(From November 2006. A bit odd to read now.)

People love these ten best sorts of lists. I don’t know why, suggesting that you fit in ten anything is confessing that you are generic. But as someone who did market research for many years I know that unconscious involuntary conformity is even truer than I thought as an angry teen.

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Suddenly a submissive male or female that you’ve been playing with fails to show up for a scheduled visit, doesn’t answer emails or phone or text messages. Why?

People outside of D/s are just as baffled when those things happen to them.

It took me far too many years to catch on the psychology of this kind of behavior. People often won’t tell you why they are dissatisfied with a relationship. They may not even tell you that they aren’t happy and fulfilled. They’d rather just retreat and hide.

Despite all the social aggression we witness most people are reluctant - afraid - to cause a fuss, endure friction or be thought a ‘negative’ person. They’d rather hide in silence, retreat behind walls.

Have you ever applied for a job only to find it nearly impossible to discover whether or not you’ve been hired? You haven’t but the person who chose someone else gets his or her stomach in a knot at the prospect of telling you. So they hide behind their secretary.

Many years back the stress that bosses felt when firing employees caused ‘dehiring’ consultants to do the dirty work for them. Corporations paid fat fees so managers wouldn’t have to look a discarded employee in the face.

It is the same weird timidity at work.

Similarly in the most conventional romance people will suddenly become unable for a date. They claim to be too busy with work or school. They’d rather invest huge amounts of time contorting themselves than admitting that something about the relationship hasn’t worked for them. And rather let it end than cope with the emotional risks of being open enough to discover if there is a solution.

Some fear appearing in a bad light. Others just want to move on if the thrill they expected wasn’t found.

A bottom may have found what he or she was experiencing boring. Boring in a way that left them without any desire to continue. While enduring ennui can be a part of submission it can just be tedious and nothing more.

Or the bottom may find some experiences uncomfortable and unsatisfying. But be trapped by that. Emotional state that leaves a bottom unwilling or unable to complain and explain. So they just give up.

Tops may feel that their authority or competence has been challenged. There are tops that feel confused or guilty about this. The ability to negotiate vanishes and they lapse into silence. While tops are mere mortals like the rest of it some find admitting that unendurable.

Unconfident, playmates and lovers would rather let a relationship die than undergo the demands of honest discussion, the challenge of emotionally naked conversation.

This is sad. The shy man or woman, rendered unwilling o speak loses a valued friend in fearful silence. And as those who can push past these fears can attest many of the best relationships are built on foundations that looked rocky at first.

It hurts to be shut out. Equally it hurts to be the one closing the door.