Testing the waters (rant)

[Neon]

So I've been kind of poking around the idea of romance in general with my mom (I don't need to with my dad because he'll tell her anything I tell him). And, yeah, no. It did not go well. 

Basically, I asked her to read this thing about amatonormativity that I wrote for class. I talked about the stereotypes of being single first, and she responded that people without romantic relationships die young. To which I countered that those studies were biased, and I had proof. She said I, and the person with a doctorate (in this area?), were wrong (specifically, "the statistics aren't wrong". Yeah I know. But the correlation drawn isn't true). We argued on that for a least half an hour. Later I brought up aromanticism and some other points, which she ignored.

Which is so weird for her. I rarely ask her for help on writing now because there is a 95% chance we will get into a yelling match about word choice. Her not commenting on a point I made is strange, to say the least. 

And at the end, she suggested that I change my whole argument to a discussion of the etymology of the word(See? Attempted argument over word choice. What'd I say?) and it's accuracy. Specifically, that it was an incorrect, niche concept.

So yeah. That was fun. I mean, I may be overblowing it a bit, as she's been frustrating me in other ways recently. But it's still annoying. She's always been so focused on women succeeding on their own, that I assumed it applied to romance as well. I guess not. Or, at least not for me.

[Black Sesame]

I understand your frustrations. Having a part of your own identity not being recognized by people close to you can be hard to deal with. I also ended up testing the waters with my dad when I was doing a pretest for a study about LGBTQ+ positive advertising. I ended up explaining some things to him and he was blocking it off as us just making it unnecessarily complicated. He didn't say it explicitly, but in his view, everything that isn't heteronormative goes against our human "nature". Just like you tried with your mum, I have arguments against that, but If someone isn't open to change, you might as well talk to a wall.  Let's not give up though! 

[Alaska Native Manitou]

On 12/18/2020 at 11:29 PM, Neon Green Packing Peanut said:

She's always been so focused on women succeeding on their own, that I assumed it applied to romance as well.

Did you try saying this to her?

[Neon]

12 hours ago, 2 Spirit Cherokee Princess said:

Did you try saying this to her?

Ha no. I would never hear the end of it. The trick with my mom is that you can't directly attack her or her reasoning, or she'll just double down on things. I have to ask questions and provide evidence until she contradicts herself. Then she doesn't bring it up anymore (her way of accepting defeat). I just need to subtly pick apart her logic and remember what she conceded so I can remind her.

[Bas]

On 12/18/2020 at 11:29 PM, Neon Green Packing Peanut said:

So I've been kind of poking around the idea of romance in general with my mom (I don't need to with my dad because he'll tell her anything I tell him). And, yeah, no. It did not go well. 

Basically, I asked her to read this thing about amatonormativity that I wrote for class. I talked about the stereotypes of being single first, and she responded that people without romantic relationships die young. To which I countered that those studies were biased, and I had proof. She said I, and the person with a doctorate (in this area?), were wrong (specifically, "the statistics aren't wrong". Yeah I know. But the correlation drawn isn't true). We argued on that for a least half an hour. Later I brought up aromanticism and some other points, which she ignored.

Which is so weird for her. I rarely ask her for help on writing now because there is a 95% chance we will get into a yelling match about word choice. Her not commenting on a point I made is strange, to say the least. 

And at the end, she suggested that I change my whole argument to a discussion of the etymology of the word(See? Attempted argument over word choice. What'd I say?) and it's accuracy. Specifically, that it was an incorrect, niche concept.

So yeah. That was fun. I mean, I may be overblowing it a bit, as she's been frustrating me in other ways recently. But it's still annoying. She's always been so focused on women succeeding on their own, that I assumed it applied to romance as well. I guess not. Or, at least not for me.

I've had a similar incident come up when I tried to bring up the topic with my mother a few weeks ago. I didn't explicitly state that I was aro, but I told her point blank that I was never going to want or have a romantic relationship, and she was completely dismissive and patronizing to me about it, and tried to change the topic. It's really weird, too, because she herself reads as pretty aro to me in her actions (& she's legit displays the same level of romance repulsion as me on multiple occasions), but I don't know for sure one way or the other.

I'm sorry your mom was dismissive of you in regards to your writings for amatonormativity and your thoughts on romance. It really is irritating and disheartening when people who are close to you, especially family, are like that.