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Does how social you are affect if you're asexual or not?


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No Romo Girl

I have question I've been wondering about. Does whether you are socialable or shy, introvert or extrovert, does it affect if your asexual or not?

 

The reason I'm asking is because I'm still kind of questioning myself. 

 

I'm 25. I've never had many close friends. I had a few friends in elementary school and middle school. But i have always been a very shy girl. 

 

Kind of worried that I could be jumping to conclusions of being asexual? My social experiences were limited in high school. I wasn't sheltered or anything like that though.

 

I was never interested in dating anyone. I never talked about how "cute" any guys. My older sister would ask and I always answered no one. I didn't even go to prom in high school. 

 

I don't know. Am I just

overthinking things?

 

Two or three years ago I found out about asexuality on the Internet and I keep getting pulled back to it. I keep looking it up online. 

 

What do you think? Are you an introvert or extrovert? Is anyone else worried like I am? 

 

 

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Guest Talgo

I thought I was introverted. Even told my mom. She was like "honey, you are _not_ introverted". I think I'm just sometime shy. 

 

Mostly I knew I was asexual when this young(er) lady was half naked with her bewbs in my face and riding me (we both were still wearing pants) and all I could think about was the new video game I was playing. Literally the next day I Googled "Why don't I want to have sex" and found this place. 

 

So to answer your question: You might be over thinking things, and you might not. Are you attracted to guys? Are you attracted to girls? Do you just not care about either? Or maybe you like both? My suggestion is to experiment before making any life changing decisions.

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No. If anything it's the other way around, but just like any other orientation, you are what you are regardless of the rest of your personality.  I think the biggest issue might be that introverts may have trouble recognizing that they're asexual because they may write it off as social awkwardness.  At least that was my problem.

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No Romo Girl
6 minutes ago, Talgo said:

I thought I was introverted. Even told my mom. She was like "honey, you are _not_ introverted". I think I'm just sometime shy. 

 

Mostly I knew I was asexual when this young(er) lady was half naked with her bewbs in my face and riding me (we both were still wearing pants) and all I could think about was the new video game I was playing. Literally the next day I Googled "Why don't I want to have sex" and found this place. 

 

So to answer your question: You might be over thinking things, and you might not. Are you attracted to guys? Are you attracted to girls? Do you just not care about either? Or maybe you like both? My suggestion is to experiment before making any life changing decisions.

Honestly I'm not attracted to guys at all. Girls? I used to think I was because I had a "crush" on a girl in high school. But it wasn't that all. I just really wanted to be their friend. So platonic attraction? Another thing whenever people would ask which celebrity I  liked or thought was cute, I would lie. I would just say yes or pick someone random. In school once a boy kissed me on the cheek.  I didn't have any reaction to that. I pretended all the time to be attracted to people because I thought that's what you were supposed to do or say. 

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No Romo Girl
20 minutes ago, Claire1983 said:

No. If anything it's the other way around, but just like any other orientation, you are what you are regardless of the rest of your personality.  I think the biggest issue might be that introverts may have trouble recognizing that they're asexual because they may write it off as social awkwardness.  At least that was my problem.

Okay. Thanks. ☺️

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Grumpy Alien

Nope! Anyone with any personality trait can be any sexuality. 

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Janus the Fox

Social-ability seems like a large component in any level of relationship, but many probably do eventually find and seek relationships that are roughly around the same sociable level or ability.  Some may have no social ability and still find themselves in relationships or not and/or be happy or unhappy like most people, regardless of sexuality or gender.

 

Maybe a little true myself being poor social ability and finding myself in a relationship with roughly the same social ability as I do.  If such influences the sexuality and gender of my own, also as an autistic well maybe or not, nobody knows.

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Most people on here tend to be introverts, but that may be just because it's the Internet, or some other reason. But being an introvert doesn't make you asexual. If you don't feel any sexual attraction, you can call yourself asexual, no matter what.

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smallnsparky

If it's any help, I'm pretty extroverted - I had a few close friends up through school but I'd hang out in huge groups of people who were like acquaintances. I was a goth/skater kid and would hang out for hours in parks etc and I'd always be able to find someone I knew. In university, I studied theatre and went out frequently, in whatever ridiculous costume for whatever theme night was on. I'd get hit on sometimes, and I'd be just like "um no thanks" and totter off to collect more glow sticks. Most of this was even before I knew what being asexual was. I was always very huggy with my friends and tactile, but sex was something else that I just had no interest in, even as all my friends around me talked about it.

 

Now I'm older and a bit boring, but I still have plenty of friends. and I'm in a position where I could send a message right now, if I was allo, and ''get some''. That sounds gross, I know, but I know a few guys who'd delight in my company if I was that way at all inclined, but they know I'm not and they're all very respectful of that fact, thank goodness. But my point is I could establish something if that was who I was, but it isn't. 

 

 

 

 

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@TheAPmakes a really good point that you may find that most asexuals on AVEN are introverts, but that doesn't mean that most asexuals are introverts.  Online forums attract a disproportionately large percentage of introverts as compared to in-person meetups.

 

Most of the aces I know are less shy than most of the sexual people I know.   But also not really a sample representative of the general population.

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I'm pretty ambiverted and sometimes I feel very extraverted and want to talk to everyone and talking to more people gives me more energy and sometimes I'm clearly introverted and I want to not be interacted with so that my brain can work.

 

Don't get how socialness could effect sexuality, as shy sexual people still have those feelings but don't talk about them.

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NerotheReaper

No, you can be introverted and sexual. I personally know a lot of introverts who are sexual. Being introverted doesn't mean you are anti-social, someone might just prefer smaller groups or might need alone time to recharge their 'battery'. 

 

 

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Duke Memphis

I think I'm introverted on the outside and extroverted on the inside.

 

Why didn't you go to prom?

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Nah. Some introverted folks may end up having fewer relationships, I imagine (of all types really, including platonic friendships), especially if they're also shy (not the same as being introverted) or socially anxious (also not the same as being introverted), but no, introversion/extroversion aren't going to affect a person's orientation and whether they desire a sexual relationship.

 

I'm quite introverted and I'm sexual. Certainly not the most sexually-driven of people, I know I seem a lot more fine without sex than some people I know, and my libido generally only comes into play when I'm really into someone. But I don't think that's really a product of my introversion.

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anisotrophic

Introversion is correlated with asexuality, but that doesn't mean it's causal. It's easy to imagine it's the other way around: that an asexual orientation tends to cause individuals to be less extraverted? The same may be true for many unusual and wonderful traits, and it's just averages -- people are all different. Please don't worry about it!

Bogaert et al. 2017 has some research into personality trait correlates with asexual (and other) orientations against the HEXACO model. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2017.1287844 (This isn't open access, and I would never recommend anyone use a sci-hub URL, like sci-hub.tw, to illegally obtain scientific literature.) From the abstract: "Asexual men and women averaged lower in extraversion and in some facets of emotionality (specifically, dependence and sentimentality) than did the other sexual orientation groups of the same sex."

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You can definitely be asexual and an introvert without having to worry, it may feel like they're related but it has no bearing on sexuality. I'm pretty extroverted and questioned my sexuality a lot because all my friends are allosexual, and especially when I was in school I wanted to be able to relate to them, so there can be confusion no matter how social you are.

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Bronztrooper
6 hours ago, No Romo Girl said:

I didn't even go to prom in high school.

Heh, neither did I, and I had a girlfriend at the time it rolled around (neither one of us was interested in going).

 

5 hours ago, No Romo Girl said:

I pretended all the time to be attracted to people because I thought that's what you were supposed to do or say. 

This is pretty much what I thought as well, though, it felt to me that people were overly exaggerating it as well.

 

I used to think of myself as "selectively extroverted" in that I really like talking with friends and certain other people, but when I'm around a bunch of people I don't know, I keep to myself and only say something if I actually have something to say.  Hell, I get along with almost everyone I choose to interact with irl.  Lately, though, I've been wondering if that just means I'm ambiverted, but maybe I just don't fully grasp the concept of introverted/ambiverted/extroverted as a whole.

 

But I don't think any of that is directly related to me being asexual.

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everywhere and nowhere
13 hours ago, Talgo said:

So to answer your question: You might be over thinking things, and you might not. Are you attracted to guys? Are you attracted to girls? Do you just not care about either? Or maybe you like both? My suggestion is to experiment before making any life changing decisions. 

My suggestion is NOT to experiment - at least sexually - if one feels any disgust or anxiety towards the idea of having sex.

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everywhere and nowhere
9 hours ago, anisotropic said:

(This isn't open access, and I would never recommend anyone use a sci-hub URL, like sci-hub.tw, to illegally obtain scientific literature.)

And I'd openly recommend it. I've read a bit about it. Do you know that even scientists don't profit from this system? It's built in a way which only gives huge, unfair profits to publishers. Even big universities are having problems with affording subscriptions, to the point that some are encouraging their researchers to publish in open access journals, n order to at least put some pressure on giants such as Elsevier.

I don't care if I'm advocating illegal behavior by promoting Sci-Hub. I'm not an economic liberal and I believe that people don't have the right to make any kind of profit they want - states and international organisations should intervene if someone makes money in an unfair way. I like the example of income for managers. Is it hard work? Of course. Is it work which could be done by just anyone? Definitely not. But still I believe that hundreds of thousands dollars a year for such work isn't a fair pay. These people have made their own rules to pay themselves as much as they can - and others don't have such a chance. Therefore an idea for limiting it has been developed: for example, introduce a law that the highest pay in a company can be no higher than, for example, 12 times the lowest pay in the same company. I support this kind of thinking and I don't believe that "redistribution" is a foul word.

Alexandra Elbakyan, the creator of Sci-Hub, argues that hiding science behind paywalls is illegal despite being so widespread, as it violates article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits".

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No Romo Girl
13 hours ago, anisotropic said:

Introversion is correlated with asexuality, but that doesn't mean it's causal. It's easy to imagine it's the other way around: that an asexual orientation tends to cause individuals to be less extraverted? The same may be true for many unusual and wonderful traits, and it's just averages -- people are all different. Please don't worry about it!

Bogaert et al. 2017 has some research into personality trait correlates with asexual (and other) orientations against the HEXACO model. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2017.1287844 (This isn't open access, and I would never recommend anyone use a sci-hub URL, like sci-hub.tw, to illegally obtain scientific literature.) From the abstract: "Asexual men and women averaged lower in extraversion and in some facets of emotionality (specifically, dependence and sentimentality) than did the other sexual orientation groups of the same sex."

This is interesting. Yeah I'm not worried anymore. Thank you. I am getting closer to being sure about being asexual. ☺️

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No Romo Girl
4 hours ago, Nowhere Girl said:

My suggestion is NOT to experiment - at least sexually - if one feels any disgust or anxiety towards the idea of having sex.

I agree. I'm definitely not going to experiment because it grosses me out. 

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No Romo Girl
13 hours ago, AiUdin said:

You can definitely be asexual and an introvert without having to worry, it may feel like they're related but it has no bearing on sexuality. I'm pretty extroverted and questioned my sexuality a lot because all my friends are allosexual, and especially when I was in school I wanted to be able to relate to them, so there can be confusion no matter how social you are.

Okay thank you! 

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No Romo Girl
15 hours ago, Duke Memphis said:

I think I'm introverted on the outside and extroverted on the inside.

 

Why didn't you go to prom?

I wasn't interested in being in a couple. Also at that time I was confused and had the misconception that I was lesbian. (I am not) 

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princessem1020

It doesn't really affect my social life. I mean I'm a pretty stereotypical introvert, but I would be that way even if I wasn't asexual.

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I definitely believe that there is a correlation between asexuality and introversion, but I’d be more hesitant to claim that one caused the other. I think a case could be made for each being the cause, but I don’t think it’s really possible to make an honest general assertion. Just anecdotally, I am definitely a lone wolf and I feel like I’m much less emotional than the average person. My affect is relatively flat; I’m not super passionate or enthusiastic, I don’t get angry often, etc. It’s definitely something I think about sometimes.

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Duke Memphis
8 hours ago, No Romo Girl said:

I wasn't interested in being in a couple. Also at that time I was confused and had the misconception that I was lesbian. (I am not) 

I see prom as a dance, not a date. I'm not aro, but I ironically fail to see the romantic aspect of prom.

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On 6/20/2018 at 2:33 PM, Claire1983 said:

I think the biggest issue might be that introverts may have trouble recognizing that they're asexual because they may write it off as social awkwardness.  At least that was my problem.

Social awkwardness = story of my life...

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