#squishes
Working on a paper on asexuality and as part of it, I’ve started wondering about how asexuals and aromantic individuals (whether on the ace spectrum or not) experience (or don’t experience) crushes during the adolescent years.
Did you have crushes? Did you feel pressured to have crushes? Did you just- make up crushes just so your friends would stop bothering you about it? Did you feel ostracized from your peers? Were you not bothered at all?
There’s this assumption that “everyone gets crushes” or that “everyone experiences crushes in the same way” and that’s definitely not true.
If anyone could reply to this/reblog/send an ask/e-mail about your experiences, that would be wonderful! <3
I keep staring at this and being like,“I should answer,” but I don’t really know what to say D: So, maybe this is a tangent, and if so, I’m sorry for distracting you from your research :/ [For the purpose of this I am equating crushes, squishes and all other squashing-verbs-turned nouns because what even is the difference what is attraction why does the universe exist.]
The direct answer to the crushes question is “yes” but also “no.” If you take the temporal frame of during my adolescent years, then the answer would have been “no” but if you take the temporal frame of what I know about myself now, the answer is “yes.” Part of this is due to my density regarding crush-worthy feelings, but most of it was due to cultural programming. I think someone else mentioned this as well (I am going to thoroughly read all the notes after I write this), but in the absence of actual “gay” feelings, I assumed I must default to straight. Accordingly, all of my crushes on girls went completely over my head, so I was really only aware of the one I had on a boy and the subsequent unhealthy relationship and Pining Like the Heroine in A Victorian Romance Novel.
When I analyze my motives for why I did what I did after that relationship imploded, I think a lot of it was out of self-protection so that I didn’t have to face any questioning of myself from myself as to what was “wrong” with me, or any new suitors. Despite the fact that the relationship itself was like a state secret, I was not shy about publicly pining. It was actually really pathetic/creepy, and I thought to myself that maybe I should stop, but to a certain extent even 7-8 years later I am still fixated on that relationship more out of instinct than anything else. It’s like I have a magic excuse to get out of going out with people, which means I feel like the direction of any relationships that might turn romantic will only do so on my terms, and I definitely like that control.
Of course, I didn’t really realize I was doing that at the time, either. Occasionally someone would make an offhand comment, but it wasn’t really until I had coffee with a former classmate a year after we’d graduated that he told me how successful I’d apparently inadvertently been. It was during that conversation that I realized not only how many bullets I’d dodged (“Nearly all the guys in our friends group had a crush on you at some point, but we knew you were still hung up on [ex]”), but also that my friends talked to each other about who they had crushes on? what??
The happy ending to this story is that the pressure to have relationships (and I don’t think I experienced it as much as other people do anyway; that is what comes of being schooled exclusively with other nerds) went away when I went to college, which is coincidentally(? or was it?) when I started questioning myself as to what was my deal. But yes, that is what I did to take myself out of the dating game. I’m not sure it really helps what you’re trying to get at, other than “one respondent went to melodramatic lengths to run away from deal with the problem, but. :Db?
And I would like to join in the requests for seeing the paper when it’s done :D!
i have never been upset at you, i have never been angry at you, i have never thought that you weren’t good enough. because i know how amazing you, how much you are worthy of love and all of the good things in this universe, and i know that you are such a beautiful person (both inside and out) and that i could never be mad at you, it would be like being angry at an angel. please remember this whenever the doubt creeps into your mind, just remember i said this to you, if you ever think we have fought remember this, but honestly i hope we don’t ever fight.
you are too good for this world, you’re an angel, pure and sweet, better than this cruel world. you are amazing, and so much more than we deserve. thank you for being you, that’s the best thing you could possibly be.
i’ve never wanted to hold someone as much as i want to hold you, i’ve never wanted to talk to someone as much as i want to talk to you. i’ve never wanted to spend time with someone as much as i want to spend time with you. i’ve never wanted someone as much as i want you.
conversations with you are never awkward, that’s one of the many reasons I love you
Slimepunk
Motifs: Slime, squishes, kawaii, cute nails, aesthetic Youtube, asmr, satisfying things, slime shops, cute logos, plastic tins
Colors: Black, green, purple, red, pastel, slime colors
Values: Environmental awareness, delicate, accepting, diy, fun
