Our Lifestyle Connection Deal Breakers, Part 2
This is Part 2 of a two-part series. You can read Part 1 here.
In our 101st podcast episode, we focused on things we consider to be deal breakers when we’re looking to make a swinger connection with another couple. You may or may not share our particular deal breakers, and you may have some others of your own. But we’ve figured out over the years that there are several “no thank you” behaviors that put a couple on the WNF list for us.
In Part 1, we talked about the habit of bringing up polarizing topics in a social swinger setting and the proclivity to be closed-minded and judgmental towards others as deal breakers for us. Today, we’ll elaborate on our other two deal breakers.
Remember that what we’re talking about is situations where we are meeting folks for the first time in a social swinger setting such as a meet-and-greet or party or mixer of some kind. Or maybe we’ve been talking with a couple online and are meeting for dinner or drinks to see if there are in-person sparks between the four of us.
Being Overly Eager
This is one of those ‘you need to know the line’ things. There is definitely a line between what is desirable (showing interest, being attentive, expressing attraction) and what is not desirable. The line gets crossed when a couple or individual is just clearly trying way too hard.
What that tends to look like is the person doing far more talking than listening, sometimes talking over others. The person’s eagerness to talk (usually about himself or herself) drowns out the possibility of connecting. It’s hard to discover connection if the person rarely slows down to ask about you or if the person glosses over what you’ve said in their haste to get back to talking about themselves.
Being overly eager can also come in physical form. Sometimes one or both members of a couple impose themselves by being overly familiar, physically, far too soon in the conversation. Touching without consent prior to establishing a connection is definitely a deal breaker for us.
Another way this sometimes physically manifests is when someone uses their body positioning to corral us so that we’re unable to easily or politely move on to another couple or group in the room. If you’ve ever been “cornered” by That Guy at an office holiday party or by your Great Aunt Somebody at a family event, you know exactly what we mean. It’s not fun or sexy.
The problem with being overly eager is that it makes the couple come across as either desperate or mission-oriented to a fault. We get it. We really do. This may be the couple’s only sexy night out on the calendar for six weeks. A babysitter was procured. There is an expectation that a connection will be made tonight, gosh darn it.
The problem is that when a couple tries so, so hard to force a connection, it usually backfires. At least with us. When a couple is mostly relaxed, casually flirty, and earnestly interested in us as people, it’s much more likely that a sexy connection will be made.
Being Tone Deaf
Related to being overly eager (and also somewhat related to harping on polarizing topics in a social setting) is the problem of couples that seem to be tone deaf. This can often be a new-to-swinging issue and wouldn’t necessarily get you on our WNF list permanently—but it is problematic in the moment for sure.
Being a social swinger comes with the need to be in touch with yourself as a person, with yourselves together as a couple, and with others. When someone is tone deaf to verbal and nonverbal cues, that can be a deal breaker. It makes for awkward conversation in a social setting.
Not recognizing the body language being demonstrated is part of this. A couple or individual who cannot discern that someone is moving away or shrinking into themselves may continue to pursue physical connection. The tone deaf person interprets someone moving away as a cue that they need to move themselves closer, as a result.
Maybe the worst type of tone deafness is when a person doesn’t get actual comments that are made that most of us would understand signaled the need to back off or slow down, or change course.
If a group of six or eight people are chatting at a swinger mixer and someone keeps bring up awkward topics, various members of the conversation will typically steer the conversation to more social topics. The tone deaf swinger doesn’t pick up on this and persists, sometimes bringing the entire conversation to a dead halt.
While every couple has their own dealbreakers, we’re pretty sure—based on conversations within our community—that at least some other couples share the few we’ve written about.
The more positive flip-side of Part 1 and Part 2 of our deal breakers stories is this: You will very likely make sexy connections in social swinger settings if you can be relaxed, genuine, interested in connecting, and sensitive to the cues around you and context within which you find yourself.
While you may not have sex with another couple that very night, we’ve found that social swinger opportunities are often long-game opportunities. If you leave the couple feeling charmed by your conversation and presence, it’s very likely that more will follow soon.
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