#Is it normal to only feel attraction to a small portion of people?

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

lethal wing
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Yes
These feelings are diverse
Many feel them differently
Some feel them more, some less, some not at all

neon sable
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I experienced something like this in middle school. I felt real romantic attraction to very few girls, yet I still preferred them over boys. Pretty sure I'm bi now, but you could be greyromantic/sexual, which is an identity on the aroace spectrum that means you feel attraction rarely, at lower intensities, or it's less noticeable by you. Try doing more research on the aroace spectrum if it doesn't feel right for you, there's something for everyone!

low depot
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i have but nothing feels like it really fits

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oh also as im actually typing this now im realizing i actually have only felt that kind of attraction to fictional women or women i see online, never anyone ive seen irl

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i have no idea why

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i really dont think im bi, the idea of doing anything with a girl is weird, i almost went on a date with a girl once before i even seriously started considering that i might be gay and it was awful

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nothing against her its just that idea is something im really really not into

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i dunno its weird, some kind of bisexual but homoromantic? but idk bc again id never want to do smth with a girl irl its purely just something in my head

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is it normal to be attracted to people without any kind of feelings attached to it or any desire to be with them? and why would I feel that more with women than I do actual attraction to men?

neon sable
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By attraction do you mean you feel romantic or sexual attraction towards people, that you feel like a relationship with them would just be nice, or that they're attractive but you wouldn't want to be with them?

low depot
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by attraction i mean like 'i like looking at them'

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it doesnt actually imply anything about what id wanna do with them most of the time

low depot
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i dont actually feel any desire to be with them though, its purely just 'i like looking at them'

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i feel that a lot less with guys but when I do it does actually involve romantic feelings as well

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like if i picture myself with the most attractive woman it either feels fake or uncomfortable, but if I picture myself with a boyfriend my heart melts

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i hope that makes sense

neon sable
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That sounds like purely aesthetic attraction towards women and some degree of romantic attraction towards men

low depot
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thats what i lean towards as well

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but just the fact that i feel more of that kind of attraction to women than men is enough to make me insecure about the label

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even though i do fully think 'gay' describes what i actually do and am in practice

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and yeah ik labels dont matter and all but im gonna have to come out to family at some point and need some kind of word to use

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but i feel my experience is so unaligned with the 'normal' one im not very confident in any of them

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do i call myself bi? well no I feel like thats dishonest, but how can I be gay if ultimately i feel that way about women at all

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and i think i am also some kind of demi, the only people im actually fully physically attracted to (in the i want to be with them kind of way) are people ive already developed some kind of romantic feelings for (or people which remind me of them), which makes me evne more unsure because is it really that i dont feel romantic attraction towards women or is it that i simply havent yet?

neon sable
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To keep it simple, you should say that you're gay. If you say that's how you feel, then that's how you feel. And everyone is able to look at an attractive person, no matter their gender, and say "Oh wow, they're attractive, I like how they look" without actually feeling attracted to them.

low depot
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well hold on

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i should probably ask

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what does being physically attracted to someone feel like

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what actually is the line between true attraction and just liking how they look

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ik this seems like an obvious thing but i genuinely have struggled with the idea of attraction my whole life, im not confident i even know what most mean by it

neon sable
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Tbh I have no idea, I'm on the ace spectrum. I don't really know how sexual attraction feels like, and my romantic attraction isn't some ongoing thing, it's typically little crushes that fade within a month or less (I don't expect to ever have a romantic/sexual partner). You should probably ask someone who definitely feels both.

low depot
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lmfao fair enough

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i def do not experience attraction like most people

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ive never really just seen someone in passing irl and think 'wow that person is attractive' or whatever people think

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and really the physical attraction i do feel towards people i have romantic feelings for is really just 'oh hey this is how this person looks and i like this person so i like how they look'

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even then my romantic feelings feel a lot less compared to everyone else's

neon sable
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I hate media for that, because all mainstream romance is super strong magnetic attraction with a lot of sexual urges and it really misled me when I was still figuring stuff out (I still am)

low depot
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even outside of that ive never really been able to fully relate to how other people talk about attraction

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i used to think people were weird for feeling any kind of physical attraction at all

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if someone said someone was pretty or whatever id just think 'damn youre kind of objectifying them'

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but like no thats i guess normal for most people 😭

neon sable
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I get that, I'm used to other people going "Oh yeah, they're hot, a solid 9/10", but when I say it I feel weird so I just say "They're attractive"

low depot
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exactly tho

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or ill say people are cute if im like close to them

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are they cute? hell if i know i dont even know what people mean when they call other people cute

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it just sounds correct

neon sable
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Maybe people who are sexually attracted to someone call them hot or pretty because they're sexually attracted to them

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And maybe it's weird to me because I don't really feel sexual attraction

low depot
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im not even sure if i feel sexual attraction period

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its confusing because sex itself is cool enough but its more like next level cuddling to me

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does that count? I dunno, i pretend like it does

neon sable
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It's assumed that being on the ace spectrum means you hate sex, which is actually not true. A lot of aces are sex-indifferent or even like sex. Asexual means not sexually attracted, it doesn't mean hating sex. If you don't feel drawn to people to have sex with them (I assume that's how sexual attraction works) then you might be some kind of ace

low depot
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that makes sense

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i really dont care about the other persons appearence ngl other than like some basic turn offs

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but other than that its not really about that

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i kind of havent really explored asexuality that much last time i did i brought it up to my boyfriend at the time and he actually was upset about it

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so ive just kinda avoided it

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i really dont wanna be with someone and have him feel like i dont like him the way he does me

neon sable
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That's pretty valid. You can still explore the spectrum on your own time for self validation, because it feels better to have actual labels to what you're feeling

low depot
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thats fair

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honestly labels dont really bother me

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ive just accepted im not really like most people and dont really need to give it a name, im just how i am

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its honestly just the coming out part and now knowing what to tell people i am

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i really dont want to say im gay to my family who are already extremely on the fence about lgbt stuff only to backtrack later if i realize im wrong