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Retrospective Perspective


Traveler40

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Hmmm, I wonder if your brain chemistry is a little different. The stress relief is the same as if you had run a mile or just cried for an hour or... whatever gives you a neurotransmitter kick. Running doesn't do it for me, personally. But the sex afterglow is just... I don't know, a melty, lovey, heart-eyed puddle of blissful chill. 

I definitely think mine is different.  None of those things really give me anything I would phrase as relief or chill or anything along those lines.

 

But then, I *do* have Asperger's, depression, and some wonked up hormone issues, so I was kinda screwed to start with, I guess.

 

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Running makes me feel like I want to die, lol.

Yeeeeep.  Exercise in general is like that for me if it's strenuous

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To relax I basically need to zone out. Which is what I want when I am stressed. Something that just blanks my mind. A particular song on repeat, or cuddling and putting on something mindless. 

 

Sex... that takes concentration. I have to focus and channel a particular emotional response to bring about arousal and desire to the point of orgasm. It's a nice feeling and I like I can do it now. But, it isn't effortless .. especially not since my partner and I started to figure out our incompatibilities a bit. I need a very, very particular emotional space or nothing anyone does can work. And being all stressed makes that harder. 

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Oh yeah for sure. Like, sex takes a lot of work and energy, so it's particularly good if I have too much anxiety or something, it burns the energy and, like CBC said, fixes my brain. Like, it really does fix it. For awhile, not like 20 minutes. 

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On 7/23/2019 at 11:06 AM, Traveler40 said:

...The only thing that eludes me is how long it took AVEN to pop up on any of my Google searches. I googled for YEARS and never came across the word “asexual” or “asexuality”.

 

So, that means I’m either seriously inept at internet searching, clicked on everything except anything with the word asexual in it, or it just wasn’t “visible”.  My vote is door #3...

Hmm...well, in AVEN's early years, people only found AVEN by accident when searching for things like, "I don't want sex," "I don't like sex or dating," etc., because those exact phrases were used by members on the forum. I don't know if searching "asexual" or "asexuality" would've turned up AVEN, at the time; I think I remember a couple of members saying that, when they tried, all they got were sites about asexual plants.

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On 7/23/2019 at 11:21 AM, Telecaster68 said:

That reminds me ... One of my wife's early comments about me, because I'm not a blokey bloke, was that I was 'just gay enough'. Turns out she was wrong about that.

 

She may have been assuming, mistakenly, that metrosexuals don't care about sex.  

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I had been wondering where he went.  All I can say is that I hope it was for a worthy cause.

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26 minutes ago, CBC said:

Tbh it was an utter bullshit reason that maybe should've been a nudge at best...

I second that. 

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1 hour ago, CBC said:

@Sally I'll screenshot that and pass it along to Tele, haha... well, if I ever hear from him again. (Finally banned for real, in case you weren't aware. Dude sucks at staying in touch.)

Wow, I'm kind of amazed.  I can think of others that should have gone first.   He drove me nuts often, but I really respected his intelligence and his perspicacity about relationships.   It seemed to me that he was getting more and more angry as time went on. 

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I can think of others that should have gone first.

I don't have enough fingers to count them all.

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I'm really sorry about this.  He was on AVEN constantly, really seemed to depend on it, and I hope he'll be all right without it.  

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It’s blown a massive hole in my desire to participate these days. His perspectives and input generally resonated with me. He was instrumental around here, and his absence has left a void. 

 

Edit: I get the impression that breaking from AVEN wasn’t altogether a bad thing for him

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Wow I am confused, but....lol

I get confused easily......can I butt in just to say, I can't really remember what sex and sexual intimacy is, except I know I miss it.....my wife and I could still cuddle, but that to me is, the beginning of sex at least sometimes, and to my wife it's just cuddling and that's all it is.....I do miss it....The beginning, the during and the after.....reading about you gals having difficulty with your hubbys not wanting sex....at least I know there really are females out there that want sex.....Every time I see an female, and I think wow she's nice lookin', then my mind clicks over to, what if she's asexual and is like my wife.....my mind is so screwed up anymore.......I want to compliment my wife's backside like I used, I just love her shape.....I love all of her....it makes me so sad, because it just is a dead end.......I want to touch her all over, and I want her to touch me, but it won't happen......I really miss her, I miss seeing her naked.....I miss mutual massages.....I'm gonna stop, and go do some exercises, cause I am starting to tear up........good night all.

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On 7/23/2019 at 6:30 PM, Telecaster68 said:

uhtred and MrDane may yet show up....

Sure...! Perhaps I already posted, but now I’m here!

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On 7/22/2019 at 6:57 PM, anamikanon said:

"Do you want to have sex with me?"

 

"We can have sex if you want. I don't mind."

 

"But do you want it?"
 

"Sure"

 

"Do you enjoy it?"

 

"Sure. It's nice"

 

"ARRRGH DO YOU WANT IT"

 

"Yes of course. You want to do now? I don't mind."

 

*head meet wall*

 

I don't know how many times we've had variants of this conversation. His perfectly honest replies making no sense to me. How can you "not mind" sex? Either you WANT it or you DON'T. All it took was hearing the word "asexuality" followed by "indifferent" in the explanation ONCE to understand years of these inexplicable conversations. lol

 

Now I can't imagine misunderstanding them. It is so clear. 

“Do you want it or are you just not against having it, as in eventually when you have weighed the pros and cons, then you will suspect the outcome to lean more towards a ‘im glad, i could participate in giving you this experience’ than towards a ‘i wish we didnt since the experience for me was a bit overwhelming/boring/sleepdepraving/ugly/...”

 

 

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7 hours ago, MrDane said:

“Do you want it or are you just not against having it, as in eventually when you have weighed the pros and cons, then you will suspect the outcome to lean more towards a ‘im glad, i could participate in giving you this experience’ than towards a ‘i wish we didnt since the experience for me was a bit overwhelming/boring/sleepdepraving/ugly/...”

 

 

So here's how that actually works.  It's a non committal position for something you don't want for your sake, but are willing to make to work because it matters to someone who matters to you.  You can substitute any activity, the process for the "staller" is the same.  They'd rather not if there's no downside to a no, but disappointing their partner is a big downside because they love and care about their partner. That logic applies is the activity in question is sex, camping, watching old westerns, wine tasting, or a zillion other things.  But you sure as hell don't want to end up watching "High Plains Drifter" because the partner *thinks* you want to. So you go back and forth with the "do you want to" dialogue. 

 

I often wonder if these partners have similar ambivalence about other choices? Like, is ambivalence a generalized trait, or is it truly limited to sex?  Do some people care more about who they are with than they care about what they are doing?

 

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AceMissBehaving
43 minutes ago, TryingWife said:

So here's how that actually works.  It's a non committal position for something you don't want for your sake, but are willing to make to work because it matters to someone who matters to you.  You can substitute any activity, the process for the "staller" is the same.  They'd rather not if there's no downside to a no, but disappointing their partner is a big downside because they love and care about their partner. That logic applies is the activity in question is sex, camping, watching old westerns, wine tasting, or a zillion other things.  But you sure as hell don't want to end up watching "High Plains Drifter" because the partner *thinks* you want to. So you go back and forth with the "do you want to" dialogue. 

 

I often wonder if these partners have similar ambivalence about other choices? Like, is ambivalence a generalized trait, or is it truly limited to sex?  Do some people care more about who they are with than they care about what they are doing?

 

As a chronic “staller” I can say that for me ambivalence is something of a generalized trait. If I’m hyper focused or trying to focus on something I care a lot about that thing in the moment, but beyond that frustratingly I find unless it’s something I really hate, I don’t much care one way or the other about a lot of things. I know I’m terrible with food for example, intellectually I know I need to eat, but when it comes to the “what” I find it very hard to think of anything I would actually want. Convenience is typically the only thing that will be a deciding factor.

 

Now generally unless I’m hyper-focused, I care more about who I’m with, than what I’m doing. So if I’m just dicking about on the internet my SO will win a bid for attention. If I’m hyper-focused on a goal or passion project, nothing else will happily win a bid for attention.

 

For me it’s very much tied to my ADHD, which for various reasons isn’t well managed right now. I have a fair amount of executive function issues, but even when it’s well managed the ambivalence is pretty strong.

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If I thought that my partner would be sad or upset if we didn't do what he asked me about, I would say "If you want to, we can...."   I could not say I wanted to because I didn't.   I felt he should have realized that since I didn't say I wanted to, I  DIDN'T want to.  But it seemed that he simply wanted me to say I wanted it, so we could go ahead and do it without him feeling guilty about getting to do it even though I didn't want to. 

 

That's confusing, I know, but it really makes sense.  

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  • 2 weeks later...

So the other day my ace read to me this incredible poem about lovers in a decaying relationship that has lost its passion spending one night together burning memories and discarding the regrets of the past to keep the flames alive...

 

That I was STUNNED and pretty shaken is an understatement. The sheer intensity of longing in that poem is enough to make one breathless (not English and it gets pretty lost in the translation, or I'd have shared). And at that time, our relationship itself had become somewhat distant on the intimate front.

 

Stuff buzzing in my head. What does it mean? He wants another chance? He regrets the distance....?

 

Then a bulb lit in my head. This was my ACE and a poetry junkie. I asked him to interpret the poem for me. Got an interpretation that was beautiful in itself but had zero sexual connotation. HOW can the fellow read pretty blatant references to two people losing themselves in the flames of what they feel be read as anything but that? My ace achieved it.

 

I was pretty relieved I asked him to explain the poem before responding. lol

 

(that said, the poem is now forever in my mind)

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On 9/11/2019 at 10:55 AM, TryingWife said:

So here's how that actually works.  It's a non committal position for something you don't want for your sake, but are willing to make to work because it matters to someone who matters to you.  You can substitute any activity, the process for the "staller" is the same.  They'd rather not if there's no downside to a no, but disappointing their partner is a big downside because they love and care about their partner. That logic applies is the activity in question is sex, camping, watching old westerns, wine tasting, or a zillion other things.  But you sure as hell don't want to end up watching "High Plains Drifter" because the partner *thinks* you want to. So you go back and forth with the "do you want to" dialogue. 

 

I often wonder if these partners have similar ambivalence about other choices? Like, is ambivalence a generalized trait, or is it truly limited to sex?  Do some people care more about who they are with than they care about what they are doing?

 

This.

 

For my ace, indifference is almost a religion. He calls himself the perpetual fence sitter. There are a few things he feels passionate about, everything else is a shrug. Super easy to get along with on one level, utterly infuriating on another. It can become like having a relationship with myself with next to no feedback. Limbo.

 

It waxes and wanes, so to say. Some times he's in more of an indifferent phase than others. Some subjects matter more than others...

 

But he is truly "asexual" in the sense of being utterly indifferent. Not even bothered enough to go "no". And in may ways it is worse. The opposite of love not being hate but indifference sort of comes to mind. It is what really killed our sex life. If having sex with me does not matter one way or the other, I am not interested in having sex. He still "doesn't mind". He can get aroused midway and enjoy the sex (he isn't impotent/low-libido) and still will be indifferent the next time.

 

But worse, the indifference causes a distance in our overall relationship. He has many ways of being caring and yet at the end of the day, the perception I am left with is that he does those caring things because he doesn't mind doing them, rather than wanting to do something for me. It makes me less eager to do things for him, and he's indifferent to that as well. He doesn't expect it. Nice if I do, but doesn't mind if I don't. Which pisses me off, because I'd like him to be bothered if I don't. lol

 

But it can be a challenge to find something to do for him that he will truly like.

 

You see where this goes? We get along just fine, but there's a whole lot of "doesn't matter" on one level. And it isn't even logical because he's certainly done enough things that were very hard and he certainly wouldn't have chosen without pretty high stakes in order to be with me. But those things don't happen daily and on a daily basis the relationship can get reduced to a whole load of shrugs. I have no doubt he loves me to bits, and it is very apparent on some shining occasions too and he's affectionate in a way that can't be faked but it can get really challenging to perceive it often enough to feel nourished in the relationship at times.

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On 7/24/2019 at 5:46 AM, Serran said:

I never got how one could want sex if really upset... and still dont. I cant connect emotionally to enjoy it if im not in a good mood. 

It does. For me, sex with a partner I love can make the shittiest and most depressing day have a shining moment of feeling utterly loved. It is a cozy cocoon of just the two lovers and the whole world and its shitty things are outside it. A hug or cuddle just doesn't create that kind of physical/emotional/psychological overwhelm that wipes everything else out of attention.

 

Physical affection can make you feel loved, supported, cared for, blah blah. It is still there, but you aren't alone, etc. One bout of sex can wipe it from your mind in that small window of time. It does not exist. Nothing exists except this amazing person who finds you important enough to be as lost in you as you are in him. In that time, you are FREE of whatever crapped on your day and 100% the best thing to happen to one person on the planet. Can feel like a lifeline when things are bad.

 

Been a long, long time since I felt that.

 

Edit: That said, it doesn't work everytime. Sometimes you are so upset you can't get into a frame of mind for sex. Etc. Just that it can, and when it does, it is incredible.

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