i am obsessed with classifying attraction. i like reading about the types of intimacy. i like inhabiting the spaces between romantic and sexual and platonic love and finding the names for what i feel.
because i am an engineer i require everything to be broken down into explicit components. love = passion + intimacy + commitment. i was in eighth grade when my sister showed me sternberg’s triangle and the definition has stayed with me since. intimacy came easy for me and commitment i never feared. but passion has always confused me, entering without warning, vanishing just as quickly. passion was the part of the equation that left me holding my breath.
romantically i tend to mirror the desires of others. if i am desired by someone i admire creatively and aesthetically i can often develop romantic attraction to the person. what i perceive as passion is the fantasy of being idealized by someone you have also shaped into a perfect object. what follows is obsession and control. the traits that define romantic love feel wholly maladaptive — a reliance on physical attraction, a desire for monogamous possession, the narcissistic supply, the shortness of its half life.
this weekend i took 2cb and molly in succession and was surprised by the contrast between the two. while on 2cb i felt calm, emotionally open but remarkably clear-headed. while on molly i was consumed by a wave of pure discomfort. i could no longer find the headspace of such euphoria appealing because of its parallels with the sensation of a love bomb. to be subjected to emotions of such intensity brought me to a space of overwhelming lack of safety and the limbo of waiting for the other shoe to drop. as i was waiting for the rush to dissipate i kept thinking of how quickly romantic feeling decays and how devastating my experiences have been as giver and recipient of such tenuous emotion. if platonic love is the only type of love i can give consistently then perhaps my childhood experiences have wired me in such a way that romance is not sustainable. healing such fundamental aspects of myself feels like an uphill climb that may not be possible under the time constraints of my lifespan.
if i were to heal from the inside out i wonder if i would become aromantic. i picture a world where my mind caps every interaction at intimate platonic union and imagine it to be so safe. if i could free myself from ego and obsession i could enter such a reality. instead i am an emotional slut equipped with the ability to turn every individual into a perfect drug to ride the highs of interpersonal closeness. because of my queerness i have no space of platonic safety. because i am demisexual i suffer additional disorientation because the intense emotional intimacy required for sexual attraction manifests so rarely for me. when i fall into the headrush of lust it is so unexpected and all encompassing because it is not an experience i have often. when i am under these influences i have made choices that could have ruined me.
in my processing of these experiences i’ve been more curious about alternative modes of love and the spectrum between seeking passion and pragmaticism. when i first read about queerplatonic relationships i was fascinated by its purity and simplicity. thinking, maybe i could sacrifice romantic feeling for such a bond. safety over stimulation. love over lust. a deep investment into the narrative of another and an intentional union that occurs in the unfiltered truth before you.
sometimes i am convinced i have successfully rewired myself. these days i associate romantic intensity with danger and look to people where i feel safe. i feel averse to soulmates and blind lifelong commitment and consider the pursuit of such ideas as having the same tradeoffs as adopting a religion that is logically baseless — providing emotional fulfillment at the cost of self-delusion. i think about how i find reincarnation conceptually beautiful but am limited in my ability to adopt it; i am a skeptic governed by my perception of truth. like romantic love, religion requires the ability to sustain the delusion for its rewards to be reaped.
but when i make art i know i am fundamentally inclined towards romance. my artistic practice is always fueled by some emotional distortion that alters the way i perceive my reality, and romance is an easy way to achieve this. i write to document this delusion, and i cling to this practice because it is all i have ever known. when i am in love i am motivated to make art bc everyone i’ve been compelled towards has made art. none of the art i make feels grounded in truth but all of it feels real. i think it's the same for romance.
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