Meeting Risk

 This is a guest post by my slave Christopher. 

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About five weeks ago, this slave was duped by “Sir Sender”. This slave posted its journey with “Sir Sender” from His first private message through to His not showing for the meeting He requested. He has not contacted this slave since. The experience deeply hurt this slave.

This slave decided to process this experience by revisiting its journey with “Sir Sender” and sharing some “warning signs” that it had ignored on FetLife. This slave doesn’t know how many times it started this essay but ended up scrapping the draft and starting over.

When it included everything that might have been a warning, the writing was too long. Besides, there are hundreds of those lists out there. When it tried the boiling the experience down, it got to the single statement, “Be skeptical of anything on social media.” But that was neither a correct statement nor is it what this slave needed to say.

The problem is not with social media. The problem is not in the Master/slave dynamic. The problem is rushing into situations, making assumptions along the way, and not communicating. (At least this slave knew that communication was a problem with “Sir Sender” and wanted to talk about this at the first meeting.) These problems happen in all kinds of relationships. It is not peculiar to FetLife, BDSM, TPE, Master/slave or what have you.

“Warning signs” are found in all forms of human relationships, for in every form of human relationship there are bad ones. But there are also good ones – even in those that exhibit “warning signs” culled from a random list. A good relationship is one that satisfies the expectations of the participants – “warning signs” or not.

Some Dominants are nurturing. Others destroy. Some subs thrive with nurturing. Others relish destruction.

Ultimately, one cannot form a relationship without doing a dance, working through what one wants and what one is willing to compromise. There will probably be missteps along the way. Forming a relationship cannot be done in total safety.

The question is not “what are the warning signs?”, but “is it worth the risk?” And if it is worth the risk, one should be prepared to suffer if it doesn’t work out. Certainly this slave had missteps with “Sir Sender” and, instead of recovering, ended up on the floor.

This slave is convinced that, one day, it will find a compatible Master. That makes searching for Him worth the risk. So it will go forward with eyes wide open, working through the warning signs as they pop up, neither ignoring them nor delaying addressing them like it did with “Sir Sender”. Warning signs are part of the dance. They can be handled with grace, either by handing off the dance partner or drawing the dancers closer together. So know when to let go and when to hang on – warning signs or not.

This slave will dance with grace.