Suck it and see?

Today I learned some things about myself and about what I want, which is good. I feel as if I have slightly messed someone around in order to do it, which is bad. I've been going on for a while about being interested in some nubile submissive boything without (it turns out) really thinking about what that meant. I worked it out today. It would have been better if I'd worked it out last week.

I met up with someone today who by all accounts fitted my bill perfectly. He was young, cute, smart and very self-aware. He'd had the balls to take his submission by the balls: go to clubs, see a pro-domme and generally worked at exploring what he wanted. He understood the psychology of it and we were on a level with what we considered to be "good" and "bad" BDSM, many of the things we wanted and issues we'd encountered were very similar - I could empathise with his problems with trying to turn vanilla relationships kinky (been there, done that, got really bothered by it) and many other things besides. That is, we seemed to like the same sort of things. Yet, despite all of that, as I walked away and spent the rest of the afternoon thinking about our meeting, I realised that there was a disconnect. Not just between us, but within me. What I wanted to give him, what I said I could give him, I realised I couldn't.

The type of top I'm interested in being does not fit with the type of sub that I am: I couldn't be a dom to myself. Which is curious because I'd always thought of it as two sides of the same coin, in that if I like receiving a certain thing surely I must be able to deliver it? Not so. Whilst I enjoy certain things as a sub, and can therefore understand why people enjoy having those experiences, I'm not sure I could deliver them in the same way. I'm sure I could replicate the activity, but that's not enough for a submissive - it's unfair to just go through the motions and anyone with half a neurone would be able to spot that straight away. I used the words "top" and "sub" very specifically in this context, because I'm drawing a line between one type of play and another. Green Man mentioned to me a while ago in an email that he thought the times when I wrote about submission always seemed to be more powerful than the times I wrote about topping. I have been wrangling with this for a while, putting in "ifs" and "buts" and referring constantly to the fact that my major Ds relationships have been with those on the D side of things, so my material contains more submissive elements. Which is true, but only part of the truth.

Here's how it breaks down. I am interested in topping, in playing with someone in a public environment where the focus is on transactional BDSM exchange - a few hours worth of hedonistic pleasure at having someone under my control, then we shake hands and go our seperate ways. I can also top within the context of a well-established relationship, one in which I know my partner inside and out, occasionally enjoying the role-reversal, the ability to cater to their other needs and to my other needs. The submission and the topping stem have as their basis the same things - the desire to please someone else, to make them happy, to deliver amazing sensations, to be thought wonderful and special and an unique provider of satisfaction: the font of desire. Submission gives me more than that though. When I'm in a position to do it to the full, I get to really let go, I get to give it all up and someone else takes control. When I'm topping I am the active one, the one in charge, the one who knows what to do and that can be exhilerating, powerful and really hot but also sometimes difficult, pressured and intimate in a way I'm not prepared for, especially when it stops being topping and starts being domination. I can't handle that level of responsibility, certainly not with someone I don't really know. What if I fuck it up?

Submission is perhaps where my mind most wants to go, for the majority of my experiences, it's a more comfortable and "natural" way for me. With the right person, of course: I'm extremely choosy about who I submit to, for a start, taking a lot of time and effort in picking people who I think could be a good fit, who are worth giving myself up to. Because I don't want them to fuck it up, I don't want to give my mind and body over to someone who will drop it. And that's a huge thing to ask, which is why, when meeting someone whose tastes seem so similar to my own, I realise I can't deliver. And feel like a fool. I also feel annoyed with myself; a little guilty for giving off mixed signals, for my lack of self-awareness. For not knowing precisely what I wanted without first being offered something of value from someone who thought that I did.