Although for me, the next nearest is 2+ hours away (1-way). I haven't got the time for a 4-hour round-trip.

:1780294797,452480, NE England. I guess it depends on views on reasonable distance, but the county I live in and neighbouring county rock up about half a dozen

1-hour drive (1-way)... but apparently 50 miles is "omfg y r guyz so Read more… desperate".

Where the hell do you guys live that you have more than one munch option within a reasonable distance?

:1780162303,7265081,
You are stuck in dorsal vagal (freeze). Your interested in community (ventral vagal) or you would not be here and you would not post to a question about community. You stated you are fine with 'a few close friends' and continue with Read more… 'of which I have none', again, another bullhorn of desire to be social (ventral).

I appreciate your entries on this topic as it is exactly in line with many feelings felt by the commenters the OP is seeking understanding from. So good on you for bringing this to light. It is frustrating.

For anyone in this dilemma: want to socialize, absolutely disgusted by the thought, you are not broken or weak or wrong or stupid, you are fighting with primality that made us apex predators, correction should feel like ripping off your skin, because it's that deep.

The vagal response is supposed to move from ventral (social) through sympathetic (fight/flight) to dorsal (shutdown) and back and forth depending on situation, think power transfer or how the red stuff in our body masses to a cut (bruise) or to our stomach (sleepiness after meal) to process lunch.

The dorsal position is energy conservation and death preparation (think life support only or hospice end of life management) the dorsal is literally a feature that makes death less stressful for something eating by a bear, red stuff moves to critical systems, energy is stored and on reserve (if survival happens), life becomes really slow and extremely muted.

The part you are not going to like is the fix. Exposure. If you want to get back to ventral, you have to push through all the gates to being social, all the excuses, all the negativity, and just 'gut it out' and suffer in fun places and remind yourself, this is fun, this is what I want, it only sucks because I am stuck. Eventually it gets easier and easier.

Everyone, from time to time, gets stuck this way and will benefit from mandatory fun.

I am going through a reset currently as I isolate to the extreme during a relationship and burn the outside world IRL and online. What I do is very dangerous and I do not encourage extreme isolation no matter how your dynamic is functioning. Isolation triggers many knee jerk survival emotions as relationships fade and fall towards end of life preparation if isolation continues. This is just how the system is designed.

This weekend I am going to a community event, an art festival, and some vintage flea market. All sound terrible 😅 but I know my ventral me enjoys this stuff and I will make myself network and build my community back up again and it will all get easier. Just sucks in the 'leap of faith' phase. A phase that only works as quickly as you feed your ventral more than your dorsal.

To reiterate, it's going to be irritating to be in social situations until it's not, your nervous system is designed to protect you from threats it doesn't know haven't been around for hundreds of years. It's just doing it's job, you will have to retrain your whole primal nature, this is going to be difficult. No fluff. It's hard.

Copy and paste from Google:

When stuck in dorsal vagal shutdown, your body goes into a low-energy, energy-conservation mode. Common signs include:Dissociation: Feeling numb, spaced out, or disconnected from your body and surroundings.Immobilization: Inability to move, speak, or take action (like a "deer in the headlights").Cognitive Fog: Loss of executive function and an inability to make decisions.Physical Symptoms: Decreased heart rate, drop in *** pressure, dizziness, or nausea.

That sounds like made-up, hokey nonsense, and is filled with false presumptions. Like for one, I'm not disgusted by the thought of socializing, not even remotely. I just don't think "mandatory fun" should be required. It also presumes I don't just deal with stuff I don't like for the sake of a chance to socialize... I do, all the time, and it makes me miserable constantly and is a waste because nobody wants to socialize with someone forcing themselves.

Like why can't people just talk like normal adults, why does everything have to be mediated through some "fun" activity, which is only fun if you actually think it's fun and are interested in the activity. If you don't think board games are fun, then you just don't think they're fun and being ***d to do them is just going to make you more miserable. You can't just decide to like what you don't like, it doesn't work like that.

Things I think are fun, other's don't. I could *** everyone to do math or logical puzzles all night, every night. No matter what they tell themselves, if they don't think that is fun, they won't find it fun, and that won't change.

Not everyone likes the same things, and forcing them to do what they don't like won't magically make them like it.

Well, "spaz" sounds better than "obnoxious, loud dorks who don't understand what an inside voice is, who are 30+ years old but act like they're 15, poor emotional regulation, self-centeredness, lack of awareness of others" etc.

And yes, I get SOME people have legit issues... but not EVERYONE, and Read more… it's the majority of people attending every one I have been to.

So what's the preferred term for these childish adults? Because I don't know any term that describes this kind of behavior that's not "offensive".

Also even then for me, that's just for basic attendance, I am not a "community" type of person, I don't need or want a crowd, I'm fine with a few close individuals as friends (of which I have none), so I am never going to be a group participant and drink the koolaid and do cheers or whatever. I Read more… don't get fuzzy feelings from "being part of something bigger" or whatever "community" is supposed to be.

Eh, where I live is rural, there's not no community, but there's not much of one. I don't need education (I've had plenty and they don't provide education on anything I haven't heard 9,000 times already). I'm not interested in rope, fire or wax, which seems to be the only demos ever done.

I'm not Read more… active because it's the same 5 legit kinksters and the same 10 non-kinky but otherwise sex-positive people. There's literally nothing there for me, nobody shares my kinks.

I also hate activities. Nobody can just chill and talk, everything has to be a stupid event/activity. If it's not education, it's board games. I hate that, and I also hate crowds.

Despite that, I've wasted my time attending in the past and I sporadically waste my time in the present and will in the future, because "that's the only way to meet people", even though nobody wants to meet anyone new, they're all cold and standoffish (but that's everything these days, not just kink).

How could you get me to go? Make it just coffee and talking, no education, no games, no activity, and make there be a chance that there might be an actual masochist in attendance that might be open to play partners, or otherwise make there be chill (re: not spastic people with 0 social skills/awareness) people who outnumber the spazes. Just actual normal people being normal, quiet and low-key. Basically, make munches exactly the opposite of what apparently everyone else but me demands.

As a man, if you won't look beyond 30 minutes, you're told it's your fault and you'll never find anything because you're too picky/limited. Look further and now it's your fault because you're too desperate.

Send too short a message and you're boring, send too long and you're too much work.

It's Read more… almost like it's impossible and no matter what we do, it's wrong.

*eye roll*

I f--king hate the Internet.

I have no response on the question (sadist here), I just want to comment to say that these kind of questions are a great example of the kind of communication people should be having with prospective play partners.

Whenever I have—and will continue to say—that communication is key, this is a big Read more… part of what I mean.

Might seem tedious, but it needs doing.

Also, it's better to misread a signal and "miss out" than to misread the other way and catch an accusation. Always best to err on the side of caution.

In other words, it's not always cluelessness, sometimes it's just not knowing, and I can't tell you how many times I've seen people complain that asking directly for clarification "ruins it".

Well, until everyone gets on the same page with using the same signals consistently, I guess have fun Read more… hoping that the other person is psychic and dealing with the issues when they aren't?

Some of the problem with trying to "signal" is, not everyone uses the same signals. One person's "I'm flirting, I want you" is another's "no, I was just being friendly".

This is why communication is important, but damn nobody wants to do it. Everyone thinks they're "being obvious", but half the Read more… time they're not nearly as "obvious" as they think they are, and even then, no matter how supposedly obvious "the signs" are, you can't ever trust what the signs actually mean (see above).