Home: seeking and finding, pt. 2

seeking and finding, pt. 2

Dear angel,

While I'm working out the finer details of Bondage Scrabble (by popular demand), I thought I'd post part two of my advice for those seeking kinky partners through online dating services. As always, these are the rules and guidelines that were successful for me when I was looking for you, and they may or may not work for anyone else.

Chatting.

Once you've managed to attract her attention, there's a few things to keep in mind while you chat.

1. Be yourself, as much as possible. This is critical. If you are "playing a role", you WILL be found out, sooner or later. Why waste her time and your money by pretending to be something you aren't. If you're brash and agressive, don't pretend to be sensitive and thoughtful. And vice versa, of course.

2. Learn how to convey sarcasm, humour, and such in an online chat medium. Remember, when you are typing the words out, she can't hear your tone of voice.

3. Flirt with her. She's going to want to be wooed, so expect it up front.

4. Move slowly. Everyone is going to have different expectations of what's going on.

5. When you feel ready, make a move, and start trying to appeal to her sexuality. **THIS DOES NOT MEAN TELLING HER ABOUT YOUR PREVIOUS ENCOUNTERS**

6. Try not to fall into any of the obvious traps of online chat. "What are you doing? What are you wearing?", etc. Try to be a little more creative and original than that.

7. Try to introduce areas of mutual interest in the conversation. After all, you DID read her profile, didn't you? You DID chat with women that were interesting to you, didn't you? You want MORE than just a bed partner, don't you?

8. Don't ask for a picture right off. See if there's mutual interest first. Yeah, you may end up chatting with women that are not attractive to you, but asking too early for a picture identifies you as a horndog. (BTW - 2 sentences in is WAY too early, guys. Give it five or ten minutes before you ask...)

9. Never send risque pictures *unless asked to do so*. (Yes, I have been asked on more than one occassion for risque pictures. No, angel wasn't the one asking.) This means don't have them in your profile. That's right, no pictures of "your little friend", please. She probably won't be interested, because women don't tend to be nearly as visually oriented as we men are.

10. When there is a level of comfort between the two of you, try to move the conversation off of the dating service. Move to MSN, or email. Or ask for a phone number, if there is sufficient connection. This will probably make for a more focussed conversation, on both your parts.

11. Tell her your real first name early in the conversation. Yeah, I know, it can be scary to do this. But it definitely shows that you're looking for something more real.

12. When you're chatting with her - FOCUS ON HER. That means that you don't want to be having 12 chats at once. She'll realize what's going on, and it sends a negative message. If you're in too many chats at once, pick one or two, and focus on them. Don't keep bouncing from chat window to chat window - you'll mix them up, or take too long to respond, and lose the opportunity.

Negotiations

Okay - so you've attracted someone's attention. She's indicated that she's kinda interested in you, and now you enter what I call the negotiation phase. The length of time that passes is going to vary from woman to woman. Some are going to be adventurous, and will be willing to meet you after one or two chats. Most are going to be more cautious, requiring several days of chat, along with email and/or phone calls.

1. Set the expectations. If you are seriously committed to something, let her know up front.

2. Discuss the "tone" of play that you are looking for. Do you want play to be something along the lines of an interrogation scene? Or are you more interested in controlling the timing of her orgasms? Do you want expect to call her humiliating names? Or do you want something else. Give her an idea of what to expect from a scene. And figure out what SHE wants from the scene, too.

3. Discuss limits and squicks. There's nothing worse than finding out half way through a scene that she's seriously squicked by something you just did, or are about to do. Communicate, communicate, communicate.

4. Discuss your experience level. If you are a newbie Dom, then let her know early in the discussion. (Hopefully, you've also put this in your profile.) If you've been playing for 20 years, let her know that too. And find out how long she's been playing.

5. Talk about favourite activities. If you seriously enjoy bondage (like I do!), then let her know. Try to get her to describe her favourites, too. Just because she's submissive doesn't mean she shouldn't have some say in what happens, after all. (Who would stay in a relationship that didn't include activities that she liked?)

6. Discuss WHY you like some of the things you like. This will help her understand your particular kink, and let her see if it's compatible with hers.

7. Realize that at any point, she may bail on the discussion and disappear. Yeah, it's annoying. Yeah, it's rude. But it's also a fact of life that you'd best get used to. There are 10 men for every woman in the world of online dating. The fact of the matter is that if you squick her, or treat her without respect, she'll disappear into the net without a word. DO NOT HARASS HER IF SHE DOES. Send her a polite email/message wishing her well on her search.

8. Look out for women that don't really know what they're looking for. If you have accepted your kinky side, and you've decided that it's an integral part of you, and therefore of any relationship you enter, then you don't want to get involved with someone who's probably going to have "an adventure" and disappear. The "idea" of being a submissive can be much more attractive than the reality for some people. There's nothing wrong with having adventures, but I tended to be looking for something long term.

9. Look out for women who want to be submissive to work through their own issues of insecurity or past history. You are not a therapist. (And even if you are, do you really want to date someone that you should be seeing professionally?)

Wow - I'm a wordy bastard, aren't I? Every time I look at this list, I realize more things that I want to add to it, then I realize how long it's getting. It wasn't easy finding you, angel, and there were more than a few misadventures along the way. The final result was worth it, though, darling. I'm very happy that I've found you, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing you more (and seeing more of you ;-) )when our workload drops again after the holiday rush.

Neko

posted at 04:29 PM :: Comments (6)
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