With all of the lifestyle parties, social gatherings, monthly girls wine parties and the like, my husband and I occasionally ask ourselves, do we have any normal friends left? Should we seek out more vanilla friends for some sense of balance, or should we just enjoy that we are fully integrated into the lifestyle community and relish the friends that we’ve made here over the years?
Browsing: lifestyle
Since joining the Lifestyle, I’ve had many experiences that seemed dream-like, almost hallucinatory, because they came at me from outside of the vanilla frame of reference I lived within for most of my life – that having anything other than a two-person, monogamous relationship is unthinkable.
When I entered the Lifestyle I assumed that most of my encounters would be with single men. I thought I might find guys who would be fun friends with benefits without taking on the obligations of a more conventional relationship.
I will be the first to admit that I wasn’t planning a theoretical exploration of the brave new world of open relationships when I leaped into the Lifestyle. I was looking for friends with benefits. That doesn’t mean that I wanted my initial, ahem, exposure to potential partners to begin with their genitalia.
Three days after learning that the Lifestyle didn’t go out of style with electric blue hot pants, I was just as curious as my coupled friends had been about the erotic possibilities of swinging. But unlike them, I didn’t have a primary partner. I didn’t know about the websites. I didn’t have any late-night encounters with girls during my college years.
Suzy Softly comes to the realization that the swinging lifestyle isn’t just about sex, but about the connections and friendships you make.