It's kind of amazing to me actually how swinging has become so popular these days. The amount of couples getting into the lifestyle seems to grow every day. With this sudden influx of "newbies" it made us think back to our first year in this lifestyle and seeing as how we are in the advice business we thought it appropriate to share our experiences and thoughts on the subject.

The first thing we noticed when we tried to join the "lifestyle" was that we seemed to have a problem attracting "seasoned" veterans. They seemed to shy away from us at every turn especially when we told them we hadn't really done anything yet. We honestly couldn't figure it out.

We started looking at our ad to see what the heck we were doing wrong and we did notice a few problems. For one we had made all sorts of conditions that made us less appealing. We had things like "she can play with another woman, he just watches and plays with me" and other such nonsense. I call it nonsense because we now understand what we were really doing, and, what the more seasoned swinger saw in those words. It was saying we had jealousy issues that hadn't yet been resolved.

Luckily we don't give up that easy, we redid our ad several times over and started being honest about ourselves in the ads and most of all we started being honest with ourselves about what we both wanted out of this. We had always been very open and honest in everything but we had to break through that last boundary of completely trusting each other. We had to realize, and even verbalize to each other, the fact that no matter what happened with others we would always love each other. Nothing, nor anyone would ever change that or come between us. Phase one complete!

That did change our responses a bit but then we hit another snag. We had decided early on that we wanted to really get to know the couples/singles we had met over the web before actually meeting with them in person. Let's face it...there are a lot of nuts out there and we thought we were just being careful. This basically meant lots of email back and forth. Mistake number two! As we now know swingers hate this email tag just about as much as anything else. It's not that they want to jump in bed with people 10 minutes after they meet (even though some do) but this practice brings up several problems. First off is the fact that there are a few so-called swingers who never meet with others, they just use the email as fantasy to boost their private sex life. They basically use these swingers and the email as foreplay.

Secondly are the dreaded picture collectors. These are usually guys who manage to pawn themselves off as couples and hold long drawn out email "relationships" attempting to get pics from the couples they contact. These are without a doubt the dregs of the earth but they are out there and most "seasoned" swingers get very suspicious when someone contacts them but never wants to meet or at the very least speak via phone. So we started meeting couples sooner than we had originally planned. We still were cautious in who we met, using public places to meet and usually speaking with both parts of the couple just to be sure.

This also helped out in our quest, our contacts became more frequent but still not what we thought they should be. The last piece to the puzzle seemed to be the lack of pics on our ad so we added current pics. I say current because we had seen ads that had great pics but once we started talking to some of these people and got more pics from them we noticed things didn't quite look right. The pics on their ad were years old. This was our first turn off from couples (and singles) we had contacted. Once again logic told us that if this turned us off it might very well turned off others. Now we started getting emails but unfortunately the problems didn't quite stop there.

So the emails started coming in but we had noticed quite a few of them weren't even close to what we were looking for. To be honest it didn't even make sense why half these people even emailed us in the first place. After some serious head scratching we once again looked at our ad. We did notice that we hadn't been the normal brutal honest people we really are. We do have to admit that most of these came from single guys so we went back to the drawing board; let's re-write the ad again. So we laid everything out in no uncertain terms, maybe these folks just needed the information in a no uncertain terms, slap you in the face way to get it. This finally seemed to work. So we have an ad that works, we are getting emails from decent people, everything is just ducky right? Not so fast there babba lou, we still had a lot to learn.

We then decided since we were new maybe we should stick with others that were new. So we started meeting couples. First meeting, he basically dragged his wife along and told us "she really just watches but maybe she will join in if things get hot enough"...I don't think so! Another meeting we had with "newbies" was also a disaster. We met a couple who were really nice, had quite a few drinks and decided to try to find a room. Unfortunately there wasn't a room to be had for love nor money so we decided that since we liked each other and got along quite well we would just get together the following weekend. Within days they started making excuses why they couldn't meet and finally we gave up on them. After talking to several other, more seasoned vets of the lifestyle, we finally figured out what went wrong. These two needed to be absolutely plastered to do this (which they were) and when they sobered up the next morning they basically chickened out.

One final disaster, just to prove a point, was our fault. Met a great couple that was a few states away and chatted for a week or so. We decided to meet that Saturday night for dinner and what not. That Saturday morning my wife woke up with "you know what" three days early. We didn't really know what to do but figured we would still go up, meet and if things seemed right we would just meet another time. My wife tried to mention it to her several times but couldn't get her alone. Afterwards when they asked what we wanted to do we finally got to tell them. They were not at all happy and now that I look back on the situation I don't blame them one bit. We weren't completely honest with them from the get go. We all were very attracted to each other so what we basically did that whole night by not telling them was being a tease. Like I said before, our fault completely.

So what's the moral of this story you say? It all comes down to one word, honesty. Honesty in your ad, honesty in your contact with others, honesty when you are interested and when you're not but most of all honesty with yourselves. If you haven't figured out all of your issues with each other do it before you meet another couple (or single). Talk to each other about what you are and are not willing to do and be damn sure you aren't just saying it; you have to truly believe it and accept it. If you haven't moved to that point in your relationship yet you are not ready for swinging!

Re-read your ad and make sure you aren't overstating anything and make sure you are very clear about what you will and will not do. Put pics in your ad, they get twice the amount of emails that non-photo ads get. You don't have to show your face but don't just show crotch shots......seen one ya seen them all. What most newbies don't understand is the fact that "real" swingers are interested in the whole package. They care about personality, compatibility and looks.

When someone doesn't interest you just drop them a nice note back saying no thanks. Trust me it won't hurt their feelings like you think it might, they will appreciate the honesty! Lastly don't feel you have to jump into the sack immediately. Make sure everyone is comfortable with the situation and if it just doesn't feel right don't do it. Better to say no than have hard feelings or problems down the road because you were pressured into something you weren't ready for. Also if something just doesn't sound right in an ad or email and that person won't explain it move on. It's kind of like any business deal.....if it sounds to good to be true it probably is!

The swingers community is an amazingly open, friendly and honest community....it's not all about sex. It's about friends and having fun, in and out of bed with great people. The sooner you learn this and what's been mentioned above the better off you will be.