things I don't love: the dance of "am I actually uninterested in dating, or do I just not want to saddle another person with my weird and complicated life when everybody already has enough of their own shit to deal with?"
my ideal is being the B relationship in a poly situation. Let them live together full time, I'll come around for dates and dinners and whatnot and then fuck off to do my own thing the rest of the time
Cohabitation has worked for me, finally. but it’s because I’m living with people I actually know and like and we have space so we can all be doing our own things.
Which, I dunno, I don't know if I'd have understood the concept years ago or not - but it's all a big ball of stuff, isn't it? And we all fall somewhere on this line of choices that leave us with heavy thinking to do.
Yeah, that's an important point - if they like you, they'll like you, you're not 'saddling' people with anything. Similar goes for being friends with you - pretty sure all of us would say we're in it for all of it, there.
I've been able to come to peace for myself with being a person who is very picky about romance which is NOT the same thing as no yearning at all. but how I feel so neurotic that a roommate feels genuinely impossible so I'm just living with my parents for ages. hoo boy that's daunting
Like... I'm already as much of a hermit as i can be. And i enjoy it. So. Do i... want to date? Dating is weird to me, or is it only weird to me with men?
You know what? I love my husband and I don't even mind living with him but at the same time, if I could go back and, knowing then what I know now, do it all again would I live alone? I just might.
candycigarettes LMAO I'M YOU LIKE IT i love rotating this stuff around in my brain but i don't want to be too annoyingly navel-gazy. but your ""tangents"" are always welcome and i love reading what you have to say! you always bring interesting stuff to the table
Agreed! (finally reaching a level of financial stability where moving is feasible... but what kind of place and who with are still important questions for me.) Plurks like this are helpful. ^^
and
3D🌺triangle.
god yeah, dating is SO weird. even if i could potentially see myself being interested in datING, as in being in a relationship, i'm absolutely positive i have no interest in actively playing the field and seeking out people to Go On A Date with
i'm very pro-living alone. 44 years old and never dated, never had roommates, living my best "I AM MASTER OF ALL MY DOMAIN" life. it was sometimes financially tricky when i was very poor and i lived in some super slummy places then, but i made the calculation that i'd rather live in a place with mushrooms growing out of the baseboards than have a roommate.
candycigarettes: lol, that is how all of my girls feel about it, except they won't make exceptions for sleeping with one of them either. No men in their space, no matter what XD
not fans of unrelated roommates either, the oldest 2 have def decided to just buy a house together and to hell with it, and the youngest is welcome to join them but hasn't decided if she's given up on the world yet XD
i remember in high school psychology class (disclaimer: this was in 2007 and i have no idea if any of this thinking is still in vogue now), we were taught that romantic love exists on a spectrum from passionate (the relationship is new, your partner is mysterious and exciting and sexy and idealized) to companionable (the relationship has been a thing for
many years, possibly many decades, and your partner is no longer mysterious and exciting and sexy but rather just comfortable. this is apparently the only stage where it's not a bad sign when you stop having sex)
and i remember sixteen-year-old me thinking "i only want a romantic relationship if we skip every single beginning stage and go right to the companionable stage", lmao
my roommates are both a similar sort of "I love doing things with you, thanks for the show/outing/talk, now it's time to go hide in my room for hours, bye" to me
I'll be surprised if youngest doesn't end up buying in--as it is they've already all been supporting each other when and as needed for over a decade, including the 2 older ones now getting ready to help pay for youngest's post-bacc courses so she can hopefully start her masters next year
honestly I get it too... I adore my gf (and I'd say we are pretty much at that companionable stage, can confirm that it is very nice) but if God forbid something happens and we don't work out I probably just will be foreveralone after that. I really lucked into this shit lol
I absolutely get it. I'm very nearly aromantic and I've never really liked being coupled up except for it takes away a lot of the risk and effort involved in sex
other considerations: my job as it currently exists means that while i do spend time at home nearly every single day, like 75% of my overnights are elsewhere, and i don't want to change jobs
i suppose it says something that all my responses to this question boil down to "X thing about my life would make a relationship hard unless i changed it, and i don't wanna", huh
i absolutely couldn't live alone full time, but i've also only lived with strangers once and it did not go well. but all my friends are either in relationships or need to live alone...... i try not to think about how i'm probably not gonna survive long after my mother passes.
if i'm on jobs too consistently (over a month with no human companionship seems to be the tipping point) i truly start losing my damn mind and have to find extra social outlets. the internet is not quite enough. i have to beg friends to let me take them to dinner, or walk the dog late just to have an excuse to chat with the overnight doorman.
tbh i think that's one of the reasons i like living in a small town; i'm pretty introverted, but in a "somewhat lower social needs" way rather than an "absolutely hates talking to strangers" way, so i actually get a lot out of casual chats with people around town who i know but am not super close to
yeah she drives me absolutely batshit a lot, but she is also often the only human i interact with outside of work and doctors appointments for months at a time. and i canNOT go without regular human interaction, rip.
i used to have a 'break glass and ask to move in with these friends in case of emergency' place but another friend (now mutual! he's great!) took their spare room and it's working out for them so i'd just have to play roulette with strangers again i think ;;
Plurks like this are helpful. ^^