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:3 is basically a cat smile.  Often depicted in anime to convey contentment, mischievousness, or both.

 

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3 hours ago, Telecaster68 said:

If you could sustain that positive self image in the face of the person closest to you relentlessly communicating in word and deed for years that you were unattractive, you'd be reacting very differently to how most people find it affects them. I don't just mean in terms of sex, but in general - that persistent negative message is one of the elements of abusive controlling behaviour that gets to most people eventually. Obviously I'm not saying asexuals are abusive, just that it's almost impossible for most people to be unaffected by relentless, persistent messages about who they are. 

 

Waits for inevitable epic misinterpretation of analogy... 

I’ve reread this several times... but still, backwards.  I don’t have a positive image of myself physically to sustain.  I’m unattractive and am not under the mistaken impression otherwise.  So, what I would have been ignoring would have been positive messages from a partner.  Is that still abusive?  I suppose it could be.

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2 hours ago, alibali said:

The difference (for me only) between a relationship and friends is wanting to spend all my time with someone, living with them, having shared experiences.....and it included sex but that was because it was important to them. 

Same.

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19 minutes ago, Apostle said:

Ryn, you appear to me, by reading many of your comments, that you are not really sure who you are and where you fit into society. To me that doesn't really matter- just be yourself and ignore anyone who tries to put themselves upon you. I disagree with being pigeon holed but maybe you are looking for one? I don't know. 

It mattered (to me) when I came on here early in the year because it was a question I needed to answer for a partner.

 

Now it matters in a more abstract, less immediate way because if I were ever to face another potential date/relationship I would need to know what to tell the person.

 

Beyond that, same, I don’t like labels and being pigeonholed.  I just think I need to sort out where I am around sex before entering into another relationship, in the event that could happen.

 

These aren’t conversations I ever get to have in real life so it’s good food for thought.

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It looks like I said something offensive in here yesterday.  As it wasn’t intentional and I’m not sure what it was, if someone could clue me in I’d be grateful.

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idk. When I said I've deliberately decided to consider it impossible for anyone to be sexually attracted to me, I think people felt I had a self esteem issue. Maybe that's going on?

 

I think I shifted myself to "having my sexuality feel accepted and supported by my partner" (rather than "being sexually attractive to my partner") being the source of affirmation and acceptance. They're similar things, but the difference seems pretty key. And I guess normally the second would be a fine proxy for the first.

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Back on topic...  I want to restate what I think I learned from the rejection discussion so the sexual posters can confirm my understanding (or tell me where I missed the mark).

 

To me, sex is an activity (well, a collection of activities) people engage in.  Some people love doing it, some don’t.  Some like sharing it with others, some don’t.  Like any hobby, avocation, or vocation, it’s not on some people’s radar at all.  Others passionately hate it, and still others - the majority of people, to some degree - really love it and see it as a key communication tool for expressing their thoughts and feelings.

 

Under this model, a mixed relationship is like a loving chef with someone who eats only to survive or a lifelong musician with someone who is tone-deaf and had no musical appreciation; a combination of not being able to joyfully share a beloved activity and losing what would otherwise be an easy communication method.

 

That may not be wrong, exactly, but what I’m hearing in the rejection discussion is that it’s incomplete.  For some (most?) people, I’m hearing, their sexuality is a key, integral part of who they are... like gender and race and personality.  Someone who can’t/won’t connect with them sexually is, from their perspective, effectively telling them “I don’t like *you*,” which is a lot different from “I don’t like the food you cook” or “I don’t like the music you make.”  Having their sexuality go unreceived/unaccepted but hearing “I love you” makes as little sense as having someone show and tell you they dislike your entire personality - what makes you “you” - and then claim to love you anyway.  The speaker may be very sincere but the message does not compute.

 

Is that close, at least?

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1 hour ago, Apostle said:

I'm not sure comparing having sexual intimacy is anything like a hobby or vocation, not for me, anyway.

Right, that was part of my - and perhaps others’ - confusion on the topic.  It is that way to me, but it wasn’t until the rejection discussion that I realized it was a lot more to some people than just an activity about which they were extremely passionate.

 

You don’t know what you don’t know.

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36 minutes ago, Ed.Rim said:

So sex with a lover is just romantic feelings conveyed through sexual intimacy.

It’s probably the word “just” above that makes this especially not fit.

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The concept of FWB is basically “I’m not in love with you, and you’re not in love with me, but we’re both ‘between things’ romantic-relationship-wise and life would be better if we were at least having sex with someone.”

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4 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

Um... There's a bit more to it than that. You have to like and fancy them, and the actual sex has to be at least fun. It's not just an arbitrary someone. 

Agreed, I thought that was covered by the friends part and the fact two friends would consider it an acceptable solution.

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@Telecaster68 was I close on my post up a ways about my learnings from the rejection discussion?  If I was, a lot of things make much more sense to me now... but if I wasn’t I want to know before I go forward under false pretenses.

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Just now, Telecaster68 said:

The thing about the whole person? Yes. 

Thanks!  Big lightbulb moment then.

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6 minutes ago, Ed.Rim said:

And what truth is that?

I was going to say “in that historical period?  That people were having it (sex)!” but apostle got there first.

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2 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

Frequently but not always. Some people are more immune than others, and at different times in your life you want different things. 

Some sexual people are aromantic, too.  They may have great friends and enjoy casual (in the sense of “not part of a romantic relationship”) sex but never fall in love with anyone.

 

Often it’s more that a romantic relationship would be inconvenient, though - shortly before the end of a college/uni term, before a relocation, when the sole focus is on launching a demanding career, that sort of thing.

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1 minute ago, Telecaster68 said:

Yeah, although often it's more that people resist the temptation to let go emotionally if they know it's just going to result in separation being more painful, or similar. 

Yeah, that’s what I meant by the bottom part... those are times when you know any relationship is likely to be followed by a breakup (or you want to go unencumbered to a new life location/stage).

 

A friend you already know you don’t have - or have good reasons for not allowing yourself to have - romantic feelings for is safer in that setting than someone you perhaps could fall in love with.

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3 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

I'm not sure there are that many who are like that perpetually. I think it's more of a life stage thing. 

Yeah, hard to know until you look back from the end.  :)

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Anthracite_Impreza
20 minutes ago, Ed.Rim said:

Either way, pair-bonding only concerns reproduction. Are you saying there is nothing more to romantic feelings than reproduction?

That was the primary evolutionary drive, but nature isn't so black and white. You know there are gay animals, right? They still treat each other like straight animals would; the exact same feelings are at play. No animal pair bonds or has sex to have babies (except humans, ironically, because they know how babies are made), they do it because it makes them feel happy/good.

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Digression:  This whole “hair splitting to understanding” reminds me of what it might be like to try and explain to the childless how their love of their pet is nothing like the love for a child as a parent.

 

1. Pre-children, those that had pets understand the feeling and at times also likened their feelings to that of a parent....until they have a child.  

 

2. Those that don’t have kids and only pets believe they know based on their limited knowledge set. They don’t.

 

3. No matter how much it’s explained, a divide exists due to the unknown.  🤷🏻‍♀️

 

And the merry-go-round goes on.....

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Oh god, not the evolution thing again.

It's like we forgot that humans have concealed ovulation – so it's kind of obvious to me that sex got repurposed into something else, presumably social/bonding stuff, because evolution literally made it harder for sex to result in babies – but by all means, carry on with the "reproduction" narrative. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Just now, Ed.Rim said:

That's what i was trying to get at. Humans know sex releases feel-good chemicals and all that. So they use it to feel good. They do it with many other things, so do primates with sex.

 

You have basically just admitted that sex is just a chemical boost, and not necessary for romantic feelings. So what are these emotions that exist before this boost?

Wow, it's like you think romance isn't chemicals. Maybe you believe in souls, but I am... my brain. Just a maze of ionic imbalances. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Smiles are just contractions of muscles right?! So weird, why the heck are smiles connected to happiness...

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19 minutes ago, Traveler40 said:

Digression:  This whole “hair splitting to understanding” reminds me of what it might be like to try and explain to the childless how their love of their pet is nothing like the love for a child as a parent.

 

1. Pre-children, those that had pets understand the feeling and at times also likened their feelings to that of a parent....until they have a child.  

 

2. Those that don’t have kids and only pets believe they know based on their limited knowledge set. They don’t.

 

3. No matter how much it’s explained, a divide exists due to the unknown.  🤷🏻‍♀️

 

And the merry-go-round goes on.....

Totally makes sense, especially since - as is also true with sexuality - we use a lot of the same phrasing to talk about our feelings towards our pets as we use talking about feelings towards children.

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11 minutes ago, Apostle said:

Diversity is the name of the game. I'd like to think I have learned a lot on this website but really I haven't because I am still in the same situation that is neither bad or good. I suspect most people are like that aren't they?

One of the common messages here - and it makes sense, at least to me - is “don’t enter unwittingly into a mixed relationship (and if you’re going to enter into one knowingly, think long and hard about whether or not it’s sustainable).”

 

Taking that advice means knowing enough about yourself and others to spot the disparity, recognize its potential causes and importance, and thoroughly assess how you feel about it.

 

The information here is really helpful from that perspective.

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Anthracite_Impreza
37 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

No thanks, mreid.

Ahhhhh, I get it now. I was a bit slow that time.

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On 12/11/2018 at 3:05 AM, Telecaster68 said:

I did think it was obvious because every single sexual who posts about their mixed relationship talks about how they feel rejected. They may not use that exact word, but it's very obvious that's what the feeling is.

And when they actually use the word "rejection", a whole bunch of  AVEN posters (not all  of whom are asexuals) chime in to emphasize that the partner is not rejecting them, the asexual partner does not want sex.  And wouldn't want sex with anyone.  So the "rejection" issue has been rebutted many times, and sexuals have said that they finally understood that they personally weren't being rejected.  Just saying "it feels like it" is a statement of how they feel, not what the reality is.   If after all that the sexual wishes to continue to insist that they are being rejected, no one can help that.  

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