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themischievous1 -> RE: A question about play party etiquette and respect (6/21/2006 9:41:52 PM)
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I'm still not sure how we got to this place from where our discussion ended but I think that's one of the dilemmas of the long distance relationship. A couple's disagreements have to be solved via the telephone where one can't look into their partner's eyes and get a feel and sense of exactly how things are being left. It makes for communication problems and is one of the challenges faced by not being able to be together when arguments arise.
At any rate, if it isn't obvious yet, I'm apparently the submissive this thread continues to refer to. Frankly, I've never been one to hide my identity or be ashamed of who or what I am so I'm addressing this matter head on and presenting my thoughts openly and honestly to all of you who responded to Steve. When I'm wrong I admit it fairly promptly, learn from my mistakes, make whatever amends are owed and then try and move on.
Steven started this thread out of frustration and possibly anger at me and I understand that now. I'll admit that I was absolutely furious when I found out he had begun this thread, whether anonymous or not. I am not one that wants my dirty laundry hung out for the online community to get a sniff of and I was thoroughly pissed at what he did, however I understand now that somehow our communication derailed and this thread is the result of that.
In my defense, Steven can only present one side of this matter to all of you and that is his side. He can only write his opening post from his perspective. You reading it can only respond to the data you are given from his perspective. Had I written the opening post, many of your responses might be somewhat different; regardless of that, I have learned a lot from this entire thing and that is the following:
Steve has never played in public and was nervous and afraid about doing so. I didn't realize how incredibly nervous and apprenhensive he was. I was self centered and only focused on the fact that I didn't want to be seen as some kind of voyeur type couple who only goes to the parties to watch and doesn't participate. It was for exactly that reason that I wanted Steve to agree to play me the first time we attended a party together and not have us sitting on the sidelines. I thought if he and I played privately several times before the party that he should have plenty of confidence to play when we finally attended our first party together here in my local group. I thought he would be over his nervousness and that he was wrong to want to sit on the sidelines instead.
I've now realized I was wrong in my thinking and should have been more sensitive to Steve's nervousness and anxiety about playing when he's never been to a party before. My insensitivity to my dominant has caused this matter and has caused him to come to you and ask for your opinions instead of resolving it with me. This has taught me to listen to Steve more and be less insistent that he perceive things my way. I've also learned that what the other people are thinking at a play party is probably my own perception and likely not accurate at all. I now see that we probably can just watch and will not be perceived as being voyeurs who just want to watch the show and not ever participate. I overreacted to how not playing would be perceived and that was just stupid of me.
This has also taught me that Steven and I are nowhere near ready for a real D/s relationship yet. And why is that? I'm not collared to Steven and we have only been seeing one another for a couple of weeks. We began emailing and talking on the phone six weeks ago. We recently decided to become exclusive with one another and not see any others and thus we have been going together for about two weeks or so. That isn't even close to an ownership M/s type of relationship. We simply aren't there yet and somehow that didn't come through in Steve's OP. We need to slow down, back up, get to know one another better and allow trust to develop over time.
All of you are correct in that when I am ready to submit fully to Steve that I should submit to and respect his decisions. I thought I was ready to submit to Steve and I told him I would. I jumped the gun though and he also jumped the gun by wanting that from me. This little experience and the constructive criticism given to us on this thread has taught us both that neither one of us is ready to control or submit to the other. We desire to work on ourselves independently first in our prospective roles and down the road make a commitment to try and begin power exchange with one another. Right now though, we just want to learn who Steve and mischie are with one another, vanilla-speaking and as people first. We'll get into the complications of power exchange later after I've learned to trust Steve's judgment and have discovered just who this man is I want to submit to. He'll be ready to dominate me after he's learned who I am and taken control of some of his own issues.
I'm writing this post with Steve's permission and I'm not doing it anonymously because I don't feel we need to hide who we are nor do we need to be ashamed when we make a mistake. I don't need to be ashamed. Everyone makes mistakes and I'm hardly going to claim to be a perfect submissive before any of you. Relationships are difficult and I think D/s relationships can present even more of a challenge. Being submissive is has been a continuous journey and an incredible growth experience for me.
I appreciate all of your posts and thoughts, though I admit some of them have been difficult to digest and have stung a little. They have, however, caused me to reassess Steve's position on this topic and I now know that when I am ready to fully submit to Steve, I must be ready to accept his decisions on all things. That time is not yet at hand but I thank you for helping us discover that it is something we can work toward if we truly desire it. We look forward to hopefully growing together slowly to arrive at a place where this will one day be possible.
Regards to all of you,
mischie
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