Advice

[Thatonestranger]

I’m thinking about telling me best friend about my fetish.  I’m really nervous and I’m not sure if I should.  I figure it’s better if they hear it from me now than when we get older if I get drunk and tell them or something.  Does anyone have any advice? Should I tell or not?

[prisma]

tell them. They will understand. ALL the friends I have told were cool about it

[Kicker]

I really hope that alcohol isn't accessible enough to you that you can get drunk during this period in your life, and advise you to keep your distance. Getting drunk and accidentally letting that slip is a pretty specific fear, but I'm going to assume that you haven't consumed anything 21+. (Though I would like to remind you to please be responsible.)

In response to your question, here's the thing:

You don't owe anyone that information. 

1 hour ago, Thatonestranger said:

 I figure it’s better if they hear it from me now

Your friends never need to hear anything about your personal interests in this regard unless both you and your friend are comfortable having that kind of conversation. For a lot of people, this is a sexual interest; you don't have to share it with anyone you don't want to share it with. 

If you decide you do want to tell them, I'm pretty sure you'll be alright. Most people really don't care what you're into. If your friend is understanding, they might be curious, but they probably won't be judgmental. If you decide you don't want to tell them, that's cool too! Unless you're drinking, I don't think you have to worry about getting tipsy and letting anything slip. Once high school is over, seeing your friends from that period in your life might be more difficult anyway. So the chances of even that happening are pretty slim. (Also, most people aren't wildly confessional while they're drunk anyway, just a bit less filtered). 

IN SHORT: Don't drink alcohol until you're of age. Only tell your friend about this if you actually want to. If your friend makes you feel obligated to share anything of this nature with them, that's a red flag. Most people don't care too much about this kind of thing. 

I hope all goes well for you regardless of what you chose! There's no wrong answer. Just make sure you're feeling safe and comfortable and being smart. 

[Owlinatree]

I want to echo @Kicker here and emphasize that this part of your identity is absolutely not anything you owe to anyone else. If you want to share, because you genuinely want to, then by all means! You totally can tell your friends! However, if you're doing this out of fear, then I'd caution against it because you'll be placing so so so much emotional weight on their reactions, and I don't know if that's necessarily the best thing. Please don't read this as me telling you not to talk about it, but make sure that you yourself are in a good place to put this part of you out there. 

I also noticed that you (like me) are under 18, which kind of . . . changes the situation a little. If the friends you are telling are adults, then please wait until you are also an adult. If they are minors as well, then go ahead. Keep in mind the context in which you want to speak about this, as well. I'd caution against walking into a brunch or something and just yelling about sneezes, for example. Kinks/fetishes are somewhat taboo, regardless of whether they should be, so make sure you broach the topic in a circumstance which makes sense (again, not at the beginning of a meal etc).

I'd also suggest that you not treat the fetish itself like anything of massive import; while it's likely an important part of you, friends' fetishes are probably not something that your friends have ever anticipated giving much thought. If you're ready to explain everything and attach this to your friends' perception of you, however, then a big announcement would probably be . . . fine, if not tonally congruent. 

Ultimately, this is a decision you have to make, but it's also not incredibly important. Do you know your best friend's favorite color? Probably. Is it their most prominent facet? Probably not. Whatever you decide, it's not going to destroy your life. Good luck!

[Pixieflower]

I told my best friend about the fetish last summer, and she’s the only one who knows about it. Telling her had its pros and cons...

Pros:

- I could gush to her about sneeze-related events happening that I would normally have to keep to myself(such as a cute guy sneezing or something). It felt really good to finally tell someone my biggest secret and spill out everything I had been hiding for my whole life(this was before I got an account on here, so she really was the only person I could talk to about Sneezing).

- My friend happens to be completely non-judgemental and very trustworthy, so I could basically tell her anything fetish-related and wouldn’t have to worry about her giving me *that* look or anything.

- Telling her about the fetish was a bit of a bonding experience for us and really helped to bring us closer. Before I told her, I considered her to be a good friend, but definitely not my best friend. The reason I chose her rather than my other friends to tell my secret to was because she is probably, as I stated before, the most accepting and trustoworthy out of all of them. When I told her my biggest secret, she gave back my telling me all of her own secrets, and now we share everything with each other. If I hadn’t told her about the fetish, I don’t know if we would be as close as we are today.

Cons:

- I don’t know if it’s just me, but ever since I told my best friend about the fetish, I’ve been hyper-aware of people sneezing when I’m around her. I had never noticed this before because I usually don’t pay attention to female sneezes, but my she has pretty bad allergies and sneezes really often. And just my luck, in the one class period I have with her, pretty much EVERYONE in the class has allergies(including our 70 year old teacher). And on top of that, our other tablemate seems to have the worst allergies of anyone in the class, and is constantly complaing about her allergies and telling me how lucky I am that I never seem so sneeze or get sick. And whenever she sneezes or anyone else in the class sneezes hole my best friend is there to witness it, I get really uncomfortable. Luckily, she says she often forgets I even have the fetish, so she doesn’t notice when other sneeze in front of my or my awkward expression either.

- My mental block has grown a lot since I told her about the fetish. I had been recently starting to overcome my mental block, but when I told her about the fetish, I’ve never sneezed in front of her, ever. I still sneeze very rarely in front of other friends who don’t know about the fetish, but I always have to hold back whenever I need to sneeze in front of her. In fact, I feel really uncomfortable doing things that are even slightly related to sneezing in front of her, such as nose rubbing, coughing, sniffling, etc. And when I spend most of my time with her, trying not to do any of these things gets pretty exhausting.

- I’m pretty sure this is only me, but I used to be a huge blesser. But since I told her about the fetish, I rarely ever bless people. I guess I got too self-conscious because I thought that if I blessed someone in front of her, she would know that I was acknowledging the sneeze, and as a vanilla who doesn’t know much about how fetishes work, she would probably think that I thought of it as sexual, although, just like most members here, I usually don’t even notice when others sneeze unless it was particularly cute or they are particularly good-looking.

In hindsight, I kind of wish I hadn’t told my best friend about the fetish, especially now that I made an account on here and can actually share ideas with people who feel the same way about sneezing as I do. I think whether you tell your friend or not depends on you and whether you feel comfortable enough to let her in on such a personal secret of yours. It also depends on if you think your friend is trustworthy enough to keep such a huge secret. Whatever you decide, good luck!

[skater]

 

Hi! I’ll share my experiences with telling friends about my fetish, and while everyone’s experience is different, maybe this can help you out a little bit. I have one positive experience and one neutral/slightly negative one.

In high school I told one of my closest friends about my fetish and honestly I regret it a little bit, for the cons that @Pixieflower said so perfectly that I'll just quote them:

11 hours ago, Pixieflower said:

I’ve been hyper-aware of people sneezing when I’m around her.

 

11 hours ago, Pixieflower said:

I guess I got too self-conscious because I thought that if I blessed someone in front of her, she would know that I was acknowledging the sneeze

 

11 hours ago, Pixieflower said:

I had been recently starting to overcome my mental block, but when I told her about the fetish, I’ve never sneezed in front of her, ever. I still sneeze very rarely in front of other friends who don’t know about the fetish, but I always have to hold back whenever I need to sneeze in front of her. In fact, I feel really uncomfortable doing things that are even slightly related to sneezing in front of her, such as nose rubbing, coughing, sniffling, etc.

In hindsight, I also think I explained my fetish pretty badly to her, just because I was 17ish and didn't fully understand it myself yet. It isn't that big of a deal, and 99% of the time my friend knowing my fetish doesn't affect my life at all. But when it does affect my life, it's usually more negative than positive.
 

Because of these cons, I never went out of my way to tell my friends in college - it isn’t something they need to know. I didn't actively hide it, either, and I only ended up telling them that I have a fetish when it came up naturally. My friends and I were taking turns sharing the story of the “craziest thing” that’s ever happened to us. And mine was having the first person I met on some obscure fetish site live a mile away from me (lol hey @Cecilia !) 

I did not, however, tell my friends what my fetish was. I told them it would make things weird for me if they know what it was and that maybe I'll tell them in a few years once I'm more comfortable with fetish stuff (no mental block, can say fetish words out loud, and the like). This eliminated a lot of Pixieflower's cons, but I still get a lot of the pros! I get to gush about fetish stuff with them to an extent, too. Once after I got back from on a date with someone, my roommate was all like, "how was it? Did they do the thing you like?" 

Basically, I think that if you're nervous about talking to your friend about it, you shouldn't yet. This is a secret that's ok to have for now, or forever. (And I don't know how old you are and this isn't meant to sound condescending at all - I'm only 20 haha - but I regret more things that I said when I was 13-17 age bracket than I regret saying when I'm drunk, now.) 

Edited April 19, 2018 by skater

[Thatonestranger]

Ok I think I won’t tell them.  You all make good points.  Thank you so much for the advice.