Little Thoughts

• Floss
• 1
• on Jan 14, 2023

I don’t want this post to be misleading, so I’ll say right from the start I’m technically, probably not actually a little. I was however discussing littles with Mr F the other day and he said ‘so like you then’ and my answer was ‘well yeah but also no’ and it got me thinking about the littleness I do have and where it comes from. Again I don’t want to misrepresent anyone else so these are just thoughts about myself, your mileage may vary. 

As an only child I spent a lot of time in adult company, which I always quite enjoyed. I enjoyed having discussions about interesting things and sharing my thoughts with people and my parent’s friends would often comment that I was mature for my age. I felt that too, often choosing my own company, or more accurately my dog’s company than that of my peers  because our interests didn’t always align. 

Add to all that the fact that I had to learn about some fairly grown up things while being quite young. I needed to grasp some kind of understanding of mental health issues and also the dynamics of grown up relationships. My mum never lied to me and she was always as honest as she could be. I’m grateful for this but it did mean there was sometimes no cushioning the blow of big information or big feelings. 

By the time I was my eldest’s age (11) I was being encouraged to sell my toys (I made a packet at car boot sales to be fair) because I wasn’t playing with them in the way they were perhaps designed for. I had dozens of Barbies and I didn’t play with them as much as I once had, but I loved them dearly. To this day I regret selling them all, I wish I still had at least some of them sitting on a shelf at home. 

I gave up a lot of things because I was ‘growing up’ and eventually an actual adult. When I became single after leaving my ex-husband I realised that as an adult I could actually do as I pleased and no one could stop me. I could treat myself to stuffies (money permitting), I could dress like a 5 year old off to a birthday party, cover my house in unicorns and watch My Little Pony on the telly and it was no one’s business but mine. 

This was derailed slightly when I made my first group of kinky friends. The ‘leader’ of the group had issues with cutest things. We had no littles in the group and anything that seemed even slightly ‘little’ wasn’t welcome. I once got reprimanded (slapped on the palm with a hitty thing) because I was showing another person in the group My Little Pony on my phone! I was at the time testing the water sod submission and also very excited to actually have friends, so I didn’t get the alarm bells I should have. Eventually I realised I had no desire to be his submissive and once that was decided I was free to dress and chat about whatever I liked and I definitely did. 

For almost the last decade I have happily embraced all the things I love that are considered ‘childish’ by some. One of the (many) things I love about Mr F is none of this phases him at all and even when I tell him I definitely can’t have a new stuffie he ignores me and gets me one anyway (which is great because they always need more friends). 

He also never laughs or belittles me for wanting to play the simplest of games on the PS5 or Switch, or for the TV shows and movies I like to relax with sometimes. Instead of making me feel indulgent or silly (bad silly, not cute silly), he makes me feel whimsical and cute. Which I love. I like feeling adorable and Mr F makes me feel that way quite often. 

He’s not a caregiver though, well not in the DDlg sense. He’s is the adorable nurturing boyfriend sense, which I absolutely love but we don’t have a dynamic that involves my little interests and my little interests don’t come with feeling little. I just love being surrounded by adorable cute things and sometimes my brain just cannot cope with any more adulting and colouring on my phone while watching My Little Pony just makes life seem a whole lot simpler. 

I’ve definitely been told by other people I am a little, as if they were giving me permission to admit it by pointing it out. I think being a little though goes beyond interests. Some littles might be totally disinterested in my love of glitter, brightly coloured plastic jewelry and trips to Build a Bear. Interests aren’t the defining feature of how we identify, feelings play a much larger part, as they do with most things.

So I think I’m probably not a little, but I definitely feel little adjacent. Or perhaps this how it starts and will I be sharing a post in a year about realising I’m a little and a bunch of folks will be sitting there thinking ‘yeah, no shit Sherlock!’