Repeating an old theme

I'm starting to think that the most important thing I've written here was about two years ago, in this post talking to prospective submissives:

Say what you mean, and mean what you say. If you can't do something, don't tell a sir that you "will" do it or "are" doing it. If you say you are going to do something, do it. If you say you won't do something, don't do that thing.

The semi-local boy has apologized profusely for his actions and expressed regret that he blew his final chance. In the process, though, he reminds me again why too many chances for new online subs are a bad idea. (I do believe doms should be more tolerant of people they've met in person because they have more tools to assess the sub face-to-face.)

After one apology, he said "I will not contact you again, Sir."

The next day, I got another long apology from him, which I accept at face value: I believe he did not mean to discourage me or lead me on, just that he was never really capable of doing the things he said he would do (and not doing the things he promised not to do). That was immediately followed by a message explaining why the previous message contradicted the one before that—why he was contacting me despite having emphatically said he would not attempt to contact me again.

That, plus his profile picture showing him having disobeyed an order I gave him, are very stark reminders that even if his intentions are good, I simply can't believe what he says. He may fully intend to follow through on his word, but at this point he can't always bring himself to do what he said he would, or not do what he said he wouldn't. Since I place an extremely high premium on reliability, that's pretty much always a deal-breaker. I'm not the kind of dominant who hopes a boy will screw up so I can "punish" him. The core of BDSM is trust. If a boy does not keep his word, even if no deception was intended and he didn't keep his word because of fear, that bond of trust is ripped apart and I don't know how to mend it.

Most of the time, of course, deception is intended, and the subs think we're not smart enough to figure it out. I got a private message on gay.com today from someone with a "private" profile. Normally, I will not talk to someone who has a private profile. I don't care if they show pictures or not, but basic stats and information about what they're like is a pre-requisite for adult conversation with me.

The new gay.com is fairly specific about the information it provides. You get thumbnails with a label for people who don't have public, non-adult pictures in their profile, and the label is clear about why you don't see a photo. "Private" means his photos are private, duh. "No primary photo" means that all of his photos are either adult (because they won't let adult pictures be primary photos where non-paying members could see them) or private. If you have no photos at all, the label reads "No photos."

Similarly, there are guys who never filled out a profile, and for them, gay.com says "Sorry, but 'member-name' has no profile available," or similar words (it's hard to find an example on the fly or I'd make a screen cap and post it). On the other hand, if you've filled out something in your profile, but gone to the "My Account" section on the site and checked the box to make your profile visible to "No One," gay.com instead says "This member's profile is private."

In other words, even if I can't see your pictures or profile, I know whether or not they exist.

You may see where this is going. Today, when the sub with the "private" profile and "private" pic sent me a message, I noted that his information was private so I didn't know anything about him. He responded that he absolutely did not have a profile or a picture at all, and that if I thought otherwise, "this new software" must be at fault. (He also blamed the software, which is called a "web browser," for eating his keystrokes and making him type the wrong letters in words.)

Yeah, sorry, bye now. When you open a conversation with something so easily determined to be false, I'm simply not going to be able to believe anything you say. If I can't believe what you say, I'm just not interested in talking to you.

Be reliable. Speak the truth. Withhold what you feel you need to withhold, but don't pretend that you're not withholding it. Don't say you will do things unless you will do them. Don't say you won't do things if you're going to do them. Do those things you say you'll do and don't do the things you say you won't do.

You will likely find that this leads to fewer conversations, because a sub's natural instinct is to promise a dom whatever he wants and worry later about how he'll make it happen. Doms like it when you try to please them, but make clear when you'll try and when you'll do what is asked or volunteered.

Look at it this way. If a dom doesn't care how reliable you are, or if he can believe what you say, then can you be sure you can believe what he says? Including about what is and is not possible when you're tied up and can't negotiate further?

Be as reliable as you want your dominant to be. If you're not, don't expect any easy way to repair the situation. It's bad enough to stretch that bond, but if you pull it far enough to break it, the relationship changes forever. Sometimes you can tie the parts back together or glue them, but the result is never as strong or elastic as it was before you broke it.

The cost of multiple chances

A couple of months back, I said something interesting on indecisiveness, edited slightly for clarity:

In the past week, I've put two boys to that test—one a semi-local boy who's submitted before but not in a while, and one a more experienced sub who's submitted here before and was working up to it again. In both cases, but for entirely different reasons, they were happier leaving actual in-person contact unresolved, preferring to think about the submission than actually submit.

And that's fine—it's not my place to judge, and I try not to. (I don't always succeed, since I'm human and all that.) In this particular time and place, "thinking about it" wasn't working for me. I told them, in effect, to decide: in or out? If you're in, you're going to submit. If you're out, you don't get to dither about it for weeks and weeks and then maybe play. At this particular time, that doesn't work for me. I want to know if they're in or out.

Both of them chose "out," and one of them regretted it instantly (and still does), but he's out anyway. In all BDSM encounters, actions must have consequences, and the consequences for his decision to be "out" is that he doesn't get to think about playing here.

That one, the one who regretted it, was the semi-local boy. But he wanted another chance, and I gave him one—and he fucked it up again, saying his "final answer" was that he would not play here. Three days later, he wanted yet another chance, begging and pleading and apologizing all over himself. I made it clear he would be cut no more slack, that I would not tolerate disobedience or provide a fourth chance if he backed out of this one, either explicitly or by disobeying an order I'd given him. He repeatedly said he understood, and over the course of two months, he progressed steadily towards realizing his long-time fantasy.

---

At this point, I need to backtrack a few months.

In winter or early spring, I had been chatting with a local boy who explicitly identified himself as a "slave" seeking an owner or master. He advertised this desire quite clearly, and while I wasn't looking to own a second boy, I decided to see if he was interesting.

He appeared to be sincere, but certain parts of his story were, shall we say, inconsistent. Some information he provided in email didn't match up with other things he said, and someone else (without me even asking) had said that other parts of his story didn't match up with what he was like in person.

After this many years of dealing with indecisive, fake subs online, any inconsistency at all is a big red flag. I also realize I'm imperfect, and I might be wrong, so I'll generally continue, but without much tolerance for error. For example, I've said before that I usually don't let subs have this limit. If any red flags have come up, I definitely won't allow that limit, even if I have no intention of taking advantage of it.

This particular red-flag boy was trying over and over to get out of that limit, promising all kinds of things (including unsafe things, another red flag), and I wasn't budging, so he finally decided he wouldn't play unless he could have that limit. I declined, and that was that, as far as I was concerned. (That's how it's supposed to work. The system works!)

He had also wanted to see my picture first, and I also declined. I noted in the second post on this blog (over three and a half years ago, geez) that I value my privacy. If a boy is getting to the serious stage, I'll often provide a picture. It used to be "usually," but I've grown more wary of this in recent years (keep reading). I've sent pics to plenty of guys who never came here to play.

A short time later, this same boy was in my local chat room on gay.com, telling people that I was probably some kind of serial killer because I wouldn't give him what he wanted. He said, in open conversation, that my own slaveboy was probably in mortal danger if he visited, and that someone should "do the right thing" and call the police.

I shit you not, he said that in the public chat room. Fortunately, he was already widely seen as a flake, and enough people either knew me in person or by reputation that no one took him seriously—as far as I know. I have no idea if some newbie sub who needed advice or a sympathetic ear was in the room that night and left with the impression that I couldn't be trusted.

Needless to say, that boy is permanently blacklisted from my playspace. The essence of BDSM is trust, and I can't think of a clearer demonstration of why he can't be trusted. Can you imagine what he might have done if he'd had my picture? Can you imagine what it would have cost in time and effort to clean up whatever shit he tried to throw? You gotta stay far, far away from people who aren't stable enough to play.

---

Back to the current day.

Although the semi-local boy was making slow but sure progress on his third chance, he continued to strongly indicate he could not handle an order to stop stalling and come play, so I let him take it at his pace. I just stopped letting him wank every day, or even every week, so he could find some motivation. (There was no physical encumbrance, just an order; he could at any point choose not to follow it and, in turn, choose to blow his final chance here.)

Because of past experiences like the one I just described, I felt pretty strongly about not giving him my picture. Instead, I told him we'd meet first in a public place where he could see me in a safe environment and then decide whether to continue to the playspace or just part company without hard feelings.

Had he never flaked out on me and insisted he'd never play here, I might have relented on this, but after two total flake-outs, I felt pretty strongly about not sharing the picture. He said that made it a lot more difficult, but when repeatedly asked over the two month period, he said he could deal with it.

He recently went on a trip and when he came back, he (respectfully, no complaints there) said that the no-picture-in-advance rule was too much for him, and either I changed my mind or he wouldn't play. I would not change my mind, and he backed out again, for the fourth and final time.

Again, this is how it's supposed to work. But…

…it was difficult and I have not taken it well. He'd been very emotionally needy over the two months, far more than I had patience to handle (quite honestly), and was clearly still scared about submitting even though he said every day this was exactly what he wanted and he didn't want to mess it up again. (He also disobeyed another order while on vacation, so it's possible the picture thing was just the pretext he used to avoid facing that he'd disqualified himself by disobeying.)

I spent a lot of time chatting with him about his fears and needs and struggle, and while I was far more brusque with him than I would have imagined—it's been a difficult year for me—I sensed his real desire to submit in ways that were not in his control, and I believed his repeated assertions that he would find a way to make this work.

When he returned from his trip and immediately ended what he knew to be his last chance, it just drained all of the optimism out of me. It was several days ago, and it's still gone. In the end, whether it was a pretext or not, he backed out over something that he said months ago was a concern but that he could overcome.

If I'd followed my own advice, I would have realized months earlier that he would find some reason to justify his fear, and I wouldn't have become emotionally invested in the idea that he would actually play here multiple times.

I'm sure there's price that subs pay internally for never going through with their fantasies, but there's a cost for dominants who provide multiple chances as well. You convince yourself that this one is different, that it's a minor blip he'll overcome, that this one won't back out when it's time. And then he does, and you feel like an idiot for ignoring the rules you'd already learned from experience.

Optimism is a poor strategy for dealing with subs. I don't know if I have to worry about it, because I don't know if mine will return.