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Relationship versus friendship

Polchinski

Active Member
While a lot of people think of the difference between these two concepts in terms of sex, for me sex is not really a factor. For one thing I don't believe in sex before marriage. But thats not even quite it either. Even if I were an atheist and wasn't opposed to sex, I just don't see why sex should be a big deal anyway. I think the emotional aspects far outweigh the physical: if I want physical pleasure I can always eat sweets or watch sunset or whatnot.

For me, the two emotions that do drive me crazy are loneliness and self validation. For loneliness, both relationship and friendship would do. But for self validation, I need a relationship title. On the other hand, allowing "just a friendship" allows me to create a bond based on vulnerability: I basically allow myself to accept the fact that I am not worthy of a trophy and still build a bond with another human being.

Yet at the same time, whether I allow the friendship to occur or not really depends on the reason for the rejection. If the reason is being one of the aspie stereotypes and/or some gross misunderstanding (probably 80% of the time), then I won't accept it. But if it is something outside of that (I guess 20% of the time), I might well accept it, and enjoy it once I do. Interestingly enough, there was one time when I accepted the offer of friendship when the reason for rejection was my looks. Yes, I know, a lot of people would say "what? I thought looks should be the number one thing you would get offended by". Well, not for me, apparently. At least it wasn't Asperger or any traits associated with it. So I actually enjoyed said "friendship".

It also has to do a lot with whom I pass by while walking down the street. If I see good friends having a good time, I feel like I wish I could have a friend. When I see people date and talk about having kids while I am left out, I wish I could have a relationship. Yet at the same time its not a fleeing thought. In both cases I would dwell on it for hours, days, months, etc. I guess ideally I wish to have both: some friends and a relationship. Unfortunately I don't have either, so I fell lonely and unstable.

Speaking of relationships, I feel like I don't want to die single and childless. Yet I am 43 and time flies fast. Yet at the same time, being 43 itself is one of the things I can't accept. I wish I was 20, and enjoyed my friendships. But then again, even if I was 20, I would still not want to feel inferior to other people my age who do have relationships. And like I said, being date-less has inferiority aspect attached to it. And now that I am 43, the fear of not ever having children adds to it since I always knew I wanted kids.

I know I am weird. What about y'all? Can you relate to any of this?
 
Romantic relationships are also completely non-sexual for me. And not even that romantic either lol

What differentiates it from a friendship for me is some level of physical/aesthetic attraction and a desire to bond more closely than I would with a friend, and eventually live together.
 
I have at times felt that need for validation from relationships. But, I see this as a great weakness. People all over look for the same, often ending up single, divorced, and so on. It's not a good motivation for a relationship. Most people do not have a healthy definition of love, so chasing relationships can be very unwise. You set yourself up for a lot of loss, in my experience. It's better to build something with someone who is "fair, kind, and true," as Shakespeare said. That will probably come from friendship.

I would accept being 43, because what else can you do? I like age. I wish our culture accepted aging more.
 
I find my level of engagement is much better with friends. I haven’t had that many friends in life where the feelings were fully reciprocated… I became a great helper and listener as a way to participate in all kinds of relationships in the world. I think I was able to make people feel good, but I felt like crap.

So, my point is the very idea of reciprocal and fulfilling friendships is very new to me. I have always understood the concept of friendship, but had not experienced feelings of it.

If part of one’s autism is difficulty in connecting with others, I think friendship is a really important place to start. Friendship can be simple, in a way, compared to romantic relationships. For me, the stressors and confusion of engaging in a romantic relationship has not been good for me. It is difficult for me to fully engage in this way.

But with friends, there is freedom and then there can also be validation of your life, yourself, and the things that you love in life.
 
People all over look for the same, often ending up single, divorced, and so on. It's not a good motivation for a relationship. Most people do not have a healthy definition of love,

Can you elaborate on how most people define love?

Them having "not healthy definition of love" can explain two separate things. One is divorce rate (that you mentioned) and the other is rejection of aspies.

Now an interestion question is: is there a connection between those two things?

I wish our culture accepted aging more.

Back in Russia, when I was a little kid, I had the opposite problem. I felt inferior for being younger because

a) My mom was giving food to older people first
b) Little kids were often put on a separate table
c) Kids under 18 don't have the right to vote

Well, part "c" applies to USA too. But I am kind of wonder about "a" and "b", though.

In any case, I remember arguing with someone about "a" back in Russia, and he told me "well, if they were to give food to younger people first, then you would complain about it when you get older". Well, ironically speaking, that is precisely what happened. Not with food, but with the way older people are being rejected by younger in American society. So its like I can never win. In Russia they respect older people, in America they respect younger people. So, having moved from Russia to America, I was rejected for being younger back in Russia and now I am rejected for being older in America.

Well I moved from Russia to America when I was 14, so, needless to say, in my 20-s in America age wasn't an issue (particularly since I used to be younger than my age). But back then Asperger was an issue. So I missed out on best yeard of my life due to Asperger and now I can't make it up since they won't accept age difference.

In retrospect, better be rejected for being younger than for being older, since younger people can look forward to being older in the future, but older people can't ever dream of becoming younger again.

In any case, whenever I am rejected, I want to understand the logic of it. So its good that you phrased it in the way that you did: that older people don't get accepted. So, now that you did phrase it that way, can you answer the next logical question, namely WHY are they not accepted? Is it because of some assumptions made about them? If so, can you elaborate as to what those assumptions are, and what is the logic behind those assumptions?
 
What differentiates it from a friendship for me is some level of physical/aesthetic attraction

As far as "aesthetic attraction", it seems like women would aesthetically like each other more than their male partner, given that they put a lot more effort into their looks than male partner would.

and a desire to bond more closely than I would with a friend,

I am not so sure about that either:

1) One woman, who friendzoned me back in 2005, was cooking for me and we were studying together all day long. She actually told me "how would our relationship be any different if we were in a relationship"

2) Another woman, who also friendzoned me, also in 2005, told me "relationships come and go, friends are meant to stay"

3) In general, women seem to bond with each other a lot more than with men
 
I find my level of engagement is much better with friends. I haven’t had that many friends in life where the feelings were fully reciprocated… I became a great helper and listener as a way to participate in all kinds of relationships in the world. I think I was able to make people feel good, but I felt like crap.

Do you think they simply didn't like you and you were trying to "earn their graces" so to speak? I usually avoid doing this type of thing: if I feel like people don't like me I would either go into argumentative mode, or ignore them back.

I do come across as selfish in most of my interactions, but I guess it is a defense mechanism from facing the issues that you just described. I feel like if I were to try to show that I care, nobody will notice since they all "have a mind made about me". And trying to show the good side while "everyone else has their mind made up" is the most painful experience ever.

What happens in your case though? Is it also the preconceived assumptions they have about you, or is it just the pure fact that they are selfish. Somehow I think that the former would hurt a lot more than the latter. But thats just based off of projecting my own experience.

In any case, I am sorry they put you through this. I know this hurts!

If part of one’s autism is difficulty in connecting with others, I think friendship is a really important place to start. Friendship can be simple, in a way, compared to romantic relationships. For me, the stressors and confusion of engaging in a romantic relationship has not been good for me. It is difficult for me to fully engage in this way.

Yeah, that is totally how I feel. To me both the experience of being in a relationship as well as an experience of trying to get into one was very frustrating and draining. Being friends, and actually accepting the fact that we are just friends, seems a lot more liberating from this point of view and makes me feel like I would actually be able to engage a lot better with a lot less frustration.

But then again, that all depends on actually being able to accept not being in a relationship, which can be hard to accept given my age and that I want kids in future, etc. Perhaps if I could actually "be" in a relationship so I can get that box checked, then I would enjoy better friendship with other people?

And then again, all of it is my looking at it from the distance. I haven't actually had fulfilling relationship OR fulfilling friendship. The most I had friendship-wise was something that lasted for a few days and then we grew apart. As far as relationships, I had long term relationships but only because I invested WAY too much time into dating sites trying to find them. If you spend years on dating sites eventually you would find something, yes. But I don't think I had anything in common with them.

As far as friendships, I haven't had lasting friendships. So I don't actually know. I just remember how it felt when I was about to make a friend, and thats the only thing I am really referring to.
But with friends, there is freedom and then there can also be validation of your life, yourself, and the things that you love in life.

Yes I agree. Although to have "validation of my life" the friendship needs to actually progress. The only validation I had was "validation of a friendship" and then they all got busy with other things to even learn much about my life.
 
I wish our culture accepted aging more.

So, now that you gave me the key word, I googled "acceptance of aging". Among other things, I found this article: How America’s ageism hurts, shortens lives of elderly

It kind of made me feel both ways. On the one hand, it gave me actionable solution to this: move to Japan. And I am not being sarcastic: I spent 5 years in India where I came to do a postdocs. So I have nothing against travelling. Yet, on the other hand, I don't think Japanese people would enjoy the type of things Americans enjoy. So I would still miss out on them, just for a different reason. I wish there was American-type culture that would accept older people. Could it be that it is just assumed (both by Americans AND Japanese) that older people just can't do this, and thats why you have to be Japanese, where you don't like those types of things on the first place, in order for you to accept older people?

On quite a different note: can you answer the question whether the way older people aren't accepted that you were referring to is the same or different from the examples given in that article? Because if you were referring to something different, I want to know it too. I would like to explore all angles at which older people aren't accepted.
 
c) Kids under 18 don't have the right to vote

By the way, back in Russia, I was writing letters to the government about changing the voting practice so that the kids get the right to vote. In particular, I was writing a proposal where any kid who writes one successful proposal for politics and another for economics would get a right to vote. I then imagined what would happen if that were to actually pass. In this case I would already have one "politics thing" checked, and I would just need to think of one economics thing to have it checked.

Needless to say, none of this came to pass. Its just funny to remember how I was actually thinking that it would, especially with all the specifics that I was proposing.

I am kind of wondering whether my parents/grandparents actually mailed it off or not. I mean, I was a lot younger than my age, so I didn't actually know how to go to the post office and all that. I simply was "trusting" that they would mail it for me. I am guessing they probably didn't. Although would be interesting to know for sure.

However, if you look at it from another angle, I did have "some" point. I mean, a century ago women didn't have the right to vote. And not just one country but all across the globe. I once accidentally ran into some info about the very first country where women voted. I think it was New Zeland but I am not too sure. In any case, it was only a century ago. That was quite surprising to read.

Now, if the rationale for women not voting is something along the lines of "women can be emotional", then the rationale for 15 year olds not voting would be quite similar. So that would be a good case for lowering the voting age.

But then again I remember back in Russia I had a conversation with my grandma where she would say "you can't say 2 year olds should vote; maybe you should talk about lowering voting age instead". But my response was "lowering voting age would still endorse the same concept just give a different number, so if I am opposed to the concept why would I do that". Thats probably where I came up with an idea of "one politics proposal and one economy proposal". In particular, my answer to grandmas concern was "if a 2 year old can write 1 politics porposal and 1 economy proposal, then sure, they can vote; its just not going to happen".

I guess one thing I was missing was that parents who want to cheat on the election by voting multiple times would write those proposals and put the names of their 2 year old kids on them, or something. Nobody ever told me, but something that occurred to me as an adult is that THIS might be a good reason for kids not to vote: because if they could, then parents would simply tell them whom to vote for or manipulate them into voting for someone.

The other crazy proposal I remember making when I was a kid was for dead people to vote. Because back then -- as I wasn't a Christian yet -- I was exposed to new age in a certain summer camp where they taught us about bioenergy. And I had an idea that dead people's souls should be allowed to vote. Well, what I learned much later, is that there IS a phenomenon of "dead people vote": in particular, people who are alive impersonating dead people to vote for someone. So even if the literal souls could vote, such extremely rare occurrences would be outnumbered by all the times that alive people are pretending to be dead. But, as a kid, this never occurred to me, thats why I wanted to make this proposal.
 
It's the same here, I think it's pretty normal. I'm right next to Russia by the way.

If you are right next to Russia, then that is probably why. Eastern European countries share Russian culture, even though they don't want to admit it. They all deny they have anything to do with Russia, yet they "think Russian" as they do it.
 
If you are right next to Russia, then that is probably why. Eastern European countries share Russian culture, even though they don't want to admit it. They all deny they have anything to do with Russia, yet they "think Russian" as they do it.

I'm in Norway, I don't know how much Russian culture we have here but those things you mentioned are the same. Back in the day we used to pillage Russia ;) And there was a lot of trading, maybe we took some culture home with us.
 
I'm in Norway, I don't know how much Russian culture we have here but those things you mentioned are the same. Back in the day we used to pillage Russia ;) And there was a lot of trading, maybe we took some culture home with us.

Okay then thats different. I thought you were saying you were from Ukraine or Poland or something like that. Those cultures are VERY Russian.

As far as Norway, I would assume its the West. But good point: with travelling anything is possible.

How did the Norway people "pillage Russia" by the way?
 
Okay then thats different. I thought you were saying you were from Ukraine or Poland or something like that. Those cultures are VERY Russian.

As far as Norway, I would assume its the West. But good point: with travelling anything is possible.

How did the Norway people "pillage Russia" by the way?

Vikings, they had a habbit of pillaging. But I was just kidding a little.
 
Vikings, they had a habbit of pillaging. But I was just kidding a little.

I don't know much about Vikings. I heard the word, but thats about it. I did remember hearing some wild speculation that Russians might have originated from them. But again I don't know enough history to evaluate it. Did they "colonize" Russia (as Judge put it)? Is this where this whole idea come from? And is this what you were referring to as well?
 
I don't know much about Vikings. I heard the word, but thats about it. I did remember hearing some wild speculation that Russians might have originated from them. But again I don't know enough history to evaluate it. Did they "colonize" Russia (as Judge put it)? Is this where this whole idea come from? And is this what you were referring to as well?
"Sla-VIK". Those last three letters historically say a great deal.

Equally interesting is that some of the peoples of the Iberian Peninsula were Celts who migrated across the sea.
 
I don't know much about Vikings. I heard the word, but thats about it. I did remember hearing some wild speculation that Russians might have originated from them. But again I don't know enough history to evaluate it. Did they "colonize" Russia (as Judge put it)? Is this where this whole idea come from? And is this what you were referring to as well?

The vikings spent some time in Russia. They travelled everywhere, they liked to travel. They worked as mercenaries in Istanbul, they even had their own viking neighborhood there and they went to Canada and they really, really liked to travel.
 
The vikings spent some time in Russia. They travelled everywhere, they liked to travel. They worked as mercenaries in Istanbul, they even had their own viking neighborhood there and they went to Canada and they really, really liked to travel.

I remember in some Russian tales they use viking as a synonym of pirate. Were vikings criminals (as in those tales) or pieceful merchants (as you just described) or was it a combination of both?
 
"Sla-VIK". Those last three letters historically say a great deal.

Equally interesting is that some of the peoples of the Iberian Peninsula were Celts who migrated across the sea.

That is in English though. Because in Russian its not "Sla-Vik" instead it is "Sla-Vyanskiy". While "viking" in Russian is the same exact word, "Viking".
 
I remember in some Russian tales they use viking as a synonym of pirate. Were vikings criminals (as in those tales) or pieceful merchants (as you just described) or was it a combination of both?

A combination of both I would say. I can put it this way, they went to Italy, travelled from town to town and told the Italians that if they just gave the vikings everything they wanted, the valuables, they wouldn't burn down their towns and kill them all. The Italians thought about it for 5 seocnds and then carried all their gold to the town gates. So pirates is a good description. But there was also a lot of trading, merchants/pirates.
 

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