Local communities: How good and bad?

The good: They are great for seeing in real life this great big tent that BDSM, power exchange relationships and other kinks. It is nice to know people and hopefully find friends that you can talk about things that you just cannot with anyone else. Part of this life is looking in the mirror and accepting and being happy that what you are doing is not wrong or sick. So to see other that appears happy and healthy in real time can help deal with self doubt. Last, but not least possibility of finding your other!

The bad: I found way too much one way type attitudes. This is how you must do this. This is how you must do that. A lot of that dating and non BDSM type advice! Because of the dynamics and general population I found local communities to primarily focus on top/bottom play and even then almost all about BDSM and very little else. It is not that D/s and M/s people are not there but that stuff is so personal and so complex in compatibility that any talk tends to be over romanticized chest thumping or what we say but not what we really do stuff. There is also a prevalent high school clique mentality of cliques of people with like minds and backgrounds building up walls with a lot of judging and jealousies being played out.

Overall: I think if you are new to the life then joining your local community is a very good thing for at least a short time. At the same time though understand that being active in your local community and being proactive on your path to living in a power exchange relationship does at some point and to me pretty darn quickly become two completely different things. If you start to figure out if you like or can take pain or bondage, explored other aspects of interest available that is fine and good. But if you have yet gone out on a date with an open heart and brain with another with the hope they might be your other and you use the excuse you are still exploring then need to be honest with yourself. If you spend most of your time exploring top/bottom activities, your social circle has become many in the local community and you know all the activities weeks ahead of time and even attend national shows then you have created a social life for yourself period. Any potential relationship becomes less of a chance the less you actually focus on it.