Hey all,
I attended my first gathering in this area two years back; a munch in San Jose. I was 18 at the time, and I didn't know a thing about any of the people who were to be showing up. I remember sitting in a corner of the restaurant, picking at my food and sizing up all the groups around me, until I recognized the Baglefather from his profile picture and realized that yes, all these people do exist in real life. Even then, it took a ton of courage to walk over and introduce myself to a group that I knew nothing about save the fact that we all fetishized tickling. I told myself look, you can walk away now and nobody will be the wiser, just walk away, but I somehow managed to sit down and get to know people.
I'm so glad I did. I found they were all, well, normal (mostly, at least
). Ed and Karen, the hosts of the event, went out of their way to welcome me, as did the rest of the group. I met new friends, and got my first chance ever to play with someone who was as into tickling as I was (thanks, aquafeline ).
I don't claim to be a member of the "old guard" here, and there's a lot of history that I know nothing about. I do, however, feel that I have spent enough time with the bay area community to be seen as a regular, and believe I'd be recognized as such.
Anyhow, back to my story. Over the past two years I've grown to be friends with our quirky little community here, to the point where I'd be willing to hang out and simply talk with any one of you guys, play some games, etc.
Then, a couple months back I met Dave, at the same restaurant that I first met this community. Dave was a new face to me, but I really enjoyed his company. We hung out, talked about macintosh development (so I'm a nerd, sue me), and generally hit it off quite well. He mentioned he was in the area looking for a job, and that he'd be moving back down into the area, and I wished him the best of luck. While I was out of town during the welcome back party, I was happy to see that everything had worked out ok.
Then I started to hear some rumblings and mutterings from various parties. Something was going down, but it wasn't really my place to get involved. The first I heard of a gathering in the Sacramento area was that it was full, which rather miffed me. Sac is an easy drive from my house, and had I actually known it was going down I would have come out to see you all, broaden my horizons. I was told it was only made public to locals before filling out, but people from LA were there too (people I'd have liked to meet!), and with a community so sparse as ours I'd consider myself local to Sacramento. Why even talk up an event which wasn't open to any but a select group? I don't care if you want to throw a party, hell, even invite the entire of the TMF save me, but that's a party, not a gathering. That was mildly disconcerting.
Basically what this boils down to is this: You may have been the host of the area for a long time, Dave, but to me and everyone who's joined the community since you left (and there have been quite a few of them), the Bay Area hosts are Ed and Karen. This feels like you're trying to come in and take back something that was once in your control, but no longer is. Statements like these
really get me worked up, because Bagel wasn't hosting the events for you while you were gone, he was hosting them for the community. When I get an email that reads
I wonder who decided on a change in hosts. Certainly not the group at large, who has been meeting at Ed and Karen's places for the past couple of years. I also wonder who it is who decided to ban not only someone who has put in hours and hours of work in planning events and offered their home to our community as a place to hang out and play in, but (chauvinistic as it may sound) a woman, from any future gatherings? Certainly not the community that meets in San Jose every couple of months.
In addition to that, banning her means that most likely we won't be seeing much of Redmage anymore - an expert at rope bondage who was always happy to teach others how to tie people up properly and safely.
It feels like the community I've come to know is being pulled apart needlessly, and without heed to what the members of that community want. You want to get rid of Karen? Fine, bring it up to us. You want to host instead of Ed? Ask us first. Not to disparage your efforts, but the only reason your email list works is because the community realizes that there needs to be some way to get announcements out to everyone. That doesn't make you head of the west coast scene, that makes you the guy who keeps everyone in the loop about what's going on, and while we're all thankful for your efforts, it doesn't give you the right to move unilaterally on things such as the aforementioned.
I've made this a public thread because it's clear that much has been going on in private that mere attendees like myself haven't been privy to, and that needs to stop. What exactly is going on, and how are we, as a group, going to deal with it?
I attended my first gathering in this area two years back; a munch in San Jose. I was 18 at the time, and I didn't know a thing about any of the people who were to be showing up. I remember sitting in a corner of the restaurant, picking at my food and sizing up all the groups around me, until I recognized the Baglefather from his profile picture and realized that yes, all these people do exist in real life. Even then, it took a ton of courage to walk over and introduce myself to a group that I knew nothing about save the fact that we all fetishized tickling. I told myself look, you can walk away now and nobody will be the wiser, just walk away, but I somehow managed to sit down and get to know people.
I'm so glad I did. I found they were all, well, normal (mostly, at least
). Ed and Karen, the hosts of the event, went out of their way to welcome me, as did the rest of the group. I met new friends, and got my first chance ever to play with someone who was as into tickling as I was (thanks, aquafeline ).I don't claim to be a member of the "old guard" here, and there's a lot of history that I know nothing about. I do, however, feel that I have spent enough time with the bay area community to be seen as a regular, and believe I'd be recognized as such.
Anyhow, back to my story. Over the past two years I've grown to be friends with our quirky little community here, to the point where I'd be willing to hang out and simply talk with any one of you guys, play some games, etc.
Then, a couple months back I met Dave, at the same restaurant that I first met this community. Dave was a new face to me, but I really enjoyed his company. We hung out, talked about macintosh development (so I'm a nerd, sue me
), and generally hit it off quite well. He mentioned he was in the area looking for a job, and that he'd be moving back down into the area, and I wished him the best of luck. While I was out of town during the welcome back party, I was happy to see that everything had worked out ok.Then I started to hear some rumblings and mutterings from various parties. Something was going down, but it wasn't really my place to get involved. The first I heard of a gathering in the Sacramento area was that it was full, which rather miffed me. Sac is an easy drive from my house, and had I actually known it was going down I would have come out to see you all, broaden my horizons. I was told it was only made public to locals before filling out, but people from LA were there too (people I'd have liked to meet!), and with a community so sparse as ours I'd consider myself local to Sacramento. Why even talk up an event which wasn't open to any but a select group? I don't care if you want to throw a party, hell, even invite the entire of the TMF save me, but that's a party, not a gathering. That was mildly disconcerting.
Basically what this boils down to is this: You may have been the host of the area for a long time, Dave, but to me and everyone who's joined the community since you left (and there have been quite a few of them), the Bay Area hosts are Ed and Karen. This feels like you're trying to come in and take back something that was once in your control, but no longer is. Statements like these
really get me worked up, because Bagel wasn't hosting the events for you while you were gone, he was hosting them for the community. When I get an email that reads
I wonder who decided on a change in hosts. Certainly not the group at large, who has been meeting at Ed and Karen's places for the past couple of years. I also wonder who it is who decided to ban not only someone who has put in hours and hours of work in planning events and offered their home to our community as a place to hang out and play in, but (chauvinistic as it may sound) a woman, from any future gatherings? Certainly not the community that meets in San Jose every couple of months.
In addition to that, banning her means that most likely we won't be seeing much of Redmage anymore - an expert at rope bondage who was always happy to teach others how to tie people up properly and safely.
It feels like the community I've come to know is being pulled apart needlessly, and without heed to what the members of that community want. You want to get rid of Karen? Fine, bring it up to us. You want to host instead of Ed? Ask us first. Not to disparage your efforts, but the only reason your email list works is because the community realizes that there needs to be some way to get announcements out to everyone. That doesn't make you head of the west coast scene, that makes you the guy who keeps everyone in the loop about what's going on, and while we're all thankful for your efforts, it doesn't give you the right to move unilaterally on things such as the aforementioned.
I've made this a public thread because it's clear that much has been going on in private that mere attendees like myself haven't been privy to, and that needs to stop. What exactly is going on, and how are we, as a group, going to deal with it?
