Very well said, delia and I agree completely! My Master and I met online and chatted for a year before W/we finally met IRL. The road was a bumpy one, particularly since I had come from an abusive marriage, had worn the velcro collar and had pretty much closed off my heart and mind to the possibility of being involved with anyone else again. But Master slowly and patiently broke down the wall that I built around myself. W/we have now known each other 9 1/2 years. And like with you and Torq, W/we do have real lives outside this site and also outside BDSM.

You are very right when you say that springtime brings a lot of newbies here to this site. I have been seeing more and more new Dom/mes and subs here and T/they have all been looking for the same thing: someone to hook up with. And T/they want to hook up with that new person NOW. Just slap that collar on now and let's get crackin'! T/they look at me agast when I tell T/them that Master and I chatted for a year before W/we met (I know Doms and subs who have been chatting for years and have never met and some probably never will, due to mileage, family situations, etc). So Master and I chatting for a year online really wasn't that long, though to the newbies that seems like an eternity. And I can read the desperation in T/their text in the chatroom and in the forums. That scares me, because when a person is desperate that keeps a person from choosing carefully and wisely. People sometimes don't realize just how easily it can be to get burned online and how deeply it can hurt when it happens to you. Patience is a very difficult thing to get past, but you need to have it when it comes to finding the right person online. It's not easy, but it can be done. Delia and Torq are living proof as are I and my Master, RedWraith.