It is common for people to take a step back and dedicate a portion of their time to self reflection at the beginning of a new year.

As opposed to making that process coincident with the Earth completing yet another boring loop around the Sun, I like to entertain such thoughts closer to my birthday instead (the 5th of April), which seems like a much better occasion and excuse to celebrate and look back.

By the time I turn thirty seven next week, I will have been a member of this site for almost three years, and I think that it is fair to say that this site has changed me; not in a drastic, or in a bad way. But the more we grow, the more we find ourselves wanting to learn and experience new things, for which change is usually a suitable mechanism to go through.

This has always been a trait of mine, also in my personal and my professional life: I do not like stagnation and I do not do well staying at idle over extended periods of time.

My time in OF has not been any different.

When I first joined, I found myself surrounded by people who, for the first time, understood a very personal part of me that I had rarely shown to anyone else.

I would say that my communication style back then was certainly more assertive, if not borderline aggressive. Perhaps under the misconception (unfortunately shared by many) that such were the tools and characteristics of Dominants. 

Being, at the time, surrounded by a number of very successful Alphas with a clear bias towards leather, boots worshiping, or pain-play (kinks which were not particularly high up on my list of preferences, or not as high as they were in theirs, at least), made me question my approach to domination compared to theirs.

I was still feeling a sense of belonging, but there were very significant differences between us that I struggled to reconcile.

Yet, these guys managed to pique my interest on a continued basis, and even brought a competitive side out of me, wanting me to do better within the scene. And the ability to motivate others is something that I will always admire in people.

The chat room was a fundamental tool for me to gain perspective. I found myself chatting with other users for hours, subs and Doms alike, getting to know them better, appreciating the nuances of their dynamics, learning about what made them tick, getting insights into their psyche, and eventually bounding with them.

And, as I learnt more from them and about them, I also learnt more about myself: what fascinated me the most about this site was and will always be the human interactions.

It is not about sums of money, it is not about the rankings, it is not about sex; it is about building trusting relationships:

With my fellow Doms, because they are individuals sharing a rather unique and uncommon kink with me.

And with subs, because the unquestioning obedience that most of us seek comes from building trust and developing relationships, rather than from proclaiming a title and dictating rules.

And, as it happens, I have always been good and thoroughly enjoyed building relationships.

I did not need the gear, I did not need the aggressiveness and, for what is worth, I did not even need a face. I just had to continue exploring the beauty of human interactions and their multiple facets to find my place.

As a wise submissive from this site said once (yes, there are A LOT of smart, incredibly intelligent, and wise submissives around): the rest are nothing more than tools to “lubricate” such relationships.

Fast-forward a couple of years, my approach has not changed much ever since that initial realisation. What has drastically changed is who I choose to cultivate those relationships with, and how much energy I opt to invest in each of them.

Arguably, it is a matter of deciding “whether if the juice is worth the squeeze”. And if you think I am talking about cash, think again; subs and Doms can offer a lot more than that.

I have significantly reduced my interactions in the chat room, I have not made as much contributions to the site as I used to, but I am still enjoying it, having fun and I plan to continue celebrating birthdays as a member of Submit for years to come.

I would urge you to dwell and dig deeper too. Open up (not only sexually, but also mentally), make your dynamics varied, get creative.

Transactional interactions can be fun, but they are usually short-lived.

As I often tell my subs: in a few years time, you will not remember the individual tributes you received or made, but you will certainly cherish the way some of them made you feel and the interactions that you had the opportunity to share along the way.