I’m in my late 20’s and I am ready to start dating again after leaving a 11 year relationship.

The reason for the relationship ending is irrelevant to this post. But it has been over for some time now.

In that relationship I was only ever able to be vanilla but I did always want more. I’ve started exploring what it is I want and I think I’m either a dom or a switch. I believe that I’m 85% dom and maybe 15% sub. I don’t know how to explore these things? I know that the only part of me that is sub is a sexual part and that outside the bedroom I don’t have any interest being submissive; and even in the bedroom it is rare.

I feel like most people at this point in life who want these type of things already have experience and are not willing to A) deal with someone who is inexperienced in kink. And B) deal with the fact that my last relationship took up a large chunk of my lifespan.

I wish there was a way I could meet someone who was willing to “mentor” me in a way when it comes to these things. I feel I’ve already made a few mistakes and I have learned from them. But I feel very out of place back in the dating pool. Let alone in a pool I was never in to begin with.

I want to explore D/s dynamics and have been watching YouTube videos to help me better understand etiquette; but it doesn’t feel like any substitute for knowing someone who has lived it and that I can ask for advice time to time. No one I know as a friend or otherwise has participated in this type of lifestyle and I don’t live somewhere that has munches (I’ve checked).

Advice?