Reader Q&A: Singledom & accents

I am blearily coming out of my December stupor of socialising, eating everything in sight, and drinking more than I ever need to. The normal routine of life will return shortly: shaking myself off, heading back to the gym next week. I’m expecting to have more energy to devote to things not involving making nice, and shoving things in my mouth, so perhaps more bloggery activity.

In the meantime, some lovely readers have landed in my inbox via my Ask Me page. Well, hello there!!

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Considering the estimated bazillion submissive men that get in touch with you (give or take a dozen)… and the pie chart displaying the results of your ad endeavour :

Georges Moustaki.

Hello Georges (Sounding pretty chipper for a dead guy! Go you!),

These are most excellent questions. Well done, Georges.

Firstly, I must vehemently dispel the notion that I have a bazillion submissive men getting in touch with me. I know, surprising right? Sometimes I feel like the belle of the ball who no-one asks to dance because everyone is sure her dance card is full already!! IT’S NOT FULL!! DO YOU SEE ME DANCING?!!

“Why do reckon you are still single to this day?”

The truth is that I get excited about someone in the way I want and need to only rarely. So very rarely, it’s not even funny. It’s not about a list of requirements that are impossible to meet, it’s about connection on all of those levels that make it work.

And it’s not because there aren’t lovely submissive men out there. I have corresponded with some really sweet, smart, interesting, funny men in the last however long. I met with those where we both thought it might work. But all the things that needed to line up (on both sides) for it to work just didn’t line up. No-one’s fault.

I will add that incidentally meeting a vanilla submissive is much less likely now that I am no longer working in a large organisation in the centre of a decent sized city, so finding men who I might really fit with, but who don’t identify as kinksters (like two of my ex-loves), is very unlikely to happen.

I also think that I have been spoilt with some amazing men in my life: I *know* what it feels like when you have someone who really fits, and I’d rather be alone than settle for less than that.

“On a similar enough but rather complementary note, what stands between you and a fulfilled LTR?

Hmmm… I’m not quite sure I understand the crux of your question, but I’ll give it a go.

I think there are some things that don’t work in my favour.

I’m introverted, and I don’t meet anyone unless I feel like there is real potential there. Had I been extroverted, I might would have met MANY more men just because ‘Whee, meeting people is fun!’ and I think odds would be more in my favour if I did that. But for me, the stress of doing that outweighs the slim chance of a positive outcome (I tried it once last year as an experiment and it was pretty much as I figured… a dull date with a nice man and a waste of both of our time).

Likewise if I had unlimited budget, I could meet all sorts of fabulous men located anywhere in the world just in case something clicked. That would be great since quite a few men who have attracted my interest are not even close to local.

I’m not sure this quite counts, but I’m going to include it: I have an enjoyable and happy life. Anyone I bring into it has to ADD multiples of happiness to it, not create a bunch of work/angst/drama/effort that makes my life less enjoyable. I know that sounds obvious, but when you are happy already, and the bar is ‘happiER’, it’s set a lot higher. I also think this can lead me easily into a ‘Nup, not worth it’ mode when I could probably try a little harder here and there.

Thank you for your questions. They really made me think! And if I missed the mark with the last, please hit me up again!

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Hi!

– A Slight Linguistics Nerd

Hello Slight Linguistic Nerd!

Welcome to the blog and hello to your friend who pointed you to it *wave*.

“…I’d like not to wear you down with compliments”

*laugh* Don’t worry at all, not even a little bit: You can never wear me down with compliments and I will never get tired of being told nice things! NEVER! Trust me! And thank you so much for the wonderful sweetness. Happies! *smile*.

“your voice causes a Rip-Van-Winkle-style enchantment”

*swoon*

“But on the topic of your voice, I’m a little curious: if not English, was your first language Dutch (or Bahasa Indonesia, or something else)? Can you still speak it?”

Interesting question and a good ear. As a slight linguistics nerd, do you hear an accent of some sort? I mean everyone knows that Australians don’t have accents, I mean some *other* accent…

I never spoke English until I went to school (even though I was born in Australia and lived here during that time). My parents (migrants from the Dutch colonies in Indonesia) spoke Dutch at home, and we were kind of isolated so it was all I knew. When I started kindergarten, my English vocabulary quickly started to outstrip my Dutch, which made it frustrating to try and express myself in Dutch, so I switched to English pretty quickly.

But my parents and their friends still spoke Dutch at home, so I could understand most of it. Then even that started to be lost as I grew up and left home and wasn’t exposed to it any more. I can still understand a lot if someone speaks slowly, and I can speak a little, but I am like a 3 year old with it *laugh*. I lived in Amsterdam for a little while, and I thought I could brush up on my Dutch, but as soon as I opened my mouth and said some faltering, barely comprehensible thing, they would all roll their eyes and reply in English.

“Anyway: thanks for this excellent blog!”

You are so welcome, I look forward to hearing more from you.

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Want to ask me something? Pop on over to my Ask Me page and do it! It’s completely anonymous, even to me, so nobody will know it was you…