I'm putting this question out there: If you're not attracted to anyone, how do you choose who you're supposed to date?
Marinate on that one for a moment.
Every so often, I reassess the question, "Should I date?" Many asexuals do. I want to have some kind of life partner, and I've had no luck achieving this without dating. No matter how convincing the idea may seem though, my answer always ends up being "no". In fact, as time goes by, I only come up with more reasons not to date. I'd be willing to date someone specific, but don't like the idea of dating random people. I've been on online dating sites, the prime source of random people to date, and feel very put off by the supermarket-like feel of them. In my interactions with people from these sites, they were trying to judge me, and draw some specific conclusion, extremely quickly. I can understand why, since dating is a numbers game, but I couldn't help feeling like the process was so artificial. Then there's the whole "when to disclose asexuality" issue. Once in a while I go back on OKCupid, where I have an inactive profile, but I'm just like, "Oy. What am I thinking?"
However, this creates a contradiction: it's almost impossible for me to find a specific person to date when attraction is absent. Since I have experienced romantic attraction, however briefly and/or pointlessly, I'm able to know what I'd be "missing" in a relationship without it. I've tried to see if, in the event that I met more people, I might develop romantic feelings for someone. But I just ended up developing these feelings for someone whom I could never actually date. Maybe in time, after meeting many more people, I could find one person that I might have mutual romantic feelings with (numbers game!). Still, I wouldn't bet any money on it.
Nor do I know how to figure out what gender(s) to date, which makes online dating even harder than it already is. I don't think I would feel comfortable dating someone who is not committed to challenging gender roles (now, there's a tall order). I feel like dating would activate a bunch of gender dysphoria that I might otherwise be able to avoid. The thought of being seen as someone's "girlfriend", or as being in a heterosexual relationship, makes me feel a little sick. As described in this article, I do tend to see dating as "a threat to my gender identity". While I have a hard time choosing an exact label for my gender identity, I know what it is and isn't, and I feel strongly about it and its "integrity".
Like any social skill, dating takes practice. Practice that, as you know, I've never had. I don't think it's "too late" to start now. Because despite prevailing myths, people start dating at many different ages and there isn't some arbitrary age where you're "too old". What I don't know is whether it's worth the effort, and the huge amount of anxiety around dealing with people who may not respect my sexuality and gender.
Yes, my yearly thoughts ended up being mostly complaints; that's just how it goes sometimes. But this is also a minority report, in a way. I do want some kind of life partner, but (GASP!) it's not the most important thing to me, at least right now. That this could be a goal of only moderate importance is basically unknown to our culture. But of course, it's part of many people's lived experiences, asexual and also not asexual.
Showing posts with label minority report. Show all posts
Showing posts with label minority report. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Loneliness: Alternate Narrative
"At the end of his life, he went to Bolivia in search of the 'center that irradiates the energy of space', but he died in Peru, alone and in total poverty."
--Excerpt from a biographical blurb on Simón Rodríguez, a Venezuelan poet, from here.
"Oh no, not another learning experience!" --bumper sticker
"Oh no, not another learning experience!" --bumper sticker
Some people are prone to loneliness, and I've always been one of them. When I was younger, I was the stereotypical mildly autistic child who "yearned to connect with others--but didn't know how!" Now, my social skills are better, but I still tend towards loneliness. In the anime series Honey and Clover, one of the characters says that loneliness is like a tide, moving in and out in the course of one's life. A while ago, I said that I wanted to see more loneliness depicted in pop culture. Honey and Clover is one of the more eloquent depictions that I've seen. It manages to achieve a few moments of actual profundity.
The dominant narrative about loneliness is that it must be avoided at all costs, and that it might even kill you. I've found neither of these things to be true. It seems like loneliness is a cyclical, inevitable part of life, especially for people with certain temperaments. As a younger asexual, I was very concerned about being lonely due to my orientation. But the thing was...I'd been plenty lonely while I still identified as straight. It didn't kill me as a fake heterosexual, and it won't kill me as an asexual. I was worried about loneliness in the future. But it will come, and pass, and come again, regardless of my orientation.
When I read the blurb about Simón Rodríguez, I seized on the words "die alone", since that can be such a scary-sounding thing. But it didn't sound like his biggest problem. A lot of the poets in the compilation died in unusual/dramatic ways. Dying alone, one of the tamer ones, seemed oddly fitting. While there's a lot of joyful poetry, something about that medium just seems to correspond to loneliness. Loneliness, not to be confused with depression, is one of the primary motivators of my creativity. It makes me want to reach out and express myself, which I tend to do through writing. Lonely times, for me, have often been times of discovery. They're times when I have no choice but to look inside myself, and good things can come from that.
This post feels weird to write, and may feel weird to read. There's this American idea (although I doubt it's uniquely American) that bad feelings need to be completely obliterated in order for us to have satisfying lives. But I feel like this idea sets up an impossible goal that only makes us feel worse. Loneliness sometimes beats the alternative. In Hello, Cruel World, Kate Bornstein writes: "I hate being lonely, but loneliness would be a better feeling for me than, say, hopelessness. To my way of thinking, anger and loneliness are a lot closer to being free to live the kind of life that I'd want to stay alive in (95)". Of course, everyone experiences emotions differently. For instance, while many people enjoy feeling excited, I don't, because it feels too similar to anxiety. Most of us have probably felt lonely at some point. Do you think there's anything positive about loneliness?
(Here's a discussion on the topic that's already happened; it has some good thoughts and even an Aztec Camera reference! I'd still like to have our own, though...)
[Image: Characters from Honey and Clover]
The dominant narrative about loneliness is that it must be avoided at all costs, and that it might even kill you. I've found neither of these things to be true. It seems like loneliness is a cyclical, inevitable part of life, especially for people with certain temperaments. As a younger asexual, I was very concerned about being lonely due to my orientation. But the thing was...I'd been plenty lonely while I still identified as straight. It didn't kill me as a fake heterosexual, and it won't kill me as an asexual. I was worried about loneliness in the future. But it will come, and pass, and come again, regardless of my orientation.
When I read the blurb about Simón Rodríguez, I seized on the words "die alone", since that can be such a scary-sounding thing. But it didn't sound like his biggest problem. A lot of the poets in the compilation died in unusual/dramatic ways. Dying alone, one of the tamer ones, seemed oddly fitting. While there's a lot of joyful poetry, something about that medium just seems to correspond to loneliness. Loneliness, not to be confused with depression, is one of the primary motivators of my creativity. It makes me want to reach out and express myself, which I tend to do through writing. Lonely times, for me, have often been times of discovery. They're times when I have no choice but to look inside myself, and good things can come from that.
This post feels weird to write, and may feel weird to read. There's this American idea (although I doubt it's uniquely American) that bad feelings need to be completely obliterated in order for us to have satisfying lives. But I feel like this idea sets up an impossible goal that only makes us feel worse. Loneliness sometimes beats the alternative. In Hello, Cruel World, Kate Bornstein writes: "I hate being lonely, but loneliness would be a better feeling for me than, say, hopelessness. To my way of thinking, anger and loneliness are a lot closer to being free to live the kind of life that I'd want to stay alive in (95)". Of course, everyone experiences emotions differently. For instance, while many people enjoy feeling excited, I don't, because it feels too similar to anxiety. Most of us have probably felt lonely at some point. Do you think there's anything positive about loneliness?
(Here's a discussion on the topic that's already happened; it has some good thoughts and even an Aztec Camera reference! I'd still like to have our own, though...)
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