I'm a queer lady in my late twenties, and I have a question about threesomes. I know you get a lot of threesome questions, but mine's from the perspective of the unicorn. Having a threesome with a couple has been dominating my fantasy life as of late. I've also been in a few situations recently where I kicked myself later for not being bold enough to initiate something. I'm struggling with how to broach the subject with a couple when the encounter happens organically in real life (instead of online, where the intention would be clear from the get-go), for fear of coming off as a creep.

For example, I met a couple who I immediately clicked with (the wife in particular) when I traveled to a friend's wedding recently. I got the vibe that there was some mutual attraction and we spent a fair amount of time together over the course of the weekend, but nothing was explicitly said. To me, this seemed like the perfect scenario — I'm an attractive and willing (no, enthusiastic!) third who lives out-of-state, and they were both very hot. UNBELIEVABLY hot, Dan. But I was worried about making a pass because I recognize that different couples have different arrangements, and hitting on what might have turned out to be a monogamous married woman in front of her husband could (understandably) be seen as pretty douchey.

I should say, too, that as a reader of your column, I know there are other ways to go about meeting couples for a threesome. And I know that online, being a unicorn would theoretically make it pretty easy for me to find a willing couple. Connecting in some way beyond just physical attraction, however, is hugely important for me, and that's something far easier to measure in real life. In the wedding scenario, too, it felt as though the three of us were in some ways already "vetted" — being close, mutual friends of the bride and groom —
compared to a random couple I might meet online.

Am I just a coward? Do I need to stop worrying what people might think, or is there a standard, polite way to ask a hot couple if they would be interested in fucking me?

Threesome Hangup In Requesting Deed

Last Thursday I shared some excellent-but-unsolicited advice a reader wanted passed along to Savage Love LWs:

Use your words.

That's excellent advice! It's so good, in fact, that I give it all the time—and I'm gonna give it to you, THIRD: use your words. If you're worried about hitting on a woman in front of her husband, make that pass when the husband goes to take a leak or get you guys another round of drinks. And by "make a pass" I do not mean "make a lunge for it." I mean "broach the subject," THIRD, which you could've/should've done in a way that didn't just allow for the woman to shut you down, THIRD, but invited her to. ("Forgive me if this out of line... but if you and your husband wanted to mess around, I've always fantasized about having a threesome with a really cool couple. If I'm misreading signals, I'm so sorry! We can pretend I didn't ask and just hang out—because I can take 'no' for an answer without sulking or asking again when we're all drunker, I swear!")

That's easier said than done, I realize. Successfully snagging a game couple in the wild—particularly a heterosexual-and-presumed-to-be-monogamous couple—takes charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent. (The same stuff can make you America's next drag superstar, of course, but the lesson applies here.) Unicorns are rare, THIRD, so you've got uniqueness covered. Your letter is charismatic, THIRD, so I'm betting you've got charisma, too. Good in bed? There's the talent. That only leaves nerve—and it was a failure of nerve at that wedding (your failure to make that pass) that turned an "UNBELIEVABLY hot" opportunity, aka something that might've been, into a missed opportunity, aka something that definitely wasn't.

For future reference, THIRD, there isn't one way to ask a couple to be their third, just as there isn't one way to ask a single person to be their second. But if you're hitting it off with a couple and you think they might be sexually adventurous, scraping up the nerve to toss your feelings out there is one way to do it. Here are some more words you could try: "You're both so hot and if you're ever looking for a third..." If they bite, yahtzee. If they don't, acknowledge the awkwardness, invite them to power through the awkwardness with you, then laugh/drink it off. Other helpful tactics: compliments, casual-but-consensual touching, giving them your information so they can contact you at a later time.

Two final points, THIRD...

1. Don't write off meeting online. Most opposite-sex couples looking for unicorns online will be happy to meet up and get to know you a bit before jumping into bed—you can, even with people you meet online, establish a connection that goes beyond just physical attraction before hopping into bed.

2. Never assume the bride and/or groom have vetted or are vouching for the guests at their wedding. I get a lot of calls at the Savage Lovecast from couples who've been forced to invite deeply shitty people to their weddings—cousins with disturbing criminal histories, old friends who voted for Trump, drunk uncles with boundary issues and MAGA hats. Even if the people you want to fuck are in the wedding party, you're still gonna have to do your due diligence and your own vetting.

And however you meet—at weddings, in real life, online—you still gotta use your words.