My wife and I got into the lifestyle recently, about last six months. We did a ton of research. Actually, this forum helped to answer many questions we had before we ultimately decided to jump in.
Jump in we did.
We made a couple of profiles on free sites, and began talking to some couples online. At first, we really didn't know what we wanted, other than to spice up our sex lives. The first couple we spoke with, in hindsight, was pretty aggressive. I won't go into details, but we ended up hooking up with them on a first date after a few weeks of very flirtatious chatting. They ended up being a little too different from us.
After a couple of other dates with different couples, we realized that we were looking for friends with benefits. I mean, we're not club people, and sex parties never sounded appealing to us, but we still wanted to bang other couples together! The only other couple we've hooked up with since we got into the lifestyle, seem to be what we were looking for. We made a good first impression, and on the second date, we made it to the bedroom with them. It started a little rough, and not in a good way. I had some performance issues the first time with her, but those have since been resolved. We chat with them on a regular basis(several days per week), and we've seen them several times since our first vanilla meeting. My wife and I, are looking forward to continuing to build our relationship with these two. They are good people, and I'm happy to call them friends. Friends that have a good time together on a king size bed, banging each other's spouses! All that said, I don't know how big of a part we will play in this couple's lives, but we're going to ride the wave till the end.
Why not, it'll be fun while it lasts!