I assess, observe. Always myself, always open, always honest. If I like what I see then I advance. Moving closer to them. Sharing more of myself. Seeking them out more. I only ever move closer. I never pull away. If a relationship breaks and burns it does so at the distance I am from it. I do not seek refuge. I burn as it burns. And broken from it, I do not retreat. I become more. Learn more, be more. And advance. I’ll have my doubts but will always move forward.
relationship
Simple but broad
My love is unconditional. My relationship with you is not. My conditions are always the same. Respect, Emotional honesty, and No games without my explicit consent.
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Thought on relationships and BDSM
Any relationship is going to be internally complicated. The individual personalities, the tug and pull of individual goals coupled together with the goals of the partnership, the internal and eternal give and take that must always be present to allow unique people to blend their lives. There is a social dynamic at play that includes outside societal forces acting on the partnership as well. All of this ads up to relationships being difficult.
Not all the time, but there is always going to be some level of tension. At least in my experience. Add to that a secondary dynamic like that of a BDSM relationship and you have a very complicated set of parameters. If the BDSM is all “behind the bedroom door” you may be able to set up your lives so that they are compartmentalized. This can work and for many people it does.
I don’t particularly like it. When I am in a relationship and that relationship includes BDSM, I prefer that aspect to bleed into and blend together with all other aspects of my and my partners life. It’s, in my opinion, the only way to allow the truth of the life you are living to be your life. This could be because I see the ‘behind the bedroom door’ as a way of closeting your lifestyle and speaking from experience the crush of hiding who you are is crippling on an emotional level. Often so in ways and manifestations you do not realize until you shed those bonds.
To live that way in a relationship is an added stressor and stressors tend to accumulate the longer a relationship lasts. The last thing it needs is something that you are effectively hiding from the world. I’m not saying you need to speak as openly about the lifestyle and your life as I do. Truthfully, I am a serious oversharer. Trying to ‘live out loud’ as I like to say means, well, being loud. Honest and forthright about ones life. It’s hard, but for me the other way was sisyphean levels of harder.
In any case, adding the dynamic of Master and submissive, to the mix of a relationship can be difficult. But I think this is where hardcore adherence to the lifestyle is actually a benefit. Safe, Sane and Consensual means that you are or should be discussing what is happening, what all parties want, and what is and is not allowed. The knowledge of the boundary lines allow all parties to blend their lives together that much more thoroughly. If that is their desire, or maintain separately, but the discussion dynamic is in place as a go to.
Further the safeword or, my preference, Green/Yellow/Red procedure means that if something goes too far or you are edging into something that you don’t want to talk about you can simply call a halt by saying, Yellow (let’s discuss) or red (stop, immediately, and discuss). Because BDSM juggles so many physical, emotional and mental items it must have the artificial constructs in place to deal with those items. And those dynamics can be beneficial to a relationship paradigm because communication and moreover a safe place for communication to occur is the strength of those of us in the community that take the core ideals to heart.
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Though maelstrom
I wonder about everything in my life, all the time. It’s not anxiety, it’s the result of developed professional paranoia that has long since become worthless. But it is a habit so deeply ingrained I find it hard to shake. At least I’m no longer jumping at shadows or becoming suspicious if a car follows me through too many turns.
However, the leftover pieces are that I exam every interaction, everything said, the way it is said, the body language, what questions aren’t asked that I think should be, which questions are asked, and what isn’t said.
It’s this constant war of second and third guessing, of being uncertain how my words are received, of not knowing where I stand. It is my Achilles heel in any relationship. People don’t react well to someone who needs reassurance in some respects and in others very confident. They wonder which is the real personality and, for the most part, can’t reconcile that the answer is both.
Even when someone is OK with it, my brain likes to self sabotage. It says that if they accept this thing about me then how into me can they be? As if the only way to accept me is to not care deeply enough to care about it. Which is completely mental. Yet it is a feeling I can’t seem to shake, this thought that the only way to accept my flaws is to, in some way, not love me enough to care.
Even worse is the darkest thought, the one that feels like I’m betraying them. That if you love me, what horrors are you hiding, that you could love someone like me.
Someone so flawed and broken. And I feel like if I bring up these feelings that the ones I love will see the truth, that in some way my exposing my insecurities will convince them that, yeah he is messed up, can’t believe I ever liked him.
Its a hard place to live, especially when I spend so much time there.
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Sex, commitment, and Love
I would never cheat on a committed partner. Such would be a betrayal and I do not betray. It is the primary rule from which all others of my rules spring.
If the relationship were committed but open, then I might consider having sex outside the relationship but I am more likely to introduce this person to my partner to keep everything out in the open. Now, that being said, I am still unlikely to have sex outside the relationship framework. Because sex, on its own, is empty. While the physical aspects are enjoyable, what I enjoy most is the enjoyment of my partner.
And while I am adept at the physical aspect and in the moment it is fun, I find it lacks staying power. If there is a emotional component, then the physical becomes a way of expressing that emotional joy with my partner. And that makes me feel beyond the moment.
I’m not saying I won’t feel lust for someone else, I merely note that I am not going to act on that lust. Though I will say that monogamish or poly relationships interest me. But, whether open, poly, or monogamish the true requirements are emotional stability, emotional maturity, constant communication, and honesty. Without those components on all parts it will fail at some point. But such could be said of any relationship.
I suppose my point is this. I am not something the majority have encountered before. I am strange and odd. I am honorable within the framework of my rules and I do wish you would stop lumping me in with the boys, predators, and fools you knew before me. I am not them. I ask, explicitly, for one thing. Don’t hide your heart from me. Don’t try to not love me. It is a betrayal of love and one of the things I cannot forgive. If you don’t love me, that’s fine. Just don’t try to murder love as it attempts to take root.
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Emotional shotgun
I’ve thought about this often. Pretty much every day to one degree or another. and I have come to the conclusion that I am just not charming. Sure, if you want to talk about the historical context of economic policies and the spread of religion, I’m your guy. Or if you would like a discussion about how time travel to kill that one historically bad guy would be a disaster, then wow would we have something to talk about. If you want to get deep into serious discussion, I’m right there. Or take a silly premise and just run with it. But that whole witty banter thing, I don’t got. In a big group it may seem that I can, because I’ll interject something and it will cut to the heart of what is being discussed, but pay attention, I will then go silent again. So, I’m not charming. I have weird ideas and off tilt desires. I have virtually no shame and no filter but I’ll only dance in a crowd of strangers or after at least 3 real drinks. I’m not doing a job that screams important or changing the world, so that’s not particularly impressive. Maybe, I’m being unnecessarily cruel to my own self image. The tough part is that what seems unique and special about me seems to only exist in my past. And it is bound up in past relationships which new relationships don’t necessarily want to hear about. I’m off point.
What I think about is this: Shouldn’t it, on some level, be easy? Should not the conversation flow from topic to topic? If you’ve known me for years, then it does. But on first talking? First meeting? Only with 2 people has it been that way, One was recent but for various other reasons failed. The other was because she approached me, she saw me and said, that guy, that guys I want to know. That feeling is immensely empowering, I could go for days on that feeling. I have no real point to this. This is just a confused guy rambling in the early morning hours. I wish that I could say that I just don’t know what I want, or that I’m not ready for a relationship, or I just want to put my work first, or any of a dozen excuses to not be dating or to not even be talking to someone about talking about dating. (aside: Dating is a prelude to a relationship. It is the opening act.) (second aside: I cannot emphasize enough how the statement “I don’t date” is bullshit. Are you seeing someone in any kind of romantic or sexual context? IT’S A DATE. and don’t tell me that sex is not a date, unless you are paying for it, then it’s a emotional entanglement of some kind.)
It comes to my attention that I should be talking to friends about this stuff, but they are all married. Have been for years. And they are not poly relationships so what would they know? Maintaining a relationship, sure, they have good advice there, outside of that, not so much.
This is all just frustration. I am genuinely not good at the let’s be friends and see where it goes thing. I want to buy you roses or lilies, lilies are cool. I want to tell you that you are beautiful and that all I want is you to feel safe. I want to be the sappy romantic idiot that I am . But I can’t because that would be too serious. What is wrong with too serious? Take a fucking chance. We all have baggage, and I get that it hurts and that you don’t want to be hurt. And maybe you want nothing to do with me romantically, say that, it saves time. I won’t be offended. I am a adult. I know people say that then act like fools, but I have spent most of my time working on who I am, what I want, and my emotional well being. That leaves me deficient in the more material ares, admittedly, But the emotional maturity, that I got. Just tell me, I won’t be a jerk.
And maybe it won’t work out. But I won’t emotionally blackmail you or be a jerk or be cruel or mean. at least I will try my best to not be and if you tell me I am being that way will try to correct my behavior. Hopefully, we’ll have at least some good times, and we’ll learn something for the next relationship or maybe we’ll go the distance, but we’ll never know without that first step.
This has been another addition of Emotional shotgun, are we not entertained!
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Bumbling through
Is it weird that when I get put off, not rejected or when my offer is straight declined, my tension ratchets up. I try again or say no problem, let’s reschedule. And each time I either don’t take the hint, or hold the belief that everything is above board.
That belief that everyone is being honest is oddly disjointed to how I normally view the world. My normal world view is that people are fundamentaly selfish and look to their own interests first.
But when I’m interested in someone romantically, I put that aside. I seem to then hold the belief that all parties are working towards the same goal of emotional fulfilment.
Which seems like naivety even to me. But that knowledge doesn’t change how I act. Ever hopeful, naive. I’m made more cautious, only because my style is to be all in from the beginning, and that seems to be scary to people. I would say better to be all in and find out that there is nothing there than to have a relationship starve for its lack.
But from experience I’d say most dip their toe in, get used to that, then more until they are fully immersed. Now being all in doesn’t mean I’m in love. It means that I commit to the relationship. Which seems foreign to the people I date. If you’ve read this blog then you know that I lost someone. And that it’s taken a long time to heal, even to this point.
I mention this because I feel like someone disjointed from the way the world works now. I keep trying to apply what I knew, what worked before and coming up empty.
Is it so scary to want to spend time, to communicate on the regular? Or am I overthinking this? Or misreading the level of interest from my counterparts?
Keep it light, keep it easy seems to be the advice. That is so foreign to me. I’m more intense, like dark chocolate I’m just fumbling about here. Hopefully it’s an interesting read at least.
Pelgris 