u/kennyxo__

Heyyy yalll. Taurus here (32F)
First off just want to say love you guys, love the Aires in my life.

My best friend is an Aires and she’s as Aires as they come. I’m pretty classic Taurus as well and we’ve always complimented each other pretty well. But recently her energy has become a bit overwhelming for me. She tends to say a lot of negative, judgmental, hateful things that can sometimes get to me (about other people or myself) when something makes her angry or she is annoyed (which seems to be all the time now) Im sure a lot of you can relate, but she will just say the most unfiltered rude things and insult someone’s whole blood line and wish death upon them and everyone they know and then just completely forget what they said and act like it was nothing? LOL.

So anyways I’ve tried to confront it a couple times and the response I get is “that’s just the way I am” and shuts down or recently when I told her something she said hurt my feelings her response was “I just won’t talk anymore” shuts down and then again tries to act like later it was nothing.

So I’ve been distancing myself since that conversation. But she is my best friend and I miss her and I love her.

So how to approach a conversation with an Aires in an attempt to get them to take accountability/apologize for how they hurt my feelings without you feeling like I’m attacking your character at nature? Or should I just cut my losses LOL

How can people best support Aires when they are angry? Or depressed?

Sorry if this post comes across as therapeutic just genuinely trying to understand how best to communicate with a triggered Aires

Ok, so for context, I (31F) have been apart of the bdsm/kink community in the past but I am not actively “practicing” nor currently looking for any partners/dynamics. I have always been a sub in these dynamics. I took a step back towards the end of last year for personal reasons awhile ago to focus on other things.

Recently, I decided I wanted to try my hand again at regular dating. So I downloaded hinge, like a normal person would do. My profile is pretty normal for my personality, I don’t really have any signals or statements showing that I would be into bdsm aside from your best educated guess.

I match with someone (27M), we bond over being weird. He gives me his phone number and we proceed to start texting. We hit it off pretty quickly, the conversation is flowing.

We talk for one day, he asks if he can spend the night and take a shower at my place for the first time meeting. First red flag I know.

I told him I’m not comfortable with that, we decide to plan another day and proceed to continue to talk to get to know each other.

Later in the night texts start to get flirtatious, and he calls me a good girl and I obviously have a positive response to such and start to let my submissive side leak out.

He tells me that he’s “lowkey” asexual so we converse a little bit about that and I reveal to him that I do have some history of sexual trauma (not sharing details) and have been on a celibacy journey. He applauds me for this and talks about how people that have sex all the time are drained and he doesn’t prefer the act itself but likes kissing and making out.

He sends me a selfie of him wearing a very boxy puffer vest with a blanket covering his bottom half. I’m a bit confused as to what I’m seeing because it’s not clear what he’s wearing because it’s so big and boxy. And it’s 80F outside so the attire does not make sense for the weather or the time of night. He tells me it’s just a puffer vest. He then asks me if one day he can come over to zip me up in it and cuddle. I play along, it seems to be cute and playful. He then says he would love to buy one for me. He brings up buying one for me multiple times to which I tell him I am uncomfortable with and ask him not to as we are not dating and haven’t even met.

He asks me what my thoughts on camping are, I say I enjoy camping. He asks if I want to see something that he’s always wanted to get, and it’s a screenshot of a sleeping bag from a website. It was sleeveless, pink on the inside and had a “wet/shiny” look to it with the same boxy appearance as the one he was wearing in his selfie. He talks about how cute I would look in it. And how he would love to cuddle me with it. I play along but in my head it starts to stand out as a little weird. We start talking more about our sexual past and I reinforce that I have a complicated relationship with sex. He reveals to me that he use to sleep with a lot women but it only made him lonely so that’s no longer the case.

Anyways, going into the next day, we continue talking and he brings up that he had a fantasy of me in the sleeping bag at work and he wanted to tell me about it. I respond jokingly that he is obsessed with this sleeping bag and I ask him what the deal is. He just responds that he thinks it’s cute.

He describes his fantasy of zipping me up, propping me up on the bed, watching a movie, feeding me and giving me water sips because I wouldn’t be able to move. Me refusing to let him unzip me, and using my body as a pillow. I feed into this, it seemed innocent and cute in nature. I’m not one to shame anyone for their desires and remain open.

He tells me he found a picture of someone wearing it online and wants to send it to me, the picture he sends me seems a bit odd but I can’t really point it out. It’s just a woman laying on the bed zipped up in a black sleeping bag with only her head exposed.

I continue to respond to his interest in this but I tell him I might get claustrophobic wearing something like that, but im open to it. He seems relieved that I’m not weirded out and continues to express interest in talking about the sleep sack. He says something about me not having free will while zipped up in the puffer and I respond positively. He seems surprised that I would be open to being restricted, at this point I ask him if he knows what a sub is and he responds that he does. He seems surprised at me identifying as one, although I told him I thought I was making it obvious through my flirtations. He says he thought I was just playing along and that he is “slow”. I do reveal to him that as a sub I enjoy being a doll. At this point it’s late and I couldn’t help but feed into my own submissive desires and feel myself get a little excited. So I continue to play along and remain open even though I do feel slightly uncomfortable/confused with how this was brought up.

At this point he starts to really feed into continuing to talk about this fantasy knowing im more open in that nature. He apologizes for talking about it so much and I ask him again what the obsession is about to which he doesn’t really answer.

He sends me another picture of a girl in a sleeping bag but this time with tape around it, and talks about how I really wouldn’t be able to move restrained like that. I ask him where he got this photo and he said there are videos online. More alarms start to go off in my head and I told him I was scared in a jokingly way because I didn’t want to shame or embarrass him. He asks if I’m ok and I just tell him I’ve genuinely never thought of sleeping bags in this way and I was curious. He says “wym” and acts incapable of answering that statement because his “brain isn’t working”.

I tell him I don’t want to talk about sleeping bags anymore.

I did a google image search of both of the images and it brings up results to deviant art, X, and fetish/bondage web names. I do not click on the links themselves as I feel like I got enough information to come to some sort of conclusion myself.

I go back to the original image he sent me of the sleeping bag for sale and notice the websites name. I visit the website (tianyoutextile.con) and it’s a custom wear site advertising lots of items that look related to BDSM/kink (body suits, masks, adult diapers, thongs) all in this puffer sleeping bag material.

He asks me what kind of men I have dated in the past. I tell him not very good partners, my ex boyfriend was a felon. He then reveals to me that he is on probation for drug related charges, for having Molly to sell at music festivals. I brush this off, tell him I don’t really mind since it’s non violent, and I ask him more questions about the logistics of it. (At this point I am really not comfortable anymore and am starting to think of how to appropriately break things off with this guy.)

The next morning he tells me he had another sleep sack fantasy of me and wants to share. I quickly brush this off, redirect conversation and my responses are short, I tell him I’ll talk to him when I get home.

When I get home I tell him that I can no longer continue this with him. I tell him I have too much going on in my life and I can’t focus on a potential romantic relationship. He asks if he did anything, I told him he was moving at a pace I wasn’t comfortable with and I didn’t want to date anyone again that is on probation. He then proceeds to talk about how he’s used to it, always gets ghosted, no one wants him, everyone looks at him for his past not who he is now.

I was going to just let this go but thinking about everything I felt a little angry. I told him he should have revealed to me he was on probation before asking to sleepover.

I delicately approached the subject of the sleeping bag. I ask what his intentions with it are. I tell him I feel like he is not being forthcoming with them. I state as someone who has been in the BDSM community the indirectness and avoidance to my questions is a red flag. He says his intentions are pure. I ask him again if he would like to elaborate on what his actual desires are. To which he does not respond, only asks for me to give him a chance and my life will be filled with adventure. I tell him there is nothing to be ashamed about, but I will not be coerced. No reply.

So, sorry for the long story time. I am left feeling a bit surprised, confused and stupid. He clearly has some experience with BDSM/kink that would lead him towards those specific websites and photos. Which makes me angrier that I had to be the one to bring up the conversation of a D/s dynamic.

I wanted to put this interaction out there to hear your thoughts from the BDSM community. Am I overacting to him not being forthcoming about his kinks? It feels like dishonesty. I’ve never had someone “reveal” their kinks to me in that manner. And it doesn’t even feel like they were revealed.

I’m also more curious now as to what this specific kink may be as I have never experimented with it. What sort of play does this entail. What do people typically enjoy with this? It didn’t seem inherently pornographic in nature and is a lot different than the bondage I am used to. I would love to learn more about it but I didn’t want to pry him anymore as he seemed ashamed of it himself.

How do you think I handled this in my last words to him? I never want to shame anyone. I acknowledge that I probably fed into this more than I should have considering some of the signs, but I am always open to giving people a chance and secretly enjoyed exploring that space again. This is part of why I had to take a step back from the community, it is too easy for me to fall into a submissive role and leads to some unhealthy dynamics. Any advice is greatly appreciated. Any advice on incorporating BDSM/kink play into monogamy and Romantic partnership in general. I can’t seem to separate the two and it makes it really hard to find good partners. Feeling defeated. Just please be nice if you have any constructive criticism:)

Thank you for reading.