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Thoughts on the people I've been attracted to in the past.
13 years ago
General
I was thinking more about some of the stuff on the SPD wikipedia page again, especially this:
Harry Guntrip[24] describes the “secret sexual affair” entered into by some married schizoid individuals as an attempt to reduce the quantity of emotional intimacy focused within a single relationship, a sentiment echoed by Karen Horney’s resigned personality who may exclude sex as being “too intimate for a permanent relationship, and instead satisfy his sexual needs with a stranger. Conversely he may more or less restrict a relationship to merely sexual contacts and not share other experiences with the partner.”[25]
I thought this sounded relatable, yet I don’t think I elaborated much on why I thought so. I definitely do not and have not ever picked up guys in bars for one nights stands. What I definitely have done is something vaguely similar in the sense of dividing up friends/the people I talk to the people I have had sex with. The last line of the quoted wiki section applies.
For a long time, I thought maybe I was just attracted to really dumb guys, either alcoholics or knuckle-dragging Neaderthals, but when considered in light of that sentence above, I might interpret it differently. I’ve had 2 boyfriends in my life, I’m not attracted to many people, so that also makes it hard to generalize. This is the closest description I can come up with for human males I seem to find attractive: white, dark-haired (more specifically, black-haired, though some had it dyed other colors), dumb as a brick(!), and either really skinny or really muscular. I suppose everyone has physical attributes they find more or less attractive, so the “skinny, dark-haired white guy” part is quite unremarkable. What I find rather noteworthy is the “dumb as a rock” part. I’ve found that the people I want to have sex with are not people I would generally even talk to. My ex is a person I wanted nothing to do with unless he was naked. Another guy I was quite obsessed with for 3 or 4 years during college was similarly uninteresting to talk to, and the only reason I did was because I thought that might increase the chances of getting naked with him, though that never happened.
I should probably go back to talking about my ex, since that was an actual relationship that lasted ~5 years. We didn’t see each other a lot, and when we did, we pretty much only had sex. Sometimes we ordered a pizza and watched a movie, but not much more than that. The more I talked to him and spent time with him, the more I thought it would be a good idea to break up with him. He was wretchedly dumb and annoying. There were probably 2 reasons I stayed with him that long: (1)sex, and (2)I was afraid that, if I broke up with him, I wouldn’t find another boyfriend. The latter seems like a legitimate concern, since I broke up with him 13 years ago and haven’t so much as gone on a date since then. Then again, it now seems like a less important concern, because I’m not sure that really matters as much as I once thought it did. And regarding the guy I was obsessed with in college, besides fear of rejection and such things, another reason I probably never made a move was ambivalence: I wasn’t sure I really wanted much of anything to do with him. Not if his pants were on, anyway.
Anyway, I think all of this is relevant to that except above. I look at people I know who have a BF/GF, and one thing I notice is that they often have things in common and genuinely like each other. That’s almost an alien concept to me: dating someone you like and want to talk to and spend time with. I suppose it’s a matter of basically taking anything resembling sexuality and putting it aside in a little box, totally removed from real life and people I would want to be around. And I’m not sure if I’m attracted to dumb, annoying guys as a sort of self-defense mechanism (sort of like not wanting to date someone I actually like) or it’s just how things ended up, I was attracted to those people sort of randomly, and they all happened to be dumbasses. I’m not exaggerating; a month or so ago a friend and I were talking about the good old days, and she wondered aloud why I was attracted to my ex, saying, “He must have had a big dick” because he was so dumb, there is no other reason I’d be with him.
And maybe that’s why I have given up on relationships altogether, it would seem that any relationship I am in is doomed to failure from the beginning, and possibly that I want it that way. That is why I’ve sought out forums and things for aromantics. I’m not sure to what extent I fit the description. I don’t fit it perfectly, but I think that it describes me functionally, if not totally. Aromantics are a very miniscule minority, even in the asexual community, which is supposedly 1% of the population. On AVEN, there is much talk from asexuals lamenting they’ll die alone and no one will want anything to do with them because they don’t experience sexual attraction (but they do experience romantic attraction). On the other hand, you see aromantics in such places talking about how wonderful solitude is, how they can devote so much more time and energy to things they’re interested in, and how much they value their freedom and self-sufficiency. I empathize with both of these sorts of people to an extent, but moreso with aromantics, because self-sufficiency and solitude are very important to me. After all this time, I’d probably have trouble with all the compromising that takes place in relationships. Being single used to bother me (for the first ten years or so), but I’ve gotten used to the idea more and more, and I’ve learned to see the good sides of it.
I can’t remember the details, but I was reading Savage Love years ago and some girl wrote in, I think she had some physical things wrong with her or disabilities or something. Anyway, Dan Savage, seeming legitimately sad about it, told her that there really isn’t necessarily someone out there for everyone, and that she might just want to accept that and buy herself a vibrator and some porn. There was an emphasis on how sexuality does not necessarily have to involve more than one person. I don’t own any sex toys, but I sort of felt like it applied to me as well, and I agreed with him (and I certainly don’t always agree with him). In a way, that particular column had a large impact on me, and I decided to stop feeling sorry for myself and to move on and not worry about relationships anymore.
I suppose I should also ask myself the question: Do I find stupidity attractive? The answer is “No, I do not.” I think, however, in a hypothetical situation when faced with the choice between two attractive people, I’d pick the dumber one. Not because I find stupidity appealing in any way, but because, in my experience, that helps when trying to restrict relationships to merely sexual contact. If I want people to talk to and hang out with, I’d just as soon do that with friends, and not someone I was having sex with.
It also occurs to me that this could be the byproduct of just having a low opinion of sex (but not sexuality in general). I do, I don’t hide that fact. I think many people waste a lot of time on it when this time and energy could be used more productively. I think it often makes people make bad decisions. I have been trying to work on this attitude lately, and rereading Supervert’s books has been a great help. However, I think I’ve still ended up without a proper appreciation of “normal” sexuality. I can appreciate what Supervert says (and he takes many examples from de Sade here) that legitimate sexual perversion can and should be an intellectual activity. He contrasts de Sade’s libertines to a hillbilly who fucks his daughter not because she’s his daughter, but because she’s the only female around. I have developed a respect for perversions and paraphilias (I am not at all disturbed at any sexual activity or paraphilia that is consensual), but I still have a sort of disdain for sex. I think I am attracted to very stupid people not because they are stupid, but because I think sexuality is stupid (and therefore, I have the feeling that if I were attracted to anyone who is not stupid, it would be too objectifying and almost a sign of disrespect). I’m not championing this idea, and I have tried in the past to rid myself of this feeling; I just haven’t been very successful at it.
Harry Guntrip[24] describes the “secret sexual affair” entered into by some married schizoid individuals as an attempt to reduce the quantity of emotional intimacy focused within a single relationship, a sentiment echoed by Karen Horney’s resigned personality who may exclude sex as being “too intimate for a permanent relationship, and instead satisfy his sexual needs with a stranger. Conversely he may more or less restrict a relationship to merely sexual contacts and not share other experiences with the partner.”[25]
I thought this sounded relatable, yet I don’t think I elaborated much on why I thought so. I definitely do not and have not ever picked up guys in bars for one nights stands. What I definitely have done is something vaguely similar in the sense of dividing up friends/the people I talk to the people I have had sex with. The last line of the quoted wiki section applies.
For a long time, I thought maybe I was just attracted to really dumb guys, either alcoholics or knuckle-dragging Neaderthals, but when considered in light of that sentence above, I might interpret it differently. I’ve had 2 boyfriends in my life, I’m not attracted to many people, so that also makes it hard to generalize. This is the closest description I can come up with for human males I seem to find attractive: white, dark-haired (more specifically, black-haired, though some had it dyed other colors), dumb as a brick(!), and either really skinny or really muscular. I suppose everyone has physical attributes they find more or less attractive, so the “skinny, dark-haired white guy” part is quite unremarkable. What I find rather noteworthy is the “dumb as a rock” part. I’ve found that the people I want to have sex with are not people I would generally even talk to. My ex is a person I wanted nothing to do with unless he was naked. Another guy I was quite obsessed with for 3 or 4 years during college was similarly uninteresting to talk to, and the only reason I did was because I thought that might increase the chances of getting naked with him, though that never happened.
I should probably go back to talking about my ex, since that was an actual relationship that lasted ~5 years. We didn’t see each other a lot, and when we did, we pretty much only had sex. Sometimes we ordered a pizza and watched a movie, but not much more than that. The more I talked to him and spent time with him, the more I thought it would be a good idea to break up with him. He was wretchedly dumb and annoying. There were probably 2 reasons I stayed with him that long: (1)sex, and (2)I was afraid that, if I broke up with him, I wouldn’t find another boyfriend. The latter seems like a legitimate concern, since I broke up with him 13 years ago and haven’t so much as gone on a date since then. Then again, it now seems like a less important concern, because I’m not sure that really matters as much as I once thought it did. And regarding the guy I was obsessed with in college, besides fear of rejection and such things, another reason I probably never made a move was ambivalence: I wasn’t sure I really wanted much of anything to do with him. Not if his pants were on, anyway.
Anyway, I think all of this is relevant to that except above. I look at people I know who have a BF/GF, and one thing I notice is that they often have things in common and genuinely like each other. That’s almost an alien concept to me: dating someone you like and want to talk to and spend time with. I suppose it’s a matter of basically taking anything resembling sexuality and putting it aside in a little box, totally removed from real life and people I would want to be around. And I’m not sure if I’m attracted to dumb, annoying guys as a sort of self-defense mechanism (sort of like not wanting to date someone I actually like) or it’s just how things ended up, I was attracted to those people sort of randomly, and they all happened to be dumbasses. I’m not exaggerating; a month or so ago a friend and I were talking about the good old days, and she wondered aloud why I was attracted to my ex, saying, “He must have had a big dick” because he was so dumb, there is no other reason I’d be with him.
And maybe that’s why I have given up on relationships altogether, it would seem that any relationship I am in is doomed to failure from the beginning, and possibly that I want it that way. That is why I’ve sought out forums and things for aromantics. I’m not sure to what extent I fit the description. I don’t fit it perfectly, but I think that it describes me functionally, if not totally. Aromantics are a very miniscule minority, even in the asexual community, which is supposedly 1% of the population. On AVEN, there is much talk from asexuals lamenting they’ll die alone and no one will want anything to do with them because they don’t experience sexual attraction (but they do experience romantic attraction). On the other hand, you see aromantics in such places talking about how wonderful solitude is, how they can devote so much more time and energy to things they’re interested in, and how much they value their freedom and self-sufficiency. I empathize with both of these sorts of people to an extent, but moreso with aromantics, because self-sufficiency and solitude are very important to me. After all this time, I’d probably have trouble with all the compromising that takes place in relationships. Being single used to bother me (for the first ten years or so), but I’ve gotten used to the idea more and more, and I’ve learned to see the good sides of it.
I can’t remember the details, but I was reading Savage Love years ago and some girl wrote in, I think she had some physical things wrong with her or disabilities or something. Anyway, Dan Savage, seeming legitimately sad about it, told her that there really isn’t necessarily someone out there for everyone, and that she might just want to accept that and buy herself a vibrator and some porn. There was an emphasis on how sexuality does not necessarily have to involve more than one person. I don’t own any sex toys, but I sort of felt like it applied to me as well, and I agreed with him (and I certainly don’t always agree with him). In a way, that particular column had a large impact on me, and I decided to stop feeling sorry for myself and to move on and not worry about relationships anymore.
I suppose I should also ask myself the question: Do I find stupidity attractive? The answer is “No, I do not.” I think, however, in a hypothetical situation when faced with the choice between two attractive people, I’d pick the dumber one. Not because I find stupidity appealing in any way, but because, in my experience, that helps when trying to restrict relationships to merely sexual contact. If I want people to talk to and hang out with, I’d just as soon do that with friends, and not someone I was having sex with.
It also occurs to me that this could be the byproduct of just having a low opinion of sex (but not sexuality in general). I do, I don’t hide that fact. I think many people waste a lot of time on it when this time and energy could be used more productively. I think it often makes people make bad decisions. I have been trying to work on this attitude lately, and rereading Supervert’s books has been a great help. However, I think I’ve still ended up without a proper appreciation of “normal” sexuality. I can appreciate what Supervert says (and he takes many examples from de Sade here) that legitimate sexual perversion can and should be an intellectual activity. He contrasts de Sade’s libertines to a hillbilly who fucks his daughter not because she’s his daughter, but because she’s the only female around. I have developed a respect for perversions and paraphilias (I am not at all disturbed at any sexual activity or paraphilia that is consensual), but I still have a sort of disdain for sex. I think I am attracted to very stupid people not because they are stupid, but because I think sexuality is stupid (and therefore, I have the feeling that if I were attracted to anyone who is not stupid, it would be too objectifying and almost a sign of disrespect). I’m not championing this idea, and I have tried in the past to rid myself of this feeling; I just haven’t been very successful at it.
