Spotting a friend

[Curiouscouple61 64]

Okay so I know we are new at this, but we've read up enough to know there is some common sense in this community about things like, spotting someone you know. I was cruising through a swingers website (I can't quite remember which) and spotted someone I know (and now know is in the lifestyle). Now obviously this is fine and it's not like I have a problem with it or have any urge to react to it. It's fine, but it got me thinking that this lifestyle world is pretty small when you get right down to it.

 

That means there is a good chance I might bump into them at some point, or someone else for that matter. I can imagine this happens sometimes, but what is the etiquette? Do you say "hello" to make them feel comfortable and relieve awkwardness? Or does that lead to more awkwardness to pretend you didn't see them or don't know them? I feel it would be more awkward to pretend I didn't know them or to duck every time they come around, but on the other hand I don't know how good of an idea it would be to play with someone whom you already knew in vanilla life. Just seems like it could create an awkward situation, especially if it's someone one partner knew from their past, but the other didn't. Seems like it could potentially lead to some jealousy or insecurity between one or both parties.

 

Does this happen to people often and how do you generally handle it?

[funcoupledayton 2,708]

We've had it happen several times. We just greet them the same way we would in public.

 

We enjoy having someone we know to talk to at a club, and having a dirty secret with them elsewhere.

 

We don't play with anyone we work with, if it's someone we know from other means, the gym, an organization, etc. we might play with them.

[njbm 2,907]

Hey, they are there too!

[cplnuswing 4,713]

We've not had it happen yet. If and when it does, I imagine we would handle it just like we would anytime else we see someone out in public. If it's someone we recognize but don't know well enough that we would make sure and say hi to them if we ran into them at the mall or wherever, then we wouldn't feel the need to do it at a swingers event either. If it was someone that we knew better, then we wouldn't studiously ignore or try to dodge them there any more than we would anywhere else.

 

We live in a small town in a rural area. One rule of ours that we have had from the start and that we still have no desire to change, is we don't swing locally. That together with my belief that trying to make swinging friends out of vanilla friends usually doesn't end well means we haven't really been faced with the problems the dilemmas you are asking about.

[Guest]

We would go ahead and greet them now, assuming now is going to be better than later when we might be in the midst of something else.

[Guest FunintheSnow]

It's only happened to us once, while I was off in a playroom with a woman and our husbands were enjoying playing up the fact that they were abandoned in the public areas of the club while their wives indulged themselves. My husband was chatting with a couple and the subject of pole dancing came up, and they discovered that the wife knew me in that community. My husband let me know and the lady and I were both laughing when we said hello. I have seen her a bunch of times since then, and we pretty much play it totally straight, although sometimes we laugh harder at certain things than those around us. :-)

 

I do not think I'd be comfortable playing with someone with whom I had to act vanilla on a regular basis, but I checked her profile out of curiosity. She is looking for someone the exact opposite of my husband, and her husband would not be into me, so it's a nonissue.

[GoldCoCouple 4,068]

They are going to feel just as uncomfortable as you do when it happens. Greet them just like what they are, a friend that you ran across at an event. They aren't going to want everyone know where you both are any more than you will. Usually, there is some laughing, a few 'nice to see you', and then you both move on.

[GuyInMD79 1,500]

Strangely, we haven't had that happen yet. We've lived in our community for only about eight years, and we have not exactly had an active social life here outside of the lifestyle. We have had no rules about not swinging locally. Although we have not run into any vanilla friends at a club or an event, I think we would say a friendly hello and have a laugh with them! Better to just talk to them and acknowledge their presence than try to avoid them, I think. This will also give you a chance to gauge their reaction to seeing you, and verify that you both are good with keeping this secret about each other!

[njbm 2,907]

We did run into a fellow in my profession with his wife at a lifestyle weekend. We are both Jewish, so I said "Excuse me, is this the Goldberg bar mitzvah?" Actually, he was kind of shocked and not that friendly. We stayed out of their way that weekend.

 

But interestingly, when I saw him at work, he gave me a warm bro hug and could not have been nicer.

 

We had another similar experience I will save for another time. Happier ending!

[funcoupledayton 2,708]

We did run into a fellow in my profession with his wife at a lifestyle weekend. We are both Jewish, so I said "Excuse me, is this the Goldberg bar mitzvah?" Actually, he was kind of shocked and not that friendly. We stayed out of their way that weekend.

 

But interestingly, when I saw him at work, he gave me a warm bro hug and could not have been nicer.

 

We had another similar experience I will save for another time. Happier ending!

 

This made me laugh. He was probably just really surprised and needed time to process.

[Lionheart72 2,191]

Very first time we went to a swingers club in town, we ran into someone we knew. We said hi and hung out with them. It was actually nice to know someone else at the club... made us more comfortable.

 

Let me tell you, running into someone you know from the vanilla world at a swingers club is much easier than running into you know from a swingers club out in the vanilla world. The "oh, how did you guys know each other" question always comes up and then you have to find an answer, fast. Been there, done that.