Vanilla dating and me

I texted the vanilla man I asked out last year. I know it’s been FOR-EVAAARR, but he was still on my mind. Enough time has passed for him to deal with the stuff that was going on in his life, so I figured he was worth another nudge.

I also optimistically rejoined a vanilla dating site. Cue the usual ‘wtf is WRONG with people’ type messages:

Hi how are you feeling now love feel free to talk to me anytime you want to okay love my name is [nobody cares] and I would like to talk to you please I hope to here from you again soon

Ugh.

I gave up after a day or so, removing my pictures as a precursor to a big fat noping-the-hell-out-of-there exit. Before I bailed, I clicked ‘like’ on 3 or 4 men who had great pictures and interesting profiles to bookmark them ‘just in case’ and then I was out.

Two of those men sent me decent messages after I deleted my pictures (or, at least, my email notifications tell me so in the previews), and I’m genuinely trying to generate enough of a care factor to log back into the shitshow and do the work to see if there’s any THERE there.

I go through the same ‘should-I/shouldn’t-I’ thought process every time I consider vanilla dating.

My thoughts on it, as ever (repurposed from my twitter):

Re vanilla dating and my writing: I don’t have a problem saying that I write erotica/sex-related content (though that’s not accurate, it’s the easiest way to say it).

I have a problem with the fact that any and all of my writing is linked to everything kink-related about me in great detail.

That means I can’t answer any detailed questions about it (and if they’re interested of course they’re going to ask) until I’m ready for them to see ALL THE THINGS.

So then I’m like some Shady McShady about my life as if I’m ashamed or similar.

All of my writing & social media & online friends are all about this *waves vaguely around*. It’s D/s, it’s femdom, it’s BDSM, and that’s my blog, my books, my twitter, my group on Fetlife, my Facebook…

The fact that it’s so ubiquitous makes it a weird ‘all or nothing’ deal in response to very simple ‘getting to know you’ type questions and I get exhausted just thinking about navigating it.

Them: “So… what do you do?”

Thinks:

• I write an award-winning blog that’s been in the top 100 sex blogs for years
• I create a Q&A type advice podcast
• I’m a published author of seven books
• I’ve written a successful erotica book
• I’ve published three other non-fiction ‘how to’ guides
• I edited two books of personal stories, one of which I got into the best seller’s list on Amazon
• I’m trying my hand at my second fiction book now
• I run the biggest discussion group in the world in my niche
• I discuss all of that and more with my people on social media

Me: Eh, not much.
Them: “WTF? What a loser!”

Oddly, my family & casual friends accept ‘I live at the beach’ as an answer to this question *laugh*. BUT they aren’t *actually* interested so it doesn’t count.

I also think that once a vanilla man sees this huge world of D/s and my place in it, their immediate reaction is going to be ‘I’m not that guy!’ which is fair enough. And given my immersion in it, there’s no way I can convincingly say ‘Well yes, that’s me, but I’d still like to see what we can build here’ even if that’s 100% true.

My most successful and longest term relationship was with a ‘vanilla submissive’ with whom I never touched a bit of formal D/s. He was just the pleasiest pleaser who ever pleased :). It’s not impossible.

All of that to say that just thinking about logging back into this vanilla dating site and responding to messages from attractive men *who I actively chose* seems like a hell of a lot of trouble and I’m exhausted by the idea of all of it. This even though I would LOVE to just have a normal every-day flirty-fun run-of-the-mill DATE. I’m girding my loins to re-enter the fray as I write this.

As to the vanilla man from last year: He responded positively to my text, and we exchanged some messages, but he’s out of the country at the moment. I’m not a texter, so have no interest in some tedious back-and-forth shenanigans. I told him to ping me when he gets back in a couple of weeks. So we will see if he does or not.