Why do so many relationships seem scary?

Every once in a while I will come across a relationship that scares me. I don't mean to say that the relationship seems dysfunctional or that it even seems unhappy, I just find it hard to picture myself in their relationship without hurting my own feelings. Sometimes it can be a very small-seeming thing. Like a couple I came across in which the woman was submissive and the man was dominant, their relationship was based on a lot of objectification and bondage, but he..ate her pussy a lot. I know, I know, dominants can lick cunt, and yes please do it as much as you like, it's not my rule to make, but when I put myself in her place mentally, it just made me sad. I cannot survive a relationship where that happens to me because it doesn't just turn me off, I am physically scared of the reality of such a relationship. I do not want to know who I would be if that had been me. 

Sometimes it's a bigger thing. Like a relationship where I am the permanent cuckold. The idea of it arouses me immensely, but I don't know if I would find that adequately pleasurable as a constant for it to be sexually desirable to me. I don't mean that relationships like that are inherently sad, quite the contrary, I think they are very interesting. I wish it were more socially-acceptable (or even personally acceptable to me) to ask more direct and honest questions about people's relationship structures without it being inappropriate and nosy. I am curious about how being in that position, actively enforced, at all times, would impact a person, and while the idea excites me so much that when I have a discussion on the subject I start talking so fast I get a little breathless and my voice becomes weirdly hoarse from overuse, but at the same time, it scares me. I understand that the people who are in such relationships get something from it that I don't get, or maybe even need, and in the absence of that pleasure and/or need, the situation isn't a desirable one. It's like pain to someone who isn't a masochist. It's pointless, and undesirable. Why would they want it? 

When I was a lot younger, the relationship dynamics that scared me were different. Before I had ever been in a relationship, I was attracted to the idea that one can have multiple relationships at once and everyone else could be aware of and okay with it. However, I was scared of that too. I was worried if I would get jealous or find that it hurt my feelings to much to be in a relationship like that. I wondered and was sceptical about the idea that people could actually want something like that and really be okay with it, not just say they were okay with it because it was cool to be so. When I first came across the possibility of such a relationship, I was scared because it hurts to discover that you cannot enjoy something you thought you really wanted. Or to discover something fascinating and interesting is something you never wanted at all. We're human beings and it is alluring to find ourselves in pockets of things that are special. 

It's also natural to picture ourselves in situations we do not want at all and scare ourselves a little. For instance, the people who like pony-play, their relationships scare me because I don't want that at all, finding the arousal in that for me is like trying to think of a new colour, and when I inevitably try to picture myself with a horse-mask on or pulling a cart or being ridden, I feel terrified. It's not because their relationships or sexuality is terrifying, it's because it's too alien for me to be able to relate and without the context of being aroused by it, it seems like a scary thing. Like being chained up in a basement. Which is hot to me, but if it wasn't, I'd wonder why the fuck someone would do that. 

But it's really what you do with that fear that changes things. 

According to me, one of the greatest human failings is that we think everything is normal up to the point where we do it. I've done it too. When I had just started discovering what I actually liked sexually, I decided that it was okay to like being smacked around and spanked a little, but anything more than that would too scary and I would never do that. What I did was fine, and what I liked was fine, but anything *more* would be too much. I stopped doing that entirely about ten years ago when someone first said that to me about my relationship. 

"Your relationship seems so scary to me." 

"I cannot imagine why you would do that." 

Oftentimes we think that just because we have been judged or discriminated against for something, we are incapable of doing that to another person. Like the fact that I was judged for my sexuality and kinks inherently meant that I absolutely could not possibly do that to another person. The fear of witnessing a situation that does not make sense to you may be involuntary, but casting judgement is not. Attacking the thing that makes you uncomfortable is not emotionally mature, and I find that while I enjoy intelligent people tremendously, I appreciate emotionally intelligent people a lot more. Of course when I say this I don't mean your emotional intelligence should keep you from speaking out against a pedophile as I am sure this will be interrupted by the contrarian who is scared of agreeing with anyone for any reason at all, but it's important to apply basic intelligence to situations. Not all situations are alike. An evaluation of them does not just include the elimination of words that do not trigger. 

Which is not to say I am any better, it was only when people started to attack me for my "scary" relationship that I realised I may have judged people for theirs in the past. I didn't do it out loud so it hurt someone, because manners, but if you did, it's not so farfetched. I think we all go through the temptation to act out against things that scare us. When I heard my relationship being called scary, I eas defensive immediately, because I could not imagine why something I enjoyed so much could possibly seem scary to a person. It is so easy for me to determine that the smallest factions of someone else's relationship may scare me, and it was so difficult for me to imagine why someone else may feel the same about mine. 

But the truth is, every relationship is scary to someone else. 

In a group of conservative or traditional friends, an slightly open relationship may be scary. In a group of very young teenagers, having any relationship at all may seem scary. In a group of polyamorous friends, envisioning monogamy may be scary. On a forum for BDSM enthusiasts, the same basic template d/s relationship could seem scary to both people who have never thought of that before and people who think that is too basic to be enjoyable. Our perfect relationships exist only in context: admired by one, feared by another, and sadly, condemned by a third. 

I think we could do without that third option. 

Again, within reason. There's no reason to apply this to a man and his dog. 

I am sure we have all ended up, in life, doing things we once thought were scary or even doing things we low-key judged. I judged high protocol, and I do it like a hypocritical bitch with immense relish. I was scared of being in a relationship based on control that featured whips and dungeons, but I do that without a thought now. It's just my life. And I am sure we have all, also, not done things we didn't like the sound of, things that made us uncomfortable. I have not, nor will I ever (I think) start a relationship where people licking my cunt will be okay. I will probably never be a permanent cuckold (maybe long durations, but I'm less sure about this one than the rest). I will never be in a relationship where I cannot sleep in bed with my partner, that scares me. 

And that's okay. 

It's okay to do some things and not to do other things. It's perfectly normal. It's okay to like some things and not like others. It's natural. Then why does it make us so angry when other people do the same? Is it just because no one ever told you it's okay to be scared of things you don't understand? There, I've told you now. Is it okay now? 

(I know it's not, but I'm nothing if not optimistically naive?)