fahye | (no subject)

I am not a huge one for self-reflection, generally. But Ji managed to pull some stuff out of me by asking the right question.

This will be of no interest to many people, I'm sure, but I feel I should make an effort to share this sort of thing more often. Because I very seldom open up. So. Throwing this out there, unlocked and unadorned.

Fahye Dielle: Also: I used to be firmly convinced I was a romantic at heart. Now I have no idea. What do you think?
schiarire: I have no idea. your romanticism/pragmatism confuses me.
Fahye Dielle: *throws up hands*
schiarire: it is the strangest thing in the world
schiarire: like your elitist snobbery/complete lack of indieness.
Fahye Dielle: Because I used to think "oh, yeah, I would love a relationship where we do sweet things and remember anniversaries and such", but, really, I would not give a damn if they forgot the anniversary
Fahye Dielle: or were not all that demonstrative. or anything.
schiarire: I don't think I ever thought that ...
I don't know. what DO you want
Fahye Dielle: Um. Okay. This will take me a little while to articulate.
Fahye Dielle: There are lots of days when I don't want a relationship at all. At ALL. But when I do....okay. I want someone who understands that I need my own space, both physical and mental, a lot of the time. Who doesn't expect me to be very demonstrative of my emotions, especially in public. Who doesn't expect me to cry, and who won't get anxious and probe-y when I refuse to talk about bad events. I want someone I can rely on to give me little things like a squeeze of the hand or a hand on the shoulder if I'm in a bad mood, but not push things further. Someone I can flop down on the couch with, lie down on their legs, watch a movie and not have to talk. Who has a good sense of humour for sarcasm and teasing. Who is intelligent and will bring up and/or tolerate odd conversational topics. Who will be totally honest with me about when I'm pissing them off, and let me be the same.
Fahye Dielle: Who will go to things like movies and museums and parties with me, but have no qualms doing things on their own or asking me to do likewise. Hmm. Someone who gets on with my friends, obviously. Ambitious. Determined. For some reason the idea of cheating doesn't bother me as much as the dishonesty it implies. Someone who will support me in my ambitions but level with me when I'm full of crap.
Fahye Dielle: *pauses for breath* Any thoughts so far as to what this means? In any way?
schiarire: i have no idea! you're the one who takes psych!
Fahye Dielle: not this kind of psych *eyes it all disgustedly*
schiarire: hahahahaha.
schiarire: I agree that for some reason cheating doesn't strike me as a deadly sin either.
Fahye Dielle: this is personality psych, we only did a little bit of that. mostly theoretical approaches and how being loved as a child makes you secure
Fahye Dielle: People who are all "DUMP HIS ASS! RIGHT AWAY!"....no. No. TALK. There's a reason he hasn't dumped you. Find out what it is.
schiarire: people who, in relationships, don't talk to each other, make me sad
schiarire: also people who don't actually seem to be happy around each other
schiarire: and never hold hands in public, etc
Fahye Dielle: If he was all "moment of weakness! I feel ashamed! I love you!" I would very probably accept that and move on
Fahye Dielle: if it happened AGAIN I would want to have a serious talk about whether he actually wanted to be in the relationship
Fahye Dielle: going with male pronouns for sake of ease, here
schiarire: I swear I had this conversation recently, but I was more with the "Gosh, that is pretty bad, you should talk to him" and less with the "cheating doesn't bother me as much as it's supposed to."
Fahye Dielle: I have this weird idea that if he told me he was having a just-sex affair with someone I would be all "okay! I won't wait up! have fun! don't get the bimbo pregnant!"
schiarire: hahahaha
schiarire: like, send me a postcard
Fahye Dielle: Largely because you'll notice that sex doesn't factor highly into my wants, what with my sex drive being mostly low and always mercurial.
Fahye Dielle: I keep being struck with the desire to get married but not be obliged to have sex with them. Because then you could find someone really INTERESTING and NICE and COMPATIBLE and not feel like you have to be attracted to them as well. It'd be great.
Fahye Dielle: Because I am attracted to so few people
schiarire: the cynical idea, of course, is that people do not have sex after marriage
schiarire: so you would be fine
Fahye Dielle: I feel like it is unnecessarily restricting my range
Fahye Dielle: I think to be in a normal relationship I would have to be attracted to them, yes, because otherwise the touching thing wouldn't happen. I don't know. I don't need a LOT of touching, but sometimes I need a little.
Fahye Dielle: And I didn't mention the word love, either. Huh.
schiarire: hahahaha
schiarire: too much education.
Fahye Dielle: clearly
Fahye Dielle: I think...I am just somehow really skeptical of the very IDEA. That you can feel an emotion that big. I never feel big emotions unless I am PMSing, and then they just piss me the hell off because I feel messy and uncontrolled.

schiarire: The worst, absolute worst thing to me is clinginess. I can't tolerate it. I'm pretty easy going, but I can't stand being suffocated, or being put in the position of having to (for example) call someone every day and want to talk to them constantly if it isn't natural. Which it's never been.
Fahye Dielle: Ugh. I hate clingy. Haaaaate. Even in my description of what I want there is a lot of s-p-a-c-e
Fahye Dielle: Also: I think my adherence to plans and structure is detrimental. In ALL of my Plans For What's Going To Happen Next there is quite a bit of travel - two years here, three years there - and I think I feel weird getting into something when I know it'll end at such and such a time. Or I feel like I could lower my standards just for that reason, but who the hell is heartless enough to enter into a relationship with the mindset "it doesn't matter if this is less than ideal, I'm leaving in a year anyway"

~

But what does it all MEAN, doctor?

I welcome any and all comments, insights, suggestions or helpful impromptu analysis. Disagree? Surprised by anything? I don't deal well with anything that smells like pity, but other than that...

ETA:

Fahye Dielle: I am kind of worried that all the things I repress are hiding somewhere
schiarire: doubtless they are
Fahye Dielle: it FEELS like they've just disappeared.
schiarire: like tumours!
Fahye Dielle: but what if they're LYING IN WAIT
Fahye Dielle: JUST LIKE TUMOURS
schiarire: YOU HAVE PSYCHOLOGICAL TUMOURS!
Fahye Dielle: *cracks up* NOOOOO
schiarire: PSYCHOLOGICAL MRI! PSYCHOLOGICAL MRI
Fahye Dielle: I think it's called "therapy"
schiarire: "Therapy" ...
It's probably true that just about anyone could benefit from some actual good therapy.
schiarire: As opposed to the bad kind. der.
Fahye Dielle: But I would feel like I was wasting the therapist's time! I would just sit there and feel silly because I'm not really unhappy and I didn't have a bad childhood
schiarire: Aww ... everyone has the right to therapy. Like life/liberty/property, thank you John Locke.
schiarire: Therapy is the modern addendum.

~

*giggles* Clearly, Ji has the answer to everything.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Possibly means you're just happy being single. Possibly means you want more of an intimate friendship than relationship. Possibly means you want more of a guide than a partner. Possibly means a fuckload of things :p

I think that the problem with love and attraction is that it does all its hitting unexpectedly. You're too systemically minded for instantaneous "love", I think...so I think a partnership might be better suited to you than a relationship. Having said that, I've lost some very logical and rational people to love, so it can happen, heh. You're not the type to fall in love at the drop of a hat, unlike those that fall in love with everyone they meet. You're more the type to only find one or two people in your whole life that you feel suitibly comfortable with to consider yourself "in love".

Like I said, could mean a lot. You remind me a lot of

lunatic_pages in this post...you're both searching for a logic and rationality to love that doesn't exist *grin*

I was hoping you'd reply :) You are good at teasing out bits of me I'm not good at seeing myself. Like catching the bit on your back that you can't quite reach with the sunscreen.

This is my whole romanticism/pragmatism dichotomy again. If I was JUST pragmatic it wouldn't bother me much. I'd just shrug it all off. But I feel like I SHOULD try and work out why most people manage some kind of relationship experience in their first two decades of life and I've managed to sail on past.

Woo! I'm like, mindleech extrordinaire! Or somesuch.

Okay, to do that annoying thing psych-people do, why do you feel that way? I mean, you're not the first person to go through life without jumping on the lovewagon. Is it particularly important to you to experience love, is it a curiosity thing, or is it just what society tells you you should do?

I'm curious as to why I am attracted to so few people, and why so few people show any interest in me. I'm curious as to what it's like, as I said, to feel something that big and important. I feel like I'm missing something that everyone who experiences it would agree that it enriches and expands your life.

It's not a societal thing at all. Half of society thinks I shouldn't be bisexual. Some of society is probably surprised that I'm a virgin. Some of society probably has far less divorced ideas of love and sex than I do.

Well, I guess then it comes down to what kinds of people you find yourself attracted to. If there's something about them that's common in all of them, you know? If you find yourself attracted to certain types of people, then that's a good place to start with figuring out what might or might not be either helping or hindering the progress of getting close to someone - ie, if you were attracted to people that deep down you know you're incompatible with, then that would naturally affect whether or not you found yourself involved with anyone or not. I was going to rant more about this kind of thing (such as acting on attractions and not and so on) but then I realized I was pretentiously speaking out of my ass, so I'll spare you that ^_^

As for people being attracted to you, I'm sure there are millions but you've firmly planted your beliefs elsewhere and don't notice them.

What kinds of people? SO FEW. It's horrible. I have brief flares of 'everyone is pretty! whee!' at the appropriately hormone-driven times of month, but this is just a recent thing. Because I went on the Pill before my sex drive kicked in, and then the Pill SUPPRESSED these hormone cycles, and so I didn't actually have much of a sex drive at ALL until a year ago. Attractiveness-wise, I have very high and/or inexplicable standards. Which I don't like at all.

And I haven't properly met anyone new in a long time, so it's hard to assess what I find immediately attractive in a personality. There has to be something physical there as well for me to even start thinking in the relationship mindset.

I have had maybe two crushes on real people in my entire life, and neither were serious enough for me to consider acting on them.

Ahahaha. Haven't I told you my bitter tale of...not woe, really, more PISSED-OFF-NESS...regarding people being attracted to me?

I remember a few horror stories you told me from when I was in Canberra last XD

Hmm, I don't know. Come to Melbourne. We have lots of shiny pretty people here that look like something out of comics. Especially on Brunswick street. I'll find you some nice straight artistfag or something. XD

I live in a state of "everyone is pretty! whee!" so I understand that part *shifty eyes* Unfortunately it effectively castrates me because I'm never sure whether I'm interested in someone really or if it's just a case of thinking they're shiny. Hence my eternal living in the land of everyone-else-should-make-the-first-move.

In terms of what you find attractive in people, fantasies count as much as real people do, by the way. ^_^

Ooh. Well. Certainly I'll just pack up and move to Melbourne :D Well, I mean, if you can put up with me for a weekend, I'll be happy to scrape together some money and let you drag me around the streets showing me pretty people and interesting shops.

Hmm. Okay. Confidence, a little bit of aloofness (I will confess to a dreadful weakness for the challenage of someone who is known to be very picky). Quick sharp humour. Eye contact that says a lot. Dares. Challenges.

I feel this serious conversation needs flippant icons.

Sure thing. When we've moved we'll have a spare room all set up for visitors for exactly this reason - me dragging people around Melbourne and pointing out how pretty the people are and how scummy the city itself is. Whee!

Hmm. The downside is that people like you describe often have either their fair share of arrogance or insecurities. You certainly know how to have rare tastes.

Hmmmmmmm. This will need consideration.

I agree with the use of flippant icons. ^_^

Well. I'm saving for my trip to America, so I may not have the airfare to & from Melbourne any time too soon. Maybe in the midsemester break!

OH. Adding something: I wonder if there is any nice way to say "is prepared to mock-fight in a way that actually results in bruises". Probably not. Blunt is good.

Man, Jamie Bamber does the best mockable faces.