I've got to admit, I'm getting better...

And Saturday night was another breakthrough. I went to one of The Black Phoenix Club's Purgatory play parties, asked or told several people I was interested in playing with them, and exchanged contact info with a few. I hadn't done this with more than one or two people in the 8 1/2 years I'd been involved in the kink community. I also, before the night was out, developed the will to "dress down" in the hope of attracting more interest; it somehow hadn't occurred to me previously that I might do this even if I wasn't already playing with someone. It's also true I hadn't been to this type of party for a couple years, so this may reflect progress I'd been making incrementally over that whole period which only now had the opportunity of expressing itself.

Particularly nice was that, near party's end, I got in a conversation with a woman who turned out also to have serious social anxiety problems. It was stimulating to exchange perspectives and talk about coping mechanisms etc. with someone who shares this as a personal interest.