NullVector

4 hours ago, Mark said:

many cool things seem only possible if you can put up with the romance junk.

Hah. I do wonder though to what extent 'allos' also agree with this sentiment, but are just more easiy cowed by societal expectations than we might be? 

Random aside: I've always been (pathologically!) stubborn/uncompromising when it came to bending to popular pressures (it got me into some trouble early on at high school; until people figured out that I would stand up for myself physically and so left me alone...) But actually, bending to popular pressure does make a certain amount of sense to me. I suppose if you were in a tightly-knit tribal group (i.e. most humans for most of human history) then a degree of social ostracisation might be the difference between life and death. It's not so relevant now, but could go some way towards explaining the degree of conformity to societal expectations a lot of people seem to display? (as in: conformity has a sizeable survival advantage vs. my own idiosyncratic non-conformity?)

37 minutes ago, Ice Queen said:

Oh, and what the hell is with that diamond engagement ring and the fuss about it? Trying to prove what?! Like let's take a large amount of money and set it on fire o.O.

I know you're joking a bit here, but actually, gift buying in general is something that has always made feel me a bit uncomfortable.

I knda feel here like I'm being emotionally blackmailed by society and/or coproprate advertising into expressing the 'worth' a personal relationship along narrow, market oriented lines. Being encoured toward commodifying human emotional sentiments. It almost feels like an act of sacrilige or idol worship (says the atheist, lol). I don't want to express my feelings towards somebody with a card, or a ring, or whatever. It's totally inadequate and kind of insulting and infuriating to feel manipulated into that (plus it's kind of saying: express your feelings towards this person by feeding the consumerist machine that's killing your planet - this is the only legitimate and generally socially acceptable way of doing so)

I wonder if that's just me or something other aros or aro-specs can relate to? Probably I'm over-reacting 

@Ice Queen 100 posts, nice work!  .

Here, have a contextually appropriate cookie: 

@Nai Here's one for you too, lol: 

Today is the day you die 

I wish that the UN's 2030 Sustainable Development Goals are met ten years ahead of schedule.

@SoulWolf 200th post ^ Woop woop 

Having this one word "Love" is super unhelpful, IMO. The Ancient Greeks were much more sensible about it. Philia, Storge, Agape, Eros. There I guess you could actually be reasonably clear about what you meant when you said "I love you". A bit like this popular notion that the Inuit have a bunch of different words for "snow". I think this also accounts for a fair amount of my resistance. I really don't like the idea of telling people lies - and ambiguously communicated intent is almost as bad. When I say "I love you" what do I actually mean? Outside of a lot of context, it's pretty meaningless - even then, there's scope to have what I'm meaning by it misconstrued by the other person. Kind of like when people tell you that they believe in God. Well, it generally takes a long follow-up conversation to tease out what they actually mean by that - and afterwards, you may still not really be sure you've understood one another.

I'm fine with telling someone that I: like them, enjoy their company, would miss them if they weren't around, get a lot out of our conversations, want the best for them, their happiness is important to me, they have made me a better person, etc. But that I love them? Nah, I don't like it. It just feels somehow inauthenitc. As if you've just given me some phrase in Urdu to repeat back to you, where I have literally no idea what it means ("saying strange things" as @DeltaV put it).

Also, there is often an emotional intensity, rawness and invasiveness coming along for the ride when people start talking about "love" that generally makes me uncomfortable. As if you're touching an open wound, like in this scene*. 

*Plus I don't really like what Karen Allen says there about caring more for someone else than you do for yourself - I don't think that's a secure basis for love.

The Buddha had an interesting take on this, incidentally:

6 minutes ago, Mark said:

On the other hand I can find it difficult to say "I love you" to anyone. Because of this over use in romance. Having to find alternative phrases such such as "I care about you"; "I'll be there for you"; etc.

YES! THIS! I always felt this real resistance to saying "I love you" and couldn't figure it out (this was long before I read about the split-attraction model or anything like it).

4 minutes ago, Ice Queen said:

Also, she once stated that her favourite love song is "Every breath you take" by The Police. The lyrics send shivers down my spine. 

That's actually pretty funny, considering what Sting said about that song 

Quote

"I don't think it's a sad song. I think it's a nasty little song, really rather evil. It's about jealousy and surveillance and ownership."

How does that quality survive in its transmission through a massively exposed record and these concerts?

"I think the ambiguity is intrinsic in the song however you treat it because the words are so sadistic. On one level, it's a nice long song with the classic relative minor chords, and underneath there's this distasteful character talking about watching every move. I enjoy that ambiguity. I watched Andy Gibb singing it with some girl on TV a couple of weeks ago, very loving, and totally misinterpreting it. (Laughter) I could still hear the words, which aren't about love at all."

I expect you took some pleasure In that.

"Great pleasure. I pissed myself laughing. 

41 minutes ago, Ice Queen said:

and no children (and no, the latter has nothing to do with my being aromatic since there're quite a few alloromantics who also want to be child-free)

Yeah, I get that. I read your other thread about it too I (probably) don't want kids either; but for reasons having nothing to do with my being (probably) aro.

41 minutes ago, Ice Queen said:

Because she feel victim to this world's toxic romance culture a long, long time ago. 

I think it's not inherently toxic though - it depends on your romantic/sexual 'metabolism'. Like how oxygen is toxic to some microorganisms.

Perhaps aros living in today's world are a bit like the poor anaerobes after the photosynthesisers came along?!

17 minutes ago, Ice Queen said:

I'll never tell them the truth. I am as sure as it comes that they won't ever believe me. It's not worth the trouble.

 Aw, that's rough. Here's an ehug .

Is that partly to do with the culture in Romania? I don't know what it's like there - is there a lot of emphasis on marriage and having a family?

6 hours ago, DeltaV said:

I'm the same until I grow so sick of this tendency that I just impulsively make a decision. Does this count as free will?

Well, again, what's your definition of 'free will' here?  

From the context, it seems to be something along the lines of: I made a descision but I'm not sure why I made that particular one. But maybe calling that a "free" decision is a bit of an abuse of language - ignorance of external causes determining your actions doesn't imply the lack of such causes. Spinoza says something like this in The Ethics:

Quote

Men are mistaken in thinking themselves free; their opinion is made up of consciousness of their own actions, and ignorance of the causes by which they are conditioned. Their idea of freedom, therefore, is simply their ignorance of any cause for their actions. As for their saying that human actions depend on the will, this is a mere phrase without any idea to correspond thereto. What the will is, and how it moves the body, they none of them know; those who boast of such knowledge, and feign dwellings and habitations for the soul, are wont to provoke either laughter or disgust.

34 minutes ago, UnicornQueen said:

"Hakuna matata" is the best Disney song ever made. I LOVE it. After so many years, I still don't know why people prefer "Can you feel the love tonight".

Also, Timon & Pumbaa's lament at the end of "Can you feel the love tonight" - that they are going to lose their friend to a romantic relationship - is something that a lot of aros can probably identify with. 

@sarcastic kitten  Lol. Needs more bagpipes tho:

1 hour ago, sarcastic kitten said:

On 5/4/2017 at 9:16 PM, NullVector said:

Leonard Cohen is my God 

You, sir, have very good taste

Thanks! I was actually speculating in this thread a while back that he might be 'one of us' 

I liked the song you posted - despite having no idea what they are singing about!  Maybe you can shed some light on it? Otherwise, I guess I should go ahead and learn French! Anyway, it's interesing to hear a rap song where the 'beat' is piano driven...

I'm kinda running out of French song ideas now (you have the home advantage ) so I guess I can just go ahead and post an old classic:

@sarcastic kitten 

Does this count? It has French lyrics 

Leonard Cohen is my God 

16 hours ago, sarcastic kitten said:

You're on  x)

I think we might be the only ones playing  But sure.

Kavinsky, he's French  

On 9/22/2016 at 6:25 AM, aussiekirkland said:

with gay men typically having longer index fingers, straight men with longer ring fingers

I'm a heterosexual guy.

And my ring fingers are quite noticably longer that my index fingers on both hands (probably by around 1cm)

Theory proven, case closed 

@sarcastic kitten Nice! And I like what they do with it around 2 minutes in.

From now on, we shall only post French songs  

I used to be pretty touch averse. But after a fair amount of 'exposure therapy' (from one friend in particualr, lol) I quite like hugs/cuddles now.

The idea of kissing still weirds me out a lot (I reckon its due to its assumed 'romantic' connotations - unlike hugging, it's generally seen as something reserved for romantic partners - and is portrayed that way in a lot of popular media. Also, for some reason it makes me think of this ) 

But hey, hopefully that could follow a similar pattern to the hugging? 

2 hours ago, Ice Queen said:

I am strange

Naaah - it's everyone else 'out there' that's strange  

You're new here, but you'll soon learn! 

Here's a few more:

Waiting For The Miracle (Leonard Cohen)

After The Goldrush (Neil Young)

How To Disappear Completely (Radiohead)

Undo (Bjork)

Ameila (Joni Mitchell)

It's Alright Ma (Bob Dylan)

Running Up That Hill (Kate Bush)

Hazey Jane I (Nick Drake)

Ribs (Lorde)

If Children Were Wishes (Wye Oak)

Skin (Grimes - thanks go to @DeltaV for introducing me to Grimes on these very forums!  )

Bankrupt On Selling (Modest Mouse)

The Desparate Kindom of Love (PJ Harvey)

This song means a lot to me.

<emotional outpourings>

</emotional outpourings>

@LunarSeas I approve of your song choices  ?

20 hours ago, ApeironStella said:

There are cognitive functions things which is what the theory is actually based on and they are actually not founded upon "dichotomies" as it is currently being sold as.

I did actually read a fair bit on Myers-Briggs a few years back, when I first stumbled upon a few of the online tests (I got INTP on them as well) - and it was the cognitive function stuff that was the most interesting to me.

For example, if we consider introverted vs. extrovered thinking processes: the way I often experience conversations is that I'm still thinking how I should structure my reply to what was just said - meanwhile the conversation has already jumped ahead another 16 new topics! Introverts (like me) would tend to do their thinking in their heads and then vocalise a finished 'output' (I'm thinking of Paul Dirac here, for example: "I was taught at school that you should never start a sentence without knowing the end of it." - well, that is a very 'introvert' way to look at conversing!) Introverted thinkers might not 'show their working', so sometimes their final vocalised thought isn't easy for other people to follow without some additional elaboration. Whereas extroverted thinkers would tend to 'think out loud' and submit any intermediary steps to the group for feedback, so as to arrive at a more finished and coherent final thought by a kind of process of consensus (maybe - bear in mind I'm not an extrovert - but at least some extroverted friends have told me that they do something like this)

Or, say, the perceiving/judging function - I think of this a bit like 'collapsing the wave-function' in quantum mechanics, lol. Just how much data do you need to take in before you can make a final decision one way or the other? With me, the default answer tends to be "a lot!" I'm paranoid about jumping to an incorrect conclusion before all the facts are in, so I'm extremely indecisive - even in terms of really trivial matters like picking a restaurant to eat in, for example! (much safer to defer that decision to somebody else so that I can't be blamed for any catastrophic outcomes ) The good side of it is that any important life decisions I make tend to be quite well thought through (well, assuming I'm able to actually make the decision one way or the other, despite myself! )

I still think it has its potential problems as a properly 'scientific' theory. I mean, telling an interesting internally consistent "story" that seems to account for a fair amount of subjective psychological experience is one thing; but getting very specific and falsifiable predictions out of that same framework is something else again and I'm not sure how well Myers-Briggs cognitive functions theory succeeds here. I also worry about sentences like this one from the blog you posted :

Quote

 Type outlines your cognitive preferences but humans presumably have free will, so you can choose to override those preferences whenever necessary.

I don't really know what that sentence means. What is the "you" that is being referred to in this context of doing the overriding? Movements of the Pineal Gland, perhaps?  I have never anywhere seen a definition of "free will" that I could make any sense out of, so I'm not sure what business it has in outlining a properly 'scientific' theory of cognitive processes...

My views on Myers-Briggs overall as a system/framework are probably similar to those @James posted earlier in this thread:

On 1/30/2017 at 5:28 AM, James said:

It was a decent attempt at the impossibly complex task of quantifying who someone is. 

@Ice Queen

Totally agree with everything you said about dating! I've never done it myself (I'm not really comfortable with the concept and I just don't think it would work for me - for the reasons you said). I tried to make new friends instead (with that potentially leading to something sexual - or not).

I think somebody should make a 'dating' app that lets you 'date' as friendship groups. So, your group of friends meets up with another group of friends and goes out on a 'date' together. I think that would get rid of a lot of the assumptions, expectations and games that seem to exist around conventional dating. And it would be less pressure than a one-on-one situation (then maybe if you get to know someone well in that context you might want to see them one-on-one as well - but since you already know each other fairly well by now, there won't be all sorts of pre-assumed nonsense!)

On 13/04/2017 at 4:41 PM, Untamed Heart said:

Until recently I'd always seen kissing as purely romantic - even though I'd grown up seeing people on TV/movies kissing before they had sex (and less so in a purely romantic context). I still don't see kissing as sexual and have never kissed any of my boyfriends with the intention of trying to get sex to happen - not even my ex who's the only person I have slept with!

I always saw it as romantic rather than sexual. I think probably due to the trope in so many romantic movies about that 'magical first kiss' that 'changes everything between us'. I think for that reason the idea of kissing has always weirded me out a bit and triggered a degree of romance repulsion/anxiety in me.

On 14/04/2017 at 9:40 AM, DeltaV said:

Going down on on a woman is so much more exciting to me.

Um, yeah, now you mention it, always really wanted to try this  

The idea of it appeals to me way more than kissing does! (and doesn't trigger any repulsion/anxiety ; quite the opposite, actually!)