This is just a rant and I really do feel bad about the whole situation but I have to get this off my back.

Before we had any swing experience, we tried the ol' email/chat route. As we all know, there are a plethora of profiles that don't have public face pictures. We understand the need for privacy and such but when a profile only has one public picture that isn't a face picture with no other private galleries, it starts to get a bit hairy in getting a face picture from the other couple.

Well, when we were new to the LS, a nearby couple looked promising but only had face pictures of the wife. They sounded really great but we had exchanged several emails and chats before finally getting a face picture of the husband. Boy, we learned from that experience that we needed to ask for face pictures right away before emails/chats got too involved and detaching would be embarrassing for both parties. For quite awhile, we had a stipulation on our profile that any couple who contacted us first had to include a face picture of both the husband and wife or else we wouldn't respond. Yes, most of this was because we just didn't like to reject a nice couple who just didn't meet that physical attraction factor.

Fast forward to the present and several revisions of our profile. The face picture requirement had been dropped since we mostly met couples at parties. It just didn't seem important since we found that physical attraction can be hard to judge by pictures alone. Well, we were contacted by a couple with an odd email that restated the same thing three different ways. It was confusing, scammy looking, and mostly a turn off. I hate to admit it but we ignored it, even though they sent the same email to us again--stating that they had "opened their pictures" to us but they didn't have any private pictures/galleries to open.

Well, we decided to see if the Hot Dates on SLS would reel in any interesting results. A couple contacted us with a screen name that sounded familiar. Upon checking the mail history, it was the same couple that had sent us that scammy feeling email. We gave them the benefit of a doubt and asked for face pictures. They responded with "opening their pictures" but it's the same situation--one public non-face picture with no private galleries attached to their profile. They claim that SLS has been screwing up their emails whenever they send pictures so we offer our shared swing email with them so they can send pictures there. Keep in mind, we only request a face picture of both. No nudes, no penis/vagina pictures--those don't attract us. Guess what was included in the email? Three erect penis pictures, a vagina one and finally one face picture of both of them.

Skip...skip...skip...skip...holy...hell. No. Please, no. No...thank...you.

We write an apologetic "no thank you" note but wish them the best in the LS. Their response? Accusing us of being picture collectors.

*sigh*

I could say a lot of things about how illogical this is to me but I won't. Did I respond to their email? Yes. I simply stated that we require a face picture up front before meeting to make sure that there is a physical attraction and that we were very sorry that we didn't feel one.

I will say that through this all, as much as I didn't like this minor situation, it has shown me how much we've grown from our newbie days. Back then, we changed our profile to specifically ask for face pictures upfront. Now, as unpleasant and guilty that we felt about rejecting another couple, it's just something that has to be done every so often. We've learned not to be "desperate" and say yes to everyone just to swing. We've learned that if it's a hard no at the start, it's not going to change to a soft maybe. We've learned that the email/chat route is time consuming and not for us. We've learned that even if you say "no", someone else will say "yes" to them and we hope that it was memorable experience for everyone involved.

With all that said, I do still feel bad because it feels so shallow to dismiss a couple after viewing their face pictures.