Thought Experiment on "Platonic Orientations"

[Kitteη χ]

I'm not sure if this is the right place for this kind of topic, but the other day, I was just randomly thinking about platonic attraction, and how it would theoretically be possible to describe a "platonic orientation" in much the same way that sexual and romantic orientations are described. I don't know if it really makes sense to do so, but there were a couple orientations in particular that I thought would have interesting implications.

 

I first thought about if someone could be described as "demiplatonic", which seems very strange at first. It would essentially mean that someone would only desire to be friends with another person if they already had a close bond. But how would that bond develop if they had no desire for friendship? My guess is that they would pretty much have to be forced to spend a lot of time with another person, developing a bond whether they want it or not. I also realized that that's more or less how my closest friendships began, so I suppose it would be possible.

 

The other orientation I thought would be interesting was being "aplatonic": Not feeling a desire for friendships, and potentially not having any friends. My initial reaction was that such a person would have a sad and lonely life, but then I realized that many allos probably view asexuality and aromanticism in much the same way. People who desire sexual/romantic intimacy often view it as a basic human need that one could not live without, but for aces/aros who don't have that desire, it's no big deal. Similarly, we view platonic friendships as a basic human need, but a lack of friendships would likely be no big deal to this hypothetical aplatonic person who genuinely has no desire for friendships, as hard as that would be for the rest of us to wrap our heads around.

 

Like I said, I don't know if talking about "platonic orientations" even makes sense, but I thought it was interesting and was wondering if anyone else might have any other thoughts or opinions on this topic.

 

EDIT: Based on the responses so far, I'll add that I intended for this to focus more on theoretical discussions and contemplations, rather than the practicality of such labels.

[Karst]

The idea makes sense to me, but I'm not sure if this framework would actually be useful.

[Anthracite_Impreza]

Platonic orientations are only really useful for aro-aces, because they're the only orientation we have. That said, by that token I think they are very important to us, especially for those of us with less common orientations *cough*like me*cough*.

[Scottthespy]

The concept of a spectrum of different ways to want and make friends makes perfect sense, but calling it an 'orientation' is needlessly complicating an already over complicated social notion. Giving it categories and labels will just result in more people thinking this is something they 'need' to figure out and tack onto their 'identity', making a big deal (and likely big problems) out of something that currently very few people are bothered about. 

 

See, the thing I've noticed is that the more important something is, the more polarizing it becomes. When we don't care about something, we don't fight over it. By throwing extra rules and labels into a concept, you lend it 'legitimacy', you make it seem suddenly very 'important' to consider and figure out. And then you get people fighting over which way is best, whether or not people who don't care are politically incorrect, if there should be laws governing how people treat others in regards to the topic.

 

The more seriously a person takes a subject, the more issues that person sees when other people don't take it seriously. Fandoms are a wonderfully toxic example of this, but then, so are romantic orientations, and gender, and other 'important' social issues that have been getting a little out of hand lately. I like the idea of contemplating the range of friendship in a philosophical way, but giving it any sort of legitimacy as an 'orientation' feels like it could lead to a dangerous place, where kids are agonizing over whether they're 'besties' or 'bffs', and people are claiming discriminatory friendship practices, or trying to 'cure' people with the 'wrong' viewpoint.

 

As a sidenote, there's already a word for 'aplatonic'. The word is Hermit. People who would rather not deal with others any more than they absolutely have to. At this point in history, where labeling and compartmentalizing 'friendship' isn't important, these people are usually looked at as 'a bit weird, but whatever works for them, I guess'.

[Falafelphy]

31 minutes ago, Anthracite_Impreza said:

Platonic orientations are only really useful for aro-aces

I would disagree here, because from what I've seen, allos seem to value friendships more than they think, generally. Aros, meanwhile, are aware of how valuable friendships are because they're their only source of human connection other than familial connections and meeting acquaintances just by living life. 

 

I think an interesting thought experiment would be thinking about homoplatonicism or heteroplatonicism, as if someone says they only want to be friends with men or they only want to be friends with women, we'd often think of that as sexism, while if they say they would only date men or only date women, that's normal. Is there a difference there?

 

I would think of myself as panplatonic personally.

 

Edit: I'm not saying any of this with the intention of homophobia at all, just to discuss the societal differences between platonic and romantic relationships.

[Kitteη χ]

I suppose I could add that I didn't intend to discuss the practicality of using this as label in the same way people use sexual/romantic orientations as labels. It was more for theoretical discussions and contemplations.

[Anthracite_Impreza]

15 minutes ago, Falafelphy said:

I would disagree here, because from what I've seen, allos seem to value friendships more than they think, generally. Aros, meanwhile, are aware of how valuable friendships are because they're their only source of human connection other than familial connections and meeting acquaintances just by living life.

That's true, maybe I should've said predominately, in practical circumstances, it's mostly useful for aro-aces.

[GutsyCowardLep]

its a interesting idea.

 

I suppose it depends on the situation like if someone wants like a life companion to be with without it being something romantic or sexual.

[Grimalkin]

1 hour ago, Scottthespy said:

The concept of a spectrum of different ways to want and make friends makes perfect sense, but calling it an 'orientation' is needlessly complicating an already over complicated social notion. Giving it categories and labels will just result in more people thinking this is something they 'need' to figure out and tack onto their 'identity', making a big deal (and likely big problems) out of something that currently very few people are bothered about. 

I think I agree with this.

 

The thing is, making friends is hard. It feels unnatural and forced at first. If you don't see this person every day in a setting like school or work, it makes you wish you could just jump ahead into the "already friends" mode so that you don't have to go through the process of putting the friendship together.

 

That's just base human socializing, I think. It's a neat idea, but I don't think I'm 'demiplatonic' because I'm an introvert and I desire to be good friends with someone already. Hell, I have a lot of male friends, but that doesn't make me, uh, heteroplatonic? I just happen to be in a situation where I meet a lot of guys and I find their company agreeable.

[Guest]

4 hours ago, Scottthespy said:

The concept of a spectrum of different ways to want and make friends makes perfect sense, but calling it an 'orientation' is needlessly complicating an already over complicated social notion. Giving it categories and labels will just result in more people thinking this is something they 'need' to figure out and tack onto their 'identity', making a big deal (and likely big problems) out of something that currently very few people are bothered about. 

I agree. I think there should be a limit to how we categorize our proclivities. If we have to explain every aspect of something, we'll have to explain the explanation of the explanation. At that point it'll just be counterproductive. There's too much individuality in the world to have perfect, all encompassing definitions for everything. I think preference is a good enough word when one is necessary after the fact. 

[EggplantWitch]

7 hours ago, Greywulf said:

 I think there should be a limit to how we categorize our proclivities. If we have to explain every aspect of something, we'll have to explain the explanation of the explanation. At that point it'll just be counterproductive. There's too much individuality in the world to have perfect, all encompassing definitions for everything. I think preference is a good enough word when one is necessary after the fact. 

Preference is much better, for sure. I'm really not a fan of platonic orientation labels. I'm sorry, as I try not to judge people on their labels, but I really do think it's just a step too far Friendships are down to preference for sure: something much, much closer to a choice than romantic or sexual orientation will ever be. I don't believe that anyone, anywhere, ever, is incapable of becoming friends with someone from a specific gender, whereas it really is impossible for e.g. homoromantic people to fall in love with someone of a different gender or a heterosexual person to feel sexual attraction towards the same one. And if someone claims to be actually, literally be incapable of forming friendly relations with a particular gender I would frankly be worried. It suggests mental health issues and/or prejudices that need to be dealt with in a productive manner, not slapping on a label and claiming that makes it OK.

[blackwatch]

4 hours ago, EggplantWitch said:

Preference is much better, for sure. I'm really not a fan of platonic orientation labels. I'm sorry, as I try not to judge people on their labels, but I really do think it's just a step too far Friendships are down to preference for sure: something much, much closer to a choice than romantic or sexual orientation will ever be. I don't believe that anyone, anywhere, ever, is incapable of becoming friends with someone from a specific gender, whereas it really is impossible for e.g. homoromantic people to fall in love with someone of a different gender or a heterosexual person to feel sexual attraction towards the same one. And if someone claims to be actually, literally be incapable of forming friendly relations with a particular gender I would frankly be worried. It suggests mental health issues and/or prejudices that need to be dealt with in a productive manner, not slapping on a label and claiming that makes it OK.

i think its not the ability to create a friendship with spesific gender,because that everybody can do

i think its the disire,the need to create freindship with spisific gender.for me its like repulse sex aces dont have the disire to have sex,but they can do it