Over the course of my life, I have learned that I possess a number of traits and qualities the general public considers as “undesirable”, to put it mildly. Now, I can’t say I feel bad about it – which is one such trait. I simply don’t care. I also don’t think “the grass on the other side is greener”. I don’t mind being the way I am – but I’m also curious what it’s like on the other side.
I am an asexual, aromantic non-libidoist and quite content with a life beyond “dating and mating”. (No, I’m not a plant. I’m simply not attracted to anything or anyone, and have no desire for romantic companionship. I am not “ill”, I do not need to be “fixed”, thank you very much.) I’m often puzzled why people seem to have such a strong urge to pair up or why sex is considered a basic human need along with food and breathable air. I certainly like food and air as much as the next living being, but sex and romance is nothing I miss in my life. That said, I am very much alive without it – can’t be such a basic need then.
In fiction, I naturally relate best to what I know from reality: friendship and admiration as the strongest emotional bonds between people. Love as a character’s main motivation doesn’t really work for me, hence I often miss the much mentioned “subtext” or “chemistry” characters are supposed to have.
Fun Fact – My antennaes seem to work a bit into the future. I often realize I mostly identify with or like the character who turns out to be the least stripperific/least likely to end up in a full blown romance plot from the start, with no way of knowing they’ll develop like that.
It often confuses people if I can acknowledge someone’s attractivity without being attracted myself, too. Basically, I have a good sense for what “the majority” finds attractive, so I can pick out the person most conventionally attractive from a given line up. Regarding my own tastes, it often requires a translation. If I point out a woman as “attractive”, I don’t mean “holy cow, I’d hit that”. I mean “she looks beautiful and has a good sense of style”. I’m more likely to call a female person “classy” than “hot”, “classy” meaning “ladylike, not skanky, timeless beauty like an old time Hollywood diva”. If I compliment a guy, I don’t mean “holy cow, I’d hit that” either. I mean “you, sir, are a snappy dresser and have excellent taste”. Or, in simpler terms, “where do you shop, dude?” Or in extreme cases “man, if I had your looks, I’d spend the rest of my life painting self portraits”.
I also identify as an agendered transhumanist. Science is my religion. (No, I do not fear the robot government.) I am star stuff; I am the universe trying to figure itself out. In a perfect world, I would be a computer program with no physical form, without the annoyance of maintaining a hull that dictates me when to eat, sleep and shit. Religion is probably the one concept that creeps me out most. Considering the history of many organized religions, you gotta admit I have a point. I can’t even begin to understand why people would still follow a belief that has clearly been proven as incorrect. Or why they’d even fight over it – one side praying to some invisible being, the other side doing the same? It just makes no sense to me. If a scientific concept is proven wrong, there’s no war, no ethical conflict over replacing it with the new, for-the-moment-correct concept. On the contrary, it’s seen as advancement, not as challenging the world view or moral concept. And speaking of it, most religious concepts are nothing more than a collection of common sense deals. I fail to see why living by them needs to be justified by claiming some magical being dictated these rules to the puny mortals.
I mostly feel like a distant beholder. I’m diagnosed with Schizoid Personality Disorder; not considering myself “ill”. My Enneagram type is 5, wing 6. I watch the world like through a window; detached, but trying to understand the realm of emotions I don’t experience first hand. (The world has yet to convince me that it is “more real” than what’s inside my head.) This is likely the one trait that enforces my attitude to not want to be on the “other side” and that the grass there is, in fact, not greener. I admit, it often is entertaining to watch what’s going on “over there”, but it usually seems more trouble than it is worth. I experience the world like a scientist who studies a long lost civilization. I’m fascinated by many aspects, but I have no desire to experience them. I want to understand, make sense of them, but not get involved.
I often hear from people who seem similar to me (similar as in “preference of solitude”) that they dislike fiction because it’s “not real” and they rather stick to facts. I do like non fiction, too. But I don’t feel a difference. To me, any fiction is as real as Roman history, for example. It doesn’t matter that fiction never “really happened” and history did. Some history had influence on my life and the world I live in. But so did some fiction. It’s also not so much that I “hate people”. Frankly, I like people. But I like them from a far distance. Fiction makes my involvement 100 % impossible and I will never be expected to interact with fictional characters. That’s exactly the way I like it – observe their lives, with a screen to keep them away from me, and no-one calls me “cold hearted”, “detached” or “desinterested” due to my lack of desire for interaction.
circusofscars 