NRE — New Relationship Energy — can be a beautiful thing. However, there are certain dangers. One of the biggest ones that frequently pops up is one-sided NRE. It’s similar to infatuation or what kinksters call “the frenzies,” an insatiable desire for more kink. We’ll be looking at it in a BDSM context, but it extends into non-kink lifestyles as well.
NRE in BDSM is the exhilaration of meeting someone who really “gets” you and your kinks. There’s the joy of finding the yin to your yang. The excitement of thinking about the journey you will have with them. And the arousal. Oh, the arousal! It all seems so perfect! Beyond perfect. Almost as if divine fate had brought you together.
At least in the beginning, that is. It can last for days, weeks, months, even years. And then, one day, it’s as if you’re waking up from a dream. Not a happy dream. A nightmare.
That’s what it’s like when you have one-sided NRE.
What IS One-Sided NRE?
You’ve likely heard of “honeymoon sex,” that state of passion triggered by a new romantic relationship. It’s when a couple cannot get enough of each other sexually. You believe that you have found “your person,” that special one who will fulfill all your needs.
One-sided NRE is when one party is feeling all that, but the feeling is not reciprocated. Instead, they believe that it is. In the context of BDSM, one-sided NRE comes with additional problems.
For a kink person who grew up anxious and ashamed of seemingly strange or freakish fantasies, NRE carries extra baggage. You feel romantically doomed. Shame makes you believe that partners will be horrified to know what you crave. You worry about rejection, being scorned, or mocked. And then, one day, you meet THEM — that person who seems to accept you, kinks and all. You’re thrilled by the mere thought of the awesome relationship you could have with them. At last, your deepest needs will be met!
You’ve fantasized about whippings and that person is eager to explore it. You’ve had secret fetishes and that person is willing to try them. You tell yourself they are the person you’ve sought your whole life.
Where Does One-Sided NRE in BDSM Come From?
We often associate it with subs, because subs are most likely to be affected — and also most likely to be expressive about it. From my life as a therapist and a player, I know it can happen to tops and bottoms alike, though it generally looks different on the surface.
My theory is that it’s similar to the honeymoon phase of vanilla relationships. Your horniness (hormones) override your better judgment. This isn’t a mental illness. It’s a fugue state ruled by your brain chemicals.
One-Sided NRE in BDSM – The Dom Side
Let me tell you about Barry — a sweet older man in a frenzy about a sub he met. Barry was convinced that his desire for her made her the perfect slave for him. She was beautiful, classy, and had a sweetness about her he believed spoke to a submissive nature. When he talked to her, she seemed intrigued by a Master/slave relationship and wanted to know more. Barry had not physically dommed her yet. “I’m bringing her along slowly,” he told me. “She’s not ready yet but I know she will be one day.”
Barry flattered her with endless praise and attention. He was willing to listen to every word she had to say. She was in the midst of a difficult divorce. His words were balm to her soul. Yet she couldn’t make any commitments to him, nor did she seem eager to engage in any kink play.
What a Fool Believes
Though Barry was otherwise a sober and cautious man, the wild energy that possessed him turned him into a fantasist. They had met online and only met one time in person. He was already imagining her signing a slave contract. He hungered to have her under his control and was willing to wait until she overcame her inhibitions. Firm in his belief that she wanted to be with him, he attributed her hesitancy to the divorce process, her uncertainty to anxiety, and her aloofness to shame about kink.
He wanted me to help her accept her submissiveness. If she could get past the shame, she’d know he was right that she was born to be his slave.
He Never Made Her Think Twice
At the end of the session, he phoned her and she agreed to meet with me. When she arrived the following week, she seemed like a calm, cool, well-put-together human. We had an in-depth talk about her perspectives on the relationship. Long story short, she was not on board with him!
She was not as he’d described her, either. She was comfortable with her kinks. While she appreciated his support, their personalities, lifestyles, and beliefs outside of kink were incompatible. He listened to her, she said, but he didn’t hear what she was telling him. She didn’t want to leap from a bad marriage into an ill-fated relationship. Although he was gaga over her looks, she didn’t feel a single spark of physical attraction to him. She came to therapy hoping that I could help HIM realize their online flirtation did not add up to a mutually enjoyable relationship in real life. OUCH!
He Was In NRE, She Wasn’t
Some people may call it “the heart” but it is the human brain. He was in the throes of a hormonal storm; she was not. She saw the real-world issues that separated them and logically concluded things would not work out. She appreciated his attention, but she saw him as a friend, not a kink partner.
One-Sided NRE in BDSM – The Sub Side
A client I’ll call Karl came from the other side of the power dynamic. He had formed a relationship with a professional domme and, despite being in a mostly satisfying marriage with a vanilla partner, Karl was convinced the femdom was the right woman for him. The only problem was that the dominatrix did not seem interested in seeing him outside their professional relationship.
Red Flag? What’s Dat?
As a newbie, Karl believed it was normal for a dom to be distant and controlling, as long as she kept seeing him. When she accepted appointments with him, he told himself she hungered to see him because she shared his feelings, not because he was a profitable client and a nice guy who treated her respectfully.
She was the first dominant he’d ever served. He was sad that she set strict boundaries on when and where they would meet and how long their sessions would last. He was oblivious to the reality of their arrangement. Instead, he assumed that it was normal dom behavior to make it hard for him to pursue her. He refused to view her as a sex worker running a business because that would ruin the whole fantasy for him.
He was ready to leave his marriage of 15 years for her. It didn’t matter that he didn’t know much about her. He imagined their whole life would be like the few sessions he’d experienced, where she would be elegantly cruel and he would be rock hard the entire time.
The More She Kept it Professional, The More He Wanted Her to Change
Karl’s femdom sounded excellent at what she did. She treated him well and indulged his kinks with great skill. She did not mislead him by suggesting that future intimacy was in the picture. On the contrary, she set solid boundaries and informed him she dated women, not men.
Karl was too deep into one-sided NRE to absorb her truths. He genuinely believed she would eventually break her boundaries and even make an exception for him when it came to sex. As he saw it, she was the perfect dom for him, who treated him better in some ways than his wife. Therefore no obstacle could be overcome.
One-Sided NRE in BDSM – Common Features
Notice a basic theme here? In both client examples, the people with such a fixation could not see the forest for the trees: they were in brain fogs of lust that made them unable to step back and hear what the object of their affection was saying, or even to read their body language accurately.
To people on the other side, such one-sided fixations can appear demanding, arrogant, and egotistical. Functionally that’s how they may seem to people who don’t share them.
In the frenzied person’s defense, though, they are suffering. They are in the grips of a dark psychobiological force that ignited an unquenchable fire in mind and body. Add the emotional baggage of being sexually unconventional — the fears of rejection, the low self-esteem that goes with feeling abnormal — and the fire becomes a full-on conflagration.
Fighting Back One-Sided NRE
So what can I person do to fight back?
The best way to arm yourself is to KNOW THAT THIS HAPPENS! Not only to newbies but also to people who have been searching unsuccessfully for a long time. It is normal among people with a powerful thirst for kink and no satisfying outlets. They are the most vulnerable. So don’t shame yourself for being prone to one-sided NRE. Find your own best ways to mitigate its impact on your emotional life.
Meditation may help. Talking about it openly with a mentor, a fellow sub or dom you trust, or a kink-positive therapist can also help. But, mainly, it’s about remembering to respect another person’s truths and learning to prioritize emotional sobriety when you begin a new relationship.
You may not be able to avoid the frenzy of one-sided NRE, but you can manage it without trauma or remorse if you understand the forces that have driven you to extreme neediness. Take care of your emotional health and don’t let one-sided NRE ruin your life.
image via Bing AI
