Heterosexual Cisgender Aros

[DeltaAro]

21 hours ago, Apathetic Echidna said:

or even an attitude of 'if you will have me you'll do'.

Now I feel dumb… what does that mean? Like “if you are willing to accept me as your partner, you will suffice”? Sorry to be so stupid. Damn subtleties of the English language… Always assumed I was at B2 … but maybe I'm not even there? Should probably put a disclaimer in my signature: “Please communicate less sophisticatedly with me. Implicit meaning is likely to get lost. Irony, if you use it, please make it very obvious.”

[Apathetic Echidna]

7 hours ago, DeltaV said:

“if you are willing to accept me as your partner, you will suffice”

exactly this.

I slip in grammar and slide in slang which can make things less clear....even to other Australians. Which is to the ever loving annoyance of one German friend who has to deal with 3 Australians using rural slang as shorthand when communicating. 

 

But yes, back to the point, the possibility that he was just fishing for any sort of reciprocation is why I questioned if there was any attraction at all involved. 

[DeltaAro]

14 hours ago, Apathetic Echidna said:

But yes, back to the point, the possibility that he was just fishing for any sort of reciprocation is why I questioned if there was any attraction at all involved. 

The point is, sheer desperation not to have a romantic partner and then pushing in this direction on like anyone in an obnoxiously persistent way is still in the sphere of romance “reproductive pair-bonding behavior”,  though it's not based on some sort of romantic attraction. Of course this is difficult to differentiate from “I just want a source of sex now” and pushing similarly bad in this direction.

Spoiler

 

Probably I'm too prejudiced against romance. Want to make it sound worse than it is. What makes one feel so bad as allo-aro is that, honestly, the bad stuff that surrounds sex is massively more bad and massively more numerous compared to romance.

 

On the other hand, there is overwhelming evidence that it's not the case that the capacity to feel romantic love has made anybody a better person in this regard. That's really a complete myth.

 

 

[NullVector]

4 hours ago, DeltaV said:

On the other hand, there is overwhelming evidence that it's not the case that the capacity to feel romantic love has made anybody a better person in this regard. That's really a complete myth

 

Yeah, this I can't get my head around. Lots of people seem to make this assumption* that romantic attraction would temper sexual attraction somehow - make a person more likely to act all reserved and reasonable towards their object of infatuation. Why? If anything, the opposite strikes me as far more likely - romantic attraction acting as an amplifier of the sexual attraction, making crazy and wildly inappropriate boundary-transgressing behaviours even more likely! 

 

*Probably they're too prejudiced in favour of romance. Want to make it sound better than it is 

[DeltaAro]

On 10/11/2017 at 11:31 PM, NullVector said:

Lots of people seem to make this assumption* that romantic attraction would temper sexual attraction somehow

Even if this would be true… it would only “protect” the romantic partner. So it's assumed to be even more magical: romantic love will make you a better person as a whole. Why then are there cases like this? (yes, this case is pretty singularly horrific, but less extreme examples are abundant)

[Mark]

On 11/10/2017 at 10:31 PM, NullVector said:

Yeah, this I can't get my head around. Lots of people seem to make this assumption* that romantic attraction would temper sexual attraction somehow - make a person more likely to act all reserved and reasonable towards their object of infatuation. Why?

If someone's behaviour towards people in general is bad then I'm not sure that something which could result in their behaving better towards one person is that much of an improvement.