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I wish I loved my friends more than I do. It's not that I don't care for them it's just hard for me to feel connected to someone. I'm generally comfortable with most people and like meeting new ones so my friends don't stand out as much from everyone else.

It seems they could have handled it better. Likely they were confused about their feelings and not sure how to communicate about them.

I'm reading A Meeting at Corvallis by S. M. Stirling. It's part of a series where all modern technology for some reason stopped working in 1998. It has great world building, exploring how people would live without modern technology when they still have all the knowledge from the modern world.

I have many relationships. My family, my friends, my coworkers

@MulticulturalFarmer I agree with those observations about American culture. But I think for Americans the image of sex in media is somewhat a reaction about sex shaming in real life. That's less in Scandinavian countries and so there's not really a counter balance to the sex worship. I'm not sure why Scandinavians like American culture so much. Maybe it's because historically it was a contrast to the ideologies promoted by the state so it became a little bit rebellious. Or it's because Scandinavian cultures are very individualistic so it appeals to us.

@Themathlover Yes CBT is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. I personally really like Tara Bach's book radical acceptance. She has a lot of good exercises for accepting ones emotions. I don't know if they're translated to French though. The author draws a lot from budhism, along with CBT, but she describes how people adapt her meditations depending on their belief system. Another good CBT book is Feeling good by David Burns which explains the principles and has some excercises. There's also a more practical version of it called Feeling good handbook. I don't know about the translations for those either.

You don't have a lot of time before the season premiere! I might make a thread after the first episode has dropped and we'll see who wants to join. So why is the Beard quote one of your favorites?

Your post made me think about this mosque in Denmark, maybe that would be interesting for you to read about https://www.mariammoskeen.com/

I understand. Do you have to tell your parents everything? Maybe you could just say you feel upset about the parts they already know. And you don't have to tell the therapist everything either if you don't feel comfortable. I'm thinking a CBT therapist could give you general advice on how to navigate the internet without it being to upsetting for example. Let me know if you enjoy reading and want any book recommendations about this.

Lots of material here. For now I'll just agree that car centric planning definitely lead to more isolation. As an urban planer I'm saddened by how urban spaces has become a privilege of the rich. Often it's even against the law to build new such environments.

Hi! Thanks for sharing your story. I'm not a Muslim but I think you're doing the right thing trying to find other Muslims to get advice from. This community is not that big so if you don't find one here I would recommend you also try Reddit. There's a group aromantic and you could also try other LGBT+ groups since the struggles might be related.

@Nixthat sounds like a great joke! I think in general it would be good with more reassurance that there is no rush. In Sweden I think there is a bit of a weird thing with our culture being very influenced by American media which always shows sex as this amazing thing incomparable to any other kind of experience. I think in the US this is done to compensate and escape from sex shaming but Sweden doesn't have that as much so it becomes weird when it's put on such a pedistal rather than being discussed as just a part of life.

Something I thought about just now is the connection society put on romance and sex as signs of adulthood and how that can affect teen aro aces. I definitely felt this problem as a teen. I felt pressure internally and externally to have a boyfriend and have sex before a certain age because if I didn't it would mean I had failed somehow. I suppose lack of visibility for aro and ace is one of the reasons but I also think every teenager feels an inherent drive to grow up and is looking for everything they feel will accomplish that. So maybe it's hard to totally remove the sense of pressure. What are your thoughts and experiences about this?

I'm thinking that regardless of what you do you can talk about your feelings. You could ask her if she has romantic feelings for you and tell her about your feelings for her and that you feel uncertain about them. Talk about what kind of activities you would like to do and if you want it to be exclusive. Have you seen the relationship anarchy smorgasbord? That can be useful

Great job! I like that the computerized voice make it sounds slightly robotic because robots are aro culture.

That's a cute image from the thread :)

I'm interested in reading more stories taking place in futures were other kinds of family structures than the nuclear family is the norm. I was reading Gamechanger a while back where people form what they call packs which consists of people of different generations which might be related or not. Does anyone know of others like that? It's a plus if it goes into how culture and legal structures have adapted to fit this.

Yes! March 15th! I'm very excited but also a bit nervous because it's the first new season for me, I only started watching it a few months ago. I'm afraid I've build up all these expectations in my head and I'll get disappointed if the show doesn't go that way. Would you be interested in a season three discussion thread? BTW this clip is a good visualization of Ted Lasso fans experience waiting for season three. :D https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRtKb861/

Yeah that's what I'm thinking is likely to happen. So many people seem to be like "friendship?! Ew!" as if it's some kind of sad stand in for a romantic relationship. I think rather than look for strangers to befriend I'm going to work on deepening my existing relationships and seek opportunities for new ones with people I meet. It's kinda hard for me though because I'm a very autonomous person so I don't naturally feel much of a drive to connect with others, I'll have to give it some conscious effort.

@altohow did it go? Did you talk to your friends about solo polyamory? I'm also interested in this label because I'm looking for more emotional intimacy in my life. I'm involved a bit in polyam circles but I'm not sure how to proceed because actively dating for friendships feels kinda awkward. I identify as a relationship anarchist so my ideal would be to just let friendships grow organically into more emotional intimacy but in reality it's hard to come across someone who's interested in this and is a platonic fit.

@MulticulturalFarmeryyes Sweden has never been socialist but it was a strong influence and affected policy and culture. The voting during the age of liberty was originally tied to ownerships and since some women were owners they were interpreted to be allowed to vote in some cases. No married women could vote because they were under the guardianship of their husbands. The laws were later reformed to explicitly forbid women from voting. The municipal elections was tied to income, with higher influence the bigger the income. In theory a woman could vote if she had enough income and she was off age (25) and not married. So rich widows basically. In perish elections though all women were allowed to vote at this time.

My country Sweden is among the ones with the most gender equality in the world. From what I know of our history there's nothing especially gender equal about it. If I were to look for a simple cause I'd say the strong influence of socialism in the building of modern Swedish society. Better social security means more freedom and opportunity for people including women. And socialism has been a more gender inclusive than other political ideologies since also many women were workers. The gender equality was also economically driven, in order to have good social benefits the state needs to have a lot of taxes and so it's better if women work than doing untaxable labor at home.

I finished platonic. I thought it was a good read. I'm not gonna join any book club meetings because I already have many online meetings but let me know if you want to have more of a text discussion about it. I could write discussion questions.

Great article! I like that you brought up the argument that pansexuals could have no friendships if they could not be friends with the gender they're sexually attracted to.