Originally produced for my fetlife writing page I decided this would be good here too (I really enjoyed writing it!):
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When I lived overseas I stayed in a small town where even a ten-min
trip to the shop would turn into a night out as I'd run into someone I'd
know, we'd get talking then head to one of the nearby bars for happy
hour drinks, then another bar, then another until I was staggering home
drunk with my squashed loaf of bread thinking, "shit, how am I going to
get up in the morning!"
Something shifted when I came home though to a huge city where if I
go to my local supermarket, I am completely anonymous. I walk the isles
finding what I need and pop it on the counter before flipping open my
phone to a text message from someone about the weekend. I hardly connect
with the check out chick (saying hi, how are you right back at her)
then go home.
Every moment of my life is planned: I work five days' a week and plan
my weekends before they happen. There is very little room for
spontaneity and excitement which may be why I enjoy my time at local
BDSM clubs.
Something I've noticed about disconnected Australian's though is that
we're always somewhere else: at dinner mother and daughter are on their
phones, chatting to their friends on facebook. Every few months I
receive yet another email from someone who I used to know (kinky people
more than not) asking, "Why don't we talk anymore?" to my surprise and
often a response of, "Because we don't? Because we moved on in our lives
and I'm living right now in the present. I've no need to look into the
past."
When did Aussie's get so out of synch with what's happening right
now? Why do people find living a life online to be more rewarding than
living in the here and now? Will the BDSM "grow out of" this phase and
go back to real time relationships and using fetlife and other tools as
just that - tools to maintain connections they already have?
Just something to get you thinking on this mildly cold summer day.
