Love and Other Questions

I finished the story I was working on that comes after the two stories I have already in my Sharon/Natasha saga. Saga is probably not the right word and indicative of a far larger storyline than I have for the two of them, but I like the word so I’m going to use it anyway because I can if I want. Stick that in your pipe and (don’t) smoke it.

I’m in one of those looney moods. I usually get like this when I’m stupid tired. I’m not stupid tired. I mean I am tired, but I’m not stupid tired. I slept deeply last night for about 8 hours and I’m having a very relaxing day at the beach with C and T. Not that I think I’m all the way rested. I did have a lot going on the last few month/weeks and since I worked through the weekend and worked extra the last couple of days and added packing and driving about four hours to get to the beach into the mix, I’m sure that I have a ways to go before I’ve totally “recovered.” That said, stupid tired is usually when I haven’t had proper rest in five or six days and I’m pushing through another workday or major responsibility.

On the other hand, I’m with my friends in my pjs listening to the thunder and thinking about how excited I am that we’re getting a season four of Wynonna Earp and Funko Pops sometime next year and there are all these books out now that I am in love with and enjoying immensely in different ways and I don’t have to be back at work until Monday which is like four and a half days away—I guess I’m feeling really blessed and happy right now.

I’ve also been doing a lot of thinking about dating and romance and such, and I was talking to an aromantic friend of mine who mentioned queerplatonic relationships. It’s not that I am unfamiliar with the phrase because I do know it, but I don’t know, I think I never really considered it for myself before. I think I decided, at some point, that I was bisexual or pansexual and kinky and that was all I really needed to know. I knew that I have the desire to spend my life committed to one person and that the gender of that person is unimportant to me.

Sidenote: I know that gender can be and often is a very important part of someone’s personal identity and I don’t want to make light of that, however, their gender, regardless of what that gender might be, isn’t going to be a factor in whether or not I want them as a life partner.

Anyway, because I knew that I did want a life partner, and I had I had a good idea of what my sexual identity was, I never stopped to further consider my romantic identity. The fact that I haven’t really does enforce further for me how frustrating heteronormative this society is and how much it hurts people’s explorations for themselves. But here I am, thirty-two years old, questioning over what I really want out of this life partner I imagine for myself. It occurs to me that part of the reason why I find dating so truly horrendous is because what I want out of a relationship might not be what other people consider to be a romantic relationship. My idea and their ideas seem to match up in a lot of ways. I want to share a home and responsibilities. I want to travel and make life adventures together. I want to watch dumb movies on Friday nights and sit enjoying music and reading our separate books together. I want to have mutual orgasams and make out sessions. The thing is, I have never felt romantic attraction to someone I wasn’t friends with first. Sexual attraction, yes. Attraction to the idea of a relationship, yes. But those aren’t the same thing. And I’ve come to think that maybe, the real problem with dating for me is that you go straight to seeing if you’re romantically compatible and I don’t think I’m ever going to feel romantically compatible with someone who is, otherwise, a stranger.

That’s one theory. The other theory is that I’m more along the lines of lithoromantic (there are other words, but that’s the one I know) which is basically liking the idea of romance and loving the idea of having a romance with someone right up until the moment they have a romantic interest in me.

I think maybe it’s a combination. The idea of a traditional romance—meet cute, dating, relationship, marriage—doesn’t quite work for me. I want a friendship to organically become deep and mutual and entangled and then have other things layered in, until there’s a lifelong commitment. I think that follows more closely with the idea of a queerplatonic relationship than a traditional romantic one. I don’t know if I’m describing that correctly, but I don’t think it’s the kind of thing that eHarmony can make happen for people.

I’m still annoyed that it’s taken me this long to start considering such a thing.

All my relationships have actually started with vague friendship, hooking up as friends with benefits, and then moving into committed relationship territory eventually. “Dating,” per se, hasn’t really resulted in me wanting to commit to someone. I think that’s why as much as I’m getting to where I’d be open to having some sort of sexual/romantic relationship, “dating” again just feels like an awful idea.