Before an introduction to the toy's charms or foibles can be made too often our misconceptions, prejudices, and biases inform how we react to the "idea" of being presented to each other.
Odd that. It's sort of the same with people. At least with me it is!
People react back. They're variables and so, are necessarily scarier to me. Toys, on the other hand, just "are" and it's our choice to utilize them for our pleasure or not, no matter if we are introduced to them by our friends, lovers, or even by ourselves.
It's taken me years to overcome my shyness of meeting new people. The prospect of failing to be charming, to be witty, to be of some sort of import in the general conversation, to be useful, to be liked has, in years past, paralyzed me.
I liken an intro to a toy to that of a person because what I have come to find is that the fear of just getting to know a toy or what it is about is just as silly as the fear of meeting new people.
Fear. So worrisome about what has yet to be. So irrational. So untrue. Why waste energy on something that has not come to pass? Why not, instead, be open to the idea of the opportunity of what may yet be? Of possibility? Of growth? This is so much less exhausting! And, so much more fun!I many times feared social plans. A few hours before any given engagement, I would turn into a naggy bitch. I became a little negative ball of hate and it showed in all my actions. My fear was driving me. My partner would look at me puzzled and exasperated as he would bear the brunt of my ire. After becoming engaged in some sort of terrible argument, we'd both finally figure out that my outward irritation was just a manifestation of my social anxiety. Graciously, or at times angrily, he'd offer to call off whatever engagement it was were getting ready for and I'd, more often than not, calm my nerves enough to just plow on through with it.
Ok, so not the best setting to go out and meet new peeps to make a good first impression with. But, hey, that's what I USED to do!
Arriving at our party, dinner, or drink-at-a-bar date I engaged new people because they were there in front of me. During the course of forcing myself to interact, I started to relax and about 99% of the time I'd begin to feel really silly because I began making friends and a lot of the mental hives that I previously experienced were unfounded.
So, these days, I've reprogrammed myself and have begun to look forward to new encounters because they often times mean good, new experiences and good new friends.
The key to this transformation, besides some good experiences to positively reinforce the new programming, is choice. Choice to let go of the fear. Choice to embrace that this new thing, new experience, new friendship is within my hands, my control. I can choose to see the possibility and make something of it, or I can choose to fear it and not give myself the opportunity to learn something new, grow a relationship, grow myself.
Whether or not it's true for everyone, for me fear is about the insane idea that something is being taken away from me, that I'll be lessened in some way, or that I'll be found to be lacking somehow. Confronting my fears or accidentally finding them to be false, I find that new people, experiences, places, situations...none of these EVER take away from, reduce, or strip me. In fact they add to me, give me depth, joy, pleasure, knowledge, development, and so much more.
In a parallel way toys or the introduction to one is just the same.
I count myself very fortunate to have cultivated a large group of friends with many different points of view, but all of them open and liberal to the wares that I promote and the business that I love. But in their eyes, even they that love me and are open to my ideas, sometimes have a frisson of fear behind their expressions when I talk about a new product.
Why? In the quest to be a little more sympathetic, and really to not scare the hell out of my friends from talking shop with me, I started to ask myself about what was behind the fear? It was thus when I made the parallel connection about my own anxiety in social situations.
In most of these exchanges, I am customarily given an obvious answer: they feared being replaced, a rather insidious variation of my own phobia of being reduced or having my worth taken away. This trepidation about an object, I found, often preempted most of my friends from seriously considering introducing a toy to their significant-others or to themselves.
Sure, some toys can be used in solo play during the absence of a partner, but even in this it is only an enhancer. The toy, then, enhances alone-time, but doesn't add nor take away from a person. And, much like toys can heighten a sole user's experience, so too can they intensify the pleasure experience of a couple. No toy can replace a person. No toy can replace a relationship. No toy can replace the imagination and creativity that a person applies to it or to another. What it can do is add, ameliorate, enrich, amplify the situation and the experience. Any person seeking to utilize a toy as a stand in for a person is generally disappointed, however, any person seeking to utilize a toy to magnify their pleasure with or without a partner usually has better results.
Toys are simply vehicles, and again we have the choice to fear them or see them for what they are--tools that are brokers of opportunity to better our sex lives if we allow ourselves the opportunity to see them as such. Consequently, people and new situations are the same, they neither add nor take away from a person's essence, but that person can choose to use the interaction with toy, person, or situation as a means of broadening their horizons.
Now, there is no one perfect tool. Nor is there a perfect toy for everything, though some of you might argue with me. Everyone's got a favorite. But, we will all be faced with the prospect of a new toy, person, or situation, one that dares us to go beyond our comfort zone. But before we allow that frisson of fear to color our reaction to being introduced to this new-fangled gadget or person, remember that you're not being replaced, you might just be adding to your repertoire of pleasure or treasure trove of friends if you so decide.
You, me, we, can be the largest contributors to our fear, but we can also be the bravest in embracing them and the most instrumental in our own growth.
So, intrepidly seize the idea of a new toy, friend fearlessly, and open the door to possibility!
Really good analogy! This post was different from the others in that it seemed to speak to men and women's fears, which is really cool.
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Thank you for your kind words!
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