Dinner at our house

The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson~

We live mostly quietly, and largely, within our own walls and lives. We go about our daily work, as people who are "in disguise." The disguises enable us to continue to live reasonably well from a financial and economic standpoint, but there are definitely costs in emotional and social terms. We participate in the public scene very sporadically, and almost never here in our own community. Partly, that is about being "careful," but to a much larger degree it is about the feeling that there is a mismatch between us and our needs, wants, and visions about "community," and the present reality of the local scene.



So, we've worked at finding ways to connect on a more personal, more organic level with people who might be interested in creating relatedness with us outside the "in-group" social milieu of our local BDSM community. We've had some interesting success on that front. Over the last couple of months, we've entertained people here in our home who feel like congenial matches on the scale of potential friendships. We've sat around our big table and shared some pretty good food, some decent wine, and lots of interesting and intriguing conversation. And that feels really good.




It isn't easy. Meeting people is a tricky proposition. First, there's the issue of finding folks who are interested in meeting and then spending time with us. We think we're fun and interesting, but a want ad that touts the advantages of friendship with an aging kinky triad probably wouldn't garner a whole lot of positive response. And, we're sort of picky. We are inclined to prefer people who are fairly bright, people who are interesting, people who can hold up their end of a conversation. We haven't got anything against the idea of getting together with people who might want to play if things worked out like that, but if that's all there is to recommend a new acquaintance, it probably isn't going to end up being a match.




Even when we find people who seem like likely prospects, we have to work our way gingerly through the mine-field of initial contact. It is almost always a question of what we might mean by "friendship." In a world where the question, "would you like to be my friend?" is more often than not accompanied by penis pictures, it is easy to understand why people would be hesitant to link up with some plaintive sounding stranger from the Internet. And ours is a complicated situation -- by the time we run through the list of descriptors (committed, heterosexual, fMf, 24/7, BDSM, poly, triad, intentional family) eyes can start to glaze over. No surprise there.




But, we've managed to hook up with some brave souls. And thoroughly enjoyed our time with them.




It causes me to contemplate ideas like friendship, community, and social association in the lifestyle. We've been around the public part of the scene for a long time. Our first real-time meeting was at a major leather event. We enjoy playing and socializing in public. Still, we've seldom (if ever) formed any sort of significant relationship at an event. Too, we've seen more than one public lifestyle group devolve into in-fighting, power struggles, and backstabbing. Over and over, we've shaken our heads at the seeming incongruity of people who live a marginalized lifestyle excluding, belittling, and exploiting others like themselves over sometimes unbelievably fine shades of difference.



I think that the reality is that groups are not necessarily good vehicles for creating personal networks of support and friendship. Groups survive and thrive, or falter and fail depending on a number of factors. However a social group evolves, it must, ultimately formulate a shared vision and direction if it is going to grow and move forward. As the "vision" of the group is defined, it is a given that there will come to be an "in-group," and by definition, a set of individuals that are "out." How the "in's" choose to deal with the "out's" goes a very long way to determining the way the group manifests in the world.




Friendships, on the other hand, are personal relationships. They are each unique. Formed by and between the individuals, a friendship is woven out of a multiplicity of threads that bind people to one another. You can nurture a friendship but you can't define it with a list of rules and requirements. Friendships are not "organized" by their very nature. Friendships don't lend themselves to hierarchies or business models. Friendships are much more akin to gardens, where the soil is prepared, the seeds planted, care lavished, and rewards gathered in as the seasons dictate.



I don't know about the BDSM community. Perhaps it really does exist, but maybe not. Maybe it is a unicorn that we've all talked about and imagined, but never actually seen. Perhaps the best we can hope for is the occasional successful BDSM organization to do the work of convening gatherings, advocating our political agendas, and providing leadership, education, and training. That's a tall order. Maybe it ought to be enough, and we should refrain from demanding that our organizations also provide the context within which we, as individuals, are spared the hard work of creating lasting and fruitful friendships.




swan