Senior Swingers: Nobody Tells You What to Do With the Time

There is an enormous amount of advice about the money side of finishing work, and almost none about the rest of it. Every bank in the country will model your KiwiSaver drawdown. Not one of them mentions the Tuesday.

Which is the part that actually catches people out. The calendar empties. After four decades of it belonging to employers, children and other people's requirements, it comes back to you, and nobody issues instructions about what to put in it. Some fill it with a boat. Some fill it with grandchildren. And a considerable number fill part of it with something they had been curious about since the eighties and never had the privacy, the confidence or the free evenings to look into.

Swinging seniors are, by fairly broad agreement inside the New Zealand scene, the most contented people in it. Here is what actually happens when they arrive.

The First Six Months

Nobody publishes the realistic version of this, so here it is as it usually goes for those signing up somewhere north of fifty-five.

The opening fortnight is spent reading, quietly, and being surprised. Nearly everybody assumes the closest like-minded couple must be hours off, and finds out otherwise, and that moment is when the whole thing stops being theoretical.

Somewhere in weeks three and four the first real conversations start, usually with a video call soon after. The senior end of the scene shows its calibre right here: literate messages, actual questions, nobody applying pressure. A striking number of members say this stage on its own beat a year of mainstream dating.

Around the second month comes a coffee, fully clothed, with nothing whatever expected, proposed by the more experienced party before anybody has to ask. Some of those become friendships. Some become nothing. Some become plans. All three outcomes are ordinary.

By four to six months in, most people notice something they had not anticipated: a handful of people they actually enjoy, operating quietly alongside everything else in their life. Long-standing members almost always name that circle, rather than any particular evening, as the thing they value.

Take twice that long if you like. Plenty do, and enjoy every week of it.

What Having Time Actually Changes

The practicalities shift more than people expect, and all of the shifts are in your favour.

Hosting becomes possible for the first time in twenty-five years, which quietly makes you one of the more sought-after members of any local scene, since somewhere to go is the scene's permanent shortage. Midweek becomes usable, and the mature end of the community runs heavily on midweek precisely because so much of it no longer works Mondays. Spontaneity returns, since a free Wednesday requires no negotiation with anybody. And the pace slows down in general, because nobody at this end of the scene is squeezing anything into a narrow window between commitments.

The Questions People Actually Have

Are we too old for this? The 55-plus end is one of the busiest corners of swinging in New Zealand, and in most local circles older swingers are the ones hosting and holding the guest lists. You will find over 50 swingers here, plenty of over 60 swingers, a good few over sixty swingers well past sixty-five, and older couples swinging continuously since the seventies who simply never stopped.

We are rusty. Does that matter? Less than you fear, because the skills this needs are conversational rather than athletic. Saying what you want, hearing a no gracefully, telling your partner something true: those are things a couple married since 1985 does better than anybody.

Will people find out? Nothing is public, nothing is advertised, and two decades in this without anyone outside finding out is entirely ordinary. Those habits were built by silver swingers with grown children and friendships going back forty years.

Must we do anything we are unsure about? Not a thing, and the way the scene is built guarantees it. Boundaries get set out beforehand instead of being haggled over on the night, opening meetings happen in public with clothes on, and stopping requires no justification from anybody. A great many senior members pass their first few months talking and drinking coffee, nothing more.

Typed into a search bar, this crowd goes by senior swingers, by seniorswingers run together, by over 50s swingers and by half a dozen other spellings. Same people every time.

Older Swingers in New Zealand Are More Wanted Than They Think

The interest does not come only from your own generation, which most senior members flatly refuse to believe until the messages arrive. A genuine share of the younger membership joined this particular site hoping to meet the experienced crowd, for reasons our three-person guide sets out. Restricting your circle to your own generation, or enjoying the whole range, is a decision nobody else makes for you, and the profile settings quietly enforce whichever you pick.

Elsewhere on the site: the singles page if you are on your own, members in their forties and fifties for the decade below, our couples page for the practical guide, and this page for what is happening near you.

The time is yours now. Nobody else gets a say in what goes in it.

Sign up free: New Zealand's senior swingers, and the most enjoyable company this lifestyle has.