I went on a short overnight business trip this week; I was there for one day out of a two-day meeting at a conference center a couple of hours away. This is actually the fourth of five that I've gone to at the same place, and for most of them I actually got a ride from one of my coworkers. The first time we went, she came to pick me up and so I gave her directions. It talked about turning off the main road, going around through the access road, going through the intersection, etcetera... And it ended up confusing her - I'm bad at directions, I guess. When she got there she looked up and said "Oh! Why didn't you just tell me it was the white building?" So I looked around and of course she was right - every building in our complex is plain brick except ours which is painted.
The answer, of course, is that I didn't mention it to her because it had never crossed my mind. I can be less than perceptive on occasion, I admit, but I can be extremely perceptive at others - it's a matter of context, not just my total oblivious nature. I knew the building was white; what didn't occur to me was the significance of that in relation to the context at hand.
Over the weekend Ash and I were out shopping - looking at craft supplies, as it happens, and discussing projects one could make with them - and I'd made a comment about replicating a Doctor Who thing I'd seen online and giving it to her sister. There was a fair amount of discussion around it, centered around the question she had for me, "Do you 'like my' sister?" Ash is concerned about the possibility of coming across as coming on to her - whether or not there's any truth to it, or whether or not it's reasonable or logical - to the other family members who'd probably end up observing at least part of our interactions.
The answer, if you're curious, is "no"; she's cute and kindof adorable, but we have very little in common outside of video games and my fiance. More to the point - and completely ignoring that I'm engaged to her sister, which is potentially creepy enough, and that I'm ten years older than her, which is enough to turn off the majority of folks - I have no particular reason to believe she'd be the tiniest bit comfortable with a number of aspects of my lifestyle and preferences. But the problem isn't reality, or what I'm thinking, or what the sister is thinking, but the perception different people apply to the situation. In a very similar way to it just never occuring to me that the colour of my apartment building was relevant to the question at hand, the idea that people would perceive anything I'd been doing as a come-on or something inappropriate.
The occurrence is really demonstrative of what I've always personally found to be the worst aspect of being into various kinks and having an alternative lifestyle; people simply don't understand. I've talked about assumptions before, because they touch on so many different aspects of alternative lifestyles. I've talked before about addressing your assumptions, trying to identify them and tear them down to resolve them - because as a rule they're dangerous. What do you do, though, when it's simply such a different context that you can't see the assumption in the first place?
In my life it comes up most often because of my asexual/demisexual side; it gives me a very strange perspective on interactions with other people at times. It's certainly not the only thing, however. When you're into this sort of edgy thing - in the sense of "edge of society", at the very least - you end up getting a lot of blank stares. People just hear these ideas that don't grok, these concepts which are so far outside their worldview that they don't have any basis for analyzing or relating to it. What do you do? Most people run away or freak out or get weirded out and turn their backs... And this is one of the worst things that can happen to a kinkster.
This entry is less about advice and more about fear. This is what drives people to avoid kink, to compromise on what they want, to give up their dreams. To be in vanilla relationships even though they're unsatisfied. To refuse to come out to their friends, family, and loved ones. It can lead to an incredible amount of isolation, depression, fear and dread - it's not hard to convince yourself you'll never find anyone who'll really fill that hole in your life... And when you do, your family and friends and coworkers will still never accept it.
When Ash and I were on vacation a couple of weeks back, we got together overnight with a friend of mine and her fiance - Lorena and Xavier, we'll call them. Lorena and I have known each other for a number of years, though this was only the second time we'd actually met; I'd never met Xavier before, and Ash had never met either of them. It was a really good time, even if I - very unfairly, I'd say - never did have a chance to tie Lorena up and play with her tits (which, obviously, is what you do with a hot girl with a nice chest when you meet her at the beach...). There was a fair amount of mutual attraction floating around the group, though the level of comfort was obviously limited by the fact we were really only just meeting as a group (as a pair of couples) for the first time; still, we have a lot of common interests, a lot of similar personality traits, and I happen to know Lorena would love to fool around with Ash and - if it weren't for the current state of her relationship with Xavier - me as well. It's not hard to imagine the four of us settling into a life together, really; I mean there's a lot of "if"s and unknowns and problems and barriers, but - no matter how unlikely the idea is - the basic compatibility is there. And of course, the three of them would probably have a very pleasant, fulfilling sex life; and I... Well, none of them are submissives or masochists or particularly into bondage except as a feature of sex; and as I've frequently ended up in my life, however much I loved them and however much they'd be willing to include me in vanilla sexual activities, my base sexual proclivities wouldn't be satisfied. And the idea was... Very depressing. Knowing that even as one part of me was totally fulfilled beyond what I'd once considered would be possible, another part of me would still be looking for a way to be satisfied. It can be hard being faced with that kind of situation - very hard to get past the isolation you feel when you realize that.
Ash is amazing to me. She's very supportive, she loves me, she's my best friend, and she wants me to be happy; and she's never - since she really understood them - been anything but open about the fact that she'll never be able to satisfy some of my core needs. That's part of why she's so supportive of my seeking that with someone else. Not all of it, but an important part; she knows that there's some level where we'll both be unsatisfied together. Dan Savage would refer to it as the "price of admission" - is what we're missing worth what we get out of our relationship? - and the answer for us is a "yes" that neither of us questions, but in some cases it can be harder to agree or decide.
There are a few things you can do, but most of them aren't different from what you do in every-day life; just scarier and occasionally more difficult. You can find people who support you, who are willing to accept you even when they don't understand. And you can find people who are a fit to the relationship you need. It can be a long process; it can be scary, and difficult, and even painful. But it's just as possible as any search for a partner, and you can find the right person - or people - who will fulfill you and give you what you need to be happy
Don't give up hope.
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