There is no "Have to Be" for me

More and more, I see this topic come up on message boards and email lists. For some reason, it never used to be a big discussion point, but it's apparently become The Hot Topic.

"Do you have to be in love with someone/dating someone/sexually attracted to someone to submit to them?"

For me, the short answer is no.
The longer answer is... well, longer.

I've said previously that in my life, I've had two significant d/s relationships. In addition to those, I've had some shorter-term ones - with and without sexual interaction - and some that lasted a specified period of time (night, weekend, etc). Obviously, there is no question that submission for me without a relationship is *different than with one, but that's not to say that a relationship is necessary for me *to submit, and it's also not to say that that it's any less. It's just different, that's all.

Relationships are funny things. My friend R, who I was 'tethered' to (his word) for several months following my break up with M (for my own good, he says *wink), is just that - a friend. Had I met him before C and M (well, technically I did but he wasn't single), or had the planets aligned in a different way, it's possible that I'd be in a relationship with him, or would have been. But as it stands, while there's a great deal of sexual attraction on both sides of the relationship, we are at the base of it, just very close friends.

If I feel close to someone - in other words, I trust them to be vulnerable with them - then it doesn't really matter if I'm sleeping with them, dating them or even in love with them. It's about trust for me, not a commitment of any kind. Some of the best scenes I've had have been with friends that I trusted. To be honest, there's a relative release to that that's not as easy to accomplish when you're actually "in love" or "in a serious relationship" with someone. Not to say that there aren't things that are more possible while in a relationship - there are. But again, they're different things.

Maybe it's just me. Maybe I do things differently or I think of things differently.

I prefer to think of it as unique~ /wink