Advice – Social Success = Location, Location, Location!

So, you’ve found a nice couple online, you’ve chatted a bit via the site and now you want to take it to the next level. We in the swinging world call a meet with another couple, to chat and check out compatibility, a social. Socials can be just prior to playing or weeks/months prior to a play date. Key to a successful social, in our opinion, is location.

We’ve found that less than half the socials we attend lead to a further play date. Other swingers we’ve talked to have told us that is a fairly high number. Some, more seasoned swingers, tell us that they just don’t have time for socials and instead move right to play with only contact online. For us, that’s a no go. We aren’t comfortable playing without getting to know the other folks.

Options – Pub, Dinner, hotel bar, residence, club? Let’s break these down and then we will explain our preferences. Each one comes with plusses and minuses and varying levels of pressure. By pressure I mean that sometimes there is social pressure to go ahead and play with a couple even when you might not have full up attraction.

Pub – You slip off from the house telling your kids you are out for a quick drink at a Pub with Mom and instead you meet a hot couple with whom you might have sex! We like meeting at Pubs and the excitement when you see the other couple pull up (because you’ve picked a table that lets you spy on them the whole way in). You have a beer, laugh over shared stories of funny swinging experiences and in a matter of a couple of hours get a good feel of the other couple. On the downside, you need to pick a place far enough away to avoid your friends walking in! (There’s a story there.)

Dinner – Reservations, a longer evening, spilling your drinks and dropping food in your lap. All the risk you used to worry about when you first started dating of ordering spaghetti and slopping tomato sauce on your shirt.This has some of the ease of a pub social but, if you don’t click right off you are stuck with them until they’ve had their pudding and coffee.

Hotel Bar – Just like meeting at a pub but with the added jangly nerves of knowing there are empty rooms for play just around the corner. You look over at your partner and you can tell by the look in her eye that she’s not at all interested in playing. Then, out of the blue, the other couple mentions that they have booked a room. Oof… now you are going to ditch them and leave them with a hotel bill.

Residence – You show up and the couple has kids playing in the back yard and a teenage daughter who keeps trying to listen in on the conversation. Or, like the hotel bar, you show up and they suggest you immediately go upstairs. It gets awkward in a hurry (yes, we have a story about this too!). You invite folks to your house; it doesn’t look like it’s going to work out and you have to ask them to leave. Ugh!

Club – You know that playing is on everyone’s minds. You meet in the bar area and chat. You feel that things are going well and you head to the hot tub and get to see the goods ahead of time. Or, you don’t feel the click and know that things aren’t going further. You politely part ways and enjoy your evening in your own way.

So, those are some of the possibilities and, as you can probably tell, we prefer pub socials and club socials as means to get to know people with as little pressure as possible. If you are short on free time then a club social makes great sense. Club socials are also good if you are afraid of being observed by your vanilla friends. Pub socials are easy, time limited for easy exit, and we have found the are just about perfect.

If you choose to have socials, take it from us, you don’t want the added pressure of meeting at someone’s home or at a hotel. Some people just don’t look like their online pictures. Good luck! Tell us how things go for you.