So let’s be honest – people tell me a lot their munches are not really a good place and ask me if they should still go. So let me try to open up a bit about my personal mindset on this.
Your Goal
You need to set a Goal for your visit – what is it that you hope to find on the Munch?
Maybe you like to find some good people to talk to or to find some people for your Support Network so you can open up about problems. Maybe you fancy a Mentor or maybe your goal is to find a play partner or the love of your life… – there are multiple goals you can have.
Advice:
If you don’t have a Support Network for your BDSM Lifestyle, I highly recommend not to search for play partners on your Munch.
If things go wrong you lose your play partner and a big part of your Support Network at the same time, which is exactly what you want to avoid.
Regardless what it is you want from a Munch exactly, you need to think about it and be sure about your priorities.
As an Example:
My personal goal with munches is to meet people I can talk to and have fun with and maybe connect to people that are in search of a mentor.
However, I know that the secondary comes with the primary goal, so I concentrate to find good and Interesting people.
Define some Questions
Before you go to the actual Munch you should prepare some questions that lead to your goal.
The Questions that you ask depend on the goal that you set for yourself. So if you were looking for advice you should ask who has a lot of experience, if you look for a play partner you would ask who likes to go on play parties and so on.
Some of my questions for my Goal would be:
- What are you doing to have fun?
- What kind of industries do you work in?
Here are a couple of questions I suggest you also ask:
(In fact, these questions might be good icebreakers to get people to talk to you.
But I explain in the next section why you should ask these questions)
- Where is the guy/girl that did all the organization for this Event/I spoke to via email/I talked to at the phone?
- Who is always visiting this munch?
- Who joined before me?
Visiting the munch
Advice:
Especially women get a lot of attention on a Munch, but most of the time this attention is only there because people see a potential play partner.
Even if you search for a play partner, I recommend saying something like:
‘I don’t search for a casual play partner, I’m here to meet new people and don’t search for anything more’
You will lose attention, but you will also connect more likely with the people that see more in you then a new notch on their bedpost. – And you can change your mind later on…
When you visit the Munch, try to find people that are connected to your goal.
In my case I try to be chatty, try to ask around who is doing what and see who is interested to get to know me.
There are also some key people I always try to connect with:
- Organizer of the Munch
- Oldest/longest Visitor
- Newest Visitor
These people are key because they can give me a good amount of information and/or introduce me to other people in the group I could be interested in.
The organizer(s) is a big part of a Munch and you need to check up how they are – some are very chatty and outgoing, others see themselves as exclusive clubs and again others are just a pain to get along with.
The oldest/longest Visitor of the munch is usually the guy or girl that can make connections and tell you who you want to talk to. Usually, they are pretty happy to do so. Just tell them what you search for or inquire about somebody who you see already and think it could be an interesting person and ask about general information.
The newest Visitor is also an Important source of information, they can usually tell you how hard it is to be part of the group and what the group so does. These people usually are in the same boat as you were just a couple of weeks/months ago and therefore are perfect to help you with some of your questions.
After you spoke to hopefully a lot of people you should have a clear picture and a good feeling about how the Munch is structured and if you can find what you search for.
Of course, this sounds totally easy when you read it. But I also know that in reality, it can be totally different.
You don’t find on every Munch what you are looking for. Depending on the group you even have Munches where people are not trying to connect to you at all but rather talk among themselves.
These in-groups can be rewarding if you get connected to somebody from the group and they bring you in, but if nobody is willing to do that you will feel very awkward and uncomfortable.
Decision time
If you leave the munch and think:
‘This was an awesome time…’ then you found a Munch that is worth visiting in the future.
If you feel anything else than a strong motivation to visit again, you should probably think about finding something better to do with your time!
The only exception in this:
If the Munch is so big that you could not say “Hello” to everybody you were interested or when key people are not attending.
In this case, you should go a second time and see if it feels better.
This way of thinking even holds true if you only have one Munch available to you. – Trust me on this, you are better to find another non-BDSM related social group or an Online community than sitting on a Munch that doesn’t fulfill your goals and you don’t love to attend.
My personal experience
After a long time away from Munches we tried to connect again and visited in 8 weeks a total of 6 Munches around our location.
Of these 6 Munches, only 2 (a Monthly and a Weekly one) felt worth to visit again and so we only visit these 2 Munches.
On both Munches, we have certain people we really enjoy talking to and if these ‘special people’ would disappear, we would not visit these Munches anymore!
