How did you find a Partner?

[RG_]

Originally Posted by sarah thorne

I met RG through a forum too. The same one.

Strange thing was, neither one of us was looking for a partner, either!

It was on SIN, on the discussion board. Even though SIN has a large personals section and is known for the feature, it also has/had a very good discussion forum, one of the best on the net. We had both been members for a long time. (In fact, I had been on SIN since the earliest of days, back when it was little more than the simplest of message boards and called "Spanking Memories").

Sarah was a very frequent poster while I was much more occasional. Nonetheless, we both knew the other's IDs from our posts, and on occasion it would be apparent that our political views were aligned with one another because they weren't with almost everyone else on the board. Other than that we really knew nothing about each other, including whereabouts. One day a member from England posted a question asking if anyone lived in Louisville, Kentucky, because they had seen something online about a shop there. They were hoping that someone could actually stop by the shop. I was going to reply that while I was not in Louisville I was in Kentucky, and often went there. Before I could post, however, I noted that Sarah had already replied that she lived in Louisville. We were only 90 miles apart. We e-mailed for a long time as just net friends, and came to know each other better. Much later, we had a meeting over lunch, again, as friends only, and disovered that the other was just as nice in person as them seemed online. (Well, I better not speak for her! SHE seemed as nice in person as she was online. ). Later, circumstances changed for both of us and after we had parted ways with our previous partners, a romantic relationship began sparking and then began to slowly grow. The rest, as they say, is history.

[persephone]

my "real" partner, my fiance chris, was a vanilla that i met before i really started exploring my spanking interest. he explored everything with me and took a lot of it on so i wouldn't really call him vanilla anymore. but almost a year ago he and i decided that we wanted to meet other people to explore with sexually, and i can talk about that a little bit because we had a very successful experience.

we met this other couple on a bdsm personals site and we actually moved a lot faster than people have talked about here so far. we exchanged emails obsessively for about 3-4 days, talked on the phone on the 5th day, and met up for the first time (not just vanilla meeting up either, i was submissively laid out naked on their coffee table) within less than a week from the first email.

now, the whole thing is very different because there were four of us, not two. and i knew that if anything went wrong that my big burly and very-smart chris would protect me easily. plus we had both of our intuitions to work with-- i think that following your gut is probably the best advice overall-- and we both had good feelings about this other couple.

it was seven months ago that we first started talking with the two people that i now call my owners, and they are now VERY close friends even outside of our very fulfilling D/s relationship... they were with us when we got engaged, they are the people that i call right after my family when something big and important happens. they know us inside and out.

i think that when you're searching for a partner, in any venue, the best thing that you can be is secure with yourself. then you know you're looking around with your eyes open and you can really trust your instincts to guide you. caution is always smart, and having back-up plans to ensure safety is too... but i think the most important thing is to follow your instincts.

[sarah thorne]

Originally Posted by RG_

It was on SIN, on the discussion board.... We had both been members for a long time. (In fact, I had been on SIN since the earliest of days, back when it was little more than the simplest of message boards and called "Spanking Memories")

My dear -- it was still called Spanking Memories when we met. Your old age must really be catching up with ya. ~ahem~.

sarah