Wonder what they're saying about us?

[des1re06]

Do you ever wonder what other swingers are saying about you?

For example, we met this really nice couple for dancing (let's call them WA for clarity's sake). They told us that another couple (MA for clarity) who were at the club told them that we don't swing. How odd!

Come to find out, that MA told WA that because we had no chemistry with MA and politely told them so. So, I guess they thought by telling WA that we didn't swing, it would make them reject us. How juvenile!! Just because we're picky doesn't mean we don't swing.

We met another nice couple recently (SS), who informed us that one couple described them as "stalkers" to several members of our mutual social club, because they had sent an email thanking them for their evening together. They were perplexed.

I've never been into gossip, even in high school. I certainly wouldn't comment or interfere with other couples getting together, even if one of the couples had rejected us. I've accepted that some people just aren't going to click with us, and that's fine with me. We move on. I don't hate them or want to ruin their relationships because of it. I'm actually more likely to introduce them to other couples in our club, so they won't feel left out, and they can find that couple they click with.

Is this just an odd circumstance, or do you find that people do tell tales in social clubs where members meet regularly?

Mrs. D

[Chicup]

There is one theory that language evolved for the purpose of gossip.

I'm not sure if I agree with it or not, but the idea was that those who were able to communicate clearly would be able to say who was sleeping with who when the hunting party was out and who had what and did what with food/items/sex/whatever.

Regardless if the desire to gossip lead to language or not, its something inherently human (and perhaps applies to other animals at some level). Its very difficult for some people to say nice things about those who they feel slighted by, and its easier to find flaws in them than themselves.

For example the 'they don't swing' comment. Few people would be able to say 'Oh yea they were great, but they just weren't interested in us.' Instead its easier to justify it to themselves by saying 'oh they aren't really swingers'. This not only makes them feel better but also gives them a bit of satisfaction since maybe now you will find it harder to find couples to play with. Sort of like the guy who tells his friends the girl he hit on was a lesbian rather than tell them she wasn't interested in going out with him.

Yes its petty, but I'm not sure I'd call it juvenile, far too many adults are prone to do this about all aspects of life. If anything is politicking in its most basic form.

[good times]

I was just sitting here thinking after reading your post that I can think of very few times we have went to a club and didn't have someone make a comment to us regarding someone else. I think it is just human nature. Is it ok that people do this? Probably not, but it happens all the time. Most often it is a friend just trying to be helpful. In reality, it seldom ever is though. I can't tell you how many times we have had someone recommend that we steer clear of someone else and, after we followed our standard procedure and ignored their comments, we had a great time with the couple we were told to steer clear of.

We also tend to be pickier, for lack of a better term, than most swingers we know about who we choose to play with. So it doesn't really surprise us when someone is surprised when we agree to play with them because they had been led to believe by others that we never play. Another contributing factor to this is that while most people we play with we meet at on-premise clubs, we rarely actually play at the club. So, while other club regulars may see us leave with someone occasionally, they hardly ever see us go to the play room with anybody, so they make incorrect assumptions about us and don't seem to have a problem sharing those assumptions with everybody else they know. On the up side, after you have been swinging and attending the clubs for a few years you start finding that these people have their incorrect assumptions quickly corrected by regulars that know better.

In the end, if our experience is anything to go by, you are just going to have to get used to this. Does it suck? Yes, but it is one of those things that just is, so I don't waste a lot of time getting excited about it any more.

[LOL_OMG]

We had an issue with a couple early on who liked to talk about others. Who's doing who and who's good in bed, who's not...bleh bleh. It seriously turned us off.

We like to meet people at a neutral place for the first meet. We kind of have an unwritten rule that if they start talking smack about other swingers we pretty much go no further. There are those who are discreet, and lets face it....what happened with us and couple A might not be the same as with someone else.

Mrs

[Tia Vampire]

We have heard different things about people in our group, but like you said, it is not our place to judge. We have even tried to set up group meets so that if we do not like a couple, there may be a chance that they or we may like someone else in the group and hopefully make a new friend. We have found out that some couples do not appreciate this. We were just trying to make it work for everyone.

[sereneiders]

We're regulars of a club, and we attended meetings from a couple of swingers IRC chat rooms (where people just... talk to each other, and about each other).

Indeed, everyone make comments and tells you about their experience with other people you know. And IMO it's a good thing, you get to know whose words you'll give more credit when talking of other people, and it's a way to prescreen people.

Of course, what Chicup said is true as well, so you need to develop the hability to filter out the "noise". For example, the comment about you from someone you rejected should be less valuable than the comment about you from someone you accepted. If someone never acknoledges their responsibility and instead trend to blame on others, you can dimish this someone oppinion's value.

However, it happened to us to find people misslead about us and/or our tastes. Most of the times, when talking about it, you realize it's more because of some confussion in the communication process, than an intended missleading from someone.

Einstein said something like "you shouldn't blame to evilness for what can be explained by means of stupidity". People talks, and verbal communication is an error prone activity (moreover if in middle of a club, whith the noise and a couple of drinks). it's way more likely that people missundersnads someone's words, than an attempt to be misslead on purpose (which again, would be error prone).

[LFM2]

Mr. LFM and I went to a HUGE party last weekend and met up with some friends from some parties before. Since this was the party of all parties in this region, there were a LOT of people there that we didn't know. Come to find out, we knew their screen names and it was just plain helpful to put their screen names and faces together.

As a friend of ours was pointing out people, he would tell me if they were "playable" or not. He never said a bad word about anyone except one couple there. It was obvious that he thought that everyone he knew there was very "playable".

At one point later in the night, my friend pointed out a couple that we've had a play experience with, which was then pleasurable, but then they turned into stalkers. We also found out how indiscreet they were. Well, turns out this couple has a very bad reputation with all the people we communicated with at this party. It was said more than once, "Stay away from So&So -- They're nuts!" It actually surprised me how much these two people have ostracized themselves from this group. Also, surprisingly, nothing else derogatory was said about other couples. A little off story, but this couple has been kicked out of one of the AFF groups and one of the Swing Lifestyle group and it was interesting as they trolled the party. They'd split up and the male half would stand by one exit and the female would stand by the other. Gave me the creeps.

[des1re06]

Thanks for your thoughtful comments. I honestly couldn't care less about what others say about me. I just get turned off by people who bad-mouth others who don't deserve it. On the flip side, I'd appreciate being warned about the creepy couple LFM2 ran into. Makes me wonder how one gets kicked off 2 sites. Wow!

Luckily, what was said to WA didn't affect them talking to us and becoming good friends with us.

I tend to take the bull by the horns, so I had a long conversation with MA yesterday, and he admitted that he and his wife aren't getting along at all. He's talking about leaving her. So, in his frustration, he lashed out at us. So, we were right, IMO, of not wanting to play with them. Something just wasn't right. I urged him to back out of swinging until they worked things out.

Mrs. D

[LFM2]

Mrs. D... I'm like you. I don't really care what they say about us. Maybe those talking will leave others alone if they're talking about us.

[Chicup]

Everyone cares to some extent what other people say about them.

Do you like people who say bad things about you? Then you care.

Don't confuse 'don't let it affect us' with 'caring'.

Perhaps its just semantics but I think you would have to be a true sociopath to not really 'care'. Some people just handle it better.

[Tybee Swing]

Webster's on discretion: "Cautious reserve in speech. Ability to make responsible decisions. Having or showing discernment or good judgment in conduct, especially in speech. Capable of preserving prudent silence."

Originally Posted by des1re06

Do you ever wonder what other swingers are saying about you?

We know of a couple of things said about us. One that's come back to us a few times is "energizer bunnies". But yes, it would be interesting to know what else is being said about us.

About the gossiping in swinger circles, especially the bad-mouthing: we really dislike that. We know a particular couple who seem to have met everybody in town at one point or another, and they have something (often negative) to say about them. The wife has gotten couples kicked out of party invitation lists and such, saying the male was too aggressive with her. We know for a fact that he wasn't. With one couple, the man had his hand below her waist while they were dancing on the dance floor at a vanilla club (not groping, just below the waist), and he was flirting with her. This was enough to get this couple verbally trashed all over town. :rollseyes In another case (different couple), she said this man was very overly aggressive toward her at a house party. We met this couple and found the man to be very courteous and very non-aggressive. We didn't get it.

Almost all swingers consider themselves to be discreet. The most indiscreet people we've met think they're discreet. I think it's the most misused term in Swingdom, because so many people are blabber-mouths and gossips in this lifestyle. Indiscretion really turns us off. It's been our only real problem in the lifestyle, and it's been manifested in quite a few different ways.

[LFM2]

Originally Posted by Chicup

Everyone cares to some extent what other people say about them.

Do you like people who say bad things about you? Then you care.

Don't confuse 'don't let it affect us' with 'caring'.

Perhaps its just semantics but I think you would have to be a true sociopath to not really 'care'. Some people just handle it better.

I digress. I should have said that "we don't let it affect us". It would sound like we are a narcissistic couple if we said we don't "care".

[havefuninsun]

I hate kissing and telling ... how terrible. We've met couples who were interested in hearing stories about our adventures. They almost seem disappointed when we say nothing negative about anyone. I do believe we've been very lucky ... even folks we've met and didn't have a "connection" have been fine folks.

[DBL D]

Yep! We NEVER play either! LOL People want to put a label on someone else so badly that they resort to this type of behavior. Distressing!

Stick to YOUR guns and do things the way you like to. Try to be flexible. If that doesn't work, then you just have to move on. If you are the types that go to parties a lot, you will face this problem again and again.

There was a couple we were with that we heard some weird stuff about and we mentioned it to another couple who'd been contacted by them. They told us that they had met them and were happy we warned them. I still felt very badly about it and won't do that anymore. Now we say something like we haven't met them or don't know anything about them. Tastes being what they are, I'd hate to have our program changed because of something like that. Do unto others...

Male D

[JustAskJulie]

We've run into this a couple of times, usually with couples telling us things about other people... and it always makes us wonder, if they are saying this to us about them, then what are they saying about us to others?

One case especially was the host at one of the socials we went to. We got the dirt on everyone.... I wonder what our dirt was? We never did play with anyone at that social so I'm sure we weren't really swingers.

The other side of this is that when you hear from someone what so and so is saying about them, you have to wonder "am I only getting half the story?" As far as potential stalker couple says they just sent a "thank you" note the next morning, but was there more to it?