Pro-active or passive ?

[TNT]

This past year has not been the best for Ted and I where our swinging life was concerned. Life was just not cooperating with us. We had births in the family, deaths in the family, major remodeling going on in the house, major work travel occuring and well you name it, we've dealt with it this past year. We took a very passive approach to our swinging life to the point that we only played four times this past year ...the least we have played in a year since entering swinging.

Upon discussing this, this morning we both agreed that we weren't happy with this and decided that in the up-coming year we are going to take a more Pro-active approach. In other words..we're going to get back to our old selfs and stop making excuses (to ourselves) why it's easier to just stay at home.

Which got me to thinking...

What kind of approach do you take when it comes to your swinging life?

Do you wait for chances to play to just happen or do you actively search out those chances to make them a possibility?

Are you Pro-active for Passive?


Teresa

[rpu3]

Great question.

Right now, I don't think we are proactive or passive. We are somewhat in the middle and call ourselves opportunists, as corny as that may sound.

When we came back to swinging, we were passive - we'd just explore the choices that came through the ad sites. There's only one instance in which could be remotely labeled "proactive" in which I kind of sorta made contact, and that situation has been the most fun to date.

The completely passive approach was not the most fun. It's strange, because two of the people we met from the "passive" stage have written this week after being MIA for months, and want to meet up - and we don't know if we are terribly interested in continuing in that passive interaction any further.

For right now, we are just at a "let's just play things by ear" because that method has been a lot more fun to date.

Rebecca

[Chicup]

2005 very proactive
2006 completely passive

Way too much going on.

2007 passive (life stuff)

2008 proactive again

[LikeMinds321]

I don't think we have ever been passive, however in the first year of searching for swingers through ad sites we were hesitant to make the initial contact simply because we thought the people we were interested in wouldn't be interested in us.

We soon learned that was foolish thinking, we had underestimated our ability to be accepted by swingers. Couples we had on our 'wish list' (our own secret list) started writing us and we were shocked as well as delighted.

As we met more people privately, and at clubs, our apprehension about approaching people we were interested in disappeared. You would think that would have affected how many people we contact, but it hasn't really, we are still as selective as we were from the start, and so while we continue to check out profiles on the ad site we use, we write to very few people because it has always been challenging for Mister LM and me to agree on couples. Either of us has veto rights, and that has always kept our swinging at a relaxed pace. I've found I like it that way.

There was this time when we had three couples send us an introductory e-mail all in one week. What made it unusual is that we were interested in meeting all of them! Communicating with three new couples all at once, trying to arrange times to meet, plus staying in contact with couples we were already swinging with was so much work. I was exhausted with that intense an involvement with swinging.

The bottom line, we're pro-active swingers, but we like an easy-going pace that may be more often associated with those who are passive swingers.

LM

[avid]

I like the word "opportunist" as well.

We've been kind of reluctant to go all out and search for partners for a number of reasons:

- We're a triad, and I think the risk of rejection might be high, and I just don't want to pursue anything that damages my new found confidence.

- Our relationship is relatively new, and we're still working out the boundaries.

- With our new relationship, we're having great sex already!

- We have lots of fun visiting our local club, with quite a bit of flirting, so that is kind of satisfying in itself. We seem to be developing some decent friendships, so we'll see where that goes.

Add to all this the various life challenges (5 kids between the 3 of us!), a new business, a never-ending renovation, and it just makes me laugh.

I'm really wondering what 2007 will hold! I really would like to do some good playing.

[ohash01]

J. and I are somewhere between "passive" and "opportunist". If the opportunity arises, we take it. But we don't spend a lot of time looking, which kind of makes us passive too.

Lately (since like Sept.) we just really haven't had the time. My job changed a bit, his daugther's mom got pregnant again so she's been sending the kid over here every weekend because she's tired, we've been making trips to the lakehouse and back home, too crazy.

We're going to get a little more opportunist again after the New Year. Hopefully...

[Cloud9Social]

Since we own a lifestyles club and host a social once a month among other events, I would have to say we are pro-active

[BiloxiCouple]

We feel for you TNT. This whole past year has been passive for us. With Katrina, losing our jobs to Katrina, teenagers moving in and out and all kinds of other things.... It's surprising we are still sane. We still get out, but just not really swinging. We got to visit Colletes in New Orleans and just relaxed and hid from the real life.

Hopefully the New Year will be more active!!!

[gatorvol64]

That's a good question. I'm not really sure what you would call us lately. We are lucky to have a few regular playmates and can usually get together with someone when we have the chance. And we have also been lucky enough to have regular opportunities to meet until about the last 3 months. Gator's work schedule got even stranger around that time. We are hoping that will change soon.

Vol

Update: maybe things will be good in 2007. We just talked with a single friend of ours and set up a date for next weekend. (Threesomes are still a favorite of ours since getting 4 people to click is so hard). That's a good sign for the year. facelick

[iapr]

We have thought about this exact thing as well from time to time. As it is so much art and luck more than it is science it is hard to know where you fit into the big scheme of things or know what it is that you should be doing.

I tend to think it is kind of like fishing. At one extreme there is the fellow who goes down and sits by the shore and waits for a fish to jump out of the water and land on his feet or for a fish to get whacked in the head by a boat or something and wash up on shore beside him. It is possible and it surely will happen at some point or another if he sits along shore long enough.

Then there is the person that decides to go fishing so they get the cheapest rod and rell they can find. puts a worm on hook and throws it into the water and low and behold they reel in a fish.

Then at the other extreme is the professional circuit bass fisherman who sets out to catch as many and as big largemouth bass that he/she can in single tournement.

He has a $50,000 bass boat, thousands of dollars worth of the finest high tech rods and reels money can buy. A whole trunk full of the lastest and greatest lures and tackle. He spends all his waking hours reading fishing books and journals, talks to experts all around the world and reads every post on every fishing message board he can get his eyes on. Then he studies maps of the bottom contours of every body of water he is interested in and closely follows all the climate and atmospheric conditions, monitors water temps and depths and takes water samples to analyze acidity and nutrient levels. He knows intimately the feeding, breeding and migratory habits of his prey and does everything methodically and for a specific purpose.

Ok now here's the rub - the pro can come home empty handed on any given day while at the same time the guy that sits on the shore may have his one lucky day and a huge carp washes up on shore and the guy with the hook and worm may reel in a record setting walleye.

HOWEVER the pro will OVER TIME bring in higher quality and a greater quantity of largemouth bass than will the other two over the same period of time.

The same applies with swinging, things do just happen. And even the people who eat sleep and breathe swinging will still strike out and will still have bad days but over time the more active and involved will on average have more and better experiences than those who sit and wait.

[TNT]

Thanks for all the great replies everyone.

It seems for us that just by making a conscious decision to "get back into the game" was a good one, lol...the New Year isn't even here yet and it's already looking up .

We decided that in an effort to be more Pro-active we'd put some new pics on our profile, which we hadn't done in a while (bad us) and the results have been GREAT.

Contacts from two very handsome single men, one of which we are meeting tonight, and one in the near future, an e-mail from an old play buddy we haven't seen in a while and a very nice looking couple, which we'll be meeting tomorrow night at the New Years Social and things are back to where they were with us.

2007 is definitely looking up for our swinging life...We're gald to be back.


Teresa

[carlos_pchot]

Hi TNT, I think what you have gone through 2006, it's pretty normal to everyone in swinging lifestyle, nobody can't keep being proactive permanently, because it would let out another parts of your life.

I'm not in a couple anymore, but when I had, we lived through several stages of being passive and pro-active, where I live, it's quite difficult to find prospects to go out, not even clubs that you can attend to, so being pro-active it's really exhausting and sometimes you just get tired of looking and not finding anyone interested. So, I think the best is being around the middle of it, not passive enough that you forget out about it, and not so pro-active that you would forget everything for the next date.

I'm sure 2008 will bring many great things for you, it looks it's already started, best wishes.

Carlos

[flkeyscouple]

2004 AND 2005 passive - hurricanes got in the way
2006 proactive - more so the last few months
2007 - proactive!! We're hoping for a great year!

Sarah

[intuition897]

2003 Enthusiastically pro-active
2004 1/2 Active and then INactive
2005 INactive
2006 INactive

2007...Enthusiastically pro-active. We're sick of letting life get in the way of us having fun anymore. We feel old and unsexy, we look old and unsexy, we've just kinda...let ourselves go. Screw that. We haven't even hit 40 for God's sake! Looking forward to getting back into the fun.

Check out my blog under the Intuition Ranch entry. Sort of outlines our upcoming plans for the year.

[TNT]

Originally Posted by intuition897

We're sick of letting life get in the way of us having fun anymore.

You hit the nail on the head with that one sentence...

The past year was one of putting everyone and every thing else first and forgetting to put us first once in a while. We still had our special times with each other but we're ready to start doing more of the things we enjoy.


Teresa