If we assume that online BDSM relationships are, by their very nature, more difficult and significantly more likely to fail than a typical vanilla online relationship, then we’re left with some pretty depressing prospects. Just in case you weren’t taking notes, let’s recap:
· The percentage of vanilla online dating profiles with a significant number of lies in them was 81%. This suggests that the number for anonymous BDSM chat room profiles is likely even higher.
· Just 4% of vanilla relationships that start online last two years or more, which suggests that for BDSM relationships, that number is probably closer to 2%.
· If you are age 40-69, you are 56% more likely to be in that semi-successful 2% .
Depressed yet? If you aren’t, you haven’t been paying attention. If these statistics and our estimates are accurate, then the odds of your online BDSM relationship lasting over two years are roughly 50 to 1. On the bright side, your odds of being killed by lightning are encouraging, at 2.3 million to 1. This brings us back to the question we posed earlier, which is: What kinds of things should be allowed to leak from one world to the other, and where should we draw the line? If your online BDSM relationship has a very high probability of failing in the not-too-distant future (and it does) then it may not be wise to hand that person the potential ability to wreak havoc in your real-life circumstances, relationships or career.
You may think you’re giving away meaningless snippets of personal information that can’t be assembled into anything that can be used against you once the relationship sours, but think again. One online submissive thought she was being clever and careful by giving her online Master just her first name and the state she lived in. She didn’t realize that a simple public records database search would reveal that there were just three people in the entire state with the same unique first name, and two of them were over seventy years old. After their angry break-up, her spiteful former online Master needed just five minutes to find her full name, home phone number, and her home address, where she lived with her unsuspecting vanilla husband and three elementary school-aged children. What followed was a month of harassing phone calls and even a clumsy blackmail attempt, which finally led the beleaguered couple to seek a restraining order.
There are lots of different ways that your expectations of anonymity can be demolished in a heartbeat. If you’re one of those people who has nothing to lose, or you simply aren’t worried about keeping your virtual life separate from your real one, then that may not be a problem. On the other hand, if you’re the sort of person who likes to keep your former virtual lovers away from your real-life front door, the following tips can save you a lot of future headaches.
· If you give someone your phone number, a reverse telephone number search may reveal your real name, address, and even the names of the other people living at that address with you, including possibly your children. That information isn’t always available for free, but you should never assume that a determined individual wouldn’t be willing to spend the required $3 to purchase the information.
· If you send someone your photograph, a reverse photo search can be done on websites like Google or Tineye. These reverse photo searches could lead someone to your Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Tumblr, or other social media websites that contain sensitive personal information about you. It can sometimes even send a snoop directly to your employer’s website if your photo appears anywhere on the website.
· Practically every photograph contains embedded, hidden meta information called EXIF data. Using an EXIF data reader can reveal this information. EXIF data can include not only information about the camera used to take the photo, but sometimes, even the exact latitude and longitude where the photo was taken. In other words, if the photo was taken at your home, you may have just unknowingly handed someone your home address.
· Giving someone your email address may seem like a perfectly safe thing to do, until you realize that Googling an email address can reveal a wealth of information about you that you never even knew existed. Think of all the times you’ve been asked to leave your name and email address in order to purchase something, leave a comment, post on social media, generate forum messages, ask questions online, or submit technical support trouble tickets. Eventually, a determined snoop will find something that has both your email address and your real full name on it, and the rest is easy.
· Every internet connection you make originates from a unique internet protocol (IP) address. Most of the websites and online applications that you use will automatically record your IP address when you connect to them. An IP address usually looks something like this: 12.345.678.910. The final few digits of your IP address may change each time you connect to the internet, but the first three groups of numbers never do. That’s because they are unique to the servers used by your hometown Internet Service Provider (ISP), and can be readily identified by anyone who knows how. The internet has scores of free and easy-to-use IP tracing websites and utilities.
The bottom line is: You are never as anonymous online as you think you are. My intent in telling you this is not to frighten you to the extent that you are tempted to avoid any involvement at all in internet relationships or the online BDSM culture. No, not at all. My intent is to encourage you to go into it with open eyes. I want you to know how to take proper precautions when you can, and to understand the possible consequences when you can’t, or choose not to.
The Reality Behind the Avatar
We’ve discussed the virtual line that many people use to keep their virtual world and their real lives from spilling over into each other’s domain, and the many good reasons for establishing those limits. The existence of that line shouldn’t, however, prevent anyone from acknowledging and appreciating the fact that there are real people behind those engaging little cartoon characters we call avatars. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with expressing your wildest fantasies in an online virtual world, as long as you don’t forget that other people are doing precisely the same thing.
Unfortunately, it is maddeningly common for some people to completely reinvent themselves online while simultaneously expecting everyone else to be scrupulously honest about their age, gender, body type, relationship status, location, finances, and other kinds of personal information. Not only is this sort of rampant deception generally the rule rather than the exception, but there are many who seem to be completely oblivious to the inherent improbability of establishing a meaningful relationship based on their bogus online personas. Ironically, there are people who spend months, even years, carefully crafting a phony online persona and searching online for that special someone who is real, only to discover after finding that person that he or she was looking for someone real, too. Whoops.
Let me reiterate the point I’m trying to make, here. I am not advocating that you should make your online avatar a virtual mirror image of your real-world self in every way. After all, most people are drawn to online virtual worlds primarily for entertainment and for the exploration of their fantasies. Making our virtual world and our virtual selves look and act exactly like our real selves would seem to be a sure way to suck all the fun out of what would otherwise be an amusing activity. What I am saying is this: If you’re using a virtual world environment to search for a real-life partner, your probability of success will be directly proportional to the amount of reality that you inject into your own profile and behavior.
It won’t do you any good if someone falls in love with an artificial construct that isn’t anything like you.
Where Is It Going?
Major League Baseball manager Yogi Berra once said, “If you don’t know where you’re going... you might not get there.” This is never truer than when it comes to online BDSM relationships. It’s incredibly easy to find yourself entangled in an online relationship before you even realize what has transpired. If you find yourself waking up or going to sleep with thoughts of your online paramour, spending time online simply in the hope of seeing that person log on,
or putting real life responsibilities off to spend time chatting with that person, it’s time to face the awful truth: Surprise! You’re in an online relationship.
The question you should ask yourself is: Is this a relationship that is destined to go anywhere I want to be? It helps, of course, to have some idea where you want to eventually end up; the operative word being eventually. You may not be able to make certain changes in your life right now, but choosing any path that leads in a direction that doesn’t move you closer to your goals would be counter-productive, at best.
It’s been said that men often marry expecting that their spouses will never change, but women marry expecting that their spouses will. Both strategies are completely unrealistic, but they handily demonstrate the prevalence of denial and self-delusion that is common at the start of many relationships. If you think online relationships are particularly susceptible, you’re right. And online BDSM relationships are doubly so. As we mentioned earlier in this chapter, the odds of your online BDSM relationship lasting two years or more are roughly 1 in 50. For the math-challenged, those are not great odds.
Improving the Odds
How can you improve those odds? The first step is to take a long hard look at yourself and to conduct a critical self-assessment. If you don’t know yourself, and are not comfortable in your own skin, you can’t possibly expect anyone else to be able to get to know you, either. If you don’t know what you want, or what you need in a mate, chances are you’re not going to find it. If you can’t differentiate between what is good for you and what isn’t, you’ll probably end up with a lot of the latter, and less of the former. This self-assessment isn’t always easy to do on your own. You may need to enlist the help of a trusted friend or associate, or perhaps even a trained counselor or therapist to help you to see yourself more objectively.
It’s often easy to convince ourselves that we’ve simply been the victim of “bad luck” when it came to our past relationships, but more often than not, the seeds of those failures can be traced to misperceptions or misconceptions which, in turn, produced a series of bad decisions. If insanity can be defined as doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results, then when it comes to failed relationships, we all may be just a little insane.
Once you’ve done your critical self-assessment, you should take inventory of your needs and wants, being careful to differentiate between the two. Then go back down those lists, item by item, and rate your own willingness or ability to compromise on each. It might be useful to use a numeric scale ranging from one to five. A one means that you’re a complete pushover when it comes to this issue; if your heels were any rounder, you’d probably just keep rolling. A five indicates that you have no willingness compromise, whatsoever: “Stubbornness is your superpower - you were bitten by a radioactive mule.” (Hat tip to author Shannon Hale. I just love this description.)
The next step is where things get a little more complicated. Attempt to do the very same thing for your potential partner. While it would certainly be helpful at this point if you were a mind-reader, chances are pretty good that you aren’t. Therefore, the next best strategy is to simply ask your potential love-interest. There are lots of different ways you can phrase these questions, but the easiest is typically something like, “Wow! So, you’re into foot-worship! Have all your past lovers been into that, as well? Or is this something you are able to compromise on?” When you phrase it that way, it just sounds more like rapt fascination and less like a job interview.
Once you are able to compare these two lists, noting your abilities to compromise on key relationship issues, it becomes relatively easy to know if the two of you are traveling along intersecting paths, or moving in opposite directions. If it appears that the two of you are moving in opposite directions, it doesn’t mean your potential mate is a bad person. It simply means that your time would be better spent talking to someone with whom you actually have a sliver of a chance of success at a lasting relationship. Focus your time and energy where it has the greatest potential for success.
Warning Signs
If you are already in an online relationship, and you’re beginning to wonder if it’s a good place to stay, then I would recommend learning to spot the early warning signs of an impending train wreck. It’s always frustrating to look back after the fact and realize that the danger signs were always right there in front of us, frantically waving big yellow flags but, at the time, we were completely oblivious to them. Chances are actually pretty good that you’ll ignore them the next time around, as well - even after reading this - but at least now, you can’t say you weren’t warned. As always, my use of the masculine pronoun “he” is not intended to suggest that any of these characteristics apply solely to the male gender. It’s simply a grammatical convenience. If the shoe fits - male or female - drop the romance and back away slowly.
Here are some of the yellow flags you might want to be on the lookout for:
He continues to be overly secretive about his real name, even after you’ve been in a committed relationship for months. No one should be giving out their real full name to strangers over the internet, but once you’re officially a couple and you’re allegedly making plans for a lifetime together, it’s a pretty safe bet that the need for name secrecy has passed. While there may actually be legitimate reasons for a certain level of caution, he should be able to articulate those reasons to you, and they should make sense. Don’t let him get away with, “I’m a secret agent. If I tell you, I’ll have to kill you.” After all, intelligence agencies go to a great deal of time and trouble to create believable cover identities for their agents, just so they’ll be able to give you a plausible name and occupation. Don’t let your tax dollars go to waste!
His profile photo has a copyright mark on it. The same goes for a trademark, corporate logo, or website address. You’d think this would be a huge yellow flag that would be pretty hard to ignore, but you would be absolutely amazed at how many people find nothing unusual about it. Let me just spell it out for those who don’t understand why this is weird. Normal people usually don’t copyright or trademark their personal photos. The presence of that little symbol, or logo, or URL on the photo usually indicates that the photo was simply right-click stolen off of a random website.
His photo is posted to a photographs-only site like Flickr.com, but not anywhere else. Why should this be a yellow flag? Simple. Because, as a general rule, people discover the utility of certain internet sites in a certain sequence, starting with the simpler ones and graduating over time to the more complex. It’s relatively rare for anyone to start out with complex photo sharing site without having first tried out more user-friendly social media sites, such as Facebook or Tumblr. In other words, someone with a Flickr photo-sharing account almost certainly has a Facebook or similar account. So, why might someone want to conceal his Facebook page from someone with whom he is in a committed relationship?
He doesn’t have a phone. Really? We live in an age where elementary schools have to establish rules forbidding 8-year-olds from taking their cell phones to school, but he doesn’t have a phone. Your friendly neighborhood Wal~Mart sells pre-paid cellular phones for $10, but he doesn’t have a phone. It’s far, far more likely that he does have a phone; he simply doesn’t want to give you his number. You probably won’t even need to use up all three of your guesses to figure out why not.
He’s only online very, very late at night, and into the wee hours. Translation: He has to wait until his wife is asleep. Award yourself extra points if he has to log off unexpectedly and without warning for no apparent reason, or because “something came up” at 3 AM. I don’t know about you, but there’s not a whole lot going on in my life at 3 AM. Here’s what that abrupt late-night log-off really means: “Whoops. Accidentally woke up my wife.”
He isn’t involved in any significant way with real-life local BDSM groups or activities. And what a surprise, he doesn’t want you to get involved in any, either! Typically, he will justif
y this restriction by characterizing everyone in these groups as jerks and phonies, and claiming that he simply doesn’t want them to teach you any bad habits or take advantage of you. Translation: “I have no idea what I’m doing, and if you start hanging out with people who do, you might figure that out. If anyone is going to take advantage of you, it should be me.”
He has long spells - some lasting weeks or longer - where he simply seems to drop off the face of the earth. There’s never any warning before it happens, and nothing at all during the dry-spell. No phone calls, text messages, nor even an email. When he returns, the explanation strains credulity. It’s usually something like his laptop stopped working, or his grandmother died. The explanation makes very little sense, since most people these days have multiple ways to stay connected, including their telephones or friends with phones or computers. Even if he claims to be completely phoneless and friendless, there are always computers with free internet available for use at the public library. As for granny’s untimely death, she’s been dead for three weeks now. He couldn’t find thirty seconds in his busy schedule to send you a message saying, “Grandma kicked the bucket?” Please.
It’s far more likely that his absence was caused by one of two scenarios. The first is he is a cheater who got busted by his spouse and had to lay low for several weeks, until she let her guard down again. The second is he simply didn’t want to be involved with you anymore, but didn’t have the balls to tell you so. If this second scenario turns out to be the right one, you shouldn’t be surprised if you learn that he’s been online the whole time, but on a different account or under a different screen name.
His remarks about the time, local news events or the weather don’t match up well with reality. There are lots of things people can be expected to be inconsistent about, but the time is rarely one of them. For most people, meals, work shifts, and sleep generally occur at fairly regular and predictable times and intervals. You can fool your body (and even your gullible online friends) for short periods of time, but eventually it all catches up with you. Anyone who claims to be in a time zone that differs from yours by six or more hours, and yet is miraculously able to keep exactly the same hours that you do, day after day, for weeks or months at a time without any ill effects, is most likely being deceptive about his actual location.
Domination & Submission: The BDSM Relationship Handbook Page 12
