Ok, I can see where the misunderstandings crept in. My love of numbered lists can be a real pain. And I never meant to imply that you were being a bastard, you're clearly thoughtful and sensitive, just that you might not fully understand the implications of becoming poly.
Yeah, deep friendship/emotional cheating is such a tough line, sometimes.
When I asked what skills you were thinking of, I had an inkling you were going to say communication. The trouble is that all of your options require it. Pretty much every poly resource I read says that communication is the absolute crucial factor in polyamory. You're going to have to develop the ability to communicate really well, whichever option you choose.
I feel like I might as well answer, to the best of my knowledge (which is limited), the points of your last paragraph.
In terms of communication, here's one particularly nuanced tutorial that I recommend, and there are others within easy googling:
http://www.xeromag.com/fvpolycommunication.htmlYes, it'll help an awful lot if you gradually get them all to know each other. Yes, this requires effort. On the other hand- you're four asexuals who have a reasonable amount in common within a small area. Even if you had some obection to inviting more than one of them out to dinner at some point, I'm guessing you met up with all or most of them because they're each interested in meeting asexuals in real life. They'd probably react pretty well if you tried to form better bonds.
Issues over trust will be difficult. You're going to have to let your relationships be what they are- there's no way you'd ever give each one 33.3% of your attention, so don't try. The important thing is not that everyone is the same, but that everyone is fulfilled. I can't remember where I read it, but on one of the poly resources, someone said "'I want you to spend as much time with me as her!' is the wrong demand, it should be 'I wan't you to spend more time with me'." If you're going to have three relationships that are exactly the same, what's the point of having three relationships?
Basically, don't be afraid of 'stronger or different' feelings.You can make that work. Don't think about measurement, don't get techical or mathmatical. This is just about what makes everyone happy.
And about self-policing, I recommend the whole of this resource:
http://freaksexual.wordpress.com/2008/0 ... y-tips-ii/ , but especially the bit about boundaries, and especially the bit that says, in big, bold letters, "make boundaries specific".
ETA: Just noticed that the first resource has lots of other articles linked to the right, including ones about poly/mono conversations.