Sophist
Recursive Paradox
I'm of the poly mindset so I not only don't want to be the "most" important person in a person's life I don't believe anyone should be the most important person, but instead that someone has many important people that they love.
I would obviously be incompatible with someone who did not share that view.
My poly mindset also removes possession. I'm perfectly fine with even people I'm in a sexual relationship with being with other people. Just as long as those people are safe and time is equally shared.
In fact I tend to feel constricted (or as though I'm constricting others) in a possessive monogamous relationship.
Ah, I see, I didn't know you were also poly. Thanks for sharing. Although this probably just makes me more confused.
XD Sorries? I can be confusing sometimes.
Aino Ailill
Recursive Paradox
Aino Ailill
How does romantic love without sexual attraction differ from simply being very close friends?
How many of your close friends do you wish you were attracted to?
Not a one, but I don't see sexual attraction as bringing a person closer together so I am not certain how that proves anything as that view-point is what seems to motivate this desire?
I don't see sexual attraction as bringing anyone closer together either. I don't believe that romantic love is somehow a closer bond than friend based love at a high intensity (essentially how one would define a close friend) and don't really subscribe to the common social concept in Western culture of "true love" and of partnered romantic love being inherently higher intensity than the love between two intensely close friends.
So my question to you really had nothing to do with that concept. It was more to establish context as being outside what is characteristic for love between close friends.
My separation of the two is based around the context of the love itself. I consider wishing one was sexually attracted to someone with that sort of intensity of love present as putting it into a different context than close friends.
Close friend love isn't really marked by a desire to become romantically involved (that would imply romantic love, which is a different context). Close friend love doesn't really include a wish they could be attracted to one another so they could become romantic partners as a characteristic. It seems to me that such is a bit outside of that context.
I may be rambling but largely I feel there are some issues with the concept of Close Friend Love + Sex = Romantic Love.
1: The concept that romantic love is simply close friend love + sexual attraction also begs the question, "is it possible for a non attraction type asexual to ever have a romantic relationship? Or does an asexual love a partner as a close friend?" This likely wouldn't be applicable to asexuals that just have no sex drive (but still possess attraction) but the ace community really dislikes the claims out there that they are incapable of romantic relationships and such a concept of romantic love invariably seems to move towards such a claim.
2: There is the concept of ******** and friends with benefits and I imagine that a sufficiently close set of friends could both possess sexual attraction and sexual involvement but not consider themselves romantically involved in any way (and still consider themselves just close friends). Are these people wrong about the function of their relationship? The concept that romantic love is close friend love with sex involved is countered by the concept of friends with benefits, i.e. friends (including close ones) who are attracted to one another and do in fact have sexual involvement but do not in any way consider it romantic involvement.
Of course, all of this could simply translate into the idea that splitting love into different contexts (e.g. splitting up close friend love, romantic love, family love, etc) is in and of itself a subjective and/or flawed characterization system that simply can not follow a functional semi objective system for categorization. I know a lot of folks just pretty much roll with whatever the folks feeling the love say they feel, instead of trying to quantify and qualify it.
Thoughts? Let me know if any of that was awkwardly put or incoherent. I'm writing this after having driven for 11 hours on maybe 5 hours of sleep the night before.
