As I’ve gained more and more close friends, more than I’ve ever had in my life, and some closer than I’ve ever had in my life, I’ve come to realize something recently. Despite the prevailing feeling like I want a relationship, I don’t actually know why it is I want one, nor what I have to gain from one.
Many of my friends nowadays are in fact either people who have rejected me romantically, or are exs that things just didn’t work out with but we found we made better friends. And that’s been the case with getting rejected too. I just end up enjoying the friendship so much, and getting so much out of it, that I just start to wonder why I ever wanted anything more than that. And what even is more than that?
Maybe everybody else has already realized this by my age, and my sheltered religious upbringing has just held me back a few years again, but I’ve started seriously considering, with every new crush, if they’d actually be any better for me as a partner instead of just a friend, and I’ve found that the answer, thus far, has always been no.
I guess the only thing that still has me wondering is, well, what does a romantic relationship offer that friendship doesn’t? My friends already love me, and tell me all the time. They already care for me in ways I used to think only a partner would, and I do my best to care for them too. I still desire a romantic relationship for some reason, but I just can’t see what there is to gain anymore.
People get into relationships for sexual reasons, no?
And then they get tired of eachother. Ive realized that some people don’t like the person they are with very much. It’s just too much work to switch them out, and you lose other things you want (like children, the house, money etc) if you break up with them. And you have to find someone new, which is very difficult today for a lot of people.
I wonder if even most people are slightly unhappy with their partner and they don’t feel emotionally connected.
So I don’t think it’s wrong to skip all that and focus on great friends. But friends often get into relationships and you lose out on the friendship when that happens.
As far as sexual reasons go, I don’t really need that myself. I’m not exactly asexual, I’m sexually attracted to people, I just find it’s easy enough to take care of that need without a partner.
Losing friends to relationships though, I haven’t ever had that happen. I just become friends with their partner too and absorb them into my friend group.
Although I found out that way through some of them that apparently I give off a really intimidating aura. Apparently I give off the vibes of “the popular girl who refuses to associate herself with the peasants” as somebody said. They tend to be pretty shocked I had any interest in being friends with them at all.
This may or may not be the case, as people’s experiences rarely map neatly on top of each other, but usually when I perceive others as being too cool to associate with “the peasants”, it’s usually more of an insecurity on my side than an aura of elitism from the person in question. In my mind, the thought is “they’re too cool to hang out with me”, not “they think they’re hot shit”.
I think it’s a bit of both in my case. I have a lot of popular friends, and that happens to turn a lot of heads my way and make some people insecure around me, but I also act unintentionally rude quite often, which I’ve been making an effort to fix, and I’ve been told by some people that it does make me look stuck up until people get to know me and realize I’m not rude, just very autistic.
Yeah I know what you mean. There is a certain kind of girl that gives off that vibe. I’ve often wondered if it’s intentional or not.
But if you are that kind, you have to put in extra effort to make friends. My girlfriend has “resting bitch face” as she calls it. When she looks serious, she looks a bit angry. It also turns people off until she starts to talk to them.
I do have that resting bitch face (if you can see my profile picture, that’s evidence enough.) I also have a habit of being unintentionally rude on account of autism. It causes most people who interact with me to really quickly turn away because I give off the vibe that I don’t wanna be around them, even when I am enjoying their company. I end up being unintentionally popular anyway though because most of my friends are very popular, on account of them being so social even my unintentional rudeness couldn’t turn them away. And naturally having a lot of popular friends turns heads in my direction as well.