By Amethyst Wonder
Way, way, back in the day, when it first occurred to me to look for kinky partners on the internet, before I’d ever had casual partners, before my needs had evolved into their current state of complexity, before I developed my processing or communication skills, I had an online interaction that I wish I’d handled differently.
I started out my kinky life identifying as a submissive, because that had been my relationship experience to that point. I was pretty new, and very wide-eyed. I found myself in an online conversation with a local Dom. I honestly don’t remember who first contacted whom, though my timidity at the time was enough to indicate I was the contacted, not the contact-er.
I was flattered by the attention and excited by the possibility of having found someone to help me explore my kinks. The Dom in question came on very strong, but I didn’t know enough to be scared off. I engaged in conversation with him, flirting, for a couple of days. However, I was not risk-averse enough to meet him without some vetting. I asked if he’d been active in any local groups or if we might know any of the same people. He gave me some background on his activity in the local community. I reached out to the two actual people I’d become friends with in the local scene to find out if they knew who he was. Boy, did they.
I got an earful of questionable (at best) and criminal (at worst) behavior supposedly displayed by this man. There were accusations of assault, embezzlement, harassment, and more. Everything they told me painted a picture of someone who was emotionally abusive, didn’t respect boundaries, and had major aggression issues. Even assuming there was another side to each of the stories, it was enough to stop me in my tracks. I decided I didn’t want to pursue any further interaction with this individual. I do not regret that decision.
What I do regret is what I did next. Which is to say, I didn’t do anything. I was sufficiently scared off enough that I stopped conversing with this person. Cold. I dropped off the face of the earth. While I may have had the right to do so, today I would not choose to discontinue contact without giving him a reason.
Being less tech savvy back then, I somehow managed to block him from my chat without blocking messages from him. The awkwardness and discomfort (and nasty messages from him) over the next couple of days probably could have been avoided if I’d simply told him right away I didn’t want to talk to him anymore. (Which I finally did, about two weeks later.) It was dismissive and disrespectful. Not knowing the truth behind any of the accusations, I could have been less judgmental (because, let’s face it, I was being super judgy.)
Let me be clear, I didn’t feel I was in any imminent danger. The person I am today would probably see the situation as a potential teaching moment. At the very least, being less afraid of conflict than I was then, I wouldn’t have been too intimidated to answer his earliest inquiries of where I’d gone.
I obviously don’t answer every message I get. But if I do open a discourse with someone, I make a point, now, to let them know if and when I close it. Look at me; I grew.