Opening Up To New Friends about Swinging

Recently Anne and I have become very good friends with a couple just down the street. All of our other good friends know about us being in the lifestyle, swinging, progressively swinging, having an open relationship, whatever we technically do. These neighbors are awesome on all counts, but we weren’t sure when or if to let them know about our relationship(s). It isn’t something we necessarily hide, but it also isn’t something you just tell people right when you meet them.

However, about a month after we met them and our friendship was blooming an opportunity arose. Mr. Neighbor was traveling on business. So, knowing that the Mrs. was likely to be home alone and bored, Anne and I invited her to come to a wine tasting with us. This is the same wine tasting that I first mingled my lifestyle friends and vanilla friends at last year. Once again we had a few lifestyle friends and a few vanilla friends coming along and… Mrs. Neighbor. Last year things got… rowdy.

The opening to tell Mrs. Neighbor about our relationship came because one of the couples that was attending was Cooper and Marilyn (I try never to name anyone, but Cooper already named me in his post about this meeting). Marilyn wasn’t the only one coming with Cooper. His girlfriend, Mae, was also planning on attending. Boom opening. Telling Mrs. Neighbor about their relationship seemed like a good idea as to avoid confusion and general awkwardness.

The night before the wine tasting Mrs. Neighbor was hanging out with Anne and I at our place. So, I just told her, “About tomorrow, some of our friends are coming and they are polyamorous.” Having no idea what that term meant I explained the connection between Cooper, Marilyn, and Mae to Mrs. Neighbor. At this point Anne and I decided fuck it, the Neighbors are awesome and we would rather scare them off now than when we are all much more invested in the friendship. I let Anne spill the beans. She simply said, “And we met Cooper and Marilyn through swinging. We are swingers.” Having not known Mrs. Neighbor that long I wasn’t the best judge of her reaction, but she seemed more interested and embarrassed than scared. I call that a good sign.

From there we simply told her the same thing I said above, “We really like you guys as friends and all our friends know this. So, rather than scare you off after we are super invested in our friendship we are just throwing it out now.” Our plans to watch a movie that night were done. We never started a movie. Anne and I simply discussed with Mrs. Neighbor what exactly we did, why we did it, and what it means to us. She took it all in stride. We told her she was free to ask any questions of us that she wanted and she asked some… and hide behind a pillow some. Once she even opened up a little about her own sex life I knew things were going to be just fine.

All and all things went well. Cooper didn’t even freak her out that much at the wine tasting. Though once she did tell me, “I need more wine to fortify myself for talking to Cooper” and promptly went to get some. We even hung out after the tasting at our place while people sobered up and even though things were decidedly less rowdy than last year a good time was had by all, even Mrs. Neighbor.