Non-monogamy is nothing new. Recent research suggests that alongside the stubborn population of adulterers, 15 to 28% of heterosexual couples and about 50% of bisexuals and gay men have some sort of "non-traditional" arrangement. This week the BBC Radio 4 documentary Monogamy and the Rules of Love tapped into a growing curiosity about polyamory, the formal practice of having multiple romantic partners at one time. For many people, though, polyamory isn't curious at all – it's just another way of organising life, love and whose turn it is to make the tea.

It may be hard for the conservative old guard to fathom, but for a long time lots of people have quietly been getting on with non-monogamous relationships. During the recent debates around the legalisation of gay marriage, Tory critics warned that the next, unthinkable step would be multiple marriage. I can't be the only one who wondered if that'd be such a bad idea. Some of the sweetest couples I know, including many with healthy, happy children, are not couples at all, but triples or even quadruples – but the public conversation about open non-monogamy is still stuck on horrified confusion. An article in the Independent about the BBC programme confused polyamory with "wife-swapping", which makes the women involved sound like unwanted Saturdays CDs.

In particular, non-monogamy is stereotyped as a bad deal for women and girls, all of whom actually just want a white wedding, because we women are all the same, simple creatures with simple desires. When abuse happens within polyamorous relationships, outsiders often assume that the non-traditional relationship structure is to blame – but the same assumptions are rarely made when a "traditional" marriage turns violent, despite the fact that the practice historically treated women as property and until recently made it legal for men to rape their wives. For plenty of women, that's reason enough to consider other options.

Of course, polyamory isn't always political. People do it for all sorts of reasons, from grand ethical statements to boredom – managing the drama of multiple relationships is a great way to kill time on a Sunday afternoon. Personally, I started practising non-monogamy in my early 20s as a statement against the tyranny of the heterosexual couple form and the patriarchal nuclear family – but then again, I did a lot of silly things for similar reasons in my early 20s. If you'd asked 21-year-old me why precisely I was hanging half-naked out of a fourth-floor window on Holloway Road, I'd probably also have answered "as a statement against the tyranny of the heterosexual couple form". Nowadays, from the wise and serious vantage point of my mid-20s, I practice non-monogamy because it works for me. It doesn't work for everyone, and I might not choose it forever.

I've been in various polyamorous relationships, some delightful, some less so, particularly with people who confuse structured non-monogamy with simple sleeping around. From a distance, they look similar, but only the former has the tedious syncing-up of calendars and household chores. As ever, when human love is involved, it starts with stolen kisses and ends with a fight about who did the dishes last. Once you've got past the initial thrill of being allowed to fall in love and fool around with multiple people at once, you tend to find that polyamory replaces one set of problems – suspicion, frustration, guilt at lusting after people you shouldn't – with an exciting new set of problems. Problems like how to make sure you're spending enough time with each of your partners, or what precisely you're supposed to call your girlfriend's other boyfriend who you may or may not also be dating (answer: your "metamor"). Problems like how to balance the time you spend talking discussing your feelings honestly with various lovers with other important things like eating dinner and going to work (just because you can have five partners doesn't mean you should).

The fact that doing polyamory properly requires a lot of time and energy is one of the reasons that many participants in the "poly scene" – although by no means all – are urban, middle-class professionals. These tend to be the people with the hours and energy to devote to maintaining multiple partnerships in a time when even monogamous love is a struggle for working people – this week a study showed that the rituals of romance are increasingly hard to afford for people on low incomes. However, the charge that polyamory is just another naughty suburban hobby simply doesn't hold up. The four-person poly family interviewed on the Radio 4 documentary, for instance, are precariously employed young queer people from Sheffield.

However, the biggest problem with polyamory is also the major problem with monogamy; and that problem, as always, is people. Polyamorists and monogamists alike fall prey to the delusion that their rules are the only proper way to organise relationships, and if we could all just stick those rules, no one would ever have to get their heart broken ever again. If only it were so simple. The truth is that there is no magic set of rules for love, sex and home economics that works for everyone – and that's why it's so important that there are other options out there. Radio 4 predicted that monogamy would lose its "moral monopoly" within 10 years. Bring it on, I say.