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Navigating Friendship and Romance as Lith


omitef

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Posted

I've spent about two months now being aware of my lithromanticism, and I've discovered that it causes a lot of interesting conflicts when it comes to navigating friendship and romance. Most of the time, I am a romance-repulsed lithromantic. However, I am romance-indifferent towards my current crush-squish (who I am alterously attracted to). One of the most major issues I have is expressing affection without implying reciprocation is needed. Two different scenarios in which this is a problem:
 

  1. Unrequited Crush
    When I fall in love with someone, my goal, first and foremost, is to make them happy--but not at my own expense. Unfortunately, being lithromantic seems to force me to frequently choose between my crushes' well-being and my own. I get nervous when my crushes are affectionate with me. Do they mean the affection romantically, or platonically? What am I supposed to do if they mean the affection romantically? I usually just date them for a brief period of time until my romance-repulsion makes me a poor partner--but that's not a healthy solution for either party. I try to just be friends with my crushes, ideally passionate friends, But it's hard, especially when my crushes are alloromantic, to show affection without implying that I want to get into a romantic relationship with them.
     
  2. Unrequited Squish
    Most allos don't know what squishes even are, so I'm hesitant to be as affectionate as I would like to be with them, out of fear that they'll interpret the affection as romantic. I end up holding myself back, emotionally, until I know there's another person my squishes like--and it has to be someone they're on good terms with. If my squish has an unrequited crush, I also worry about being too affectionate, because I don't want them to think I'm trying to take advantage of their crush's lack of interest to "try and win them over."


Do any other liths (or greyros) get these issues? Or is it just me overthinking myself into unnecessary drama?

Posted

Well, I never care that much about the well-being of any particular person because I realistically assess that there are plenty of folks besides me who can make them happy :P 

 

In those rare scenarios when I'm the only one capable of helping, I do so but they don't fall in love with me anyway, so there's nothing to worry about.

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