"Downshifting" interview

I was interviewed by a sociology professor at RMIT yesterday. It's for an upcoming book about people who leave the corporate rat race and do something "alternative" with their lives - generally in the sense of less conventionally "successful".

It was an interesting experience. I told her upfront that it would be better if she asks me specific questions than if I try to just tell the story, because that would lead to some serious rambling. In the end, it was exactly as I expected - many threads of thought tying together to give a fairly decent picture of what happened, albeit all quite disorganised and general.

One thing I realised was that - unlike certain other people who leave the corporate rat race to become starving artists or photographers or whatever - I didn't do it to follow any specific creative "passion". It was more of a push than a pull so to speak. Being pushed out of the corporate grind by burnout, rather than pulled out of it by ideas of concentrating on something else. ie Something more personally meaningful.

Then again, in a sense it could also be said that I simply appreciate going with the flow. Being poor and free rather than a comfortable slave. So on some very abstract, Zen-like level, having all that relatively aimless and "unproductive" time off was a pull force of sorts. The past year has been perhaps the strangest of my life - and I'm starting to think that the aimlessness and emptiness of some of it was necessary. Necessary to create the headspace for all the personal and "occupational" epiphanies that I've had.

In the end, she asked me if I'm overall happier now. It's something I haven't even asked myself directly ever since leaving the corporate world in January 2011. But yes. I am. Absolutely!

Asexy Mind vs Body

I'm having AVEN withdrawal...

The forums have been down for an upgrade for about two days now. I forget how much my morning Internet routine these days revolves around checking up on my AVEN threads and seeing what's new. Oh well, this has at least inspired me to post about something that's been on my mind for a little while - which isn't new at all as a concept on AVEN of course - but it might be interesting to others. That is, the "mind vs body" nature of asexuality.

Mind vs Body

When people first hear about asexuality, the first response from many is to ask something like "...but don't you get horny at all?" - basically implying that there is an obvious and unquestionable link between physiological sexual function and psychological sex drive. To get right to the point: this is basically what stands at the very centre of what asexuality is all about - it's a disconnect between these two things.

(I should note: there are some people who identify as "non-libidoist" and/or their asexuality is reinforced by having a low to non-existent physiological sex drive, but for the purposes of this post I'm focusing on the "libidoist" type - like myself - which appears to be more common anyway.)

In simple words: our lack of interest in partnered sex has nothing to do with any lack of physiological libido, or lack of physical pleasure received from sex - rather, it is a disconnect between that and the psychological desire to bond with other people in a sexual way. Essentially, purely physical sexual function and desire for "partnered sex" are separate things in our minds, and not mentally integrated into an obvious whole like they are for most people.

So how does this work?

The best way to think of it (and this analogy only works if you're gay or straight - it won't work for bisexuals) is that all people look like sexual blank slates to you. Imagine being in an environment where everybody is of the gender that you are not attracted to. Even though you've still got a purely physical libido, it has nowhere to go, there is no one you want to share it with. So even though you might still physically get "horny", you simply shelve the thought of partnered sex.

This is - very roughly speaking - how the world looks to me in sexual terms. I don't see people in an inherently sexual way upfront. "Sexiness" is something that I've learned to see in people in a purely intellectual way, but for the longest time I couldn't understand why people carry on so much about it - it always felt like hype and exaggeration, until I was 33 years old and finally worked out that something is indeed missing from my picture.

All that said, there is another disconnect in the picture here, just to make things even more confusing...

Romantic vs Sexual orientations

I'm a heteroromantic demisexual. When I was a teenager, I started noticing girls (and getting crushes on them) at pretty much the same time as all the other boys did. 

But here's the thing: there was never an immediate sexual follow-up to my crushes. All I ever saw, felt, and fantasised about was wanting to share a vague sense of closeness, love, and affection with them. On a physical level, the most explicit thoughts that would pop into my mind would be the likes of cuddling, kissing, sleeping together (as in literally), and generally being close and affectionate with each other. Sex was always something that sat far in the background - it was never any kind of primary driver or motivator at all.

Fast forward 20 years: this is still where I'm at. 

As you can probably imagine - this was all very easy to conflate with a sense of moralistic sexual conservatism (and I just happened to be involved with girls from conservative cultures which reinforced the feeling that this is "normal"). This is the curse of demisexuality: behaviourally it looks essentially identical to simply being traditionally "moral" about sex, and waiting until you are in a serious relationship. When I was younger, I never gave this much thought, though at times I did indulge this sense a bit (in a morally "elitist" sense). 

Linking the two

For out and out "romantic asexuals", there is no link between love and sex at all. Romantic relationships are ideally sexfree for them, but probably include all the other usual trappings of what's expected from romantic partners.

For demisexuals, and other people towards the grey-asexual end of the spectrum, it's a bit more complicated. Sex can become an important aspect of a romantic relationship (eventually), but it's not a primary driver, or a crucial component. This is the disconnect that makes demisexual dating complicated. As explained above, it's not so much a purely physical lack of sex in the relationship - it's the lack of shared headspace. A lack of shared sense of the importance of partnered sex as a component of romantically connecting with another person.

Demisexual online dating

I pulled down my OkCupid profile yesterday. I'd made some interesting pen pals on there, but after 9 months, I finally realised that it wasn't going to lead anywhere in "dating" terms.

The basic problem with "dating" for me has always been that I fall outside the two major patterns that most people fall into in the modern dating world: those who are looking for casual (sexual) hookups, and those who are looking to settle down and marry.

1) The problem with the first one is obvious - I'm demisexual. So close to asexual that I might as well be asexual. At least at first and for a long time when getting to know a new person. This rules out any kind of casual hookup shenanigans.

2) I'm not actively looking to "settle down". I'm not even sure I want to ever move in and live with someone, let alone get married and have children. This has less to do with being on the asexual spectrum of course - plenty of highly sexual people also don't want these trappings of conventional relationships - but when the two are combined it must have really made some people wonder what the heck I was doing on a dating website.

Learning about being grey-asexual/demisexual has been both an incredibly liberating and an incredibly isolating experience at the same time. On the one hand, it's great to finally connect the dots and understand what's been driving me for these 34 years of existence, and why exactly I fall outside certain psychological patterns that the vast majority of humans seem to take for granted. On the other hand, there is a lot of overlap which is sometimes hard to deal with.

I went on OkCupid early this year with the idea that it should be fine. I knew I was different now, and I thought that this knowledge would help me navigate the dating world better than back when I thought I was "normal" but just vaguely broken somehow. But it's difficult. And the real difficulty isn't sexual or even practical per se - it's purely psychological. When you're driven by a totally different pattern of attraction, you simply give off the wrong signals. People expect a certain level of upfront sexual interest to accompany "romantic" interest, and when you simply don't feel this, you give off the wrong vibe.

Spontaneity and "social laziness"

I really hate surprises. Any kind of surprises. Especially social plans that are sprung on me last-minute...

Last night my parents called me up asking if I want to come over for dinner - this was just after 6pm when I already had food just about to go into the oven - and plans to watch Return Of The Jedi on DVD and have an early night. So technically I had nothing very special "on" last night, but still, I'm not really the sort of spontaneous person who likes sudden changes of plans like that. Even when there are no special plans in the first place.

What's really interesting is that - given enough notice - I'm not a socially lazy person at all. I'll happily make plans to fly to the other end of the country for a casual reunion with old friends in Perth for example. But the key is: these things are planned ahead. I know what's happening weeks or months in advance. It isn't something for which I have to drop everything and rush out the door within 30 minutes when I was expecting to do something else (or even nothing particularly special) that night.

Maybe it's an introvert/INTP thing. I certainly need some level of "mental preparation" when it comes to dealing with people. A sudden assault of any kind of human interaction tends to leave me mentally reeling a bit.

Long story short: I'm not a spontaneous person. I'm actually rather boring. I hate any kind of social surprises. But I don't think that necessarily makes me socially "lazy". Give me enough notice and I'll be up for anything. Don't give me enough notice, and I'll prefer sitting on the couch watching a DVD I've seen a thousand times over suddenly coming out with you.

Welcome

So I've finally decided to start a personal blog...

This has been in the making (in my head at least) for a while, ever since I decided that my old non-anonymous blog was too prone to self-censorship a few weeks ago. Not that I have any incredibly controversial opinions mind you - but there's just something about speaking my mind to the whole world that's slightly uncomfortable for a hopeless introvert like myself.

There's not much of a theme to this. Mostly just personal journal type stuff. But I hope some of it turns out interesting to others.