DeltaAro

Najimi from Komi Can't Communicate

Kodaka Hasegawa from Haganai: I Don't Have Many Friends.

Aromantic or grayromantic.

Milius in Rebel Moon. Played by non-binary actor E. Duffy.

This is canon, according to Jack Snyder.

On 3/6/2023 at 10:18 PM, Keith said:

"I bet dead people are easier to get along with." - Crona Gorgon, Soul Eater. 

"Do you know where hell is? Inside your head." - Crona Gorgon, Soul Eater.

Crona ftw, they're just wise & realistic about things!

On 12/31/2023 at 9:47 AM, Lovebird said:

Its like someone said here, heartbreak isn't really taken seriously, it can even be quite traumatic at times.

Yes, beginning with the word 💔, it's so ridiculously overdramatic that it isn't serious but rather cutesy.

In my naivety, I even thought it would be interesting to experience heartbreak. Because I had those images of slightly melancholic teenagers in pajamas in mind, eating chocolates and being very authentic with their feelings.

17 hours ago, Lovebird said:

It's the longest, and most serious relationship I've ever been in. I expected myself to get over it quicker because well, people keep saying that's something you *have* to move on quickly from. And it's like, I just simply can't???

But if romance gives all those positive feelings, how can the experience of romantic loss not also feel very bad and take their time?

My cousin is similar. She complained to my sister, "Are you seriously still not over it?" and it was four weeks (ok, at least four, not ONE!!) after her 3-year relationship ended. But she just looked a bit unhappy and quiet at my grandma's birthday. The same cousin, by the way, is very "concerned" that I don't know what I'm missing out on regarding romance.

I've read that one can expect it to take 3 months to fully heal, if it was a long-term relationship. But it's difficult to find any good data, it's all very vague. E.g. what exactly is a "long-term relationship"? This topic is seriously under-researched.

17 hours ago, Lovebird said:

Another thing I'm scared about is that I'm never going to get over it.

Actively ruminating about the meta-questions like "how long will it take to get over it" is probably just adding unnecessary pressure.

TW: scary truth (maybe read it if you feel better)

Another thing: if you fantasize about getting back together, I'd try to avoid this. Not talking about thought suppression, which is counterproductive, but rather not actively engaging in such fantasies.

On 12/23/2023 at 7:13 PM, retrobeetism said:

On 12/23/2023 at 6:51 PM, DeltaAro said:

 

Exactly. the idea of friendship as a universal phenomenon is so strong that the first thing people mention when talking about aplatonism is the possibility of having friends without attraction.

Because there's no way someone could ever dislike and/or reject friendship. Friendship is always good and healthy (let's ignore the abuse and manipulation that can and do exist in platonic relationships), not like all those other (inferior) type of relationships. [heavy sarcasm here]

I think a crude version of "Natural Law" or the naturalistic fallacy is behind that, which is still an important intellectual undercurrent of Western societies.

Vegans (yes, I know ... plz stick with me) are often advised to take B12 supplements that in the past were either synthetic or produced by GMOs (not true anymore, we now have 100 % natural B12). Of course, animal feed always contained synthetic B12, which was conveniently ignored. But for some reason, this supposed unnaturalness was regarded as the killer argument against veganism: "Hey, veganism is bad and unnatural because you need unnatural B12 supplements!" 🤦‍♀️

Back during the fight for marriage-equality, this Natural Law stuff also reared its head again. There was a group of "Natural Law" academics, who wrote lots of amicus briefs to the Supreme Court, how horrible same-gender marriage would be because ... "It's unnatural". (I reread some of that history because of the recent Vatican decision to bless same-gender couples, against which many of the same people protested, too, of course)

One of them, John Finnis, had constructed a complex theory around it, which postulated "seven basic goods" of which one seriously was ... friendship. So it is that deeply ingrained. Friendship, the basic good - like self-preservation! I mean, nobody cares about that, they care about his homophobia (understandably). But for us, it's interesting because it shows how those bad ideas have the same root.

I also must admit that I assumed that friendship came just 100 % "natural" for humans. So yes, for the majority, it's unironically inconceivable that one could reject friendship. If you say that, they hear: "Hey, I don't need to eat, I do photosynthesis".

After a break-up, alloromantics feel sometimes jaded for some time and perhaps experience a glimmer of insight into the (romance-negative) aro mindset. But for friendships there is no such experience, there are break-ups of course, but those will be squarely blamed on the specific friend.

That was quite meandering and long, thanks for reading it.

18 hours ago, AroAcedragon13 said:

do i need a gender identity?

No, you don't need one.

But having no gender, agender, is a gender identity.

Even the label that describes the feeling that gender identities do not apply to oneself, quoigender, is amusingly often called a gender identity again.

Hi, welcome and nice to meet you!

12 hours ago, Holmbo said:

1. 11 hours ago, Holmbo said:

@DeltaAroyour reply sounds very disapproving to me.

I'm very sorry, and apologize, if it sounded that way. I didn't mean it disapprovingly.

12 hours ago, Holmbo said:

As if me going to a polya meetup is inappropriate.

I didn't mean "inappropriate", but realistically

1. it's already a bit uncomfortable to go to meetups solo and
2. this gets much more uncomfortable if you are implicitly expected not to appear solo and
3. even more uncomfortable if you are not in the core target audience and
4. even more uncomfortable if people approach you in a certain manner that you strictly don't want to reciprocate.

Regarding 4., many / most have a no-cruising / no-hookup-attempts policy, but there are always a good deal of people who forget about that.

I'm not available. I have nothing to talk about, since I neither feel compersion, nor jealousy, don't live and don't desire a poly lifestyle.

I'd rank this as a 7 / 10 on the social uncomfortability scale at the very least. If you check the boxes on 1. to 4. and still want to go, I'm surprised. My friend is poly and in a triad, so I know I wouldn't appear in such meetups.

22 hours ago, Holmbo said:

I have been to aro ace meetups before and I've not really identified with the other participants there. They were so into doing calm and cozy activities and I'm a bit wilder and adventurous.

Soooo what adventurous / wild stuff do you want to do? For drinking alcohol and partying (if that's already "wild"), I'd go elsewhere, where there are fewer "assumptions" about my intentions.

Or why don't you try some of the more "accessible" extreme sports? Like wakeboarding or bungee jumping? OK, or since it's winter ... maybe do room-scale VR with full-body tracking?

But yeah, going as an aro (and not being interested in sex) to a polyamory meeting sounds definitely ... interesting. One should make a movie about it. I hope you have fun and don't disappoint too many people there. 😄

4 minutes ago, retrobeetism said:

It feels like allpls put the focus on cupiopl people (not cupioplatonic people's fault btw) because it kinda allow them to ignore aplatonism exists. But the ones that do not desire friendships? We are pathologised and villainised

Yes, nobody should be pathologized / villainised for not wanting friends. I'm sorry to hear that. These are attempts to make the orientation more palatable to outsiders, which doesn't work anyway and always throws your fellow aplatonic aros / non-cupio aplatonics / <insert other sub-minority> under the bus.

If we define cupioplatonic as "people who do not experience platonic attraction, but desire friendships [platonic relationships]", then the definition of cupioplatonic is - with slightly different wording - often seriously given even as a definition for aplatonic.

This fits the general pattern that "platonic" is regarded as fundamentally different, special, compared to romo/sexual.

E.g. also homoplatonic or heteroplatonic are usually rejected, since platonic attraction is assumed to be universal. Like I hear people say, "Yeah, you aren't a heteroplatonic [woman]... you just suffer from internalized misogyny."

Just now, retrobeetism said:

Yes, I do. My avatar wasn't alive for any sixties lol 

Oh well, yes it's Ludwig van Beethoven?

Hello and welcome!

6 minutes ago, retrobeetism said:

The sixties definitively

I'd like to see that! But you mean the 1960s? Just asking because of your avatar. ☺️

17 hours ago, Balfrog said:

If I wanted a career with both I would probably go for something like math, where you need creativity to find solutions and rationality to make sure it works.

Yes, math needs creativity and it can have its own beauty.

But the possibilities to creatively express yourself are strongly restricted by mathematics' demand for validity and rigor. E.g. while there are many ways to prove a theorem, you will never have the nigh infinite combinations that are possible in the fine arts. And the proof also has to be presented in a slick and rigorous manner.

Also, many parts of math are simply dry. You can praise the beauty of math all day long, but it won't make the quadratic formula, the law of cosines, integration by parts, polynomial division, etc. more attractive. Yet this is very important basic stuff and has to be learned.

Therefore, math is a less (!) creative endeavor compared (!) to the fine arts. The common "stereotype" is true.

Our discussion reminds me a bit of (sorry for this weird comparison) the attempts to rehabilitate the Vikings. Yes, it wasn't all marauding and pillaging. They could be reasonable, and did some good things for Europe, like exploring or spreading technology. But please don't forget: usually it was very bad news when the Vikings came.

Most personality tests have those simplified assumptions built-in, like that there are these somewhat incompatible traits. While I totally agree that the truth is way more complicated and nuanced than pop science media tells us (e.g. left-brain vs. right-brain), IMHO we also shouldn't err too much in the other direction.

17 hours ago, Balfrog said:

My actual solution for this would probably be "how much community do you need to be satisfied?" Rather than solitary and sociable, which I don't super see as opposites, you can be like me be sociable but only need a small community.

But there's also a difference in how much time you want to spend with someone else. You see, this gets complicated fast...

Yes, the common labels are crude, and you can justifiably doubt how much they're opposites. But providing more nuance would introduce new ambiguities and the other problems I mentioned.

The simple "solitary vs. sociable" or "introverted vs. extroverted" is snappy and easy to understand. For me, it's still the best option.

17 hours ago, Balfrog said:

Really I agree that my suggestion doesn't really work all to well, but I don't think things that are socially considered to be in conflict necessarily are. I feel like this obscures personality, altho not as much as the binaries the mbti deals in (that was the other thing that made me think of radar charts but could also be solved with sliders).

Yes, MBTI without percentages or at least a neutral option is simply silly.

But even the best personality test would obscure something about our real personalities. You literally put people into boxes. So IMHO, they aren't tools to get to know a person, but to understand other's perspectives better. See the quote by William James, he says: no person really fits may categorization. It's crude. But it's a tool for more empathy and understanding.

PS: all I wrote here is just my subjective opinion, I don't claim those are hard facts

20 hours ago, CanadianBird said:

That's why you'll see polar opposite types such as INTPs, ESTPs and ISTPs all sharing a skeptic view of romance.

I'm very skeptical of romance 🤪, but I'm INFP.

20 hours ago, CanadianBird said:

Please read my post above. T/F does not indicate how much you feel or don't. It is a though process and I think I explain why fairly well :)

I referred more to the naming of this axis and how most popular tests online present it that way.

Never read the 1944 book for MBTI, because the fundamental flaw of MBTI is the dichotomizing. 51 % => F, 49 % => T.

Baphomet statue by the Satanic Temple in Iowa Capitol destroyed

11 hours ago, Balfrog said:

I kinda feel like most personality charts are held down by being dichotomous. Give me a stat star or something. Though this would involve some dichotomy it would be more like "this thing vs not theis thing" rather than " this thing vs something we have decided is opposite". For instance are S and N opposites or is it that some people are better at explaining why they make their choices than others? Is empiricism not also a grand ideal? Do those who create a settled life not create it with their autonomy? Is it really useful to separate these?

I also thought about this, but ultimately rejected the idea.

For me, personality tests should also focus on communication. They flatter people a bit (hopefully without a Barnum effect) because otherwise they will not accept and share their results.

I also believe in the perhaps controversial idea that there are no (obviously) "worse" or "better" personalities. I mean, you can't rank them. There are at first glance difficult personalities, but it really depends on context and what place people find in life.

But if you don't have contrary pairs, your test either becomes an aptitude test or it has implicit contraries.

The New Personality Self-Portrait Test has no pairs, but what do you think "0 % solitary" should mean? You can just call it "sociable".

Now regarding traits like autonomy, commitment, rationality, creativity, etc. they're all positive. So if you do not pair them, you get an aptitude test.

It's just bad to be 0 % autonomous and 0% committed. This is like Veruca Salt.

But as a pair, it's not worse when there is conflict to lean more towards autonomous, or more towards committed.

It's just bad to be 0 % rational and 0 % creative. But again, if there's conflict, and you logically can't have both (like deciding on a career) it's not bad to lean one way or the other.

On the other hand, some Renaissance person type, like Leonardo da Vinci, would score very high on rational and creative, and would get an objectively better test result than an average human.

tl;dr the contrary-pairs aren't really contraries. But in life, typically conflict situations arise, and then they become contraries, and your leaning towards one or the other becomes important.

11 hours ago, Balfrog said:

My x not x solution is still pretty bad though, for instance if you put thinking or reason as a category I can't imagine many people thinking positively about being unthinking or unreasonable, at least not from my cultural context (USA). You might be able to avoid this a bit by switching words, for instance being not empirically minded doesn't seem that bad, but it still is very context sensitive what words would be neutral enough for this.

I don't see a way around it. It's no surprise that most personality tests have pairs of contraries.

I like the distinction that William James makes, except for the wording. "Tough-minded vs. tender-minded" is a bit ridiculous.

So I would phrase it "concrete" vs "abstract" (or "principled") thinking style. Some people value hard empirical facts more, others grand, lofty concepts, ideas and principles.

To me, this axis was very important, and it really helped me to understand other people better.

It's related to S-N in the MBTI, though I think that MBTI is inferior here. Because it can't be about "sensing" in literal narrow meaning like physical senses, though it's described that way. Don't we have e.g. measurement instruments or many other sources of hard data? 😉

And why is the opposite "intuition"? I mean in a very special technical sense:

Quote

intuition, in philosophy, the power of obtaining knowledge that cannot be acquired either by inference or observation, by reason or experience. (Britannica)

... it perhaps makes sense. But normally intuition is understood as gut feeling, something emotional.

On 12/14/2023 at 9:17 AM, Holmbo said:

I also think some kind of commitment/autonomy could be useful, because some aros want more freedom while others desire for things to be more settled and predictable even though that also creates more obligations for them.

Yes, under the assumption that this is not correlated with extroversion-introversion (which is probably true).

Thinking vs. Feeling is also an important axis, but MBTI makes this way too much about "giving others a pass when they believe stupid things vs. correcting them and not caring about social consequences".

An important difference, but it seems mostly learned behavior and very dependent on context and even culture.

Also: who does not feel? Who does not think? This axis has to be more about the weighing of rationality vs. emotions in decision-making and beliefs.

I guess at this point, everyone has heard of it. After the 2021 decision that strictly banned blessing same-gender couples, this decision was reversed on Monday by the declaration "Fiducia Supplicans" approved by Pope Francis, which states that blessings should be given to same-gender couples who ask for it if certain conditions are met.

I guess the extra-conditions (basically: "it doesn't look like a marriage") were meant to placate the traditionalist. But as far as I can observe it didn't help. There probably will be another campaign to accuse Pope Francis of heresy.

So what do you think of it?

On 12/19/2023 at 8:04 AM, MondoBilby said:

Oh, and here's an Aromantic-related doodle I did of an aro-coloured bird!

Bird???? Advertise it as "Aro Phoenix" and it'll make more money!

Anyway, great piece, I love it.

On 12/13/2023 at 5:54 PM, Kira- said:

Just curious what different ppl r using.

Green (Light). The dark theme came a long way thanks to the efforts of @roboticanary, but it still has some problems. Like the icons in the editor.

OTOH, when I reworked the headers, I put a subtle 3D effect on the arrows / shield. You barely see them in the light theme, but in the dark theme they're noticeable. So I like the dark header more.

@Keith Seriously, taking away all that space. How could you!?

Young people these days !!

A generation of layabouts all livin' in their parents' basements.

The new head of the Central Bank of Turkey, Hafize Gaye Erkan, has said that she was excluded from the real estate market in Istanbul, due to inflation, so she decided to live with her parents.

"We have not found a house in Istanbul. They are terribly expensive. I live now with my parents," said the 44-year-old woman, who took the position in June

On 11/29/2023 at 3:46 PM, Holmbo said:

I agree on that point. Maybe if they just find other words which are more neutral to describe kinda the same thing. Like neuroticism could be named "vigilance" or something. And agreeable could be "acquiescing" or something like that.

But neuroticism isn't vigilance. Vigilance is a balanced and appropriate attitude. Neuroticism is fundamentally maladaptive, that's how it is defined.

I even wonder why neuroticism is considered a personality trait. It seems super-dependent on axis I disorders, which (when untreated) tend to ebb and flow over time. E.g. a serious episode of OCD can send someone's neuroticism to overdrive. Those disorders also can be successfully treated... did we change personality by that? Nah...

Or maybe there's a subtle difference between neurotic behaviors and core neurotic attitudes that I don't see.

On 11/29/2023 at 3:46 PM, Holmbo said:

But even with changed words I suppose there still would be a bias towards (using the current terms) high openness, conscientiousness, extrovertion, agreeableness and low neuroticism.

In any case, choosing a new term for neuroticism while keeping the definition, is putting lipstick on a pig.

This category simply has to be removed for any personality test that has community-building, sharing about oneself and getting to know each other as a goal.

And sure, I agree that some bias is unavoidable. But a test with the mentioned social goals should have only categories that people realistically can accept and don't (in many cases) try to deny or hide.

E.g. while in Western cultures extroversion is higher valued, introversion is still something you can "own" and that has also its positive aspects (and it's more appreciated in Asian cultures).

Sword Art Online but with tea parties and Groundhog Day loop

On 12/9/2023 at 12:53 AM, smac n cheese said:

I used to get social anxiety attacks all the time and I was the friendless quiet loner of my grade 😭😭😭

😢

You said it got better, so I hope you found friends now. It must've been really bad. Like "Komi Can't Communicate" bad?

Personally, I never had serious social anxiety because I guess I just don't care about other people that much. But in some social situations I feel so uncomfortable and irritated that I can't help but think "I've gotta get outta here" and go way abruptly, which comes off as rather rude. 🙈

Samosas 🇮🇳 with chickpea filling!

On 3/26/2023 at 3:05 PM, Keith said:

PASTA!!!! I ABSOLUTELY LOVE PASTA IN ALL SHAPES AND FORMS!!!! Lasange?!?!? Sure!!! Spaghetti?!?!? Yes please!!! Udon?!?!? Oh I'd love to!!!

I 💚

Also, veggie lasagna is so good.