Just for myself, when I find no interest in anything else about a person, it is just terrible. But that’s not their fault.Total mood killer though. I really only sleep with people where there is some actual sustained mutual admiration. I very much remind myself I may wind up mixing DNA and creating a responsibility with this person, after all.
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I know. I mean, what would happen if I googled, ‘highlander there can only be cum’. Would I find it?
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Rule 34. Ya don’t wanna go there. Or so I’m told.
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well I am sure not going to check for you while I am at work…
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Because I didn’t decide to do it! That’s the quick and easy answer.
More specifically, being impulsively attracted would seem to suggest sloppy thinking with regards to questions of how, who, and why. I prefer to be able to select criteria and choose deliberately. Having these criteria be automatic/subconscious might suggest pre-programmed mating behaviors which have no place outside of their original reproductive context.
Socially, it seems better to not make selfish personal games out of it. Just like anything else which is supposedly a necessity for people. There are all sorts of “personal” things in the world which are still offered freely in many cases to those who need them: food, shelter, advice, a toothbrush, etc. But with sex, people insist that it is crucial, yet demand that its fulfilment be more or less spontaneous and informal. I think that this is antisocial, and generally a bad idea.
And even sexually - isn’t a person with complete control over their bodies impulses likely to be a more skilled parter than those who cannot do so?
Unlike many who get particular about it, despite being averse to the notion of sexual attraction, I consider myself to be very much pro-sex. I think that people should be more open and less conflicted about sex, and not treat it as a weird thing to be hidden away, apart from daily life. It is integral. But personally I prefer for it to be socially integral as well personally. Like my “sex ambulance” idea I (sort of) joked about, an annual town orgy, or a well thought out ritual.
The way I see it, everybody has “a relationship”, life amongst people is all relationships. But as for “chemistry”, I find many people say this despite not being able to explain what it is. To me it sounds like many people have criteria which they simply choose to not be conscious of.
Some…part…of you did!
I think you’re overthinking this by a mile. It’s just sex and, sure, “chemistry” is vague and handwavy but we aren’t entirely (or nearly) rational being and sexual attraction is driven by many things not conscious to us at all.
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I’m glad you said.
I had a respnse written out to a previous response of yours about how you were using utilitarian language in the context of romantic love. Now that makes sense. No worries, but if your goal is mutually satisfying relationships, it is your responsibility to not leave people feeling handled like objects, .People know when they;re being managed, handled, and they feel devalued by that and won’t soon forget it.
When I read Existentialism is a Humanism by Sartre it helped me intellectualize a few things which have become reflexive, about that part of you that is actually defined by other people. For my part I am not autistic, but some friends and family in my early life were - and I wound up with some insight. Hope I helped! People are hard no matter what.
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Lalalala - can’t hear you! XD
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The lizard brain?
I am The Lizard Brain!
I can do… anythain!
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If that’s what you want to call it between you and your partner.
I think you can recognise things that are going on and decide what to do with them, and how much significance they should have. It’s a personal decision, so this isn’t a value judgement on my part. There were a number of friends that I developed an interest in, thought about it and decided not to pursue it. I wasn’t interested in a romantic relationship at the time and didn’t want to make it awkward between us. When you ask someone out without being that close, there’s less to lose. When it’s a friend, it can be perceived almost as an act of betrayal - that’s what this was about the whole time? The truth is that it wasn’t at all, you’re just interested in them in more than one way. One time people thought I was interested in a friend and made things quite awkward between us, even though neither of us had feelings for the other. I don’t really consider either way to be shallow or manipulative or anything, they’re just different ways of feeling attraction and expressing what’s important to you in a relationship.
I wonder how much of this is cultural, and how much is more your personality. I don’t know if I’m autistic, but it’s more than likely (I scored 38 on the AQ test). It’s possible that some of this choice is a resistance to the more subtle cues that are an important part of physical attraction, along with a dislike for the context of a number of social interactions (lots of people in a room, many conversations going on at the same time, other distractions, strong focus on first impressions rather than getting to know someone etc.). I overthink everything by a mile, not just sex. Relationships and attraction are particularly weird and idiosyncratic things though.
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Heh, after 10 years of ADHD treatment and coping mechanism development, I have several traits in common with autism now myself. I scored a 30.
Part of it is, I don’t really trust people. If someone is just even slightly too friendly my alarms go off, and I start thinking “what scam are they trying to run. Why are they talking to me? Do I seem like a good mark?”
Other problems are caused by the medications and therapy itself. Classical stimulants blunt personality like you wouldn’t believe. My jokes never land, and I’m always the last person to get a joke, because in my case, overclocking my brain means I think in nearly 100% literal terms. I have setup very deep ruts in my daily life. Because if I don’t have a compulsive level of habit formed for things, they’ll never get done. So when my routine is interrupted I get upset. Firstly because I’ve been jolted out of my rut, and secondly because I know if I don’t get back into my rut soon, my whole day is going to be messed up and I’m going to start forgetting about stuff I need to do.
Sorry to deviate from the romance talk, but what you said here resonated so well for me, and I had to add on.
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One of my best friends in high school knew I was crushing on him before I even figured it out myself. He’s a straight guy, and we’d been friends for quite a while already and I kinda just mentioned it to him how I felt, and he just said “you know me well enough to know it’s not going anywhere. But we’re cool. Nobody can help how they feel when it comes to attraction.”
He’s a cool guy. I ought to call him up again one of these days. In any case, that was by far the best outcome. He respected me enough to just be honest, and not be hurtful. I can see how it easily can be perceived as a betrayal, but like you said, it’s possible to like someone for many different reasons in different ways.
Had to add my 2 cents to at least keep on track.
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Seeing as betrayal was my word… thanks.
You did indeed get the best outcome and he does sound like a great guy. My experiences never worked out that well because the person crushing would issue an ultimatum of some sort. Which always seemed to me be a strange thing to… go out with me or else… how’s that going to work?
Glad it worked out for you. 
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I admit, I’m guilty of doing “go out with me or else” as a tactic, I don’t know if it’s a stage or not, but I know it’s definitely wrong and coercive. I got past that. But I don’t think of myself as capable of romance anymore. I like intimacy (conceptually), but romance seems like a fake burden. Like carrying a sexdoll around to pull out for specific occasions. Not condemning it. I’m saying I’ve got it wrong and made some choices that have cut me off from humanity in a way.
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The other thing I don’t get is when guys go crazy if they get hit on by a guy. I can understand women feeling uneasy if they have bad experiences with men taking rejection, but I’d honestly be pretty flattered if a guy was interested in me.
To be honest, I’ve rejected a few people before because we weren’t that close. I knew they were nice people and I didn’t find them unattractive, but I was a bit disappointed that they would get straight to the point rather than getting to know me better first. On the other hand, there weren’t many women in my circle of close friends about my age who I would have said a definite no to if they had shown interest and I was unattached. It’s not that I don’t care or that I’d be thinking of them all in that way, it’s just that I already knew they were fantastic people and I’d have been lucky to be with any of them.
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This part really pushes the “betrayal” aspect of it. Ultimatums are not exactly friendly.
Also, does anyone else have a real problem with talking about sex and relationships with these avatars? I mean, I’m looking at your avatar and being like, “Men are sexually attracted to that dog, that’s gross.” Does anyone else get confused when someone changes their avatar? Like they changed how they look in real life? Have I taken the red pill or the blue one?
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@LDoBe - “romance” changes a lot as you get older. What you want, what you’re willing to give, what you’re willing to settle for, perhaps you’re just in a transition phase? Though, you do talk up thread about ruts, meeting people or romance is the opposite of a rut.
@jsroberts - see, I like it if people get to the point! Then we can deal with that and get it out of the way! If we’re to be just friends, excellent, lets proceed! If we can’t then ok, let us both move on! Done and done!
@anon50609448 - you know you find my ears sexy!
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I also think people should be upfront with each other, but understanding more about what makes people tick is good too. I would probably have known better how to respond to people showing interest if my initial reaction hadn’t been to think they must be a bit desperate to ask someone who wasn’t in their circle.
On the other hand, I could empathise with someone feeling bitter for being rejected out of hand by a friend - based on my perspective, this would sound like saying that we weren’t that close after all. Did our friendship mean anything if she is so sure that there’s no attraction? If she is so sure, is there any hope that anyone else will be interested? If the way I would like to ask someone out is likely to be seen as an aggression, I don’t really want to play a weighted game of “double or nothing” with my friendships.
There’s definitely male entitlement here and feeling confused or even bitter is a long way from responding with aggression, but I’d like to hope that discussing and responding to individual differences like this more productively (and before these scenarios come up - women rejecting someone are not in a good position to be able to teach them anything) could keep initially well meaning people from becoming abusive idiots.
