, is this what it takes to hear a few words from you? A perceived insult? I'm hurt, man. I really am. Do you really think that loving many is new and/or abhorant to me? I'm a child of the sixties, brother. I grew up with the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and Blue Cheer. I used to pay $15 for an ounce of Mexican, $20 if it was a "four-finger" ounce, and a whopping $35 for an ounce of Columbian. I was a ringleader in our high school protest over a girl who was suspended for walking through the school hallway topless. The entire school walked out because of us. 
"Intellectualicious!" I love it - I'm totally keeping that one! 
