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Demi-sexuals and the friend zone.


ad-absurdo

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Right now I have a huge crush on my friend for about the past 6 months since we've gotten closer. He's aware and made it clear that he doesn't like me that way. It seems like every time I get to know someone well enough to experience attraction I've already been friend-zoned. Does anyone else struggle with this? :(

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Yup happens to me too. It takes at least a year for me to like someone cos i have to be best friends with them to think of them in a romantic way. Then by the time i develop feelings for her, she sees me as a friend. Its crushing because the excuse that is used is " i dont want to lose the friendship" or " I dont date my best friends" The only way for me to like someone is to become best friends with them so when people tell me that i shouldnt have waited too long to make a move just dont understand what its like to be a demisexual/demiromantic. I dont understand how people can just like a person without getting to know them. For me i have to pretty much be able to say that I trust that person with my life before I think of dating them. Its illogical to me when people say that dating your best friend is bad.

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The Gray Goblin

DITTO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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The Bearded One

Like Karn, K.D, glass weegie, and The Grey Goblin say.

There's more to it for me, but I'm pretty nonverbal, and I can't come up with the words right now. It's related to a social theory about types or styles of love.

Try searching the computer networks for "colors of love" if I remember correctly. Check intellectual lover.

For me, any chance of becoming a long term lover to someone would have to start with someone who is already a friend (intimate in social science lingo) and the friendship always comes first. What I mean by friend is probably closer to what most people would call a close friend or best friend. I don't do degrees of friendship.

I detest the phrase "just friends". These are the people that matter to me. The concept of "just lovers" actually makes sense to me, although I have no interest having that sort of relationship.

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Kitty Spoon Train

I can relate, as a hetero-demisexual currently trying to date...

While I don't have any fixed time frames, I certainly don't get primary sexual attraction, and have a serious case of needing to be friends first for extremely long (by usual sexual dating standards).

The way I'm dealing with this is by being completely open and honest. My OkCupid profile literally lays it out as it is - with a full explanation of what demisexuality is, how I generally get attracted and how it can take a while, and links to AVEN. I've only been on there for about six weeks now, so it's too early to tell how this "full disclosure" method works. But I'm generally a fan of honestly and openness with everything in life, so that's all I can suggest.

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Oh ye gods ... the friends zone ... I have literally lost count of the number of times I had ended up there .. And worst still, on a couple of occasions, I even ended up in the 'brother zone' too ...

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I am noticing as I get older it's harder and harder too. In your early-mid teens it's considered more "acceptable" to wait to jump in to a relationship or go all the way. Now that I'm in my 20s I find most people aren't willing to invest that much time in to someone without getting theirs in return even though I explain to them upfront what the deal is.

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I duno bout you but for me i pretty much dont have a friendzone...like every girl i become best friends with i end up falling for her.(thats only happened twice in my whole life and its only after ive known the girl for years) I will never understand why people say they cant date their best friend...i think as demisexuals we're better off finding someone else thats demi so they have the same views in their head...i mean with non demi they would see us wanting friendship as a sign that we will never want anything more, when the reality is, we dont know if we want more if we're not friends...it just makes sense to be friends first i dont get the whole 'go out on a date to see if youre compatible' thing when they dont even know their date.

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The Bearded One

If the class assignment was to design a ritual that makes it difficult for people to get to know each other anyone who submitted "dating" should get an A.

Being in someone's friendzone or brotherzone would be a big improvement in my present social life. :)

My comments on "just friends" appear earlier in the thread. For me there is NOTHING more than friends.

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I don't get why people even have friendzones. I'm aromantic, but I think if I absolutely had to be in a relationship, I'd want it to be with someone I trusted instead of someone I barely met. Being friendzoned before you get a chance to develop feelings for someone must really suck! :mellow:

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Kitty Spoon Train

For me, any chance of becoming a long term lover to someone would have to start with someone who is already a friend (intimate in social science lingo) and the friendship always comes first. What I mean by friend is probably closer to what most people would call a close friend or best friend. I don't do degrees of friendship.

I detest the phrase "just friends". These are the people that matter to me.

Same. It actually goes even further with me - and this really evolved strongly once I realised I was demisexual...

I've gotten to the point where the labels "friend" and "date/potential partner" have become so completely blurred that they feel just about meaningless. Mind you, there are some people I just don't have some indefinable "chemistry" with (and could never see myself getting physical/sexual with), but otherwise, it's starting to feel more and more artificial to me to slap the "romantic relationship" label on a person and to treat them as something special and exclusive, and of higher status than one's "friends".

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Sketch Doge

I totally understand the friend zone thing. And I have to agree with Guzica simply because I don't understand the concept of dating. Unfortunately I cannot possibly picture even being attracted to someone without being best friends first. But, after 6 months or so when I get the idea of dating in my head they have the idea that I am not interested because I don't hit on them, or if I do, it is more of that cutesy akward stuff.

The last person I almost dated I admired because I was able to form enough of a connection to consider dating her quickly, though it turns out we were no good for each other. Mostly due to personality conflicts and the like. I even told her that I take thing EXTREMELY slowly, most people don't even comprehend what that means. She unfortunately did not, and within the first couple of weeks was holding my hand and insinuating she wanted to kiss me (I take all physical intimacy very slowly but went along with it anyway.) Luckily I told her it wasn't going to work pretty early.

I find the most funny thing in my experience to be when I say "I take things extremely slowly" and they say "What, like a few months?" -_-

Anyway going along with what Guzica said, that label is what I have the most trouble with. I hate being labeled but unfortunately people tend to need those.

I want a Bonnie and Clyde style relationship, a partner, someone who gets me. If that eventually involves sex cool, if not, I'm not super worried about it.

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The Bearded One

"I take things extremely slowly" reminds me of a girl I first noticed in 6th grade, first talked with in 11th. :lol:

"romantic relationship" and "romantic partner" are things I try to avoid, kind of like stinging insects. :)

I think many people who seek these things really do expect to be treated as someone special and exclusive, and of higher status than one's friends.

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I'm sorry to say that I'm kind of always on your friends party here. I'm also demisexual, so I understand where you're coming from, but I have to say that I understand your friend as well, because friendship is easy and predictable, whereas relationships are complicated and dynamic, so obviously, friendship is preferred (if we look at these parameters only).

On the other hand, I recently went on a date with a wonderful guy, whom I met for the first time in the date context, and I realized that I can't date him, because we weren't best friends before hand, meaning I barely know a thing about him. Ideally, all relationships would be able to evolve from friendships, and not from sex.

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Sketch Doge

Ya, I actually got to know a girl well enough that I wanted to date her recently. Unfortunately she didn't pick up on any of my signals and ended up dating someone else. Epic friend-zone.

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Nightingale Nouveau Cirque

..um somewhat related: I always seem to get intense squishes on some of my friends and since I usually keep to myself they're like "... what's this all of a sudden" because I'm all "LET ME LOVE YOU"

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Great Thief Yatagarasu

I always used to feel mean because I'd always be the one friendzoning other people. No one would ever directly tell me that they fancied me, but I'd get so many hints...and I'd always ignore them, deliberately, because I just wasn't interested. It's been nasty, though, the few times that the shoe's been on the other foot - I once asked out a friend of mine over facebook, only to receive literally no reply and no sign that he'd read it at all (which it would have been impossible for him not to). I mean, if the friend isn't brave enough to ask you out, then ignoring hints is fine - but ignoring someone when they actually ask you out? That's just cold.

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Sketch Doge

That's rough. From the perspective that people drop hints to me all the time but I turn them down is interesting. It sucks because usually I don't notice their hints or am too apathetic to do anything about their hints. IMHO women should not be afraid to ask out men on occasion. It would make life easier for me anyway :P

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People are talking about having crushes on friends, isn't that more demiromantic than demisexual?

Anyway, I'm in a similar situation and was going to post a new topic but might as well do it here. I have a new best friend since I moved and we've gotten pretty close. I remember when we were getting to know each other that I thought she was cute. Now that the weather is getting warmer and it's veering towards more revealing clothing, she would ask me if she was hot/sexy. She knows about my aceness/deminess and that my opinion isn't really the first she should be after, but it still happens. I used to think that because I found her aesthetically attractive, sexuals would also find her sexually attractive and I'd just tell her she looked good but in the past month I've found that I've gone from thinking she is hot to actually feeling it. I just find it annoying because it tends to skew our friendship a bit now.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I'm not quite sure I know what you mean. I've been friend-zoned several times, but some of my friends are still willing to sleep with me every now and then.

Perhaps it's because they know I'm aromantic and won't expect anything more out of them?

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People are talking about having crushes on friends, isn't that more demiromantic than demisexual?

Can't you be...both? I mean I only have one case but both of them applied to me during that time.

.

Anyways I imagine attempting to flirt with someone who you have been close friends with for a while would be very hard for them to interpret as in my lack of experience -> flirting = being supa nice and staring o_o;;. It would be easier for your friend to assume you were just joking around, being a good friend, etc. than if they did not know you very well.

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Oh gods.

Yesterday, I 'fessed up my feelings to a girl, and caught her half-way. She has feelings for me - I'm not completely friend-zoned - but she's unsure. She's cool with sexing me, it's the romantic part she's a tad iffy about.

I would *love* to examine her thought process right now!

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I feel so at-home here... you all make perfect sense to me. It's so maddening out in the world of sexuals that people just don't get this. I don't know how many times I've said or though "why would I be attracted to them - I don't even know them!" or "why are you attracted to me - you don't know anything about me!" and I just get strange looks. I'm sure I look back, just as strangely.

But here I just nod my head - yup, been there.

Ad-Absurdo, all I can say is hang in there. In your teens it may be more acceptable to "wait" because you are young, in your twenties it seems to be the norm to hop in the sack on the third date... by the time you get to your thirties though, people have more control of their hormones and urges and can actually think past them and listen to what you are saying. At least some of them can.. ;) And some of them actually have the capacity to believe you, which I found completely lacking in everyone in my twenties... but then I didn't have this awesome website and community to back me up.

I agree with the above in that you should be open from the start and lay it out for people the way relationships work for you. Help them to see your perspective and hopefully they won't just just toss you in the friend zone, or at least if they do then they won't lock the gate...

Good luck out there.

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Gray Wizard

I've never understood why a lot of people seem to think getting intimate with your friends is a bad idea. I can't imagine ever being intimate with a partner that isn't my friend. And successfully married people I know all consider their spouse their best friend, so big WTF. I think these people deep down don't really desire an intimate relationship, but feel like sluts if they just hook up with someone repeatedly without some kind of social contract - i.e. monogamy. It's a trick of social preconceptions that is really ruining everything for everyone. People should be free to hookup with whomever if that's how they want to express their sexuality, but people who enjoy monogamous relationships should realize it's way better to start as friends and take things slow instead of using sex to force a deeper level of intimacy with someone you really don't know very well, as many sexuals I know seem to do. If you're not attracted to me, that's fine, but don't say "I don't date friends" because that just sounds idiotic. You can't be friends with your long term partner? Then WTF is the attraction?

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I've never understood why a lot of people seem to think getting intimate with your friends is a bad idea... ...If you're not attracted to me, that's fine, but don't say "I don't date friends" because that just sounds idiotic. You can't be friends with your long term partner? Then WTF is the attraction?

The reason that popped up in my head (social media probably) is that people are afraid of what will happen (loose a good friend) if they break up. I suppose some may see it as safer to meet someone outside your "social foundation" so you can always have people to fall back onto. I *think* people can have issues staying friends if they end out breaking up and if they were both in the same group of friends then /hmm... I don't know if this is the actual reason.

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I feel so at-home here... you all make perfect sense to me. It's so maddening out in the world of sexuals that people just don't get this. I don't know how many times I've said or though "why would I be attracted to them - I don't even know them!" or "why are you attracted to me - you don't know anything about me!" and I just get strange looks. I'm sure I look back, just as strangely.

I've been exploring that a bit because I was going to write about it. It's reassuring to see that it's not just me who has a problem getting sexuals to understand this.

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