a helping hand

[underwhere]

Part of the process of choosing to enter this lifestyle, no matter whether cursorily or with a far more involved relationship, is in figuring out what you are looking for. It seems that the problem that many newbies have is not being fully in touch with themselves and their needs and desires, whether they are Dom/me, sub, or switch. As a result, if one does not know or consider what one is at all interested in, and perhaps more importantly specifically what one is NOT interested in, the plethora of ideas and situations available can be overwhelming at best, and dangerous at worst if trust is too easily placed in to the hands of somebody who may not be worthy of that trust.

Personally, and I'm guessing this is not true for everybody, I'd spent a great deal of time prepping myself for wanting to get involved, and ultimately choosing to do so, even with my very specific personal concerns. (Those are a bit more complicated than I wish to delve into in this thread, but I'm more than willing to share privately if anybody wishes to know about those.) Even then, what I started out with was only a very faint inkling of understanding of myself with regard to my needs and desires in this area of my life. That has grown greatly as I've engaged in various elements of online exploration. Writing has always been an exceptionally good means of communication for me, in chatrooms, forums, and in blogs. I've chosen to utilize that strength of mine in this exploration, and so far, I seem to have been fairly well rewarded, both in clarifying my own needs and desires to myself, and in communicating those to the people I have interacted with online. (As of right now, I have no r/l experience except for some telephone conversations, and those were of the "getting to know you" type.)

I believe that a lot of this gives me a leg up on those who were wishing to "rush into things" a bit quickly. I never intended to rush into any of this. For me personally, safety is a paramount concern of mine. Nonetheless, I'm still learning. I've spent a lot of time tonight reading in the forum here about some specific strategies one can employ in an effort to attempt to ensure a safe meeting with people you've never met before. Some of those strategies seem both clever and extremely useful in attempting to ensure a safe situation. Many of the strategies I had already considered and planned on employing, but some I had not considered at all, and of those, I plan to employ most, if not all, of them.

It can also be particularly difficult to consider potential "bad situations" if you've never really encountered those in your life before. Because of my specific circumstances, socially, I'm constantly in a state of mental and physical alertness, even outside of this particular realm of s&m/BDSM. One wrong move by me could put me in a REALLY bad situation that, even if I were to get out of it, I probably would not be able to do anything about it after the fact, so I do have to be extremely careful. Knowing this, I have made my explorations go at a pace that has been very slow because I did not want to find myself badly burned, and quite likely physically and emotionally wrecked in the process. This is what I HAVE to do for me. For everybody else, while it is of course optional, it would probably come highly recommended because the stakes are nearly as high if a bad relationship or situation develops.

I think the best we can do for newbies is to let them know that they need to take care of themselves and ensure their own personal safety and well-being. Ultimately, we can only be responsible for ourselves, after all. I've seen lots of efforts at that in the welcoming threads if somebody thinks perhaps a person has introduced themselves with a little more than what might be wise. Being able to point such things out is really important. Whether or not newbies heed such advice, if it is given, is really up to them. Any one of us, I'm sure, could be a reasonable guide, but if somebody is determined to not be guided, there really isn't much any of us can do here to prevent potential bad situations from occurring.