Swing club table drama results in no fun night.

[econobiker 165]

TL: DR- summary wife and I invited to go to swing event, meet other woman, female friend goes batshit about table/chairs setup, cockblocks me and insults other woman to our faces, results in wife and I leaving after being at event less than 1 1/2 hours losing couples entry fee, no fun, canceled former friend from our lives

 

 

Moderators: I'm going to try to get this down in order:

 

Red and I get invited to an event at a hotel by a single woman [sW] (former 1/2 of a swing couple we are/were friends with but never full FWB really.) SW was getting a $70 room, Red getting a $50+ bottle of fun for them both to share, me on beers. SW keeps texting Red as we're on our way about us being late, getting to hotel she's been guarding a 6 chair table, fighting off people - SW always been known for arriving early at opening to get prime seats/table. So Red and I arrived, paid couples fee, get wrist bands, in order to get to SW to get room key from her. We leave bottle on table now with just 5 chairs and she has us leave our small cooler on a chair opposite to her saving the seat for "another person" unspecified, arriving later.

 

We go to room for Red to change to hot woman clothing, me to dump luggage off for Red. Red sends me back to event to sit at table with SW. Now an unrelated guy has borrowed chair #5 to temporarily talk to group in table next to he one SW and I'm at. No, he's not the issue, he leaves before I get back. SW bitching to me about fighting off folks wanting to sit at the table while I pound 2 beers waiting for Red to arrive. SW up for snacks then back quickly, hasn't been drinking much supposedly. I gander upon another lady completely unknown to us, get up, introduce myself, some small talk, ask her back to table and sit her in the seat where the cooler was sitting. This is my faux pas, not asking SW if I could sit this woman down. For the purpose of this story this new woman has an accent straight out of the movie Fargo. Now I'm standing talking to Fargo woman and SW lights into me that Fargo woman can't sit in the "saved" seat.

 

Fargo and I laughed nervously that my friend SW could be so protective of a seat for an unspecified person. I said sure, Fargo woman can move to "my" seat, I'll stand. Then SW into me again, how are we all going to fit at the table. I said 5 chairs, enough for all, I'll stand. Nope, SW then lights me up again yelling, right in front of Fargo woman, "She and her obnoxious accent are not sitting at my table!" I said "what the hell, we're not sitting at the table at all." And I drag Fargo woman away from my now seething soon to be former acquaintance SW. Me and Fargo woman head to another part of the venue to await Red's arrival, stay away from SW, and get a little kissing in.

 

Red finally gets to the venue, figures out what's happening, and SW's ex-husband shows up. Ex-husband was the mystery person. He sees that SW is batshit angry and bails out (ex's for a reason). Once Red sees this go down, she gets me separated from Fargo to get our stuff from the hotel room and put it in our car then come back and party. I realized that SW is so pissed now that she'll probably not let me even hook up with Fargo woman in the room anyhow. Since Red is still sober to drive, I cut our losses and tell Red we're gone. Red goes to tell SW that we're leaving and SW confirms that she would not have allowed me and Fargo into the hotel room and makes additional disparaging remarks about Fargo's body shape. Red told SW that it wasn't fair to me to be there if I couldn't hook up with who she was ok with. I said goodbye to Fargo woman in the hallway and Red and I drove back home.

 

I've defriended SW on a couple of swinging websites, along with unsubscribed from some places that SW used to get the word out about events or planning for events.

[cplnuswing 4,713]

Now there's some silly drama. Why some people go through life wanting to make mountains out of mole hills, I have no idea. Too, I can certainly see and agree with the "ex's for a reason" assessment.

 

I think you handled it as well as could be expected given that someone just seemed bent on pissing you off no matter how much you tried to divert or find solutions to the "problems" she was so fired up about. Moral of the story - all it takes is one ass to totally screw up a good time

[GoldCoCouple 4,065]

Has SW always been bat shit crazy or is this a new development? I don't know if we would have left, but we would have surely told her that she doesn't need to bother saving our seats any longer and went off to have our own good time. Sounds like she was trying too hard to have a 'perfect night' and get back together with her ex. Everything else you did was perfectly understandable. One thing I don't understand: You, Red, SW, SW ex...why was she trying so hard to protect 5 (or 6) chairs?

 

More drama than an entire afternoon of soaps...

[longun45 115]

Lesson learned - book your own room.

[two4youinswva 3,068]

I have always wondered what happens when shit falls apart for those people that have to completely control everything. Apparently they have a nuclear meltdown.

 

I think you handled it like a champ. Hopefully you'll get another chance to offer Ms. Fargo a TruCoat treatment.

[SW_PA_Couple 4,024]

This happens in more than just swing venues and swing situations. We used to belong to a car club. One of the members was a control freak. Although the club rules required that new officers had to be elected on a two-years basis, the club president always seemed to be her hand-picked tool. The downfall happened when one of the members sustained a moderately severe injury during a club-sponsored event and found legal representation. That's OK, said the club vice-president. The club has liability insurance. Wrong! The queen bee had told the hand-picked treasurer to cancel the insurance in order to save money. That is when the membership learned that if insurance did not cover, every member of the club would me named in a legal action to recover medical cost. The queen bee is now the queen parahiah.

[ExperienceNFun 23]

Wow, I haven't had a chance to play as much as I'd like to lately, but your story makes me feel a lot better about relaxing with a drink and a good book on Saturday nights! Sounds like it's time for you to find a new group of people who don't care who sits at the "cool kids table".

[GuyInMD79 1,500]

econobiker, I totally agree that this was a nutty series of events perpetrated by a control freak. But at the risk of appearing to sympathize (which I'm really not- I'm trying to understand the workings of SW's mind), is it possible that SW had set her sights on having you that night, perhaps in front of Ex-husband? And that when you met Fargo woman and hit it off, her cunning plan was foiled?

 

I have seen people put out some weird stuff about playing at parties. One time, a single woman (that I wouldn't mind playing with) played hard-to-get with me all afternoon and evening at a swinger party, and told me afterwards that she was annoyed that I didn't play with her first at the party. WTF, over?!

[GoldCoCouple 4,065]

CoupleInMd79: I didn't think of that. You may be on to something...

[econobiker 165]

Everyone, thanks for the great feedback. I wanted to make sure that I wasn't the complete idiot.

 

Longun45:yeah wish we could have gotten our own room, in the past shared expenses kept overall costs down, Red and I have had some severe budget constraints since we've been married due to some outside reasons

 

CoupleinMD79:

Good idea but not accurate, I'd played around a little with SW years ago (me active oral on her) but I told Red I would not want to play now that SW is divorced because I like an audience plus the four of us's history, I'm pretty sure it was more like SW trying to get her exhusband back, especially since SW didn't tell us who the mystery person was until he arrived, hell we both know him, I have his number

 

GoldcoCouple: Yup, the whole table versus chairs versus us count didn't make any sense at all;

SW and Red had been swinger friends years before I met Red, (no active girl/girl stuff though) and now more like drinking buddies at swingers events over the last 4-5 years;

Batshit crazy might be pretty accurate: Red, me, and SW ex-husband huddled up in the parking lot just as he left while we were going to get our stuff from room,and agreed that something biological might be occurring but SW doesn't want help about it,

I didnt say to SW exhusband but later said to Red that I also consider alcoholism as a potential factor even though SW hadn't apparently been "seriously" drinking yet (shots w Red) just 1/2 of a big tall boy can of beer, but SW not being drunk AND being as mean/angry as she was made it worse because of acting angry like that while still sober. I think there's also the term a "dry drunk" for people who have that rigid,controlling only black or white, my way or no way thinking.

 

As a follow up to the story, sunday morning SW ended up texting Red about a very minimal thing that we had left behind in the hotel room. Red told me that this was SW's attempt to restarting a conversation with her because SW is not an apologizing type person, never ever having heard SW say "I'm sorry." in their years as friends. Not ever making amends ranks higher on my book as a "dry drunk" type personality. All that said, Red has shown her own AWESOMENESS by not texting SW back even 5 days later.

 

And Red and I have been having discussions about what our swinging activities will look like in the future and to change the nearby geographic area where we might go to parties to help avoid possibly bumping into SW. Even with that said, it will probably be new years before we can afford to think about going to a club event like this again. Of course new years is ultra expensive even for vanilla coules events. A difficulty for us to getting involved in couple to couple swinging is that because Red is so private, I can't get her to allow even non-face pictures of us for posting to a profile.

 

And now for a little humor:

During this week a male vanilla professional semi-acquaintance around my same age (late 40s), who doesn't know Red or about us swinging, was telling me about the great blowjobs his 35 year old girlfriend gives him when she's smoked pot. I really didn't want to hear about this, so I proceeded to give him the thumbnail sketch of my crappy Saturday night (with all swinging references redacted.) And I ended the story with "So my wife had to apologize to Ms. Fargo about our crazy friend not wanting us all to hook up." I still don't think he could 1. believe and 2. process what I told him based on his blank look. He just said "That's messed up dude."

By all outside indications, he's the partying wild single guy and I'm the professional geeky married man. Appearances can be deceiving...

 

Thank you again for the feedback and allowing me to share because this has helped me to process this incident and grieve over the loss of this relationship with SW.

[Guest sandraandalex]

Your friend had expectations of the night. Then she placed herself in the role of 'organizer' , which she was not suited to do in an environment where that was not her allowed role. She's fighting people off for the table, frustration level elevates, need for control elevates and the greater need for control she has in that environment. It escalated into her needing to control who even played with whom, as an extension of that need for control. Add in a smidgen of immaturity and you have the mess you had. She had a bad night and perhaps she can be allowed to recover. All in all, the tighter the grip, the looser the hold.

[econobiker 165]

further update is that Red recently talked to a single male friend in the lifestyle who has known SW and Red for years before I met them. He also called bullshit on the issues and drama that SW caused. As of yet Red hasn't talked/texted SW again since that night.

 

Sandraandalex, you're fairly close about SW expectations, her wanting to control everything.

In various addiction recovery arenas "expectations" are defined as "premeditated resentments" because one cannot control what other people do or don't do and having expectations of other people only leads to you being let down when people don't meet your expectations. One can only control your own reactions to the other people's actions/inactions.

 

It's actually quite sad getting down to it that SW has pushed away people in her life through her drama. And I foresee future drama in SW's because Red told me that SW never has ever apologized for anything, ever. And (to flog the already dead, decayed, and skeletal horse of addiction recovery) another major tenent is to continue to take a personal inventory and when we are wrong promptly admit to it. I doubt that will ever happen with her, oh well. A chapter has passed, a page turned...

[GoldCoCouple 4,065]

...and they are always the last person to see that they are the problem. Instead they complain that they are lonely and alone and not thinking that they are that way because they drove everyone away (flashes of the ex here).

[econobiker 165]

So eight and a half years later I'll give you the updated version of how all this ended up:

 

Me and Red:

Still happily married even after being enlisted as full time parents (after my ex-wife died in 2018) which  completely killed any swinging activities up through and until now 2024 when last adult child moved out of our household. 

 

Ex-husband of SW:

met a very nice woman completely opposite of SW in early 2016. We attended their wedding in late 2017. They just moved away from his old town last year 2023 ridding themselves of being in proximity to SW and SW's bar haunts.

 

SW:

Sadly her problem turned out to be full blown alcoholism.  We learned all this from  her Ex-husband until he recently left that town as SW still would try to mooch from him and his new wife  New wife stopped her (SW) from doing that shit - COLD!

SW had lost her job due to a DWI arrest but was old enough to retire on very little social security.  We saw the DWI mug shot online. She was still living in the Ex-husband's house selling anything not tied down until Ex-husband paid her to leave so he could get his house back.  Over several years SW ended up wearing out her welcome from staying at several "friends" houses as a "roommate" becoming nasty abd getting kicked out because of her alcohol problems. Ex-husband said she was homeless in an encampment or staying in flop motels with other homeless people.  At one point in about early 2022 SW (now in her early 70s) gets into an argument at a dive bar with two much younger women (ages 31 & 36), pulls a small knife out on them (per security video)  and gets a huge beat down from the two young women as they disarm her. SW is arrested for a bunch of charges (aggravated assault, disorderly conduct, drunk in public,  etc.) and pulls a very sad mug shot online with 2 black eyes and various contusions on her face and neck. The two other women were not charged as witnesses and security video said/ showed that they were acting justified doing that to disarm her. And SW is/was apparently known by police officers around there for gaving been trespassed from other dive bars per the police report. Sigh, so sad...

 

Ms. Fargo:

Never saw her again after that night. 

Edited March 20 by econobiker
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