Party invites and uncertainty

I’ve been invited to a party! I was never the type to get invited to social functions. Maybe a few times when I was small and it was customary to invite anyone you talked to at school to your birthday party. But even then, I struggled with showing up. I remember cowering in my mom’s car, scared to enter into an unknown social environment. Throughout my adolescence I berated myself for not being more social, having more friends, being more popular. I tried to make friends in high school and college, but the way things worked out I just didn’t have many people in my life.

In some ways I wasn’t ready for close personal friendships. Even now I wonder if I’m ready. My social skills and self-confidence have grown tremendously since meeting my Master, and I’ve become much more accepting of myself. Still, I have moments of regret and insecurity about my social life. Personally, I find I am much more successful in small social settings.

When I first entered the kink community I did so by inviting people out for coffee, just to pick their brains and learn about their lives. I wasn’t looking for sex or play, I was looking for information. I was curious about them. About this world. How all of this could be real and not a fanfiction trope that existed exclusively online or in books. People actually did this stuff in real life?

Yes, they did. And do.

I do.

I put a lot of pressure on myself to get things “right”. Socially, I am … anxious? is probably the right word. I seem to invent problems where there aren’t any. I get close to someone, share parts of myself, and pull away because I’m afraid I’ve gone too far. I feel too vulnerable. Too exposed. The relationship begins, and then falls apart while I disappear.

I guess that’s avoidance actually.

It’s a pattern for me. One that I’m trying to break. But it will always be a part of me.

Probably.

The invitation

All of this to say, I’ve been invited to a party! A rope party, and one that will be attended by people who I really admire and would like to get to know better. No pressure. No worries.

Hopefully.

Sometimes I get overwhelmed by social conventions, especially when the people I am with are particularly extroverted. That’s not to say I’m socially inept – on the contrary, I can hold a conversation, charm the pants off of a willing participant if I feel particularly confident – but I have my moments of anxious overthinking. “Should I call them by their nickname? Everyone else does, but they haven’t given me explicit permission to do so. I don’t want to assume that we are closer than we are. Is it rude to use their nickname? Is it more rude not to?”

Then there’s the other common occurrence of being talked around. It’s not quite the same as being talked over. I was one of those kids who was well behaved in school and used by teachers to attempt to gain control over more popular/social kids. They would assign me to seats directly in between more talkative kids only for them to talk around me like I was some sort of unreasonably tall centerpiece on a dining room table. This happened to me as recently as this spring. It's probably the quickest way to feel invisible. To want to be smaller. To want to disappear. To feel unwanted. Unloved. Unvalued.

And, after all of that, we get to the imposter syndrome of it all. I’ve only just started this journey, and my ropes are shitty and my knots keep coming undone and I start a tie only to give up out of frustration and I’m afraid to ask someone to tie with me. I’m not cool or knowledgeable or smooth or competent.

I was driving down a dark country highway recently, when I saw the body of a small animal lying by the side of the road. A fawn. Soft and small and completely innocent. Trying to explore this big new world only to be thrown aside by a fast moving machine it didn’t understand. It couldn’t understand. That’s how I feel. Sometimes.

Am I kinky enough? Rope-y enough? Social enough? Good enough? I don’t know.

I guess we'll find out.

Cutting room floor:

• Social situations being overwhelming (party)
• Being talked around in school by other people. I was the quiet, well behaved kid who teachers put between the noisy popular kids to get them to shut up. They didn’t. They talked around me. I felt invisible. This happened to me as recently as this spring.
• I’m well behaved, I’m a rule follower.
• I’m not going to call someone by their nickname if I haven’t been given explicit permission first.
• Am I kinky enough? - imposter syndrome and proving yourself
• Being talked around
• Social anxiety