My disappointment with the kink community.

This was posted elsewhere.

Snarky bit, "I'm sure no one is going to read this which only emboldens me."

I've held this in for nine months and I want some catharsis.

My first disappointment happened about two years ago. I went to a "popular" munch about thirty miles away from me and I went stag, rather than with my friend, which is huge considering my social anxiety. I brought along board games in hopes of interacting with other kinksters and making friends. Nothing beardy, just Munchkin and Settlers of Catan which are fairly normiecore and maybe a hair more complicated than Cards Against Humanity.

At the beginning luck was on my side and I found a table where I placed the games in full view and began the process of psyching myself up to try and interact with people, maybe make a few friends.

My heart leapt when someone came over, "Is anyone sitting here?"

"N-no. Please."

"Thanks." and that person dragged the chair away towards their cliquey high school tribe. I say cliquey high school tribe because it's like they were the outcasts and nerds and weirdos in high school and cachet of being a kinkster made them "badass" and "edgey" and boy howdy they're going to live their best life regardless of whatever micro and macroaggressions they suffered from Chads and Stacys. I was never a Chad and I kept to myself.

Sadly it's become a habit.

A few minutes later the same thing happened. At least they asked, but I looked at the final chair and wondered how long that'd remain at my table.

Not very.

So I finished my overpriced sports bar fare and left.

I had a munch that I mained, invited there by a friend who ran it, and got to know people. I don't believe I made any friends but I had friendly acquaintances. Quite a win for a spectrum-y introvert. Hell, I almost felt like I belonged and anything I had to share could brighten someone's day.

Wound up talking to someone who would only complain and want to be, metaphorically you perverts, stroked while I gave gentle advice. Making matters worse was their predeliction for sharing really dirty laundry as if they have one over the people who "did them dirty."

Full disclosure I ghosted them and I don't regret it one bit.

One thing I learned from my involvement in kink is that I come first. Not in that way since it's always important that she experiences that first.

Some time after that I went stag to a play party for the second time. Just wanted to hang out, maybe socialize and it seemed ideal since there was significant overlap between my former munch and the play party attendees. I'm proud that I politely advocated for myself by expressing my discomfort hearing cavalier words being bandied around regarding suicide. Still I was a bit put off. The rest of my time was spent going from the play room to the vanilla areas or petting cats outside. Social situations, even among acquaintances, burns a lot of my fuel. Much later in the evening there was a discussion in a common area and someone I didn't know from Eve was there.

"Huh. If this person is here then they're probably okay too" so I took the (metaphorical) stick out of my ass and jumped into a conversation about the challenges of meeting people. After giving my two cents this person, who I believe is close with the play party's hosts, pretty much says I'm a fucking incel. Considering her potential relationship to the hosts I wasn't going to talk back, so I grabbed my few things and left.

Full disclsoure I shouted, "Fuck!" as I walked back to my car.

Months later someone who I thought was not interested in me showed some interest, we hung out once, and apparently I screwed up writing about them in a circumspect way to express my elation that I might've made a real friend. No shit-talking about this individual in the least, but apparently that was a hard limit, they expressed profound anger at me, and we stopped chatting altogether.

And that was the cap on my bottle for dipping my toe into the kink community. I've thought about maybe attending the successor munch but figured it'd be weird, there'd be whispers and I'd see more backs than faces at the venue.

Just because people are weird, kooky, or quirky doesn't necessarily make them better than the normies. Just because someone may have the same life experiences as you doesn't make them a peer. Everyone has different experiences shaped by nuances one may not have experienced in their life.

So I'm a snowflake. My feelings were hurt. I feel some people were being assholes.

Fine, y'all don't owe me anything and that cuts the same way. Maybe I am a snowflake in your eyes, but in my eyes I see myself upholding the prime tenet of kink.

"I come first."

Now I'm going to go back to my persona of the guy who thinks he's on Facebook and completely clueless about the innuendos rife on Kinky & Popular.

Maybe I'll make someone laugh. Because of me, not at me.