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Frankly, I think you are on an impossible mission here. The fact is, I have never rejected anyone that they could have reasonably done something different that would have made me not reject them. When we meet someone, we either find them physically attractive, or we don't. Not only is it highly unlikely that they could have done something different that would have changed our mind, but even if they could have, their is no way they could know that ahead of time. The reason for that is that their is just no universal standard for what makes one person attractive to any given other person. In other words, what I find hot, the next guy might not. So, while I could list here a bunch of reasons why I have turned nice people down for sex, the fact of the matter is, they just didn't turn me on. As a friend of mine likes to say, some people just aren't in your strike zone. The reasons they are not in your strike zone doesn't matter. Just because they aren't in my strike zone, doesn't mean they won't be a perfect match for the next guy. Actually, I think if someone tried to act in a way as to reduce the amount of rejections he would get, he would actually get rejected more often than if he would just be himself. Nothing is a bigger turn-off to most folks than somebody trying to be something they are not.

I don't necessarily think those in open marriages are more likely to fail. It's the same argument that non-swingers make about swinger marriages. But, in light of the online gaming, the issues you all are dealing with, I think ANY outside contact, including swinging, open marriage, or cheating is only going to further seperate the two of you. If a couple agrees to open marriage while their marriage is a healthy one, I think it can work. If your marriage is in a fragile place and you decide to have an open marriage (or swing, for that matter) you are either prolonging the inevitable, or speeding it up. Pepper

Goodtimes hit the mark and did a good job of summing up what I think everyone else has been saying. If it ain't there, it ain't there. It boils down to whether the "nice" couple also fits the mark for sexual attraction. We've met tons of nice people but nice plays a small part in swinging. Rejecting people who aren't nice, that's easy and understandable. But most people are nice and they're all over the place; still, people don't play with others just because they are nice. You've got to want to have sex with them and that desire either strikes you or doesn't. For us, I can't give a pinpoint reason why we aren't sexually attracted to them because the reasons are varied and unique to each situation and some people have given us multiple reasons others only one...bottom line,we just didn't feel like having sex with them. Trying to break down your question into trends and common themes feels way too technical to me, and I can't get into tech stuff when I'm thinking about sharing my naked body with people. LOL Sorry, it just takes the fun out of thinking about swinging. Maybe it's because I've always approached swinging on a very instintive level and so making a list of pros and cons about a couple before deciding to have sex with them has never been my thing. From what I've gathered from your posts thus far, I wonder if you're trying to break rejection down so that you can suggest what swingers need to do to change or improve themselves in order to avoid being rejected. Here is the problem I have with that idea. I have seen way too many swingers try to become something they are not in hopes of making themselves more unrejectable to others. This can work against them in that they actually lessen their self-esteem, rather than becoming more comfortable with themselves as a swinger they are constantly striving to improve themselves and become someone that isn't themselves. I see people trying to do one more thing better to make people want them more: boob jobs, losing weight, tummy tucks, hair removal, facial plastic surgery, hair color, building their bods into muscle, wearing clothes that they look stupid in but they think others will like them better in them (yet they look so uncomfortable wearing them) and I could go on. Some of these changes can be put in place without pressuring yourself (like waxing/shaving your genitals) but other decisions for improvement I doubt would have ever been done if they hadn't become swingers. I have to wonder, how happy can some of these people be if after they make some of these changes they are still getting rejected? And they WILL still get rejected. LM

Given I'm one of the few on this board who actually admits her status as being in an open marriage, I think I'll take this opportunity to jump in with my two cents as a form of counterpoint based on my experience. To start, our marriage is not a trial separation or business association nor have we lost any intimacy to our marriage. Actually, I thought we were even closer, if that was possible, due to our commitment to honesty and full communication with each other and everyone else involved, just like the straight-up swingers. I don't see this changing, even if someone spit out the study or numbers showing that my marriage is more likely to fail than a vanilla marriage or a swinger marriage. It can and does work for some... There's certainly failure of marriages associated with swinging or poly as there are with open marriages. A screwed up relationship isn't going to survive swinging, cheating, poly or an open relationship arrangement. Someone who moves into an open marriage or swinging because they are bored, or want sanctioned cheating or unfulfilled already has issues prior to doing this. It's certainly no different than married couples that enter swinging to try to fix their marriages or who decide they are poly in order to sanction their cheating somehow. The reasons why people go into open marriages, polyamory or swinging to me is more indicative to the potential to successfully maintain the current marriage or relationship. Expectations for/upon entering into a non-monogamous also seem to play a huge part. The state of the marriage or relationship before entering into an alternative arrangement is yet another huge factor. And this is what seems to have been revealed by the OP, that there may be factors out there that may indeed indicate problems already that may indeed end in a broken marriage. But it isn't going to be necessarily because of an open marriage. We could substitute any number of alternative relationships in place of the term "open marriage" and the potential for failure will remain the same because of the potential underlying issues that exist before even entering the alternative sexual relationship arena. I know this is your opinion, and my response is not intended to be an attack. I read this, and my first thought is who is to say that people in an open marriage are not enjoying this adventure together? When did proximity become the qualifier as to enjoyment? Okay, I'll get off my soapbox. It was kind of lonely up there anyway since I'm in the minority position here.