Finding Your Swinger Inner Circle
An Often Unexpected Benefit of the Swinger Lifestyle: True Friendship
We talk a lot on our podcast about being “social sexy” in the swinger lifestyle. We’re aware that there are lots of ways to approach swinging, but our approach has always been to swing with people we feel connected to in a social way. Not all of our swinger playmates become lifelong friends, but we’ve been pleasantly surprised to find that we have—over the years—developed some very close lifestyle friendships.
There’s an important distinction to be made here. We are swingers. We are not in a polyamorous relationship. We are not exclusive with any other couples or singles. So when we say “very close friends,” that’s exactly what we mean. Friends with benefits, as it gets called.
The benefits are not just related to sex. We enjoy meaningful connections with these people on many levels. We vacation with them sometimes. We are familiar with each others’ lives more than we are with other swinger friends. We take time to reach out to them just to check in, and they do the same. We also know without a doubt that when we have an opportunity to get together and play, it will be fun and hot in the way that only practiced sex with someone familiar can be.
In thinking about it, we discovered that we have concentric circles of lifestyle friends that mirror the circles of our “vanilla” friends. At the inner most intimate circle is us. Just outside of that is this small, highly-valued core of friends with whom we enjoy spending multiple days/nights—with these people there is an easy, natural flow to playtime, and we have multiple vanilla-life experiences and values in common. Just beyond that is a larger circle of close friends we trust, play with regularly if not often, and invite to house parties or events. Outside of that circle are casual friends with whom we may play once or not at all, but enjoy spending some time with them. And beyond that, of course, are folks we run into at events and may see from time to time but we rarely, if ever, experience intimacy or spend a large amount of time with them.
If you have not quite gotten to the point where you’ve developed the innermost core of close lifestyle friends, don’t despair! It takes time. While some of these friends have been with us from the start of our lifestyle journey, it would be misleading to say that the profound friendships we’re talking about developed quickly or immediately. Instead, they developed through time and repeated interactions.
If you seek genuine connections in the swinger lifestyle, eventually you are likely to notice that there are some couples with whom you share a lot in common and with whom you are willing to share more about your “vanilla” world. We don’t recommend forcing it to happen. Just as is true in your non-lifestyle relationships, closeness develops naturally over time and repetition. And when it does, those friendships become some of the most rewarding.
We are Mr. & Mrs. Jones, swinger lifestyle podcasters. If you like what you read here and want to learn more about the swinger lifestyle and/or We Gotta Thing, you can find our podcast episodes and much more at WeGottaThing.com.
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