You’re both interested in meeting up for a good time, but does the chemistry online translate to the real world?

You know you’re into this person’s personality.

You likely know what they look like – at least assuming their pictures aren’t fake, old or manipulated.

But that’s about it. You’re missing the entire verbal, visual and physical spectrum. All of those go in to the perception of your mutual chemistry together.

You won’t know for sure if you match on all those before you actually meet, but you can get more confident than you are now.

Here are four strategies, in increasing level of effort and gain, for checking chemistry before you meet someone to have sex.

1. Voicemails

It’s a simple strategy really: You create an old-school “voicemail” for the potential partner and they do the same for you.

This way you can hear each other, but without having to worry about responding straight away.

It’s fairly low effort and low risk. You can usually even do several takes to get it exactly right if you’re nervous.

You can determine a lot about a person by the way they talk and carry themselves in conversation. If you find yourself put off by how the other person talks over a voicemail, chances are you’ll feel the same in real life.

Dependent on the app or website you’re using to communicate, it may already have functions for sending audio messages built in. If not, I would recommend using Snapchat, as it’ll lend itself to the later strategies as well. Also it allows you to be anonymous, if that’s important to you.

One important way to NOT do it though:

DO NOT give them your phone number!

As much as we would wish the world was only full of nice people, the reality is some people are assholes, crazy or downright dangerous. You don’t actually know if this person is who they say they are. Keep it semi-anonymous or at least not easily traceable. Stay safe out there.

2. Video messages

Being attracted to each other’s voices is a good start, but it’s usually not enough to determine if you actually have chemistry. You’ll usually need to take it at least a step further with video.

Thankfully Snapchat has you covered here again. You can simply send a video message saying something simple like:

“Hi this is me Michael – just checking in so you can see my face – I’m human. Hi there”.

The other person can then respond in kind, with some equally simple short greeting, like:

“Hi Michael – Leah here. You’re cute. I’m also a human – hurrah”.

Doing this has a number of benefits. For one, you obviously get confirmation that the person on the other end is truly who they said they were and look as you expected. With the number of people regularly getting catfished online, that in itself is a big win.

Beyond that however, knowing how a person moves, talks, smiles etc. really goes a long way to informing whether you’re going to be interested in them sexually.

If things go well with this initial exchange, I’d then recommend continuing a normal Snapchat conversation with video messages in this fashion for several messages. Make sure you can carry on a good back and forth banter. That’ll give you both the confidence to know you can actually have a conversation with some chemistry, without having to be charming on the spot straight away in a video call. You get to think your answers through properly.

Doing video messages rather than a straight up video call also has the added benefit of being able to check you look as good as possible before sending each message.

After all – you can retake bad videos if you don’t like how you sounded or didn’t land a punchline the way you wanted. This give both of you the best chance you can have of making a good first impression.

If we’re meeting up with someone we’ve talked to online, e.g., for a FFM threesome, this is usually all it takes for us to determine there’s chemistry. If you or the other person is still unsure though, carry on to the next level.

3. Phone or video calls

At this point you’ve technically established that you guys can hold a conversation and have chemistry. What you haven’t established however, is that you actually still have that chemistry if you don’t get 5 minutes to think your answers through. Is the chemistry still there when you have to let the conversation flow naturally with no pauses?

via GIPHY

Que the trusty old phone call! It was good enough for people in the 80’s and 90’s – perhaps it’s just what you need as well.

Obviously, depending on how many video messages you sent back and forth, you might want to skip the plain audio-only phone call and go straight to video calls instead. The principle remains the same though. For some, having a normal conversation over the phone may just be the last thing they needed to make sure they can actually hold a conversation with this person and it wasn’t just the prep-time saving them. But if speaking over the phone without video seems weird to you (as in: you’re not that old just yet), go for video directly. Then you’ll be as sure as you can feasibly be without physically meeting this person.

So, how do you talk over the phone without actually sharing your phone number or FaceTiming? Simple. Use any of the common chat apps out there, including Snapchat. They pretty much all have the ability to make a call with or without video.

4. Chemistry meeting

At this point, you’ve both heard and seen them speak, you’ve seen them move and finally you’ve held a live conversation with them. If at this point you’re still not sure if you have chemistry, the honest answer is you probably don’t.

If you do want to make sure though, you can always go for the nuclear option – chemistry meetings.

What is a chemistry meeting you might ask? Well, it’s actually a very common tactic a lot of people use. Instead of meeting up to have sex, you meet up to determine if you have the chemistry to later meet up to have sex.

It usually involves going to a bar or going to dinner. Some public place at least and essentially in many ways just a normal date. Albeit perhaps with a different focus than a romantic one for most people.

Do I recommend chemistry meetings?

Honestly? No, I really don’t.

Some people you’ll meet online will insist on doing them. Either after a while or even sometimes as a first step without ever having spoken to you via anything other than text.

If you’re doing it after having used my strategies 1 through 3 above, then I think it has its place as a strategy. But never as your first move.

While you obviously can’t help if someone else insists on this strategy, I would caution that chemistry meetings are just not scalable. They are a ton of hassle, effort and cost.

Dependent on your life situation, you may have to get time off work, get a babysitter, make excuses to family members, drop commitments, pay for a night out, drive far away, get a hotel and a whole host of other things.

Doing all that for each potential hookup is way too much effort unless you’re quite convinced the chemistry will be there.

Most people who go for this strategy straight away thankfully do have the foresight to realize that the chemistry meeting may actually go well. In case it does, they’ll usually have a plan ready for sex straight away, rather than setting a new date and having an evening of “blue balls”. Perhaps saying beforehand that if you are going to have sex, they live nearby.

But generally speaking, I would try to determine chemistry using strategies 1 through 3 first. Only use chemistry meetings if you need to or as a last safety measure to make sure you haven’t been very elaborately catfished up to this point.

At the end of the day though, it takes (at least) two to tango, so you may be forced into a chemistry meeting regardless of how unnecessary I or you view them. Sometimes you have to go with the flow if you want to get to the end of the river.

Attributions

Post image courtesy of Alex Kondratiev – thank you.

He’s an attractive guy, perhaps even objectively more attractive than her – so what gives? Why is she so much more successful?

This is, sadly, not that uncommon.

Why does this happen?

If you haven’t guessed it on your own, I’ve illustrated it with a little Venn diagram to make it more clear.

It’s basically just supply and demand – Market powers at play. The pool of available candidates are vastly different in the two scenarios. A man in an open relationship will, for the most part, experience that he can only attract the relatively modest group of single women looking for casual fun and the very small group of women experienced in open relationships.

The woman on the other hand will have the pick of a vast pool of single men. They are often more likely to be looking for casual experiences. They are likely also more open to engaging in an open relationship on a “friends with benefits” type basis.

Your milliage may vary and it’ll probably depend a bit on the country, but for the most part, this is the lay of the land.

So all things being equal, a woman will have an easier time finding partners in a sexually motivated open relationship, than a man. When starting out you should have this in mind and decide how you want to deal with it.

Does polyamory change this situation?

Yes, absolutely.

Many men who would be willing to have sex with someone in an open relationship, will not be willing to engage in that relationship in a romantic fashion. We’re sadly lacking some hard statistical evidence here, but from the relatively modest groups of people we personally know living a poly lifestyle, most have reported it’s about as hard to find sustainable male and female partners.

When it’s not just a purely sexual relationship, other factors come into play that even the playing field.

That said, we’re aware most people who are interested in open relationships are not interested in poly. For most, it’s about fulfilling sexual desires that the primary partner alone either can’t or won’t. So a purely sexual motivation.

What can we do about it?

Assuming you’re set on a sexually motivated open relationship, there are things you can do to make your situation better. Here are some tips to consider.

Tip #1 – Live with it. It’ll get better

Yeah, we know – not the greatest tip. But honestly this is what most people should do.

While the woman may be able to get 3, 4 or even 8 times as many dates as the man in a short amount of time, this will even out over time in practice. Yeah, you can go on a bunch of dates, but you can’t realistically maintain 8 different “friends with benefits” anyway. So over time you will likely both have one or two regular sexual partners. She’ll just have had a larger pool to choose them from initially (and perhaps more “trial runs”).

All in all, if you are okay with the fact that she will be having sex with more people initially, just let it happen and stay the course. It will likely even out over time and you’ll be fine.

Just make sure that you are actually okay with it. It’s not about weathering the storm. If the first 6-12 months of your open relationship feels like torture, it will do more harm than good to your longterm primary relationship.

Remember – an open relationship is the extreme sports of romantic entanglements. It can and will go wrong if you don’t take precautions. You have to feel it out and not just sacrifice yourself.

Tip #2 – Fix existing imbalances

One of the major issues we often see is that the man and the woman in the couple are just objectively not at the same level. While this may not matter within the primary relationship, people outside the relationship will not feel the same way.

If the woman is a young, fit and beautiful women who spends 4 hours in the gym and eats right, while the man is significantly overweight and hasn’t seen the inside of a gym in 5 years, the initial imbalance of an open relationship is not the primary problem.

While it is true open relationships, poly, swinging and the like are for all shapes and sizes, the brutal reality is that not all shapes and sizes are equally successful.

All other things being equal, a healthy and fit person will simply have an easier time finding partners. Both initially and in the long run.

So if you’re a couple where one of you is fit and the other is not, this would be the first thing to fix. You’re probably experiencing a much greater imbalance in the number of dates specifically because of this. People are just too nice to tell you to your face, that that’s the reason.

You can’t really change what god gave you, but you can make sure it’s being shown in the best possible light through diet, exercise, grooming etc. You can do it.

Tip #3 – Create a counterbalance

So you’re pretty sure you’re already equally fit and attractive, so Tip #2 isn’t relevant for you? Guess what – the solution from tip #2 still is.

As we’ve covered, an open relationship is initially imbalanced in the woman’s favor. How do you balance this? Well, how do you balance yourself when you’re teetering over a cliff? You counterbalance the weight.

As a man, you should not aim to be as fit and attractive as your female partner. You should aim higher.

The sad truth is that a very fit semi-ripped man is likely to be about as successful as a chubby untrained woman. It’s unfair, I know. But that’s simply the reality that most people will experience.

So if you, as a man, really want to experience an open relationship where you’re equally successful throughout, make sure that you are as attractive as can be and significantly more fit than your female partner.

It likely won’t fully balance it initially, just due to the lower supply of available women – but it will be much better.

Tip #4 – Practice social skills

No amount of abs will counter horrible game. Just as with tip #2, if your social skills as a guy are subpar compared to your female partner, fix this. The easiest way to do this is practice with your partner. While it may be awkward to hit on your existing partner for practice, it’ll be significantly less awkward than trying (and failing) with strangers.

She should also be very interested in helping you out. After all, the more successful you are, the more likely her open relationship will last.

Unlike tip #3, we wouldn’t suggest deliberately outperforming your partner on this one though. This will likely just create resentment or manipulative patterns that no one wants. When it comes to social skills, you should try to improve together. At the end of the day, you should both be interested in improving each other’s social skills and none of you need to be pickup artists.

Tip #5 – Set limits

If you feel like you’ve done what you can to balance your experience, but the imbalance is still problematic, we would recommend renegotiating the limits on your open relationship. Specifically we would suggest imposing shared limits on the number of prospects and dates you engage with at any given time.

Specifically, you could agree to only arrange a fixed number of dates per month. If she happens to have four candidates for each date, she’ll just have to pick one.

You could also choose to limit the number of active prospects. Essentially saying you can only have x number of people on your chat at any given time.

There are many options here. How you arrange it is really only limited by your shared imagination. What you should be focused on is what you’re mutually comfortable consenting to at any given time. You have to mutually agree on this one, with no pressure in either direction.

Now, this may seem unfair to the most successful person. It’s not like it’s necessarily their fault they’re more attractive on the market. At the end of the day though, they may be the most successful person in the couple, but if they’re not careful, they may inadvertently have to be successful as a single person instead.

In an open relationship, the limits are always up for renegotiation. Limits that both parties are not truly comfortable with are not true consented limits. It’s all about consent and consent can always be withdrawn. If you can’t live with that, an open relationship is likely not for you. Your first and foremost concern should be your primary relationship.

Take care to continously renegotiate terms, so you’re both always happy and comfortable. This is the best way to ensure longivity in your relationship.

Attributions

Inline images courtesy of Bruce Mars and Towfiqu Barbhuiya – thank you.
Post image courtesy of Elena Mozhvilo – thank you.