Connecting amongst the college-aged crowd?

[Kyle1986]

Hello yall,

I doubt I am the only person on this forum who finds it difficult to connect with people my own age. I'm a 21 y/o senior in college right now, and an active lurker on this forum for years now, and I've always found it difficult to actually find people my own age willing to engage in any kind of conversation. I think most guys looking to talk with girls find this difficult in general. Most of the attempts I've made to connect with people have resulted in stand-offish responses, with only a few exceptions. Money has it this is a recurring theme for some of the less active lurkers like myself.

I've managed to get a couple of girls with no prior interests or knowledge of the subject of this forum to go along, sometimes surprisingly far to my pleasure (tee hee), but its honestly not the same as doing it with someone who doesn't share the passion of it. I always have this feeling of awkwardness because I know they don't get the same thing out of it that I do. This is why I am determined to find a way to connect with the people on this forum, preferably around the college age. I am not excluding "older" generations from this general situation, I just simply feel naivety of the younger crowd doesn't represent as much of an obstacle for the older generations.

My idea of a solution would be creating a sub-forum for the younger crowd. I've seen yahoo groups fail, but I do not believe that is because of the unwillingness to commit, but rather yahoo groups are unorganized and difficult to navigate through. If such an idea was moved to the familiar grounds of the TMF I am confident it would be very active.

Why a sub-forum? It creates the opportunity to separate. Like I said the younger generation is typically naive, and may be intimidated by consistent interaction amongst the dominating population of older active users. It gives us a chance to isolate ourselves when we feel the need to.

This of course is just an idea. I would not expect this to happen unless there was significant support. I encourage all members of my generation to post something, even a hello.

Thank you for being an audience to my thoughts.

Kyle

 

[Braidwood]

I think it would be a good idea, to tell you the truth. A lot of the people on here have a lot more experience in life and for those of us who don't, it would be nice to have that sub-forum to connect with others like us. And Kyle's right about the intimidation factor, this is my first post and at least on this one, I wont come off as an inexperienced idiot (my previous statement has done that quite well enough) lol.

Consider this the first signature on the petition!

 

[Iluv2Btickled]

I think it's a good idea..

I know I get slightly creeped out if I get a pm from a guy who wants to meet me and play w/ my feet, and I find his pic in the TMF members pic section and he's clearly in his 50's.... lol

 

[method11236]

As a college senior who will soon be facing the cold realities of the real world, I would certainly like to see a place on the TMF for college oriented connections.

We could call it...Tickle U. Or, theticklebook.com

Or the burger king cool kids club. that one might be taken.

-Meth

btw, I go to school in NJ. from NYC though.

 

[barefeetarebest]

I fully throw my support behind the idea.... Wish there was something like that when I first got started here! All I know is that it took about 100 posts just to get people to interact with me, sometimes fresh faces go unnoticed so you kind of have to get yourself noticed around here. However, no one was ever rude or off-putting while I was learning my way around, and we do warmly welcome new arrivals.

Guess I'm kind of inbetween at 28.

 

[Musicroxmysox]

I think that it's a great idea. I've found so many people here are much older and way more experienced. It usually is overwhelming/ a wee bit scary when they start to message you and are like "hey I wanna tickle you." Anyway props to this and I would certainly be interested. 🙂

 

[Scouse]

The online tickling community has been around a while, strong friendships have been formed and unless you are young and female, the chances of getting regular conversation are slim.

I think this would be a good idea.

 

[Excess]

Hey over 30 crowd...

GO BACK TO YOUR RETIREMENT HOMES!!!

But really, and maybe this is just me, but I've met quite a few people under the 25 age limit. Dunno how many post in the forums much though since all of them I know are from the chat.

 

[resptimes]

GO BACK TO YOUR RETIREMENT HOMES!!!

But really, and maybe this is just me, but I've met quite a few people under the 25 age limit. Dunno how many post in the forums much though since all of them I know are from the chat.

Easy...with that over 30 crowd stuff....LOL...

 

[Kyle1986]

I'm glad to see some people coming out of the woodwork. Knowing this is a shared opinion is comforting. I definitely look foreword to reading more opinions.

 

[dcbahr]

I would like to see this as well. I am not able to read the chatroom so don't know about the crowd in there, but to meet those of the younger crowd would be nice, as long as the mods can...well, moderate. I've made some connections, it's taken a little confidence I didn't think I'd had, but at the present moment it's all talk, no action, but that's the way it is with a lot of people I think. Anyway, the short answer is yes, that would be a good idea, worth a shot. .

Dave from Colorado

 

[gatortickler]

I agree. This is only my second post and i've never thought about it but it might just be for the reasons you've stated above. I would def back up this idea.

 

[nenezinho]

hummmmm

over 30.....then I think I should stick with you guys 🙂

I´m 27 only 3 months ago 😛 Also I´m still college despite I´m now doing a master degree 😉 But I´m also still oficialy helping younger students so....guess I defenetely should fit in 😀

But I only help youg collegues from my college...they give me enough work with the master degree and my regular work also 😉

Anyway...thumbs up for the young sub-forum.

Of course others might note the problems with limiting it´s acess to those who are really under 30...you can never really tell. I could be 40/50 and you´d never know for sure before you see me for real (which is not easy by the way).

we could try and see how it goes

 

[WorkInProgress]

You know what might be an idea? Set up a section of this board called "College Student Forum," where the college students could talk with each other not only about tickling but about anything else that's on their minds as college students. But do stick around TMF, whatever you do: professors like me have our voyeuristic curiosities about your behind-the-scenes exploits, and we certainly can't ask our own students if they like to tickle each other. I'm just glad none of you apparently go to the place I teach at.

 

[KrazieDog]

Why a sub-forum? It creates the opportunity to separate. Like I said the younger generation is typically naive, and may be intimidated by consistent interaction amongst the dominating population of older active users. It gives us a chance to isolate ourselves when we feel the need to.

Kyle

I think that is the problem with it though Kyle. The whole point of the community is the community aspect. Looking for a place to "separate" or "isolate" is alienating yourselves from the community. There really is no way to know who is of what age, so there would be no way to know who is really in there, and trust me, if you label an area with hot young people, the freaks will patrol that just as easy as if you made posts of "Young college male/female seeks same" post in other parts of the forums".

I'm not trying to shoot down your idea or be a stick in the mud, in fact power to you for making suggestions to try to keep the place fun and fresh. I just wanted to point out what others may be thinking and not saying. Stay cool man.

 

[poopies]

If there was only a way to make the internet creep free, this idea would be great.

 

[Kyle1986]

I think that is the problem with it though Kyle. The whole point of the community is the community aspect. Looking for a place to "separate" or "isolate" is alienating yourselves from the community. There really is no way to know who is of what age, so there would be no way to know who is really in there, and trust me, if you label an area with hot young people, the freaks will patrol that just as easy as if you made posts of "Young college male/female seeks same" post in other parts of the forums".

I'm not trying to shoot down your idea or be a stick in the mud, in fact power to you for making suggestions to try to keep the place fun and fresh. I just wanted to point out what others may be thinking and not saying. Stay cool man.

I sincerely appreciate your point of view on the matter, and to an extent, I agree with you. While I do use words like separate and isolate I do not mean an exclusive separation. The point is to create an easy transition. This theoretical sub-forum would be a less intimidating ground to first set foot on. How many times have we all seen the distress post from the new young female user simply too overwhelmed by the attention from the whole community?

As far as "creepers" praying on the younger crowd, I say yes, it is inevitable. However, I believe it would not become a problem, least a sufficient problem to discourage users from using the sub-forum. This forum supports users becoming reputable through their actions, as well as notorious. I believe posters who clearly do not belong (those who prey on the young to the point where eyebrows are raised) will risk creating a bad name for themselves, which could quite easily hurt their reception to the community in the future. Point is, there will obviously be speed bumps at some point, but I believe they will stay only bumps, and cause little concern.

Thank you again for your thoughts. They are truly appreciated.

 

[Chaneda]

Would love it

Howdy,

I would like to chime in and say I agree that it can be tough for us college students to find others in our age or academic group into tickling...while it does NOT define us it is still something that we would obviously love to have in common, even with friends of the same sex so that we could perhaps talk about it over a beer after playing billiards or something of that sort.

I'm about to start my 4th term at NYU and thankfully I have made quite a few friends around my age from going to NEST this last year...true, at 19 I was the youngest there, but at least I was still able to hang out with people who were anywhere from 20 to 26 years old, a crowd I could feel comfortable with and enjoy talking too. Heck, some of those people are still some of my best friends and they're guys just like me. We meet with our common love for tickling and continue on with so much more in common, trusting one another like brothers and truly wishing we could hang out more often...I cannot wait till sub-atomic particle transporters are invented! XD

If there is enough interest I might look into making a forum similar to this for the 18-30 year old crowd...a lot of interest is required though since it does us no good if only four people sign up and only lurk...these kinds of forums cost money.

- Chaneda

 

[silversurf828]

sounds good to me!

19/m/ny here, and im totally down too.

 

[Libertine]

GO BACK TO YOUR RETIREMENT HOMES!!!

But really, and maybe this is just me, but I've met quite a few people under the 25 age limit. Dunno how many post in the forums much though since all of them I know are from the chat.

I'm 52 in January, and Kittentoes, with whom I've lived for almost three years and to whom I've been married for just over a year, has recently turned 25. Admittedly this is an exception, but cross-generational pollination CAN occur.

 

[WorkInProgress]

Note to Chaneda: I'm curious, does NYU still have a BDSM club? When I heard of it a few years ago it was called "WHAP," or something like that. Tickling people may or may not be interested in mixing with those who are into the more hard-core stuff, of course, but in New York some degree of coalescing is what it takes to get into Paddles for some play without paying full price, and I believe the WHAP group made excursions there.

(This is admittedly a tangent, but I regard New York as the City of Missed Opportunities where the ticklers are concerned.)

 

[KittenToes]

I'm 52 in January, and Kittentoes, with whom I've lived for almost three years and to whom I've been married for just over a year, has recently turned 25. Admittedly this is an exception, but cross-generational pollination CAN occur.

I can reiterate that this is certainly an exception. I've never spotted another guy his age that I've found attractive. For 99% of people, there wouldn't be a connection, with this kind of age gap, due to the vast difference in experience and outlook on life.

Online, my advice to most older people would be, if you are old enough to be a person's parent, don't make an approach. Err on the side of caution and assume they won't want to play! A polite welcome is one thing, anything beyond it is very iffy. If you connect with someone at a gathering, or anything IRL, that's when I say age shouldn't worry anyone, if that human, face to face connection is there. Libertine and I met in a completely vanilla setting, a cafe to be exact, and just got to talking. Everything else came later, very gradually. MUCH more gradually than he would have liked or was accustomed to, in fact. But hey- if you don't have to work for something, maybe it's not worth having.

If there was only a way to make the internet creep free, this idea would be great.

However... I've found that a very large proportion of Internet creeps are BELOW 25, and I believe their stated age, for the most part, due to the rather juvenile manner of communication and propensity for txt-spk. Why, you ask? My theory is that Gen X-ers are far more comfortable with the Net than older generations, and due to shyness and inexperience, are more likely to make online approaches to people in a way they'd never have the guts to do in real life, instead of going out and socializing with live humans.

There's no way on the Net to insure a forum will only be attended by its stated age group, or gender or ANY parameter for that matter. The one exception I have found is the locked Lady's Forum on the United Kingdom Tickling Forum. I've personally met a good percentage of those who post in it, and those I haven't met have been met by someone in it, so they are all certified as gals. And even if a man did squeeze in- the topics of conversation would send him running! We don't discuss hot girl on girl action in there- it's more about pregnancies, wedding dress options, lipstick colors, and the ever-so-sexy yeast infections!


My advice to the younguns (fine, MY generation) is, post in your profiles the age group you want to meet/chat to, specify if you DON'T want to be contacted by anyone over a certain age, and block those that don't abide by this.

But don't write the older folks off entirely. Even if you don't wish to play or hang out with them, listen, learn, and don't be intimidated. Age doesn't always match experience, and everyone was new once.

London (UK) has got a monthly BDSM munch for under 35s-I don't attend myself because my sweety can't come with me but I do recall it being well-attended.

Chaneda- I too would be curious to know if the NYU club still exists. I crashed a few of their meetings back in 2001 or so but don't recall there being anyone who had a clearly defined kink- they all just seemed to be enamoured with the idea of being on the cutting edge of sex-u-ali-tay without the actuality of having kinks themselves, or if they did I don't think they knew what kinks they had or were willing to admit to any yet. Maybe it's changed now and become more purposeful. keep me posted.

 

[Chaneda]

About the BDSM Club

Hey gang,

The club in question is WHAP (We Honor All Perverts), NYU's only BDSM Club that is officially sponsored AND FUNDED by NYU. Unfortunately, as of September 2007, I believe the club is defunct, but I will see if I can open it up again.

WHAP was created as an outlet for students into all facets of BDSM who felt they needed to discuss and learn about BDSM from one another, young teenagers from the ages of 18 to roughly the late 20s. This is because, although there are a ton of BDSM outlets in New York, most of them are populated by much older individuals who can make college students feel uncomfortable.

🙂,
- Chaneda

 

[WorkInProgress]

That's what those initials stand for? Heavens! Not all of us particularly like the word "perverts," much as not all gays like parading the word "queer" in their club names. How about "We Honor All Proclivities"?

As you're probably also aware, TES has events at Paddles geared to the college-age crowd. Both there (if you're interested) and at NYU, you may well be the best person for the job of drumming up interest in tickling as a featured component. (My own Paddles connection, by the way, is the spanking group, and that group has all ages including college students. If your interests include that, it might be worth checking out too. They meet the first Saturday night of each month. I won't be at this week's, but I probably will go to the one February 2.)

 

[apacer3]

20 y/o college guy here. I think it would be a great idea to have a sub-forum for the younger crowd. I don't have alot of free time to participate fully in the forum but I would be more comfortable conversing with an age group i can relate to. I feel a little weird talking tickling with people who are my parent's age or older (no offense).