So a lot of the personality quirks that you've mentioned in this update are quirks that I also have, from being mostly hetero-but-with-strong-bi leanings to not being at all "romantic." I've never really considered myself asexual, just not traditionally "romantic." I always thought that was more a matter of being pragmatic/practical than being asexual. I'm just not interested in getting flowers. (I'm into chocolate, but that's because I adore chocolate, and I would totally love it if random strangers on the street gave me candy.)
It seems to me that a lot of people like to talk about love, or write about it, and a LOT of people seem to pine over it, but almost no one actually experiences it the way that movies or books or whatever describe it. I tend to think of romantic love Romeo and Juliet style as the province of people who are pretty much deluded: they're more obsessing about someone than knowing and really loving them. I think romantic lovers are blind to the faults of their significant others, and if a lover won't admit to the problems in the lovee, then maybe it's not really love. Real love is loving someone in spite of their flaws instead of excusing them or denying them to the point where the lover's mental image of the lovee has no basis in reality.
Of the strong, stable relationships I've seen which seem to actually work, it usually is much more like "friends with benefits" than Romeo and Juliet. I've never really had a "romantic" relationship, and I don't think I want to. I'd much rather love a friend in a way that includes sex and romance, because if whoever I'm in love with isn't someone I'd want as a good friend in the first place then it's not someone I want to love at all.
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Date: 2006-12-09 03:25 am (UTC)It seems to me that a lot of people like to talk about love, or write about it, and a LOT of people seem to pine over it, but almost no one actually experiences it the way that movies or books or whatever describe it. I tend to think of romantic love Romeo and Juliet style as the province of people who are pretty much deluded: they're more obsessing about someone than knowing and really loving them. I think romantic lovers are blind to the faults of their significant others, and if a lover won't admit to the problems in the lovee, then maybe it's not really love. Real love is loving someone in spite of their flaws instead of excusing them or denying them to the point where the lover's mental image of the lovee has no basis in reality.
Of the strong, stable relationships I've seen which seem to actually work, it usually is much more like "friends with benefits" than Romeo and Juliet. I've never really had a "romantic" relationship, and I don't think I want to. I'd much rather love a friend in a way that includes sex and romance, because if whoever I'm in love with isn't someone I'd want as a good friend in the first place then it's not someone I want to love at all.