[The Fuse]

snip

Originally Posted by DigginIt

We came in and found a nice spot at the bar facing the dance floor. The place was packed. We had been seeing 10-15 couples in the place at any given time the first two nights but we were really excited to see about 4 times that many couples this night. I (the guy) made eye contact with a couple that I though was attractive and within seconds we were all chatting (she came over without the SO male half and was shortly followed by him). She was sweet, funny and very outgoing and there was an attraction to her on both mine and my wife’s part. Unfortunately, my wife and her husband didn’t quite hit it off very well. We decided to back off as we wanted to be respectful but clearly we had caused a rift between the husband and wife.

It is very nice and considerate of you to be concerned about their rift, but ultimately it is their rift. From what you posted, it doesn't sound like you did anything wrong-- just didn't have a four-way match. When that happens, and it happens a lot, each side has to be philosophical about it. We all have to learn to take rejection gracefully. If they were fighting between themselves over it, that's not a good way for them to handle things between themselves. More importantly, it's not your responsibility.

Originally Posted by DigginIt

A bit later, they seemed to come to an agreement and as my wife and I were dancing, they came out and split us apart on the floor and I was dancing with his wife and vice versa. Nothing inappropriate as I wanted to ensure there was complete mutual interest on both sides. My wife and her husband seemed to clash again.

What do you mean by "clash"? If you were trying to ensure that there was mutual interest (which seems unlikely based on there NOT being mutual interest during your first conversation), does that mean that your wife or the other husband was trying to pull away from an unwanted advance? Or did they have a verbal clash?

Originally Posted by DigginIt

When this happened, we backed off trying to still be considerate. The long story short is that they eventually couldn’t seem to settle their differences and they left the club angry. At us or at each other, I have no idea. We felt she wanted to play and he didn't. We felt very bad over the incident and it was a shame that we were not able to find an alternate arrangement with them as the wives seemed to be attracted to each other.

I'll echo what someone else already said: many couples are in it for both of them to play, and don't want any other arrangement. I don't think it's necessarily bad to ask, but be prepared to be gracious when the answer is no.

Please don't feel badly. It's probably nothing you did. Was your wife into the other husband? Your post said he probably didn't want to play. Was the lack of interest mutual with your wife, or was she interested? If so, was she pursuing him? That's the only thing I could think of that could possibly make them annoyed with you. But if you are the respectful type, it sounds unlikely.

Originally Posted by DigginIt

Most everyone else at the club was nice but the one additional time we actually tried to talk with another couple who seemed interested; we were immediately cut off by a second couple that we believe didn’t want them speaking with us. We ended up having sex upstairs in the library, which was a fun voyeuristic display but ultimately we left a little disappointed.

There really seemed to be a lot more drama than we had anticipated. Is that common?

Depending on how strident everyone became, that is more drama than we normally see. It is easy to allow other peoples' bad behaviour to interfere with your enjoyment. We ourselves did this last Saturday night when we actually left a club a little earlier than we might have wanted to, because of someone who was annoying us.

The key here, I believe, is realizing that four-way matches are difficult to find. If one person isn't interested, then everyone should just smile and wish each other well. It's okay to be disappointed, but not okay to exhibit bad behaviour.

In my opinion, if one member of the couple isn't interested, then pursuing you again (for what reason?) is potentially in bad taste. Everything is situational though. Do you know why they did that? What were they hoping to achieve? Why did they think the outcome would be different? In any case, they should have had better manners and not aired their own dirty laundry in public. There's almost never a good reason for a couple to fight in front of others, swing event or no swing event.

If you had a good time the other two nights and had fun that night in the library, that sounds like a darn good weekend to me. I don't know where your other post is that you referenced, but I'll keep my eye out!