:)

Well this is unprecedented. The Pedant just randomly texted me a link to a funny internet thing. With dogs in it.

In the past he’s generally been dead silent for days after I’ve brought up relationship issues I was having. Like, unable even to respond to small talk. EmotionsTalk just borks up his system, usually, and he needs to retreat and devote all his processing power to figuring out what I’m telling him.

The funny link reassures me that he still likes me even though he’s being silent. Awesome.

Sigh.

Aired some of my grievances with The Pedant. Mostly via text message, because when he briefly came by last night to pay me back the money he owed me, I found myself completely unable to organize my thoughts coherently.

He was understanding when I told him that I felt taken for granted – that the phrase “I’m gonna need to crash at your place on [night] because I have a late shift and then an early shift and I need a place to sleep” implies both that he’s staying here only for the convenience, and that my place will automatically be open to him, like a hotel. He said he didn’t mean it that way and that he was staying here partly for my company. So that’s cool.

Subsequent things I told him…he did not reply to at all. Probably just processing but of course AssholeBrain is making me consider the possibility that he’s in the process of deciding that I’m too much of a pain in the ass and he hates me.

I know that emotion-talk stymies him and he needs a lot of time to parse shit out and try to understand, so I don’t wanna bug him right now. But goddamn could I ever use some reassurance. I did text him asking if he’d like to come over Wednesday night (which he offered to do, last night when I saw him, but at the time I thought I was working). He’s read that. But has not replied. And it’s making me crazy.

Annoyed

As I said, between The Pedant using my place as a crash pad because it’s convenient to his work, “asking” for favours using the phrase “I’m gonna need you to…”, and being a gigantic starfish in bed, I’m feeling a bit taken for granted.

I’m also feeling like I’m being slotted into the role of Nurturing Feminine Type Person and it is ill-fitting as all hell on me. I am not a nurturer. I’m snuggly and physically affectionate and I’m able to rally myself to help my loved ones in short bursts if they need it. But I’m very much not the “Awww, honey, don’t worry, I’ll take care of you” woman. When I help people it’s because I want them to be doing well, not because it particularly fulfills me as a woman or whatever. It really just exhausts me. Taking care of myself exhausts me.

Now, I’m not saying that The Pedant is thinking of me as a cosmic titty, necessarily, or trying to make me into one. I’m doing at least some of this to myself. If someone I love is having a rough time and I have the capacity to help them, I have a really really hard time not doing it (let’s blame my mom – I guess I’m not as “over” her conditioning as I thought). When The Pedant would say “I’m gonna need to crash here on Tuesday and Wednesday because if I don’t I’ll only get to have five hours’ sleep those nights,” I said okay even though it inconvenienced me. I couldn’t stand to be the reason for him being underslept. I even offered to have dinner ready for when he got here at 10pm-ish, so that he’d be able to eat immediately and then go to bed (wake up time: 6am). The idea of having dinner ready for some dude when he got home made me feel like I was turning into a Stepford wife and it kind of turned my stomach, but I reassured myself that I wasn’t being domesticated, I was doing a logical and helpful thing on a temporary basis (and he’s done logical and helpful things for me, too). The Pedant didn’t accept this offer, though; he bought food at the deli counter of the all-night grocery and ate before he arrived. He also referenced how I’ve said I sleep better than usual when I’m next to him, and how he was hoping that would be a way of “paying me back” for accommodating him. So I do think he’s aware of the precarious balance of things and trying not to overstep.

The fact remains, though, that within the past few weeks:

• He’s crashed here numerous times, making it very clear that it was not to see me per se but just for the use of a bed
• He’s had me pay both his phone bills for him because he didn’t have time – using my own money – and hasn’t paid me back yet
• He had a few other errands he intended to send me out on (“I’m gonna need you to…”) but I said no

All this “I’m gonna need you to…” is making me feel like his personal assistant, not his partner. It also feels like he’s just assuming I’ll do all these things rather than actually legitimately asking me. Probably it’s really just a quirk of his speech but still. Actually the fact that he uses the word “need” probably hits my guilt buttons harder, too, than if he’d phrased it as “Hey could I stay over tomorrow so I can get more sleep?”

So I wanted some counterbalance, and had asked him to come over on Tuesday night specifically to focus on me. Pet me to sleep, maybe give me some orgasms first, etc. He ended up cancelling because he’d had a rough day at work and just wanted to be alone. Which irritated me because I’d let him crash here a bunch of times when I would rather have been alone – or at least, would rather have not been woken up by his alarm at 6am when I didn’t have to wake up til noon – but fine, that was my fault for letting him infringe on me. It does nobody any good if I strongarm him into coming by when he doesn’t want to, though, so I just wished him happy alone-time and left it at that.

He did ask, via text, if I’d like him to come over on Wednesday, though. I said if he was up for lavishing attention on me, then yes, by all means. (Meaning: if you come over, don’t expect to be a little pillow princess like usual; arrive with intent to spend effort on me or don’t bother.) I could see that this message had been read, but he didn’t answer it. A few hours later I added some other thing as an afterthought; that, too, got read fairly promptly, but four hours later I’d still gotten no response. I haven’t slept well in about a million years and my anxiety is running high. I know this. I tried to talk myself down. Finally I caved and texted him “if it’s taking you this long to think about it, shall I assume it’s a no…?”

He said he’d been sleeping most of the day and that’s why he didn’t answer, but yes, he would come over. I refrained from pointing out that I knew he’d read the texts ages ago (I don’t want to be policing him like that. People are allowed not to respond to a text immediately! But at the same time though, it would have taken him a second or two to reply “yes” so WTF?). I just told him I was working til 4:30 so he should come by at 6. He said okay.

But of course at 5:30 last night I get a text saying “I probably won’t be by until after 8pm; I’m running late with all the errands I was going to do.” So there’s the first irritation.

He finally got here at about 9:30 (in fairness, part of that was popping into a dollar store for something I’d requested). His arrival interrupted me mid-shower and he never fucking has his copy of the keys on him so I had to get out to let him in.

We came upstairs and I finished my shower and by then he was naked, too. I kissed him and he immediately started moaning softly. This did not have its usual cachet for me; his arms (as usual) hung limply at his sides as he received my attention and that just fed into my feelings of being neglected and taken for granted.

Tangent: I haven’t been feeling fulfilled lately in our D/s. I’ve been consistently letting his tantalizing reactions lead me down the path of tying him up and having sex with him, which is fun and makes me feel in control up to a point (since I can make him squirm and moan and since he is helpless when restrained) but for the most part I’m not feeling dominant in the way that I’d like. I’d need to actually make him do things for that; as it stands he’s just an object I’m acting upon, and doing all the things he would have wanted me to do anyway. It’s feeling kind of hollow.

Oh I would be remiss if I didn’t properly set the scene here by mentioning that I was (and am) PMSing like a MOTHERFUCKER right now. So definitely more cranky about small things than usual. But probably all of this stuff would have been at least a little annoying to me even on a good day.

So anyway I requested a shoulder massage, and he complied. As usual, it felt from his body language (and constant chit-chat) that he wasn’t regarding this as serving me in a D/s sense; simply as doing me a favour. In between periodically asking me “feeling better?” (as if wanting pleasant attention paid to my body is an affliction, or as if he was wondering whether he’d fulfilled his perfunctory duties as my partner yet and we could move on to fun stuff) he made small talk about his day. Mostly, actually, small talk about other women he’s interested in. First he lamented that he’s going to be at some goth event with the chick from work who he thinks is really cute but who probably isn’t compatible with him, so what on earth will he say to her? Then he talked about the condo that he and his other partner* will be moving into sometime in future, and how they’ll be decorating it. Then he asked me if I have any room on my credit card right now and when I said yes he was like “I may need you to put a couple of concert tickets on there. It seems more practical than aiming to buy them at the door and them maybe being sold out.” (The Pedant doesn’t have a credit card. He sometimes asks me to use mine, for things that require one, and he’d give me the cash. I mean he’s asked about the possibility a few different times but we never ended up actually doing it for whatever reason.)

And I’m sitting there thinking, “When I touch you I get completely absorbed by your body’s reactions and can spend hours in a trance of running my hands over you and divining the very best ways and places to draw out pleasure. And this is what I get in return? An absent-minded massage while you ask me to buy concert tickets for you and another woman? Are you fucking kidding me right now?”

But I was PMSing so hard that I couldn’t figure out how to say any of this without being waaaaaay too shouty and blamey and pessimistic.

I did manage to casually say “Hey did you ever notice that instead of actually asking me to do things, you go ‘I’m gonna need you to…’ like I’m your personal assistant?” (And this did the double duty of distracting him from talking about other women…)

He claimed that he says that as a heads up that he’s going to ask me a thing, and then he does ask. I said no, I don’t actually recall him phrasing any of this stuff as a question, ever. There’s only ever the “I’m gonna need you to…” He apologized.

I’d been sitting on the edge of the bed for the massaging. After my shoulders had been pummeled into a state of relaxation and I said it was enough, The Pedant flopped back onto my mattress and rested his head on his linked hands. I stretched out next to him head-to-toe and demanded pettings. He began stroking me from my ass to the backs of my knees, still in a sort of absent-minded and perfunctory way, although at least he wasn’t talking anymore. I think he started dozing off; his fingers kept stopping mid-caress and I’d twitch my leg impatiently and he’d get going again. He asked “feeling better?” three or four different times during all of this and I started replying “if I want you to stop I’ll let you know” each time.

As usually happens when someone runs their fingers along the backs of my legs, the soles of my feet starting tingling in anticipation and wanting attention. The Pedant kept stopping at mid-calf, though. “My feet require your attention,” I said. He said okay (and didn’t seem to be dozing off anymore by this point; his caresses were steady and constant) but still just stroked down as far as my ankles. I actually had to prompt him again. Only then did he touch my feet – and it was to massage them.

I like having my feet rubbed. But I like them caressed more, and caressing is what he’d been doing all the way down my legs, so the fact that he switched to a different mode of attention at my feet makes me wonder if he somehow forgot (AGAIN) that my feet are a major erogenous zone for me when petted, and assumed that my soles are ticklish like most people’s. That would be fairly infuriating as I’ve been his primary (and often only) partner for a year or two now; it’s not like he has a whole bunch of women whose preferences he might confuse. I have flat-out told him on several occasions that I like my feet petted, and he has petted them and seen me howl in pleasure. Nothing else but orgasming makes me utter sounds as intense as when my feet are petted. And yet the memory of making me scream and thrash and hump the mattress apparently done slipped his mind. So again I say: I’ve given him hours upon hours of pleasure, tailored to his specific body with almost scientific precision – and this is what I get back?

Honestly I feel kind of stupid for having such a weird erogenous zone, anyway. If a guy refused to touch my genitals I think I could muster some righteous rage because dude, wtf? If a guy keeps subtly avoiding touching my feet, though, or doesn’t touch them quite the way I want, I feel awkward having to repeat the words again and again. So I received The Pedant’s reasonably adequate foot massage without telling him that I really wanted to be caressed.

Then I reversed myself so we were lying head-to-head and foot-to-foot again. I cuddled up to him and ran my hand over his torso and he started making the tiny little moans and whimpers that mean he’s receptive to sex. Cool, but I wasn’t going to let his seductive sounds distract me from my own needs and make it all about him again. I rolled onto my back, dragged his right hand onto my crotch, and said “pet me.”

He started stimulating my clit pretty hard and in a way I don’t like. “No, no; just pet me. Lightly. Tease me,” I said. He did the same uncomfortable clitoral stuff but with slightly less pressure. What I had meant was that I wanted him to run his fingertips lightly over my whole vulva, not stab my clit like a doorbell. I took his fingers and tried to guide them to lightly stroke up the centre line, but that initial pushing of his hand to the bottom part made him assume that I wanted his fingers inside me. And I thought sure, fuck it, let’s do that. I didn’t have the patience to explain every little thing right then; I’d probably snap and just start yelling “Why do you suck at everything?!?!?” and he doesn’t suck at everything so that wouldn’t be fair.

Fingerbanging is one of the things he does in a way I like. After a minute or two he got up and knelt between my knees for a better angle. I reached over the grabbed the Hitachi and – shockingly – he took it from me and wielded it himself.

When The Pedant is trying to get me off, he never just finds a thing that seems to get a good reaction out of me and then sticks with that. He seems to want to be all fancy and be trying different shit out all the time. Or maybe he’s just so socially tone deaf that he can’t tell when I really like something so he’s just cycling through every technique he can think of, figuring once he hits something that works for me, confetti and flames will shoot out of my vag. I don’t know. But basically he kept changing things up every ten seconds. A lot of it did feel good, but too intense, like if I let it kick me over into orgasm it would hurt. I told The Pedant this, and compared it to the time I way overfocused on the head of his cock during a hand job – it got him off but was way too much. I took the Hitachi from him and finished myself off while he slammed his fingers into me, and the orgasm was better than I’ve had in a long time (probably because someone else was helping – my last bunch, even ones had with The Pedant, were entirely me).

After a quick pee break I cuddled up to The Pedant again and thought about maybe falling asleep. He was making tiny “oh hai there just so you know I’m up for sex” whimpers from my arm being across his chest, but hey, I’ve gotten him off without reciprocation a bunch of times so I would give no fucks about passing out and leaving him hanging.

But I decided that I craved more penetration, so I got The Pedant all riled up and then used my legs to pull him on top of me. Interestingly, by now he was finally in sub mode and remained so despite being on top. He gasped when I rolled him on top of me and lifted himself up slightly to allow me to put his cock inside me if I chose to. Once he started thrusting I played with his nipples relentlessly, wanting to see how fast I could get him off, both for the thrill of power and because I was pissed off and PMSing and feeling neglected so I was damn sure not going to treat him to my usual hours-long extravaganza of attention. As soon as he came I kind of wished I’d allowed him to last longer so I could have had more sex, but oh well.

And then when he rolled off me to fall asleep I shoved his hand to my crotch again and made him fingerbang me again while I got myself off.

The calibre of attention he gave me that night was not what I’d been seeking and I’m still pissed off about that. I don’t feel mollified. But I feel a tiny bit avenged.

This morning he said something stupid that pissed me off and I decided I’d had enough. He’d been going to crash here again tonight for convenience but I said don’t come by after all, I want the place to myself. He asked if it’s because I was still mad about his stupid comment and I said I’m actually angry about a few things lately but I’m also PMSing really hard so I’ve been trying to wait until after that to discuss it all.

All last night I’d been stewing and he hadn’t noticed at all, but now he finally became solicitous. Suddenly he started talking about how he would help me back up my aging computer one day soon, and put all the stuff onto the newer one. When I walked him downstairs to lock the door behind him, he kissed me and murmured “We’ll talk soon and work things out, okay?” and even stood there massaging my temples and shoulders for a while. Seeing him get a little panicky was kind of vindicating. I can see that he wants to please and impress me, and that’s a good thing.

What’s not good is that he only wanted to please and impress me once he realized I was becoming disenchanted with him. It doesn’t seem to occur to him to do happy things for my body just as a matter of course, when I’m not angry and he’s not trying to suck up. So…that’s not great.

 

*I don’t really know what’s up, there. When this plan was first set in motion, he referred to her as a friend that he used to be seeing. They were going to move in as roommates – not “live together” in a romantic capacity – but she had apparently told him that the prospect of them fucking was not out of the question. Lately he’s been referring to her as a partner. I’m vaguely threatened by this whole moving-in thing anyway so I’m opting not to ask for details of whether he’s back to screwing her on a regular basis and that’s why the title change, or…?

 

Teasing The Pedant

The other night, The Pedant crashed here solely as a convenience because my place is closer to his job than his is and he had a late shift and an early shift back to back. It’s obvious by how he framed it that he wanted to crash here, not visit me per se. Which is fine; I’m glad to help. But he just had to make a bunch of little digs about how I’d have to somehow keep my hands off him and refrain from fucking him.

Those little jokes pissed me off and this made me realize: I base a lot of my idea of myself around the fact that I have enormous self-control. He kept implying that I don’t – thereby doubting or negating one of the qualities I value most in myself. I did not like it.

He didn’t request that I sleep separately from him or anything. First off it’s my apartment so I don’t think he’d dare be so rude. Secondly he knows that I’m an insomniac and that having him next to me often helps me fall asleep (he even said later that he thought he could sort of “repay” my hospitality by helping me sleep better).

I’d had a really rough day that had stirred up all my anxiety and my shoulders were so tense they hurt. When he got here I asked him to massage me for a bit. He did (and asked me if I was feeling better literally every 15 seconds or so, which was a record even for him and the next time it happens I’ll call him out on it because wtf) and then he lay on his back on the bed and pulled me down so I was cuddled up to the side of him with my head on his chest. I had a little stress-release cry (which he seemed to recognize for what it was, and he shut up and held me through it – a thing he always claims he can’t do) and then focused on trying to doze off.

Except that the proximity of my naked body was clearly turning The Pedant on without me even doing anything.

My arm was slung across his midsection. As I concentrated on my breathing and tried to relax…I suddenly became aware of his erect cock tapping insistently on my elbow.😀 I don’t know if he was so turned on that it was pulsating or if he was flexing over and over again on purpose to try to get my attention, but yeah.

But he’d told me ahead of time that he needed to sleep and I’d just have to rein in my libido somehow, so I completely ignored this. An erection isn’t consent, after all.

A minute later I shifted the position of my legs and just my foot brushing against his made him moan. I casually shifted my arm so my elbow was away from his cock – incidentally running my hand up his arm in the process – and that made him moan, too. And okay, I’ll admit it, I knew by then that he wanted to fuck me but I’ll be damned if I would start anything up and prove his theory that I have no control with him.

And so I entered a battle of wills with him. I don’t think he knew it was a battle of wills. But I set out to make him use his words to ask for sex, without doing anything particularly sexual. I started cozily, companionably running my hand over his arm or stomach – places that are not thought of as erogenous zones. Just intermittently. He started moaning pretty much constantly. He caressed my back and arm in return, and I sighed and moaned as I always do when caressed; it’s not specifically sexual, he’s petted me to sleep like that many times and I’ve made the same sounds.

The Pedant shifted my arm to rest further up his torso, apparently so he could gain access to caress the side of my breast. Eventually his hand strayed delicately to my face (which just melts me omfg I had to rein in my response very carefully there) and even pushed his fingers into my mouth briefly. Then lifted my jaw and we kissed for a little bit. I kept waiting for him to push my hand onto his cock or nipple or tell me he wanted to have sex, but he did not. After a little kissing I went back to resting my head on his chest and just held still and tried to sleep again, but The Pedant continued making a steady stream of moans and whimpers even with me just lying there.

This whole charade had been going on for at least ten minutes. It seemed that if I didn’t break our stalemate it could go on a lot longer – which would normally be fun but he did need to sleep. It was around 1am by that point and he had to get up at 6:30.

I kissed his cheek and murmured in his ear “Do you want me to leave you alone so you can get some sleep?”

“No,” he said. And so I finally allowed myself the freedom to TOUCH ALL THE THINGS. In retrospect I wish I’d antagonized him just a wee bit more – pointing out his rude comments before and basically telling him to concede that I am the champion of control. Oh well.

“You have me too well-trained,” he said as I started kissing his nipples. “Just lying in your bed makes me crave being tied up and coming for your pleasure.” I am highly ambivalent about that particular approach to dirty talk. It’s…not unhot. I mean I guess he’s saying that all the hot sex with me has made him associate my bed with the sex, but technically his words skirt around the idea of me being hot or sexy or talented and make it sound like his body is just doing this automatic thing because mattress. Also I do love it when he comes but I think he may be a bit too convinced that it’s all I really need out of an encounter. The time before that that he was over, we were cuddling and I petted his chest and he instantly rolled spread-eagle on his back like I’d pushed a button. Like “Yay! It’s time to lie here like a beached whale while the nice lady pays attention to me!” I’ve gotten out of the habit of insisting on participation and reciprocation and I’m frankly feeling a bit taken for granted. I need to fix this.

Anyway. I limited the sex to a quickie, and went without an orgasm of my own, so that he could sleep. When he came it was epic. I was leaning on his wrists (not wanting to take the extra time to get out the restraints and buckle them on) and I leaned in to kiss him and that apparently sent him over the edge. I caught his moans in my mouth as he slid his hands out from under mine and wrapped them around my hips – not clamping down to make me stop thrusting, as he sometimes does; just I guess seeking to be closer to me. I kept slowly thrusting to milk every last possible bit of pleasure out of him and he gave me a bunch of wracking full-body shudders. I’m ninety-nine percent sure I gave him a crygasm. He even swallowed a bunch of times during it (and the tear glands and salivary glands are connected; I’ve noticed that when I cry, my mouth fills with spit). I tried to back up and look him in the face and he pulled my head into the crook of his neck so I couldn’t. Prawr.

He then fell asleep still in the exact centre of the bed. Sigh.

I’ll admit that I’m feeling taken for granted lately. There’s the way he accepts all my sexual attention without offering any back; there’s the way he falls asleep in the actual middle of my bed as though there isn’t another human present who’s at least as big as he is*; there’s the way he used my face as an actual pillow the other night; there’s the way he states things instead of asking (“I’m gonna need to crash here again on Thursday.” “I’m gonna need you to run some errands for me because I got last-minute overtime tomorrow so I won’t have time.”).

Plus of course the last bunch of times I’ve seen him were practical “crashing at my place” nights where there wasn’t much time for us to hang out or anything (and we didn’t have sex except for the time mentioned above).

I had actually asked him to come over tonight; I have to get up really early tomorrow and was hoping he could lavish me with attention that would hopefully put me to sleep at a decent time. When I asked him this, I’d believed he was working another crazy early shift and we’d actually have to get up at the same time. Turns out that shift had been cancelled and he has tomorrow off – but he agreed to come pet me, anyway, and wake up at 6:30 for no good reason. That made me happy; I was frankly super surprised he’d volunteer to do that, what with his hectic schedule lately. I assumed that with him suddenly having the day off, he’d want to go home and sleep in.

And he does. He texted me this afternoon cancelling our plans.

So… yeah.

I’m not super mad over the cancellation but I do feel like I need to address the imbalances I’m feeling sometime soon. Be more proactive on calling out his behaviour while it’s happening, and stuff. And demand to be the focus of attention more often in bed. Because that’s another thing – our D/s isn’t fulfilling me too much lately and I think it’s because it’s taken the form of me binding and gagging him while getting him off…and that’s about it. I’ve been weirdly timid about asserting myself to ask for things he’s less enthusiastic about, and as such I’m not feeling dominant, I’m feeling like a fantasy facilitator. I need to get my mojo back. But it’s a bit of a vicious cycle; feeling sexually used is somewhat killing my libido, which gives me less motivation to randomly be like “You! Come here and get me off now,” which makes me wanna watch him come in order to get me kickstarted, and then he’s asleep so I just take care of my own pleasure.

 

*I confronted him about this and he said “Just push me over when that happens.” Well, I guess that’s better than if he’d acted fully entitled to the whole bed and got cranky if I tried to claim my part of it. Still though. There are two of us. It’d not rocket science that after the sex he should scootch over.

The cult of Tony Robbins

There’s a documentary on Netflix about life coach Tony Robbins. I’m just finishing it right now. I already knew who he was, but had never really seen him in action. The doc shows a lot of what he does with people. I am left both admiring and horrified. Also a little bemused.

If you don’t know who this guy is, he’s not a one-on-one kind of life coach (or at least that’s not what they showed). He does these huge, stadium-filling shows where he goes out and talks to people in the audience.

Watching how he talks to people to try to unravel the source of their problems, I was reminded of the old carnival huckster’s trick of pretending to be psychic: say a very general thing, or tell someone something they want to hear, and to a large extent this shill/customer will lead the conversation. You just have to follow their cues.

Later on in the doc, Robbins admits he does exactly that. He says he doesn’t fix people by doing what he thinks is right, he fixes them by doing what they think is right. He lets people guide him to the kind of help they’re looking for.

His instincts in this appear to be very, very good. That’s the part I admire. He’s incredible at reading people.

On the other hand, though, giving someone what they think they need is not necessarily going to help them. What if they’re not very self-aware and the problem they think they have is not the problem they actually have? Judging by his interactions with many of these people, what they needed was validation. There was a theme where he kept telling suffering people how strong they were.

I agree that people who’ve been through hard times are strong. And I think – in North American culture, anyway – there’s a stigma that even just having negative feelings is weakness, so that people who are suffering through shit are probably also lambasting themselves for this. So they probably need to hear that they’re strong. But sometimes that’s…kind of all Robbins tells them. They get all ecstatic and teary to hear this and everyone applauds but…I mean…nothing is solved. There’s no game plan for them get to a place of not suffering anymore, unless the plan is “when you’re sad, just remind yourself how strong you are” which is tantamount to telling someone to fix their shit using positive thinking. Feh.

Oh, wait, I’m at the closing credits now and they’re telling us what happened to the handful of people they showed Robbins interacting with. They are allegedly continuing to be fine. The documentary never did feel very balanced, though; more like a big ass-kissing session. I’m certain they cherry-picked who to include, and made sure everyone who made the cut had a happy ending.

Here’s the bemusing part: Robbins shows himself to be super gender essentialist, talking about “male energy” and “female energy” an annoying amount and making reference to tired old gender stereotypes. Which is funny because he makes his living listening to, empathizing with, and healing people – all things that are very much culturally coded as feminine. He swears a lot, and claims that it’s to get people’s attention and make them listen better, but I have a strong feeling it’s actually to protect his fragile, fragile masculinity; it’s to counterbalance all the time he spends nodding and tearing up while listening intently to people’s problems. I just want to hug him and rock him and tell him, “Don’t worry, Tony Robbins. Gender roles are kind of bullshit anyway, but even if they weren’t, you’re 6’7” and have that barrel chest and deep, deep voice. Nobody’s gonna mistake you for a chick. Sssssssh. It’s okay.”

Two other random thoughts:

1. His shows incorporate some chanting/meditation stuff that comes across very cult-like and creepy to me, as does his often overly simplistic take on how to solve people’s problems.
2. One of the women he helped looks so much like a blonde Mia Sara to me that it’s completely uncanny.

 

WOOT.

An artist/photographer I know wants to book me for a three hour photo shoot.

TBH I’m way more comfortable with being drawn than photographed; if a drawing makes me look weird I can blame the artist but if a photo makes me look weird it’s a bit harder to blame that on anything but how stupid-looking my parents are.

But he’ll let me play with wigs and costumes (I love playing dress-up!) and he’s agreed to pay me $100/hour. For five times the typical drawing/painting/sculpture rate I can live with my weird dumb face being immortalized.

Goddammit.

I just got the weirdest feeling that The Mensch – an excellent prospect* who broke things off with me exactly a month ago – had actually committed himself to a dominant, and I checked his FetLife profile and sure enough he’s listed as “in service to” someone as of three days ago.

Goddammit.

When we were dating (both times), we seemed to have a huge and fantastic chemistry. The first time around, he left to pursue some vanilla chick (despite having said in the ad I met him through that he’d had enough of vanilla and now was the time he would finally bust out and pursue his dreams of kink and submission…). The second time around, he was overthinking everything to death. He told me that he didn’t know for sure that his kinky fantasies would turn him on in real life and he didn’t want to “lead me on” by entering into some big relationship with me and then realizing that none of the way he’d portrayed himself was actually true. I was like “Look, you don’t have to enter into some major D/s thing, and you don’t have to try everything at once. We could just try one small little thing that you’ve fantasized about, in a casual one-off capacity, and you can see how it feels, and then if you wanted we could try another. Or do that with someone else. Whatever. But my point is, it’s not a horrible thing to tell someone ‘I’m not absolutely sure I’ll like this thing but could we try it?'”

He seemed interested in exploring with me, but didn’t actually say okay to any of it. He continued angsting about how he just doesn’t knoooooow and it would be so unfaaaair to me and I pretty much wanted to yell “SHIT OR GET OFF THE POT FFS” – not to push him into playing with me but because I was so very sick of his whiny vacillations. That first time I dated him – when he put up the ad saying NO MOAR VANILLA EVAAAAR! – that was three years ago. And even back then he was saying that he’d known he was kinky/submissive for years; he just kept falling into vanilla relationships where he was afraid to bring it up. Well, here I am – again – into him and compatible with him as far as anyone knows and willing to gently experiment with his fantasies. So what’s the problem?

Our first date had been absolute alchemy; we talked over coffee for six hours about all manner of things, leaning in close to each other as if magnetized and mirroring each others’ body language unconsciously and just generally having an effortless rapport; then we found a secluded alley and made out for a good fifteen minutes with me alternately being sensual and a little rough and his erection gouging into my pelvis the entire time. The next day he sent me an email with pics of him in lingerie, taken just for me because I’d inspired him. And he said he’d never before been on the receiving end of such voracity as I’d shown him when we made out, and he loved it.

Our second date was when most of the angsting took place, and he was seeming a bit distant. When I went to kiss him at the end he said he didn’t want to get into a whole huge makeout thing again, and I was fine with that; we were in a much more public place than last time.

And then when I asked him out on a third date he replied that he’d decided we wouldn’t be sexually compatible so he was now only open to friendship with me. Interesting. His obvious erection during our making out (and semi-constant one when we were just talking; he would mention it every now and then, or give me a pointed look and subtly adjust himself) would seem to disagree with that assessment. It seemed to me that he was just being a big conflicted chickenshit. I even told him that this kinda seemed like a case of him panicking because he was right on the brink of getting some things he’d wanted for years and years. But I didn’t ask him to reconsider or anything. That kind of shit is beneath me. I simply pointed out that I felt he was doing this due to feeling conflicted, and then I wished him luck in his future endeavors.

And now – a month later – he not only has a dominant, but he considers the relationship entrenched and official enough to have listed it on FL.

Here’s a weird thing, though: her profile identifies her as mostly a lesbian and mostly a sub. She’ll dominate a man but it kinda sounds like she doesn’t sleep with them. Is this why she made the cut and I didn’t? Because she relieves him of his all-consuming worry of misleading a dominant sexually?

Also, by the way, she’s in her 20s and specifically states that what she really really wants right now is a dominant woman at least ten years her senior. I most certainly would not feign bisexuality and entice her into falling for me so that The Mensch would feel neglected and overshadowed. But the idea is making for some really good daydreams.😀

 

*Excellent because he was smart and very cute and had a general kink outlook (and some specific kinks) compatible with mine. The big fly in the ointment being that he was conflicted about his submission.