She has help from Samantha

[Bianca:]

But actually what followed was not a direct invitation to The Gathering, but instead a Whatsapp message from one of the hosts. To be precise, from a women I would later meet as Samantha.

The reason for this Whatsapp message was simple: Kevin "nominated" me for the next Gathering, and the hosts wanted to know more about me before telling me their "secret doorbell code". Mysterious.. but it made me even more curious.

As a result, I ended up in a long conversation with this Samantha. I learned that Kevin himself was rather new in their community, so he was not yet fully trusted by them to simply bring along new people. Samantha made it also clear that they don't want that the Gathering is used as as a place to simply date and spend time with each other exclusively as replacement for a cheap hotel room. I guess she somehow knew what I was up to, either by good social skills or from experience.

In this conversation, Samantha explained the philosophy and the rules of their cozy little Gathering to me. As it turned out, there was quite some philosophy but little rules. I was already aware of the most important rule, which was kind of also part of their philosophy, is to "get naked", not only in terms of clothes (that much I knew), but also mentally. To open up. Their idea was simply to create a space to be oneself, to be the most authentic version. To me that idea was intimidating and exciting at the same time. I got a little bit aroused by the thought alone.

I asked about other rules and Samantha brought up the rule of consent and open and honest communication as a basis for all the other things that were possible. I liked that idea as well, and it made me feel a bit less nervous about creepy guys. Assuming that what she was telling, the space almost sounded to good to be true!

Samantha also told me that there were not really any other rules. For them, freedom was the biggest value of all and so they want to create a space where people can feel free and do whatever they wanted. She told me this fact both as encouragement to experiment with that freedom, but also as a warning that people might go crazy at some point. "Usually this does not happen and things don't go that crazy. But then, it depends what you consider crazy.." was her only comment to that. I smiled to myself, unsure about my answer to that question.

Apparently I said the right things at the right time, so after a long conversation and a phone call as "fake check", I got an invite, and a promise that Samantha will show me all the details of the space just there.

She then send me the details: date, time, address, and most importantly, in what pattern I would have to press the doorbell button.