I often hear that couples have trouble finding “real” swingers. They've tried online personal ads and gotten no email and few responses. They exchanged pictures and maybe chatted a bit, but nothing came of it. They might set a date to meet for drinks and then get canceled on a the last minute. They tried going to a local swing club, but everyone seemed to already know each other. I hear this time and time again from new and experienced swingers. We noticed the same things until we started participating in, and eventually hosting, Meet and Greets.
Meet and Greets are a fun, low-pressure, inexpensive way to meet new people. It's a great way to meet a number of couples and singles, flirt, mingle and see who you have chemistry with. They are great events for new and experienced swingers. My husband and I have met at least one potential match at every meet we've held in the last seven months. We've also met many friends and fun acquaintances.
If there is not already a thriving meet and greet in your community you can start one! Running a meet and greet is actually quite simple. If you like to meet people, have a swinger web profile and a little time you can set up a great meet and greet in your community. Here is a step by step guide:
1. Create a group on a swinger website that is active in your area. We use Swingerzonecentral, Swinglifestyle and Kasidie. Put the name of your area and meet and greet in your group name. For example, Anytown Meet and Greets. We have ours as a private group. Decide on rules for group admission. Ours is open to couples and singles. We require that they have a face pic available online. Our age range is 30+
2. Post a nice, short, grammatically correct description on the group. Here's ours –
A once a month meet & greet at a public bar/club in the Anytown, Ohio area. Couples and singles over age 30 are welcome. Please open a face picture when you request to join.
3. Choose a date/time and place. It should be a public place like a bar or small dance club with no cover or a very inexpensive cover. It took awhile for our group to find a really good place that wasn't too loud or crowded. We go to a small dance club that is very busy on Saturday nights, but almost dead on Friday nights. You may need to visit a few places on the night you want to have your group to decide on the place.
We always meet on a Friday night because most swing clubs and house parties are on Saturday nights around here. So people can go out and meet on Friday and then really party on Saturday to maximize their weekend. This has been important for our group.
We start at 8pm, if you are meeting at a bar without a dance floor you could start at 7. We have a mylar balloon that I write our group name on at our table for the meet. That's why you want the group name to say meet and greet not secret swingers or something like that.
4. List the event on the website and request rsvp's on the group. Give the location with address and the time you plan to start. Explain that you'll have a balloon with the group name and wristbands (if you choose do to that). More on wristbands below.
5. Start inviting people to the group. Note this is step five. Do not invite anyone without a planned event. A group on the website is boring without an event.
If you are really interested in someone, send them a nice note saying you invited them to the group and hope they join and can make it to the event.
You can decide whether to include singles. We do but they almost never come to the group. We try to talk to singles and ask if they are truly single, not married, because our group is not interested in cheaters.
Post the meet and greet date on your profile tagline and talk about the group in your profile (if you have a private group, don't post the location anywhere but on the group). People will email you about joining the group. We invite anyone who meets the age and no cheating criteria, and opens a face picture.
Even if they are not attractive to us, they may be to other members, or have friends they refer to the group who are hot.
Post the meet and greet on hot dates/booty call. Just the date and a general description; ask them to email you for details.
Talk about the group on the website forums or walls.
6. About a week before, email the group members individually (you can copy and paste the same thing), or post on their walls. If you know them, then just add a personal sentence for them. Remind them of the event coming up and ask them to rsvp on the group. Be very upbeat about how much fun you are going to have. Once your group is up and going well, you won't have to do this every month.
7. Do not despair if hardly anyone actually rsvps. This is common, in our case a lot more people show up than rsvp.
8. Decide if you want wristbands (like at an amusement park). This is a good idea for a new group, I think, because then people know who is in the group, since there will be vanilla patrons at the club also. Some members of our group are not crazy about wristbands. We have did them for the first 4 months. Now our group is so large we take over almost the whole bar. I can recognize most people in the group. Without wristbands, it's really important to share face pics so you can recognize new members and they can recognize you. If you don't have wristbands, as host, you need to be able to introduce new people to group regulars so they will have people they know they can interact with.
9. The meet! Get there 10-15 minutes early. Try to get a table near the entrance. Set up your balloon. We also have little business card size cards and pens, so people can write down contact information for people they meet. Get a drink and tell the bartender you have a group meeting there tonight. They will probably be excited and ask you questions. We just say its a social group. If you are expecting a large group the first time it's a good idea to call a week or so ahead to make sure they are staffed to serve your group.
10. Be friendly and make introductions as new people come in. Try to meet and talk to everyone. I try to keep an eye on the door for at least the first hour. It's a little difficult being the host, because you have to be careful not to spend the whole time talking to one person you really like. It's better for everyone if we all circulate around. Get contact information for people you like. Have fun!
11. If only one other couple shows up, still have fun and plan again for next month. Sometimes it takes a little time for a group to get going.
12. Consistency is the key to a great meet. Host every month and your turn-out will continue to grow as people spread the word and your group is more visible on the websites. After the meet thank people for coming on their profile walls. Post on your forum what a great time you had and ask people to tell their friends about the group. Set the date for the next meet so people have time to plan.
13. I also enjoy being online so I post topics and questions on my group forum. I have an Introductions thread where people can tell the group a little about themselves, a thread for comments about the upcoming meet, and miscellaneous lifestyle related topics. This isn't necessary, but it helps build community and people get excited to meet people they know online at the meet and greet.
Meet and greets are a great way to find a fun, sexy group of friends in your local area. I hope this step by step guide has given you the confidence to start your own! Please let me know if you have any questions. I'd love to hear about your meet and greet!
6 Comments
We have had mixed, but mostly disappointing experiences with public meet and greets. It wasn’t that the hosts weren’t’ trying, but rather most people are more comfortable with people they know, as a result there were more often than not, a bunch of small groups of people who already knew one another. Another issue for us is age. The meet and greets tend to be late 20’s – mid 30’s. As such those of us who are older feel we can’t “compete” with the younger people. Perhaps with younger people it is more effective, but for us middle aged folks it seems to be harder. I don’t know we’ve ever met someone in that kind of forum that moved to a relationship of any sort.
We also know how hare the online thing is, but we’ve found nothing better. What we have found to work best is that we only set up a meeting after my wife (she’s the social one) and the person (or couple) we met online have had several extended phone calls first. Even that yields has last minute back outs, but it seems to work best for us.
@Neo, sorry meet and greets haven’t worked for you, yet. That’s partly why I wrote the article. It’s pretty easy to start your own meet and greet and find people right for you. Our group is for couples over 30 years, so there are many “middle agers” We also play a game at the start to get everyone to mingle instead of having cliques. We’ve made several longterm friends with benefits and so have our attendees (I run polls to gauge our success rates). Go swinger science! Best of luck to you and thanks for your comment!
I realize this is an article about swinging, not poly. However…
I am disheartened to see yet further perpetuation of the idea that anyone who is married, but whose spouse is not present, must be a cheater. What about open or poly people, etc, who may choose within their relationship to allow one another out on their own.
I apologize, I guess it should say married and swinging without their spouse’s permission. We do have halves of couples who come alone, but with their partner’s consent. I even run the events by myself at times. Many people who advertize as single outright tell me they are actually married and cheating. Those are the people we are excluding. I hope this clarifies, and you enjoyed the rest of the article.
hey no apologies necessary! It is a great article and thank you for writing it! 🙂
This is just something that seems quite prevalent, even at poly meet-n-greets I have noticed the tendency for unaccompanied female = HOT no questions asked, unaccompanied male = default cheater.
I totally agree single does NOT equal married and cheating and those types are not needed. Just that single does not necessarily mean not married!
Hello, I manage a large group of over 600 ages 50+ for Meet & Greet. Looking for ideas to get better match making and hookups among the members. We believe in separation into similar age and sexual preference.
We’ve done speed dating but takes too long to organize so any help you can be would appreciate.