[ SECRET POST #3357 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3357 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 078 secrets from Secret Submission Post #480.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Not OP.

Funny how the people who say "get over yourself" are so often the people who need to get over themselves - and in your case, grow some compassion while you're at it.

Having friends is not the same as being in love. Having a friend isn't even the same as being romantically infatuated--though some people do have "friend crushes" which I take to mean they are platonically infatuated with their friend.

When one is "in love" or even just romantically infatuated with another person, there is significant evidence that the brain and limbic system go a bit loopy and one gets dosed with all sorts of neurochemicals that create the feelings we associate with romantic infatuation. It doesn't happen the same way or to the same degree with everyone, but there is a fair consistent physiological response.

Many of these same physiological reactions do not occur when one hangs out with their friends, and the ones that do occur generally do not occur with the same intensity.

Now friendship is great, and there is nothing wrong with just having friendships and being happy with that. But friendships are not the same as being in love, nor are friendships "with benefits" necessarily the same as being in love, and there is nothing wrong with someone who has friends and sexual partners lamenting the lack of romantic love in their life - especially when it seems likely that lack of romantic love will be a permanent state fo them. That's really tough for some people. I'm ace/aro, and I know how tough it can be to come to terms with.

[(Anonymous)]

But if someone really can't feel romantic attraction, then why wouldn't they be happy with just friendship? I mean, they wouldn't know what romantic love felt like, so how could they miss it? That's the part I don't get. It's like... I'm allergic to pineapple. I've never had it before. I'm sure pineapple is great, but I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything because I don't have the experience of pineapple to compare the lack of pineapple to.

I guess I just don't understand it.

[(Anonymous)]

Unless you're living somewhere with very strange customs, there is no significant cultural pressure to eat pineapple. You're not constantly being told you're broken if you can't eat pineapple. People who don't eat pineapple aren't considered sad and pathetic, told they're always going to be alone and miserable, or treated like they're broken.

[(Anonymous)]

But if someone really can't feel romantic attraction, then why wouldn't they be happy with just friendship?

Well, I can't speak for OP, but speaking for myself, I think there are a couple of reasons. The first one being that I ship, so I do essentially experience what romantic attraction feels like. I simply experience it by proxy. Think about how you feel when you read a really great fic about your OTP, or watch a romantic movie that has you tied up in emotional knots. I'm going to presume it's not identical to the way you feel when you're falling for someone yourself, because it only makes sense that something happening in reality to you personally is different - perhaps milder but more nuanced all encompassing? - than something you are imagining and experiencing vicariously. But the basic emotions - attraction, fixation, pleasure - are there.

The second reason one might miss something one's never felt is because maybe for them it's a basic appetite. I mean, if you didn't have a mouth, would you still be hungry? Following that analogy, many (probably most) aro people are like people who don't have digestive tracts. They don't get hungry. But maybe some aro people have digestive tracts, they just don't have mouths. For them, the basic appetite is still there, they just aren't able to eat.

That's the way I am with sex and romantic love. I have an appetite, I just don't have any way of feeding it. Accept shipping. Yes it's odd, and it's not a particularly fun sexuality to have, but it's how I've always been.