Personal Ads - Yes or No

[JustAskJulie]

We had this poll a while back but it was prior to the software change, so it got lost. Figured I'd post it again.

[mksNmd]

Definitely YES!

Our experience with personal ads has been very good. We have yet to be stood up or stalked or otherwise harrassed and we do not mind giving out our phone number. Contrary to what some here have stated, we have found that most people placing ads (even on the internet) are genuine.

It's the clubs that we do not like. Very cliquey.

[bimrdcpl]

We also use online ads to look for other people, so far we have only met one couple and one single male and both were very positive experiences. Plus we have friends who were friends before swinging that are on there now, so we exchange notes on the fakes and liars that we have all talked to....

We like going to dances because you get to know people right away but when there is the night that there are the cliques it can be boring, so thats when we decide to have our public fun ie: hands down pants and up skirts, open shirts, flashing etc.



Dawn

[TeamSoBe]

I have already been ranting about the dangers of meeting people in person from any web site in another thread. I have to admit though, that the people that we have been meeting latelly are from web sites. We just moved to a new area that happens to have a very active swinging community and we're using the web sites to meet new people.

We are mainly just extremely cautious though. We have seen too many problems with wierdos hiding behind the net and pretending to be something different. We only meet new alleged couples at a local off-premises party, and we just don't even attempt meeting single guys online.

Some web communities can do a pretty good job of encouraging people to nurture good reputations, those are the ones that we like. Sometimes you'll notice that you see the same familiar faces all over the place, and that those people are well-known for being kind and honest, flaky, super hot, really shallow, charismatic, whatever. When you meet somebody that can be vouched for by friends online you can feel more comfortable that they are real and that they aren't dangerous. That's why we're "TeamSoBe" everywhere, people recognize the name after a while and it encourages us to behave responsibly and try to be social butterflies in person and online instead of being selfish and deceitful or rude or whatever. In that sense web site personals can be helpful to the swinger community. The system at Swingers Date Club that lets people validate each other is especially neato, I thought. That beneficial aspect of a web community is only there if you pay attention to who people are and recognize people though, which takes some work. If you show up from out of nowhere and meet up with people without knowing anything about them then you're back to playing Russian Roulette.

[lovefest04]

Yes Yes yes.

We have yet to figure out how to develop "friends" any other way. We aren't club people and all of our other friends are definitely out.

We have had great success with both swinger sites and more mainstream places like Craigslist. Seems to be a lot more flakes on CL so you must be patient and weed out the trash, but once you dig in it can be worthwhile.

We are generally more comfortable with a bit of annonimity and the online sites let us maintain some control, although probably just a perception.

[gsu22]

I have and will continue to do so........I've only had a few problems with it and the majority of the ones I've met have been good.

[good times]

We have a couple of ads up but I can't say I'm very impressed with the results. If we didn't have several clubs handy we might make more use of them but it is so much more time consuming to meet people through ads that we prefer the clubs.

[curious24]

I have but no one ever replies to messages I send them. Being a single male is tough

[pjkrtm]

That would be a yes! Considering we are not into the club scene (let me re phrase that...we have not tried the clubs) and do not know of any other way to meet other swingers. If any of you know PLEASE fill us in!!!!

[married_lovers]

We go to clubs and use ads--often we combine the two. We start to chat through the ad and then suggest that we either meet for dinner and then go to the club--or just meet at the club. The biggest problem for us (if it is a problem) is that the people in the ad sometimes misrepresent themselves in some way. But even then, we enjoy meeting new people. It's just that sometimes the pictures that they use are 10 or 20 years out of date. It's a bit of shock when someone pulls up in the parking lot and rolls out of the car in a walker (well, that's never happened--but close!).

I think that you pick up a feel for the creeps and the picture collectors after a while and it is easy to weed them out.

[DBL D]

We've had some luck with ads but it is more time consuming than we'd like.

Going to a dance is the best way to meet but you will have to go to a lot of dances to meet everyone.

Ads put you out there in the 1st place.

Male D

[Just_us49]

We've had good luck with ads. It seems some sites are more suited for an area than others and our experience has been some sites are geared more for swingers than others.

I've made my living from the phone and net for over ten yrs so I guess I've developed a systematic approach to weeding out folks we wouldn't be interested in meeting.

We try to guage where our contacts are in the process of actually meeting and file them accordingly. If it seems they are slow we put them on the back burner..if it clicks we move a bit faster.

The biggest help we have found is stating exactly what we are looking for and letting people know the process we prefer for meeting. For instance we will not meet if the ladies don't do a phone call before hand to establish some credibilty on both parts.

We have no club experience at all but The Spoo's may help us out on that one

[nhcpl1968]

we voted yes we do use ads but we also go to house parties ....
we have had better luck with the house parties the last cpl we met off the ads
didnt work out

[agilemicpl43sum]

We voted yes on the ad's, but I have to say, we have not had much luck with them. Since we are paying members on a couple of them, we find alot of the freebies (non-paying members) are not serious and since it's at no cost to them..they have nothing to lose. Have not been to a club yet, but would love to some time. Can anyone direct us to a good one in Michigan?

[Pepper & Drew]

We're ad people! Everyone we've met locally has been through ads. We don't have any clubs nearby, and even if there were, I don't think we'd go very often. It's worked well for us so far.