hEY YOUNGER ME

Stalking someone cuz you wanna smash and also find them incredibly fascinating and interesting is different from stalking someone cuz you wanna kissy wissy.

Imagine being a yandere that barely gets romantically attracted to anyone and stalks people either for sexual reasons or literally just because you wanna know more about them.

...

I sound like a really contradictory Gacha OC.

"iS yAnDeRe!!1!1!1!"
"iS oN tHe ArOmAnTiC sPeCtRuM!!!11!1!1!!1!"
"iS biSeXuAL!!1!1!1!1!!1!!!1!1!"
"hAs DaTeD tOo MaNy PeOpLe tO cOuNt!!1!!1!!!!!11!"

Ah yes, that definitely makes perfect sense.

...

Lemme explain-

For like a year behind the scenes I've been questioning my romantic orientation cuz I know I'm bisexual {wow, of course I'm 100% on who I wanna fuck}, but I was always questioning my romantic orientation because I assumed I was also biromantic but I've actually only once felt a true romantic attraction. Sometimes a person would make me feel a romantic connection for maybe like 5 seconds at a time and on super rare occasions, but otherwise my crushes have always been based on either just finding them extremely interesting and obsessing over them platonically or sexual feelings... or both.

The people I was yandere for in the past? Honestly I wasn't too interested in the idea of doing something like kissing them, but I was interested in the idea of fucking them. I was also interested in the idea of talking to them for several hours every single day and knowing everything about them.

I've felt really strong platonic feelings towards several people before to the point it was outright obsession, but it was never romantic. I was mostly just interested in their character and all the little tiny details about them, like what kind of flowers they liked, what colors they'd think would look good on a wall versus colors they'd think would look better on the exterior of a house- who knows what I'd wanna know?! If you'd seen into my mind how much I knew about some of the people I obsessed over, you might've thought they were OCs because I just obsessed over every single last detail of them.

When as a kid you're told you'd only want to have sex with someone you love, of course you'd think that meant you were romantically attracted SO MUCH to the point you felt something for them in a sexual way as well. I figured those strong platonic obsessions I felt were actually romantic feelings, and I figured after that, if I was romantically interested enough, it'd also mean I'd want to have sex with them. I didn't know that romantic feelings did not immediately create sexual feelings, and if you have sexual feelings it did not mean you had romantic feelings. However, because I thought that was the case, I figured if I "felt" romantically attracted that meant I was also sexually attracted, and if I felt sexually attracted that also meant I was romantically attracted.

Well... until about a year ago that's what I thought, anyways. That's when I started to realize that even if I felt really strong sexual desire for someone, I never once felt anything romantically towards them, except for ONE person. I don't even have that attraction towards that person anymore, too. I also started to realize that the romantic attraction I thought I felt was just a really strong platonic love {or obsession}.

That's when I started to question my romantic orientation. In my mind, whenever I would imagine myself dating someone, 'romantic' scenes never really... came up? The most romantic it got was cuddling whoever I was imagining being with, and even then it was mostly cuddling before falling asleep or something like that. Imagining things like fancy candlelit dinner dates, kissing, etc. just never really interested me. They'd occasionally cross my mind, but I was never interested in 'playing the scenario out.'

Obviously, my DaTiNg FaNtAsiEs doesn't just magically make me have a certain romantic orientation. A construction worker could imagine themselves going swimming but it doesn't mean they're a swimmer. They might enjoy swimming as a hobby or they might actually also be a swimmer, but it doesn't necessarily mean they are. My thoughts are a pointer in the right direction, but they're not concrete proof of what I am. I have to also look at how I feel and have felt as well as my behaviors according to said feelings.

Let's look at my past relationships. Almost all of them were with people I was starting to make a friendship with {and the only relationship I had a true romantic connection with was someone I was close friends with for a year}, which could point to being demiromantic.

Excluding that one relationship, I actually never felt anything romantically for my friends. Sometimes I felt something for them sexually and sometimes I was extremely platonically interested in knowing as much as I could about them, but the constant is that I was never romantically interested in any of them.

However, I know that a HUGE cliché is for people to get crushes on someone they just started becoming friends with {and it's usually the most "common" way it's portrayed in media}, so I pretended to be romantically interested even though I knew I felt nothing. Sometimes I thought I did feel something romantically and when I confessed I thought I was being genuine, but the second I confessed, I realized I didn't actually feel that way but it was too late to take it back. I could've technically said it was a prank, but I didn't have the heart to do that.

Why did I pretend to like people? Because I wanted to like people in a romantic way. I wanted to be "normal." Another reason is because I'm aware sociopaths and psychopaths are known to have trouble feeling or an inability to feel things like love, so I was scared someone would say I was a sociopath or a psychopath if I couldn't fall in romantic love with someone. I figured if I dated tons of people, everyone would think I was a "normal" person and nobody would think twice about it.

Whenever I dated someone, I never planned to be with them for long. I only planned to date them for a couple of months because I knew I felt nothing towards them romantically, and usually after a couple of months pretending to would wear down on me. I could only say, "I love you" so many times before I got tired of it because I knew I didn't from day one. Either that or the guilt would start to eat me up inside and I felt like I was just some manipulate asshole playing with an innocent person's feelings like that. In a sense, I actually was since I dated them for personal gain {to appear "normal"}.

I know that you can say, "I love you" without meaning it in a romantic sense, but since I knew that was what I was implying it was basically me saying it in that sort of way. Maybe I platonically loved the person I was dating, but I knew if I told them I loved them they'd assume it was romantically. After all, I was dating them! If your significant other told you they loved you, you're gonna assume they mean romantically.

Sometimes whenever I dated someone I'd feel a small "spark" of romantic attraction, but it literally only lasted like 5 seconds and wouldn't show up for weeks or months, or maybe even ever again. People who made me feel "sparks" I'd usually date for longer because I thought I was starting to truly feel something romantically, but eventually I'd give up on trying to feel something for that person because once I tried to force it to happen, it wouldn't happen.

What about the person I did feel something for romantically? Well... I didn't constantly feel it for them, either. It wasn't conditional or unconditional love- it was just random. Sometimes for days at a time I'd feel a romantic attraction to them, sometimes for a couple weeks I'd feel it. Other times I might go days or weeks without feeling anything towards them romantically. At first I thought there was a pattern to it or it had something to do with the status of our relationship or how we were feeling, but it was just random. Sometimes after fights I'd still feel romantic attraction, sometimes I wouldn't. Sometimes after doing something romantic I'd feel the romantic attraction, sometimes I wouldn't. It's possible the entire time it was there but it was only strong enough for me to feel it at certain times, but that was my experience.

I figured that because of statistics I'd end up breaking up with her, but I actually didn't mind the idea of making a commitment to her. However, as I predicted we did end up breaking up because she broke things off, and although I was devastated at first, the romantic feelings eventually went away forever and it didn't hurt me as much.

Whenever I broke up with my other partners, it felt more like I got into a small argument with them as a friend. I would get hurt, but not nearly as badly as the other person. It wasn't that I didn't care, it was that I just didn't like them romantically so breaking off a romantic bond just didn't really have an impact on me. Most of my sadness came from their sadness because I didn't want to see my friend sad because of me. However, while it usually took them weeks to get over it, literally within hours I would be good as new like nothing ever happened.

Because of my story, the first thing I would assume is that I'm demiromantic, but the problem is that I've had TONS of close friends I felt nothing for. I'm aware that demi people don't just simp for everyone that get close to them, but because of the large quantity of people I've managed to become REALLY close friends with, you'd think I'd end up getting romantic feelings for at least one of them? I'm aware there was the one friend, but I mean 'one' as in replicating the situation. If it can't be replicated even with several chances to do so, it's more likely to be a coincidence or a fluke.

After all, I befriended the people I did and got so close with them because I found their personality platonically attractive, so one of them should be a "special someone" just by chance, right? Well, unless for years I've just had terrible luck with my bestest of the best of the absolutely bestest besties in the whole wide, fatass god damn world and none of them are "my type," I think that makes me being demi less likely. Plus, there's also the case of the "sparks" I'd occasionally feel towards people I was still developing a platonic bond with and had only known for maybe a couple of months.

The next thing I'd assume is aromantic but with that one weird fluke, but the "sparks" still kind of makes that idea unlikely. Aromantic means NO romantic attraction, not no romantic attraction except for that one time and a few random times you thought you were gonna fall in romantic love but it went away before you could even start to question what it meant.

I've done some searching around for more identities around the aromantic spectrum, and I came across grey aro. Basically, it's someone that feels romantic attraction to much lesser degrees, and they rarely feel it anyways. That seems a lot more like what I've experienced since any feelings I've ever had were never that intense, and they've rarely ever happened.

That might not actually be what I am, but based on what I know and what I've experienced that seems like the most likely fit. If I end up proven wrong, then I guess I can have another year long identity crisis to figure it out.

It does make me feel kind of like some loser perv to be full on bisexual but be on the aromantic spectrum or like I'm some weirdo who just wants to fuck people, so I guess now I get to go on a journey of TrYiNg tO LoVe MysELf!!1!1!1!!1!!1!1

I know I don't just want sex out of relationships, but that's how I've feared that's what it seems like for a while the entire time I was having this identity crisis and I haven't really got over that fear.

I'm still figuring out stuff about myself obviously, but just putting a label on myself, even if I'm not 100% that's what I am helps me feel like I've at least ended the majority of my identity crisis. I'm also eager to end it since it's lasted like a year now... so yeah.

Welp, I guess now I get to try to do that thing called self love.