[EternallySingle]

Singles are at a real disadvantage in the swinging community, because the majority of swingers ARE couples. Couples think differently than singles. All singles, whether they admit it or not, approach other singles with "This may be the one" in the back of his or her mind and adjust their approach based on a lot of information they receive to appear more appealing than other singles. With couples, a single person KNOWS they have no chance at anything more than sex. Depending on the experience of the single person, they will again adjust their approach to be more appealing to the couple, but usually they have to compete not only with other singles of the same sex, but singles of the opposite sex, couples, and even groups for the limited time the couple will have for an encounter that won't go any further than sex and MAYBE a really casual friendship.

That is a lot of pressure for someone just starting out, and that is where a lot of the conflict begins. Men deal with the pressure of possible rejection by being a little more persistant and a little less honest than usual. Women, I've observed, deal with possible rejection by being more distant and less commital. Both are techniques meant to make you appear available and interesting. But when dealing with couples, the average male techniques makes him seem pushy. For women, it makes her seem uninterested and just there to be somewhere other than at home. Couples forget this because they are no longer looking for a mate, just someone to hang out with. In swinging, hanging out sometimes includes sex. The pushy or uninterested appearance singles present when communicating with couples is misunderstood, so the singles have a harder time connecting with couples.

Of course, after the first good encounter, the single is often reccommended to other couples (and maybe, eventually, but not usually, to other singles) and the pressure of rejection is gone. The single person now has the reputation of "One of the real ones" and approaching others becomes more trying to meet new people and less trying to impress new people.

But those are just my observations from the last 20 or so years.