Dating Guidelines

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Today I want to talk about FetLife.

As I mentioned a while back, I have found FetLife to be primarily a good resource, although the site occasionally regurgitates the problems of the kink macrocosm into my email, which drives me mad. I have yet to really gain personal (distinct from professional) value from any social networking site, mostly because I end up being more annoyed than amused.

So I don’t read the digests, and I don’t browse the groups, and I don’t join the discussions even when they do drive me mad. XKCD brilliantly illustrates my view of the inherent futility in this sort of argument.

But I’m still on Fetlife. Why? Because I still hold the at-this-point-very-tenuous hope that through FetLife I might manage to find someone to date.

Because FetLife is designed for social networking rather than dating, I don’t have the patience to try to find possible partners through it for more than half an hour. I can’t, for example, see everyone who lives in New South Wales, is under the age of 35, queer, and into having sadistic women beat on them. Who is funny enough to make me laugh, and smart enough to make me think, and sexy enough to make me come, and honest enough to make me comfortable, and honorable enough to make me trust.

I sort and sort, and then I give up. Half an hour is not enough, and I don’t really have the time for a full-blown campaign.

I don’t want to imply I am content with (or politically aligned with) sitting back and trusting that the presence of my sexy young dominant vagina will bring in dates. I think I should do some work in the dating process. But I don’t know if I want to do that work on FetLife. I’ve seen nothing to imply that my efforts would be rewarded.

I debated, for a long time, advertising here on this blog that I’m looking for dateable folks. Once upon a time I did mention this in my contact page, but I’ve since taken it down. I’m still not sure about that decision. I’m not sure how I feel about advertising my availability at all.

But while I figure this out, I still get messages on FetLife all the time. I am privately messaged about twice a week, and although I have made a few new friends, I don’t see dating in the cards any time soon.

Most of the messages aren’t bad, persay. But at the same time, these messages consistently betray their authors as unsuitable dating potential. For example, I won’t respond to people with empty profiles. And (sorry, anonymous man I’m about to criticize), I won’t date you if you’re trying to cheat on your wife. While it’s nice of you to put that in your messages up front, it’s just not going to happen. And I find it a little insulting, but how were you to know that?

How were you to know I won’t be the other woman? Or that I won’t reply to one-liners, or that sexual advances from strangers freak me the fuck out?

Do you see where this is going? I am debating becoming one of those people with guidelines. I am actually debating whether or not I should spell out a number of suggestions to people who are interested in speaking with me.

Look, call me crazy, but I think if you’re interested in my profile you might click through to my blog. And I think that my blog might give a pretty clear picture of who I am. And I think that once you’ve got that picture, you might be smart enough to figure out how to approach me on your own. I don’t think you need a guidebook to my brain. Although I suppose if there’s an interest, I could write one.

I have to admit that the practice of outlining dating guidelines on a website or a profile is one of my annoyances. It annoys me that people do this. It annoys me that I’m considering this, because it implies a kind of arrogance I don’t appreciate.

And most of all, it annoys me that this is even necessary. Because yes, I can see how it might be necessary. It saves time on both sides. It heads off the cycle of hope and disappointment. It would stop that little pang of sympathy and guilt when I get a polite, sweet message and all I have to say is, “Thanks, but no thanks.” Or if I have nothing to say at all.

So is it ruder to give guidelines up front, or ruder to never respond to the messages I receive? Should I head the hopefuls off at the pass? I’m wary of this idea, because honestly, how am I to know who might read those guidelines and decide not to contact me? I could accidentally end up cutting out someone who’s genuinely interesting.

Keeping the nebulous possibility of that person alive is worth dealing with a bit of stupid guilt and a lot of random messages. But I do wonder about the hopeful people on the other end of the wire, waiting for my words to appear in a little black square. I wonder who they are, and what they’re like, and what brought them here, today.

Labels: Filed in Annoyance, Dating, Greetings, Scene | Comments (6)

39. Take It Up With Him

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Today’s post is dedicated to one of the niggling, nagging annoyances of kinky life that I wish to permanently destroy.

Here’s the situation. Maymay and I make a kinky friend or two. Perhaps we’ve chatted at a party. Maybe we meet someone new online, or we find ourselves in touch through an event or meeting. In any case, the lines of communication are open. All parties have access to all relevant email addresses, et cetera.

And then, a day or two later, I will get a sweet, polite email in my inbox. It will usually express how great it was to meet the two of us, and sometimes propose a date for coffee or extend an invitation. All seems well, yes?

Except I’ll go ask Maymay if he’d like to take that date, or act on the invitation we’ve been given, and I’ll be greeted with a blank stare. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he’ll say. “I didn’t get that email.”

What has happened? Does the Cc box not work for kinky people? Is Reply All on the fritz?

This has never, ever happened with correspondence to us in a vanilla context. It has happened several times with correspondence in a kinky context. And it is weird, annoying, and occasionally downright inappropriate.

Yes, it’s true that we live together, and we see each other’s emails. It’s true that we read each other’s blog comments and Twitter feeds. It’s true that messages for him will still find their source through me. But I find the method rather nonsensical, especially regarding events and invitations. If you have something to say to Maymay, say it to him. His contact info is so easy to find, you can trip over it.

Why does this happen? Sometimes, I suspect laziness. But frankly, how hard is it to type another email address?

Other times I suspect that although I’m the dominant one, Maymay is the more intimidating. I advise all parties concerned to get over this. He is intimidating, and abrasive. He’s also worth knowing.

And occasionally I do think this is a technical goof. Not everyone is email savvy: forgiven. Once. Email is not like the telephone. Believe it or not, more than two people can participate in an email conversation.

Most commonly, I fear, correspondance that should go to both of us ends up sitting in solitary in my mailbox because kinky people have this persistent, annoying tendancy to assume that because I am dominant, I am also the main point of contact in our relationship’s public face. (And yes, our relationship does have a public face.) This trickles down into all kinds of dangerous assumptions, not the least of which are:

That we’re in a 24/7 D/s dynamic. (Technically I’d argue we are, but we don’t advertise that fact, and we don’t suspend collaborative decision making.)

Or, that dominants make decisions, and submissives take orders. In social contexts, in scene contexts. What’s next? Shall I start ringing my boy at lunch to tell him how much sugar to stir into his coffee? Destroy this terrible, awful assumption before we all make ourselves out as assholes. I’m not our manager.

Or, that I speak for Maymay. Frankly, no. Just no. And I think that when meeting the two of us this should be obvious. But apparently it isn’t.

New acquaintances have no idea what roles Maymay and I play in our relationship even if they do know our dynamic. And really, it should be fairly easy to see that addressing mutually applicable emails only to me implies that you consider Maymay to be an unequal partner in our relationship.

Point the first: Maymay might be an unequal partner in some parts of our private relationship, but he is most definitely my equal counterpart as far as our public face is concerned.

And point the second: Unless we tell you otherwise, to treat the two of us as unequal partners of our own relationship disrespects us. Both of us.

Newsflash: non-consensually disrespecting submissives is still a shitty thing to do.

This behavior is a precise, miniaturized version of attempting to negotiate scenes with Maymay through me. I have said before, and I will say many, many times again: he does his own negotiation. Take it up with him.

Let’s dispense with the assumptions, and bring back the Cc box. I’m sick of playing messenger.

Labels: Filed in Annoyance, Drabble, Greetings, Maymay, Psychology, Scene, Stupidity | Comments (7)

And I’m Digital Again

Thursday, March 15, 2007

I should say some sort of “Hello” to a new blogging world, I feel. It’s traditional, and generally polite. It seems in this instance a bit superfluous, really, because at the moment May is the only person reading. Hello, May. You’re precious, and I love you.

In any case. I’m here, in Blogger, because I abandoned my kink focused LiveJournal for a very simple, yet supremely annoying reason. In order to write in my kink account, I would have to log out of my regular account. Then, after I was done, I would have to log back in. In a world view where a. I am extremely easily annoyed, and b. I shouldn’t have to put up with such inefficient nonsense, this simply does not cut it. I did manage to write in that journal quite a bit for a while there, however, so if anyone who’s not May is interested, feel free to ask for directions. I expect that May already knows how to get there, and if he doesn’t he is losing out on both memory and geek cred.

I’m a domme, in case you couldn’t tell from the tone. I suspect more information on me will be forthcoming in later posts. It is, after all, a blog.

In my next entry, look for my thoughts on either the concept of the masculine “knight” submissive, or the many and varied problems I’m coming up with in regards to femdom porn (see point a. above), especially after discovering new depths to the wonderful world of yaoi. Depending on which one strikes my fancy first.

Labels: Filed in Greetings, plans | Comments (2)