I'm not the kind of person who needs a partner to complete me. I'm already a complete person and I already have my emotional shit together to a pretty reasonable degree all things considered. I don't believe that someone can be good in a relationship until they are good out of a relationship, which I am. That said, I'm a highly romantic person who doesn't need a relationship, but would greatly enjoy one, with the right person. As someone with a decent amount of experience with kinky and poly relationships, those things would be nice but are not deal breakers if I find the right person and those things don't apply to her. At the end of the day love strikes when and where it dammed well pleases, and while we can increase our odds of it striking in a particular way, that is akin to riding around with a metal pole in a lightning storm. Yes, you may get hit eventually, but you didn't exactly have complete control over the circumstances, if you get hit at all. Life is like that. We can steer the ship, to some degree, but we cannot control the wind or the currents. My philosophy is that if lightning strikes, it doesn't need to match some internalized vision I had of what lightning should look like, and in fact will likely be better if it happens organically... I say as I wave the proverbial lightning rod around on the internet, daring lightning to strike. We do, in fact, have some control over our lives. Now, a bit about me. I'm a writer, a poet, a dancer, a fencer, a martial artist, a student of history, philosophy, literature, art, music, and science. I'm a meditation teacher and a future therapist, and I grew up in foster care and my journey taught me a great deal about how to process trauma and rise up from and above difficulties. I tend to be drawn towards women with similar backgrounds. I'm a deeply passionate, often times intense person, and I deeply enjoy that in a woman. I prefer women who have been through the sorts of darkness I've been through who have the context to understand me and who I have the context to understand. I play video games, watch and listen to horror, I'm a chef (literally), and I hold deeply progressive viewpoints. I believe in equality for everyone, and I have some pretty loud opinions on how equality requires some reckoning with the concept of economic equality, and that tends to unsettle people who don't share my views. I don't tolerate sexism, racism, homophobia or transphobia, and am in general of the opinion that all such isms come from a persons fears and insecurities and I usually view those things as a form of weakness to be pitied and avoided. I'm also a well dressed white looking male, so it's easier for me to avoid those things than it is for others, so I also see the need to confront them from time to time. I believe that everyone deserves free mental health care, and that everyone should have a therapist. And that's not just because I'm going to be one, I promise. I want to see everyone happy and healthy and emotionally well. I focus in my life on communication skills, emotional intelligence, and kindess and compassion. I have however a fairly dark personality, and tend towards dark and cynical humor, often leaning into sarcasm or what many call "laughing at the abyss". The world is full of tragedies, I laugh instead of cry. I'm the guy who laughs when he stubs his toe instead of swearing. I want a partner who has a heart filled with passion, and I don't mind any degree of darkness in that heart. Have empathy and an ability to care about other people, and you're allowed to have as much darkness in your heart as you damned well please. As far as my weird kinks and fetishes? Well, I used to run a sex dungeon. So if you like having all manner of things done to you while you're tied up or strapped down, I'm your guy. I can get really creative, but communication is the primary skill of relevance there. If it's not working for you, it's not working for me. I've had partners who I've trained to eat out of pet dishes on the floor because that's what they were into, partners who prefered being whipped and zapped, and partners who were more into let's say "public displays of affection". Honestly, I'm into just about everything, so if there's something you're passionate about I'll probably be into it as well. Most of the women I've fallen for have had some degree of CPTSD as I do, some leaning towards borderline, others leaning more towards adhd or other expressions. I like weird, and I resonate with people who've been through some shit and lived to tell about it. If you lived a perfect story book life with no strife or difficulty, we might have a difficult time connecting and understanding one another.

I feel like this is a pretty comprehensive download, and yet it still barely scraches the surface of human experience. Funny how that works. I hope this lightning rod finds someone awesome, and I look forward to the all the complexity and beauty and weirdness you bring with you.