[txduo2000]

My take on the whole thing is that swinging is primarily a recreational sex pastime … so we aren’t necessarily in it for the “friends” as a primary goal, and our profile states that.

We can make friends anywhere, with anyone … but having friends that swing is entirely different, and not all that easy.

If swinging is fundamentally about finding recreational sex, then of course there has to be a compatibility … but it’s a different compatibility metric from which you would gauge finding "typical" friends, or in our case anyway. There’s a sex appeal and attraction and arousal factor that you use to measure swing friends, whereas you don’t typically use that metric to make “typical” mainstream friends.

Our ad basically reads that we are seeking playmates … and if friendship develops that’s great, if it doesn’t then that’s fine too, because in this sector of our lives, we aren’t looking for deep-rooted, long-lasting friendships. Like I said, we can find those anywhere.

And to me, if you aren’t looking for an emotional tie, then you can’t be looking for friends as your primary goal. I know that my husband and I, and all our “vanilla” friends have emotional ties to each other. We co-miserate with them when they are feeling low, stay with them at the emergency room if a kid is hurt or sick, talk for hours on the phone, share and discuss decorating ideas, help each other move … that sort of thing. Those are emotional connections.

We aren’t looking for emotional attachments, which is why we stipulate that playmates is what we seek. Of course, we want to have more than sex to talk about, but we aren’t looking to replace our existing friends with friends who have added benefits.

Several years ago, when we were brand new, hubby wanted to make friends first with the people that we intended to swing with. That turned out to be very uncomfortable for me. I was more of a "one-night stand" kind of swinger at the time. I liked the anonymity of not truly knowing our swing partners. For that reason, I loved the house parties where you could play and never have to worry about hooking up with anyone again if you didn't want to. No feelings hurt, no discussions to be had. We had one couple we became close friends with. We never played with them. I couldn't; we had gotten too close with them, and knew all their issues with their kids, the drama in their lives, and they knew ours. It was just too close for comfort for me and I could not even entertain the idea of playing with them. That has changed for me now. I don't have a problem being friends and swinging, but it is not and probably won't ever be my main goal.

Our goal is to have our fantasies realized and experience the thrill of seeing each other playing with others, satisfying each other through different experiences. That to me is a totally different goal than trying to find people that I can go shopping with, talk on the phone with, and share all my typical life aspects with.

I don’t know if I am getting across the point I am trying to make, and I don’t know if it even helps. Just my .02.