Paranoia on overdrive

[Krinaia]

Single, new to a new town and with but one acquaintance outside of work. I got minorily involved in the local munch but missed the munch and have to wait three more weeks for the next event in order to meet people. My attempts had community service and book clubs have so far failed to put me in contact with people my age. It's frustrating and I understand it will take time.

Here's the problem though. I have been contacted by a couple of local singles online and they all set off these paranoia red flags because the things they say seem like things men say that they think women want to hear such as: "I like to cuddle" or "I like to walk the beach". Retarded stuff. And I often get asked where in town I live if they want to set up a date - they say it's part of deciding a place that will be local to us both. But it just is none of their business where I live or work. And then I just tell them to go f"ck themselves. I'm not sure if what I'm seeing really is worthy of my paranoia or if my paranoia is due to my single status 400 miles away from any family or friends that would look out for my safety. I mean, if I go missing right now, no one would notice til I didn't show up for work - I would use safecalls of course... but still.

at what point does paranoia stop being healthy and become detrimental to your ability to get out there and meet people? Bdsm related or not

 

[Marquis]

I deal with varying degrees of paranoia myself.

The problem with paranoia is that it is often both justified and unjustified. When a guy tells you "I love to cuddle and walk on the beach", he may very well be bullshitting you, but that doesn't necessarily mean he's a bad guy. Could be he's a hardcore sadist Dom, but didn't think you wanted to hear about that before the first date. Could be he's just a rapist. Maybe both!

It's good to have a healthy sense of caution and risk management, but at some point paranoia will become a self fulfilling prophecy. If you are constantly suspicious of people's motives, they will see it, and it will make them suspicious of yours. In my life, I find it helps to keep good mental notes of people. I keep pyschological profiles on anyone that is remotely involved in my life, and I trust in my instincts and powers of perception.

To sum it up, I don't trust people, but I do trust people to be themselves. If I lend a guy five bucks, and he doesn't think to pay me back without me saying anything, I just let it go. I don't hold it against him and hate him for it, I just put him in the category of people that I simply will not lend money to.

I have friends who I would trust to put themselves in serious physical or legal danger to help me. I've seen them do it. However, I might not trust this same friend to borrow my car and bring it back in one piece.

Of course, I'm not a therpapist, but thinking of things in those terms has come to help me in my life. Particularly when we're very lonely, I think we tend to oscillate between unrealistically hopeful and unrealistically pessimistic expactations of people.

Wow, that guy was so cool, I can tell we're going to be good friends!

That guy was a fucking asshole! I better never see his ass again!


The truth is always somewhere in the middle, and I think you tend to figure that out as you get to know people better. It's a terribly cold way to look at it, but at the end of the day you have to ask yourself what any given particular relationship can do for you. I compartmentalize my friends a lot, always have. Different friends for going out with, doing business with, working out with, etc. etc.

Of course, I'm probably a sociopath, so what do I know.

 

[Krinaia]

I deal with varying degrees of paranoia myself.

The problem with paranoia is that it is often both justified and unjustified. When a guy tells you "I love to cuddle and walk on the beach", he may very well be bullshitting you, but that doesn't necessarily mean he's a bad guy. Could be he's a hardcore sadist Dom, but didn't think you wanted to hear about that before the first date. Could be he's just a rapist. Maybe both!

It's good to have a healthy sense of caution and risk management, but at some point paranoia will become a self fulfilling prophecy. If you are constantly suspicious of people's motives, they will see it, and it will make them suspicious of yours. In my life, I find it helps to keep good mental notes of people. I keep pyschological profiles on anyone that is remotely involved in my life, and I trust in my instincts and powers of perception.

To sum it up, I don't trust people, but I do trust people to be themselves. If I lend a guy five bucks, and he doesn't think to pay me back without me saying anything, I just let it go. I don't hold it against him and hate him for it, I just put him in the category of people that I simply will not lend money to.

I have friends who I would trust to put themselves in serious physical or legal danger to help me. I've seen them do it. However, I might not trust this same friend to borrow my car and bring it back in one piece.

Of course, I'm not a therpapist, but thinking of things in those terms has come to help me in my life. Particularly when we're very lonely, I think we tend to oscillate between unrealistically hopeful and unrealistically pessimistic expactations of people.

Wow, that guy was so cool, I can tell we're going to be good friends!

That guy was a fucking asshole! I better never see his ass again!


The truth is always somewhere in the middle, and I think you tend to figure that out as you get to know people better. It's a terribly cold way to look at it, but at the end of the day you have to ask yourself what any given particular relationship can do for you. I compartmentalize my friends a lot, always have. Different friends for going out with, doing business with, working out with, etc. etc.

Of course, I'm probably a sociopath, so what do I know.

Lol, yah but you seem to be an adorable sociopath.

Oneproblem is: I've gone non-lifestyle in terms of BDSM, I feel it opens me up to new possibilities without limiting myself to labels and allows me to pursue other fetishists or to corrupt non-fetishist vanilla types who seem to be very open minded. OR at least that is my current theory. But the problem is guys who seem to be saying things they think I want to hear piss me off, because they can't just be honest.

For example: recently a divorcee of vanilla nature cotnacted me. Seemed cool but he was the one that liked to cuddle and he said a few other things that to me seemed like he was just trying to fulfill the perceived perfect swm ad. It annoyed me and I called him out on it. And he professed to be geninune and wasn't at all moved by my cynicism and sarcasm which right off told me he would be too hard to pervert. I tried to give him the idea that I was uninterested and ended the conversation. Two days later he ims me and asks if I thought of him. I said no. And finally he acts hurt and tucks tail and walks off (figuratively).

It's things like this that make me wonder if I'm jumping the gun with a sense of paranoia that these men are trying to fool me into thinking they're what I'm looking for when in truth, I'm just looking for open and honest people with whom I can make friends or lovers so that I don't have to come home after work, feed my fish and wish that I could afford cable.

 

[Private_Label]

For example: recently a divorcee... I tried to give him the idea that I was uninterested and ended the conversation. Two days later he ims me and asks if I thought of him. I said no. And finally he acts hurt and tucks tail and walks off (figuratively).

It isn't your responsibility to help him not feel rejected. He failed to catch the hint and if he wasn't ready for your negative response he shouldn't have asked if you thought about him.

There are forums where I hang out where the age of the people I meet can be any age (including children to young to know better) so I do not get into sexually charged conversations with them. Ever. One guy failed to take my "I'm not interested in you" at face value. He had to keep pushing it - I put him on ignore and he bugged everyone else so badly to tell me to take him off ignore that he wore out his welcome and ended up getting banned from the site.

If your red flags go up about someone, trust your gut instinct. More often than not it is correct - the guy may not be a sociopath, but there is a good chance he wouldn't be a good fit for you. Set up dates in public places and arrive by your own means (with safe calls added in) or agree to meet at your "community service" activities that way you can see how he interacts with others. If you feel your red flags are still up, let him leave first, or have one of the other people walk you to your car.

Go out on a lunch date during your work week - that way you will have a set amount of time you can spend with him (an hour or less) and if it isn't going well, you can pull out your pager and say "I'm sorry, I need to call the office." Step far away from him and make a pretend call on your cell, then go back to him and say "I'm terribly sorry, I need to get back." No need to embelish the explaination. If he presses, say something along the lines of "not at liberty to discuss it."

 

[catalina_francisco]

LOL, seems Marquis and I have a very almost identical approach to people!! As to the paranoia thing and how that makes you react to people and what they say.....well you know, there are some guys out there who do like to cuddle and walk the beach, quite a lot actually....so they may not be lying, and why shoukd they begin and pretend to be someone they're not to then be accused later of not being honest? Also I always think if you want to be treated with respect and fairly, it is good to return that bahaviour. If someone is not exactly your cup of tea, I don't see that as a reason to get pissed with them and become verbally agressive or abusive, sarcastic or rude....it is just as easy to say thanks, but I don't think you are the one I am looking for, good luck...and then move on. Might help to think in terms of every time you are going to talk with someone online, how they wil perceive you, whether they will believe you are who you say etc., and if not, or you are not who they are looking for, do you feel it is their right to start being rude to you or would you prefer they just told you honestly, thanks, but not what I am looking for?

I always found honesty and openness was the best way to go to find people I could at least date, not having any expectations above geting to know each other, and not feeling it was up to me to get out there and show them what they might be missing and try to change or convert them. I guess though, in my age group, I figured if they hadn't already begun the process of finding what they wanted, it was not of interest for me to waste precious time wading through many to find the ocasional one who might enjoy the conversion process.....lol, I had already fulfilled the needs of my ego in that direction a longtime ago.

Ease up on the guys and look at them as doing exactly what you are doing....trying to meet someone to have a good time with, and just be open with them. Definately use safe practices, especially meeting in a very public place etc., but recognise there are many types of people on the planet, many of whom you may never have encountered before who may be very safe, fun, and wonderful in all the right ways. Have fun searching.

Catalina

 

[TaintedB]

Here's my two cents. First of all, the beach and fireplace-cuddle stuff is usually one of two things, or sometimes both: (1) people who really like those activities and don't realize how inappropriate they may sound to a fetishist looking for other fetishists and (2) people trying to be reassuring--see! We aren't terrible psycho-killer monsters! We like the same normal things that the vanillas do. Kind of dumb, but that's why people do it, in my experience. If I were a dominant-sadist responding to a masochist's personal ad, I'd put in the fireplace-cuddle thing in glowing, romantic terms, then add a "hot" phrase at the end about the convenience, in terms of torture, of having a hot fire close at hand. A woman who responded postively to that might be my kind of girl!

I understand your paranoia over "where do you live?" questions. People with any sense or intelligence won't ask that--so this might be a qood way to DQ the people without sense or intelligence! These people usually aren't stalkers, they're just lacking a clue or two. Someone who "gets" what it's like to be a single female will instead just ask you where in the metro area you'd like to meet and say nothing about your location. If I were in your shoes, however, and assuming I really wanted to meet somebody who prematurely asked where I lived, I'd simply lie to to them and then meet them in a part of town that was nowhere near my neighborhood. Later, if I ascertained the person or couple were decent and I wanted to continue the relationship, I'd tell them what I'd done and why I did it. But again, I do understand why this bugs you and presses paranoia buttons. It would with me, too.

Again, if I were you and decided because of other things they'd said to me (the beaches and fireplace cuddling shit would turn me off bigtime, too!) that I didn't want to meet them, I might vent at them, if I were in the mood, or I might just say "Thanks but no thanks." I don't particularly think telling someone in a personals-ad venue to fuck off is a bad thing because people who get dozens of really bozo or even hostile responses badly need to vent sometimes. And who knows, maybe if you and enough women get sick and tired of being approached in a way that makes you paranoid (such as with the pressure to know where you live) and tell such people the truth about that, they might eventually figure it out and change their approach to be less threatening to others in your situation.

Whether you say "thanks but no thanks" or "fuck off" there's one thing I'd be sure to do after that if I were you: I'd put the person on email ignore. The reason I'd do that is because of what my single submissive women friends who always send a polite "thanks but no thanks" tell me about their experiences with personal ads: the so-called "dominant" is so emotionally out of control and childish that he often writes them back a very vile or nasty response full of personal attacks, no matter how nicely-worded my friends' refusals are. Or that person will boorishly continue to argue with them, telling them how wrong they are about rejecting them and how right he actually is for them. While some people will not do this, you'd be surprised at how many will engage in such vulgar behavior, and of course you cannot tell ahead of time which relative strangers are decent and which aren't. It can be shocking and hurtful, especially if you've had a bad or tiring day, to come home and hear from someone you were nice and polite to that you're serverely mentally ill (the modern-day replacement for "if you don't like me you must be a lesbian"--as the latter phrase has lost a deal of its ability to wound, lol) in very vicious terms simply because you've told them you do not think you are compatible.

 

[Krinaia]

I often use the "Thanks but no thanks. But good luck in your search." That is my fallback answer to all the emails from TPE and 24/7 seekers who don't bother to read my profiles. This latest divorcee just found me somehow on yahoo, no connection to any of my bondage oriented profiles.

The advice you guys have given is in many ways, great. Lying about where I live - I often forget I can lie about such things under such circumstances. Lol, instead I find it necessary to chastise them for asking such a question so early on. But that this is better: to continue to feel them out, realize that they as men without daughters of their own to protect - might not think of the safety of a single woman giving out such information and it might also hint at their lives being untouched by violence or paranoia causing events. And the thing about them not having any common sense is something I have already thought over I just maybe wasn't using this realization in the ways you suggest.

Another recent dating mishap: A seemingly intelligent and gentle giant of a man claiming to be a dominant went out on two dates with me. But from his stories I could quickly see that he was a victim. So nice he let people walk all over him and take advantage of him. It was completely off-putting not simply because it implied he would not fit as a dominate in my life but because I have no desire to date someone that I have to watch out for. If things became serious, I'd have to be worried that he'd bankrupt me in his "niceness" and not just myself. I thanked him for the date, didn't promise to call or anything. And then he gave me this pouty nonsense about no one liking him when we spoke again a week later. Sigh.

I am never out an out rude to anyone, Catalina, not sure where you got that idea. I mean, I'll give a guy crap to see if he can handle my sarcasm. I mean, if a guy is a complete push over and backs down every time I say something that objects to something he says, well that is just no fun. But I will get "rude" if the guy or girl starts it first and the situation calls for it. Like the guy asking really personal questions about my sexual fantasies or something or telling me how wrong I am. Bleh.

The thing I like most is the lunch hour date. I think tht will give me a really good sense of security. I can sign out at the office with lunch at wherever in the log book, with expected time of return and if I don't return at that time, I know they'll worry and call looking for me. And the easy out is great. I think I will use this for not just date dates but non date dates.

 

[rikaaim]

It's things like this that make me wonder if I'm jumping the gun with a sense of paranoia that these men are trying to fool me into thinking they're what I'm looking for when in truth, I'm just looking for open and honest people with whom I can make friends or lovers so that I don't have to come home after work, feed my fish and wish that I could afford cable.

Wow. I love you.

Honestly, I agree with what your saying one hundred percent. I come home, feed my turtles, and wish I could afford cable. The internet is only luxury that I have, and it's about to be taken away as well. When I talk online its always with honest people.

I quit trying to say the things to please someone else. For too long I would say what I thought they wanted to hear. In doing so I only lost myself, as well as made everyone else uncomfortable and unhappy. Now, I'm just me. Like me or not, I'm not chaning who I am deep inside. Sure, with the right person, I can compromise, but in a loving and meaningful relationship, both individuals involved do.

It's good to see a woman's side of this story. I think some men may feel they have to say these things to even have a shot, but as Marquis mentioned, it could just be that they don't want to put all of themselves out there right away and risk overbearing the woman.

Anyway, I hope you find someone you can really be happy with. Great thread and topic of conversation. Good luck in your search.

 

[Krinaia]

Wow. I love you.

Whoa ... you are moving way to fast for me

I know, I had to get a local phone line to activate my security system so I figured ten bucks a month landline internet service was in my price range until I get settled enough that I can afford to put that portion of my budget into broadband service. And turtles? Neat!

It's just really frustrating talking to men at times. Another thing, I want girlfriends too, not just men friends or lovers. I would love to have a girl I could watch sex and the city with (on dvd) and talk about my man issues and work stuff and make cookies with or whatever girly things I want to do. But women are always wary of women who approach them online - at least, in my experience. Like I'm going to corrupt her into becoming a lesbian when I'm not even bi-curious enough to take my attention away from men long enough to give women a shot.

 

[catalina_francisco]

Sorry SB, guess I read quick and am used to a lot of people developing attitudes toward people online who don't fit what they want when they would not appreciate being treated the same way for the same reason. Seems so much more positive, energy wise and in many ways, to just accept people are different and none of us finds the right one first time we log on...would save a lot of bother if we did, but damn, too easy and not as much fun. The lunchtime date is a good idea....I did a lot of those and works great, especially if you find the person just is not someone you click with or want to spend too long with. Keep at it...you will find someone who fits the bill.

Catalina

 

[rikaaim]

Whoa ... you are moving way to fast for me

I know, I had to get a local phone line to activate my security system so I figured ten bucks a month landline internet service was in my price range until I get settled enough that I can afford to put that portion of my budget into broadband service. And turtles? Neat!

Yeah, I have four red ear sliders. They're getting big, but I love having them around.

I'm using cable broadband now. That's part of my problem. I would go to a cheapher landline, except that I owe the phone company more than I owe the cable company.

I'm sure in a small amount of time you'll find some new friends to help you fulfill your needs and wants. You seem to be a very intelligent and honest person who's not afraid at being open. Trust in your insticts like everyone else has said. Paranoid? Meh, maybe a little bit, but I don't think you're over doing it.

 

[Krinaia]

oh thank you wise and mighty leader remembering that I'm an intelligent being is not usually as difficult as convincing myself that I am sort of cute. But I deal with that - lately though, the new issue is being so single and relatively alone in a new place so far away from all my old friends. And since my parents were both married at age 19 right out of high school and all my aunts are a million miles away... I sometimes want for lack of sage advise.

For example: I ate ten pizzas during my final semester and sent off for a board game: I choose Life. I just got it in the mail and was so excited and wanted to play it but since I had no one to play with: I played for two cars by myself. Sad isn't it? Makes you want to eat a vat of ice cream.

If you have a wireless card, hang out in coffee shops. That's what I did until I decided to go the landline way and I might go back anyhow just so I can catch up on some videoes online.

Anyhow, back to task, Cat, I think perhaps that I understood that your rant about rudeness was no so much aimed at me as at the general populace of the internet that have had occasion to annoy us all I'm sure. I just wanted to make sure everyone understood, that I am in general, not usually the rude one.

Anyhow, sex and the city rentals (currently on season three) will have to be a substitute for my social life.

 

[Krinaia]

I have a lunch date tomorrow - not with anyone who has admitted to being a pervert but he's male and single and a little funny. I wish I could say I beat him to the punch line - but he asked me first. So I'm not EXACTLY taking your advice but I am following it.

And, he works for the company I have a phone with so I've held off on telling him my last name and other such information until I get to know him a bit.

Wish me luck.