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Oct. 20th, 2015 09:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bueras a teenager, relationships felt particularly threatening and frightening-- it felt like, if I didn't do it, it meant never getting a chance to be emotionally close... it [closeness] being held for ransom until/unless I agreed to a relationship... against my will! I kept trying to have closeness without it, and people kept drifting from me (if I didn't initiate a relationship to hold them there, they found others to do that ritual with and diminished me). I could have very close friends for a time... but not too long, the peak of friendship could only last for so long before it seemed like a fork in the road appeared and I had to choose to do the relationship or relinquish that friend (this is honestly mostly a HS problem I think, tfw everyone impatient to become adult and relationship is part of that, clock is ticking, find ur HS sweetheart, everyone is restless and won't let themselves relax in something that might not 'have a future'... everyone is pressured to act for their future)...
only after watching people shut me out after they got into relationships so many times did the fear of losing an important friend overtake my fear of relationships, and I had a real one. I don't regret it but I'm so sad that I had to feel so afraid. It was so scary that I remember it so clearly! Trying hard to convince her we could just be friends who also love each other... just confusing her... trying to... come up with language for the concept I had in my head... I'm so glad for aromanticism bc fuck has the concept been in my head FOR SO LONG and I've just been struggling to get anybody else to understand it. They'd get so confused, they wouldn't even work with me to understand. It hurt them too much, or their hurt made them unable to parse anything else. People only felt rejected. It made it feel impossible to realize. I couldn't get them to drop their feeling to understand mine, pretty reasonably, an incompatibility. and I wanted them to understand it was not rejection and it did not mean I didn't want closeness with them. I wanted to divorce the concepts and it couldn't happen instantaneously but I was so... desperate for it to be understood. Please, how do I tell you I won't do that, but that I still love you and will be near you however long it's good for us both to be around each other? Can't you give me freedom without being afraid? Why do you need to own me? Why do we need to promise to each other? We've been friends for years without that. We don't need it!
it's just BAFFLING how this THING exists to describe my feelings of fear and dread and also confusion and inability to parse the feeling/topic/ritual. It's absolutely as important to me as learning dyscalculia is a thing. Important things about my brain: I can't numbers and I can't relationships. If you force me to either I will get distressed and cry.
only after watching people shut me out after they got into relationships so many times did the fear of losing an important friend overtake my fear of relationships, and I had a real one. I don't regret it but I'm so sad that I had to feel so afraid. It was so scary that I remember it so clearly! Trying hard to convince her we could just be friends who also love each other... just confusing her... trying to... come up with language for the concept I had in my head... I'm so glad for aromanticism bc fuck has the concept been in my head FOR SO LONG and I've just been struggling to get anybody else to understand it. They'd get so confused, they wouldn't even work with me to understand. It hurt them too much, or their hurt made them unable to parse anything else. People only felt rejected. It made it feel impossible to realize. I couldn't get them to drop their feeling to understand mine, pretty reasonably, an incompatibility. and I wanted them to understand it was not rejection and it did not mean I didn't want closeness with them. I wanted to divorce the concepts and it couldn't happen instantaneously but I was so... desperate for it to be understood. Please, how do I tell you I won't do that, but that I still love you and will be near you however long it's good for us both to be around each other? Can't you give me freedom without being afraid? Why do you need to own me? Why do we need to promise to each other? We've been friends for years without that. We don't need it!
it's just BAFFLING how this THING exists to describe my feelings of fear and dread and also confusion and inability to parse the feeling/topic/ritual. It's absolutely as important to me as learning dyscalculia is a thing. Important things about my brain: I can't numbers and I can't relationships. If you force me to either I will get distressed and cry.
