Although, think about the argument about same-sex love. Just because you don't have a SO, doesn't mean you are hetero.
Now, following that logic, does simply thinking poly make you poly, or is it the action that does?
Tricky questions!
Are people who simply desire to love more than one person necessarily, thus, polyamorous? Not necesarily, depending. "Depending" because polyamory is
more than simply an ability or desire to love more than one person simultaniously, as the term is used in common usage. It's also an
ethos.
["Ethos, according to The Oxford English Dictionary, is defined as "the characteristic spirit, prevalent tone of sentiment, of a people or community; the 'genius' of an institution or system", ..." -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethos]
Polyamory is something defined by an emerging and evolving global polyamory community, or culture, or sub-culture--even a "movement". It is a cultural phenomenon and creation, and it will evolve just as such things do. And right now, honesty and openness along with actual loving (not just sex!) are crucial to this emerging and evolving ethos. So the poly culture/community has criteria as to who is a member of the species: polyamorous. Not all swingers are members of this species, though some may be.
... returning ...
Although, think about the argument about same-sex love. Just because you don't have a SO, doesn't mean you are hetero.
Now, following that logic, does simply thinking poly make you poly, or is it the action that does?
Gay/Queer folk are gay/queer whether or not they are involved with anyone romantically or sexually. Desire makes it so.
But this isn't quite so simply said about poly (multiple) amory (love/loving), because of the openness and honesty aspect of the ethos which is polyamory. I'm polyamorous even though I have only one love/lover/partner at this time, and this is so not only because I'm capable of loving more than one person at a time, but more crucially because I subscribe to the ethos of openness and honesty -- as does my partner. But there's more to it than that, still. The polyamorist ethos also includes, generally, the belief that not only can people have multiple loves unproblematically, but that a multiple loving style of loving can
enhance the love we have within our original bonded relationships! This fact -- and it is a fact -- is in myriad ways astonishing and unsettling to the popular culture of "romantic love". Imagine: We may be even a little MORE romantic at times than the monos!