Basic Newbie Swinger Mistakes

[good times]

Originally Posted by lovinher

Is it being unrealistic to want to get to know prospective playmates beforehand?

That depends on what you mean about getting to know someone. Even in a club situation we don't just go up to people and ask them to jump in the sack with us without first talking to them a bit. If we meet someone from an add site we will usually meet and visit a bit before even deciding whether we want to have sex with them. So, I would say most everybody wants to get to know people a bit before proceeding.

On the other hand, I think most of us have met people that wanted to meet or correspond back and forth endlessly, and I have to admit, I have no idea if these people ever commit to having sex or not. We don't do the internet correspondence thing at all, and if they don't commit by the second time we meet they probably won't get another chance.

The way we normally do it is, if at a club, we introduce ourselves to people we find attractive. Visit for long enough (usually an hour or more) to make sure that we are compatible both in what we want to do in the bedroom and personality wise. If all that works out, then we ask them if they want to play and go for it. When someone contacts us online, we look over their profile and if they sound interesting we send them a message saying as much and asking them when/where they would like to meet to get to know each other a little better. We have found that if we meet someone and all seem to get along we will either adjourn to one of our houses for play or make a play date at that meeting. We have found that if we don't get a play commitment at that first meeting, we probably never will.

So, if what I just described sounds like what you mean when you say you want to get to know someone, then no, that is not unreasonable and in fact is the common way it is done. On the other hand, if you are expecting to decide whether the people you are meeting will be life long friends before you commit to play with them, then I would say that is an unreasonable expectation because most people won't give you that much time before they move on. The fact is, we are all pursuing this to meet others to have sex with, if it takes to much work to get you to the point that you want to play, very few will bother, and you probably wouldn't want to play with the ones that would.

[good times]

Originally Posted by graygo98

I would nominate "Too Many Rules." Sure, you need to know your limits and play safe. But some new couples build this web of rules about things like kissing, touching, oral, that whole soft swing dance. It not only takes a lot of the fun and spontaneity out of a new experience but it just makes something that should be fun seem like work. Too many rules also create the potential for tons of drama when someone breaks a rule... or maybe bends it a bit.

Good one graygo98, we did this when we first started and see new people doing this all the time. The opposite is also true, that is those couples that go into it with no guidelines whatsoever and end up creating drama that others don't need because they are not on the same page about what is acceptable.

[lovinher]

Quite a few people on SLS want a commitment before meeting up with them.
Thanks for clearing that up. I was beginning to think we were expecting too much.

[intuition897]

How about:

1) Thinking that swinging is all about sex.

and

2) Jumping into it head-first without thinking/talking through all the possible consequences and repercussions.

[good times]

Originally Posted by lovinher

Quite a few people on SLS want a commitment before meeting up with them.
Thanks for clearing that up. I was beginning to think we were expecting too much.

Yea, we have run across that too, those types usually don't get very far with us.

[des1re06]

Quite a few people on SLS want a commitment before meeting up with them.

Please clarify. I'm not sure what you mean by commitment?

We give people a 2 week window to meet (dinner, drinks, non-sex meet), and if they don't "commit" to a meeting within that time, we move on.

Thanks,

Mrs. D

[good times]

Originally Posted by des1re06

Please clarify. I'm not sure what you mean by commitment?

We give people a 2 week window to meet (dinner, drinks, non-sex meet), and if they don't "commit" to a meeting within that time, we move on.

Thanks,

Mrs. D

We have actually had people contact us and say that if we aren't going to commit to have sex with them on the first meet then don't waste their time. We didn't waste their time, or ours, their is no way we will commit to having sex before we actually meet in person.

We ran into one of these couples at the club one night and they were just as aggressive in person. The weird part is that other than insisting on a commitment for sex on the first meet, they seemed like they would be compatible with us when we corresponded online. In person we found we couldn't even stand to talk to them after about two minutes and they were aggressive to the point of being belligerent.

[Chicup]

First let me thank everyone who thought this was a good post and took the time to tell me, I really do appreciate it.

I want to expound on the 'friends first' idea since I knew this would be a big one compared to some of the others.

I'll preface this with saying we are a 'friends' type of swinger couple. We want to like the people we swing with as people. I don't care how attractive someone is, if I don't like them as a person they are not a turn on. I'd also state that our best friends right now we met as swingers, for swinging. In short we are not a 'sex only' couple, where I'm trying to force others to accept our views on this.

This being all said, expecting to be friends with a couple you want to swing with BEFORE you are swinging is unrealistic for a lot of reasons.

This really stems from what makes someone a friend. Years ago I read something that said friendship develops from shared experiences. If you just meet someone, you have none of these experiences. So lets say you as a couple go on 'dates' with the other couple. To the ball game, to a movie, to dinner, etc. These are not the kind of things that promote a lasting friendship.

Now add to this, the underlying tension of swinging. No one just turns that off. You are all thinking about the possibility of screwing each other. No one wants to bring it up as you are becoming 'friends' but its there. This makes things awkward to say the least. Its couples dating where the guy is trying to keep the new girl interested while at the same time be friends with her husband, with the underlying tension of you both know you want to nail his wife. No one will let their guard down, everyone is afraid of saying something thats a turn off, and the bbq you are having together is not something thats going to create a real friendship in the first place.

It just doesn't work out very well for most people.

As such, if we feel we COULD be friends with a couple, we will fuck in the first date

Its simply not realistic to be real friends first, and we can size up a couple pretty quickly. The longer you wait to drag things out, the less likely they will come about in swinging.

Now for the real bad news.

For us at least, swinging alone doesn't equate to friendship. It is a shared activity, but it doesn't seem to be the type that creates the bond of friendship. We have tried to 'be friends' and the like after and it doesn't seem to click. Our one pair of good swinging friends became friends not because we were having sex with each others spouse, but because the husbands (he and I) shared a hobby we started to do together. This let us talk more about the swinging to know what each of us wanted out of it, blah blah, and we became 'real' friends who go to family parties and the like.

At best from what I've seen, most people don't have more than a handful of true friends out of swinging. I don't mean people who's company you enjoy, but people who would help you move a couch type of friends.

I assume the motivation for 'friends first' is not because of a need for friends but as a way to make swinging feel 'less dirty' to the newbie couple. Swinging IS about sex, there is no way to sugar coat that, its not a cuddle party, its not wine tasting, its straight up sex. You can soft it down all you want, and we too started as soft swing (lasted 2 meetings) but its sex, no matter what a former president says. Its not dirty or wrong in our books, and doing it with what is effectively a stranger isn't a whole lot different than doing it with your best friend.

Until you are ready for that kind of thinking, you will find yourself frustrated in swinging. I've seen couples like this, chatted with them, gone out to dinner with them, but never once had sex with any of them. They are afraid to get certified on SLS, they have a long list of rules posted in their profiles, they are 'real' as couples, but they are not swingers, and most likely never will be until they are able to accept the sex part without feeling guilty about it.

[gatorvol64]

Well said, Chicup.

Like you, we find it hard to be attracted to people that we feel aren't at least "potential" friends. We feel lucky to have met a couple that actually turned into true friends. However, this isn't something we ever really expected.

Looking for, and expecting to find, friendships like this first isn't much different to me than trying to make your vanilla friends your swinging friends. I feel it is unrealistic for a good friendship to be a necessity. If a friendship later develops, then that's just a lovely surprise.

Vol

[des1re06]

Thank you for this great guide!

Could you add something about being careful when sharing pictures?

I made the mistake at the beginning of sharing too many personal pictures. Now, I wonder what happened to my pictures. Newbie mistake.

Mrs. D

[Chicup]

Originally Posted by des1re06

I made the mistake at the beginning of sharing too many personal pictures. Now, I wonder what happened to my pictures. Newbie mistake.

Originally Posted by lovinher

How about assuming your getting the truth?

Originally Posted by ViSexual

'Not being considerate of others'?

While these are all mistakes people making in swinging, I think these are more just basic internet mistakes than newbie swinging mistakes, though they are worth putting in.

The internet brings out the worst in some people with the anonymity and people new to the net tend to be too trusting. I assume everyone is lying to me and a cheat until we meet them in person. Even then you have to trust your gut if something feels wrong.

Originally Posted by girlsnboys

I almost forgot to mention, drinking too much - not necessarily a newb thing, but when we were starting out we made this mistake - thinking, yeah lets get crazy, but not factoring in things we wouldn't remember in the morning that could cause issues.

Thats basic partying 101. Its perhaps worse in swinging as people use alcohol to get the courage to swing. My thoughts have always been if you can't do it sober, you shouldn't be doing it.

[Tybee Swing]

Originally Posted by good times

We have actually had people contact us and say that if we aren't going to commit to have sex with them on the first meet then don't waste their time. We didn't waste their time, or ours, their is no way we will commit to having sex before we actually meet in person.

Dito

[Tybee Swing]

Originally Posted by Chicup

Its perhaps worse in swinging as people use alcohol to get the courage to swing. My thoughts have always been if you can't do it sober, you shouldn't be doing it.

Dito We find drunks to be such a turn-off that we can't play with them (Mr. Tybee, especially). Drinking too much seems like such a popular thing in swinging, that we've written into the profile that we're fine with some social drinking, but no drunks.

[The Fuse]

Originally Posted by Chicup

I assume the motivation for 'friends first' is not because of a need for friends but as a way to make swinging feel 'less dirty' to the newbie couple.

Chicup,

This whole post was so well put, I feel the need to applaud. Especially the part about how it's hard to form a friendship while dealing with sexual tension.

[lovestheponys]

As a newbie is it ok to ask about swingers where you live.