Briefly going to talk about my experience of sexuality:

I'm wondering if I might be aromantic. Particularly since mentioning the possibility to @xKaraShepardx, who was with me for seven years, to have her go "yeah, that tracks."

I'm definitely not normal. /

I have a strong desire to be wanted, to have people I trust or can confide in, to know and be known in the most terrible, wonderful way.

But I have exactly zero sense of possession or jealousy tied to that.

I more or less can't distinguish between the feelings I have /

for a close friend and a romantic partner.

Especially considering I've got no problem sleeping with someone who's 'just' a friend. /

A partner, for me, is just that - a partner. Someone to share the load. Someone who, out of proximity more than anything else, is inside the innermost circle of trust and vulnerability.

I could easily see that being one person, or five. /

Sex, frankly, has very little to do with that. Sex is fun - y'all should try it sometime, can recommend.

I've had more of it than I have any right to, given my modest abilities and charms.

Slight brag.

But that's what it is: fun. Intimate. Like cooking a meal for someone./

My experience of relationships has always been artificially constrained by external expectations. I've thought of myself as obviously romantic, because I crave intimacy, and I get more or less told by society that there's ONE person it's okay to be intimate with. /

I'm wondering how much of my experience, given that, is trying to fold my intimacy needs (which I now more healthily get from friends AND partners) into the right shape to fit in a hetero- and monoga-normative box.

Which... they don't seem to. /

Alternatively, as a member of #NeurodiverseSquad who by design tries to codify and rationalize his emotions (because if they're rational they're valid and I'm allowed to feel them), is this a position I've more... argued myself into?

I'm not sure. I'm not sure I CAN be sure./

Especially given how hard "romantic feelings" is to define.

By the strict definition... I don't feel any differently towards partners and friends.

If someone is someone I like spending time with, and trustworthy, and I'm attracted to them physically... then it's the same./

I DO want to make romantic gestures, but not on their own merit - I want to make the other person happy.

I DO want to spend time with a partner - but that's because a partner is someone I've selected, and one of my criteria is wanting to spend time with them. /

So those are my thoughts - while I appreciate the folks offering suggestions and support, I'm more using this as a public journal than anything else right now.

I like me, I like how I am (usually). I'm just thinking about how my experience might differ from someone else's. /

What it comes down to for me is this: the only thing that separates a romantic partner from a good friend for me is the commitments I've made to them, and that they've made to me.

And I think maybe y'all experience something v. different from that.

So that's a thing./end

Anyway thanks for sticking around here's my cat.