Over on his excellent blog, Rad in a fit of musing yesterday, brought on by having to fill out a vanilla Facebook page, commented about the kink world and "reality" --
I don’t like an overabundance of artifice although I put up my own fronts when needed (i.e. the Radagast persona that writes this blog). However, even though I do use a nom de plume, the thoughts I spew onto this space are mine and often quite unfiltered even if somewhat edited for content. This person is me and probably the closest to the real me that people would be able to see. My life in the outside world is now fake to me — it is the alternate reality that is somewhat out of step with who I am. Especially at work and in my professional networks, the fakeness of it all is hip-deep.
It's a wonderful blog entry and I found myself nodding along in agreement. I mean, apart from my family and work as a graduate student (both of which are obviously important to me), I have no vanilla life anymore. No vanilla social life at all.
Like Rad, I nearly freaked out filling out Facebook and never have completed it. Yes, I still do vanilla work and have have a few vanilla friends. But all the close ones are ones I made before I got involved in the scene in 1997. I haven’t made a close non-scene friend in over 13 years.
This is kind of depressing.
And yet, last summer when the second of my two close vanilla friends moved away (they both left within 18 months), part of what I felt was relief that I didn’t need to worry about her dropping by when I was wearing a school uniform. (Another part of me was very sad, of course.)
The downside, and there is a downside, is that despite being introverted, I’m sometimes quite lonely now for human contact. My closest girl friend in the scene lives 6000 miles away and neither of us is great about writing, maybe partly because what I want isn’t writing. I miss having a friend I can go out for coffee with and sit and chat a couple times a month. And no, we probably wouldn’t talk about kinky stuff. But we could. I wouldn’t have to guard my tongue, worry about saying too much, always be the listener.
I can't see any way around this (and I don't especially want to be "out" at work -- I value privacy in all directions there). But I hate worrying about maintaining the walls, especially when in my heart I don't feel what I do in private should matter to anyone else. But it would. It wouldn't be the end of the world, but it would matter.
As a friend once said, "the Titanic had compartments too."
