Cleaning up my desktop --I always find SOMETHING!

[sorcyress]

A/N: The events and things and thoughts and feelings leading up to this particular thoughtstream have been sorted out and reasoned with and talked over and etc. In short, please don't read too deeply into this post, I'm not trying to put it out there as a hint to anyone*, it is merely some words that I think sound good strung together.

***

8/Dec/2k7

There is this thing keeping everyone's lungs and lips locked.
It is called fear and it's seeing a great renaissance
(Credit: 'Sing', Dresden Dolls)

***

I have had a theory for some time now that the world would be an easier place to live in if people just went ahead and told each other that they loved them and liked them and wanted to get in their pants.

No seriously. Stop beating around the bush, just go up to the beautiful boy, girl, person, whatever and grab them by the shoulders and tell them you're mad for them. Snog them thoroughly, and even if they freak out, at least you can say you tried.

There is, however, one problem with this theory. Friendship, and friendship privileges.

Friendship privileges? I hear you ask skeptically. Considering I only just coined the term, I'm not suprised you've never heard of it. What they are, are all the things that people let you do to them, because they think your feelings for them are purely platonic.

An example: I am realitively unbody-shy, solong as I am in a group of friends. I will change shirts, or pants, or whatever without a second thought. The second that I suspect someone in the group has a sexual or romantic interest in me, that immodesty ceases. The ability to see my tits is a privilege relegated purely to people that I trust, and that I feel I have a purely platonic relationship with.**

There are other examples, of course. I will grab my platonic friends hands and drag them around, which I won't do with people who I believe are interested in me. A good reverse example is me and Chris right after we 'broke up'. We were still friends, and acting much the same, but it took months for him to give me a "good" hug (long and warm and *sigh*).

The fundemental reason for all these examples is the idea that we don't want to lead people on. If I am not interested in someone, and I know they're interested in me, I will do my best to not treat them as if I am interested in them. Mixed signals are Bad.

So. There are friendship privileges. And if the object of your affections realizes that you fancy them, you won't get as many friendship privileges with them.

This, I believe, is part of why people have such trouble confessing interest to one another. If you are enjoying all sorts of privileges with a friend ("Why of course Veronica, I'd *love* to watch you try on bras!") you're going to be loathe to do anything to jepordize those privileges. Unfortunately, one of the things you can do to jepordize your position is to tell people that you fancy them.

And, of course, there's always the hope that your friend is actually mad for you as well. Should that happen, your friendship privileges generally turn into dating privileges, which tend to be better.

But there is the ultimate problem. It's an analysis of risks --is it better to risk the privileges that you already have in the hopes of getting better privileges, or should you just let it all lay and accept what you've got?

As for me, I tend to be horrible at telling people when I want to stoink*** them. It's the whole bravery thing, paired with my intense internal fear of rejection. That and I *really* like certain privileges I get from people who assume I'm not mad for them. (See: Any play ever, and the fact that actors just kinda arbitrarily change their clothes.)

~Sor
MOOP!

*...anymore.
**This may be less true than I think. I'm not sure how body shy I am at the moment, it tends to vary across a long range, even within the same people.
***Well, technically, I don't want to stoink anybody. Replace with snog/date/pet as appropriate.

Not private because I'm better than that.

Comments

friendship privileges vs. dating privileges

[dhs.livejournal.com]

I have run into that whole 'friendship privileges' vs. 'dating privileges' thing before and I have to admit that I don't entirely grok it. To me it seems to be more of a spectrum. A given pair of people might want the relationship between them to be at different points along that spectrum. It should be OK for each to say where they want to be. I'm perfectly willing to accept a less intimate relationship with someone rather than push hir away, but I don't want to assume and guess about what they want. I've missed out on too much that way. (I expect the same consideration in the other direction, if I'm the one who wants a less intimate connection.) Either way, being honest with your friends shouldn't make them shy away from you.

(Did that make sense? It is tired, and I'm late out.)

[drama-angel3189.livejournal.com]

But I thought you have fun when I drag you with me.
You know the ones I really like...the lacy ones.

P.S. I am wearing my lacy black bra today.

[macaroniandtuna.livejournal.com]

Heyyy. How come I never got to go with you? :'( Snif.

:P

[drama-angel3189.livejournal.com]

You went from friendship privilages to dating privilages, silly.

[macaroniandtuna.livejournal.com]

Wait so does that mean I get to go now? Hmm? Please?

:D

[macaroniandtuna.livejournal.com]

Y'know...I have thoughts on this, but it's 215am. So, tomorrow.

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

It's tomorrow by now!

~Sor

[macaroniandtuna.livejournal.com]

It certainly is, and it's so very tomorrow that hell if I know what those thoughts were. I have a sense that they were good thoughts, all deep and thoughtful thoughts, but....they're gone now. 3.5 months will do that - what took ya so long?

It might also be that I'm in paper-writing mode, so all my deep thought circuits (god I'm a geek - guess what that phrase reminded me of) are focused on my topic. Ask me again in a few days (and an actual few days this time, not a year, as I'd imagine the "tomorrow --> 3.5 months" thing scales to). Grin.

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

I...had a moderate bit of drama with this post, which involved it being private for most of those three and a half months.

I am, as you can possibly tell, cleaning out my inbox, which involves finishing all these comment threads.

And hee, deep thought. Yeah, I'll try to remember to make it a couple days proper. *hiveminds*

~Sor

[macaroniandtuna.livejournal.com]

Ahh. I completely forgot about it after I commented, I'm sure, so I never checked on it I don't think. Hope the drama worked out alright. :)

Yes, I can tell. If you've got comments from this far back unread in there, good on you for the cleaning.

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

I don't think the drama worked out somuch as was long enough ago that I don't care anymore.

Oh honey, only a quarter of the unsorted e-mails I'm dealing with are from 2008. That's all I'm worried about right now, I'll dig through the previous three or four years later.

~Sor

[macaroniandtuna.livejournal.com]

Jeez. Years? That's craziness. I deal with everything I get immediately, except for a handful of emails from this place I buy CDs from that list stuff that's coming out soon (at this point has come out - I have one from October) that I want.

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

...I'm really bad at cleaning out my inbox.

~Sor

[macaroniandtuna.livejournal.com]

So I see. :P

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

Hey, I've been keeping up with all the e-mails sent to me in the past three hours or so! It's a start, damnit!

~Sor

[macaroniandtuna.livejournal.com]

Yes, I see that too. How many emails do you get in a day? It sounds like you've gotten dozens in three hours.

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

In the two hours and fourty five minutes it's been today, I've gotten eleven e-mails. All but one of those, however, were livejournal saying people had commented in response to my comments.

So not quite a dozen. :D

I get probably between ten and twenty e-mails a day. Most of it's elljay stufu and the like --I don't really get real honest to god e-mails from cool people more often than about twice a week or so. If I started sending them again, I might be able to boost this number, but...meh.

~Sor

[macaroniandtuna.livejournal.com]

Well that's not too bad. I usually get 10-12 overnight, and deciding whether to read, put off til later, or delete them takes all of five minutes. ::shrug::

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

I think the big thing is just that it's highly dependent on how much e-mail I'm sending, and how much livejournalling I'm doing.

~Sor

[macaroniandtuna.livejournal.com]

Ahh. See it's rare for me to send any email, I mostly just receive it. LJ is a constant for me. It's like my lifeblood or something. LJvampire or something. I dunno.

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

I send actual e-mails occasionally. When I do, I often get responses and stuff.

Elljay is always there for me, but I'm kinda irregular in how active I am about posting and reading other people's stuff.

~Sor

[leiacat.livejournal.com]

I think you're generally on to something. Yes, there are things that awareness-of-interest can make awkward. (I suppose the trick is to be, and hang out with, people who are utterly shameless and who have a good mental separation between nudity/touch and sex.)

I have, in fact, lost friendships over telling someone I had the hots for them. Even very disclaimered, very nonpresupposing, very "I'm perfectly cool with it if you're not interested" hots. On the other hand, those are a vast minority, and all the friendships that either stayed basically unchanged or gained connections/priviledges as a result made the risk worth it. I generally tend to err on the side of honesty; the trick is to _mean_ it that you'll be ok if the snogging never happens, and you won't go all weird after the words are out.

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

*nods* I think that's the other side of it, being unsure with it if it'll really truly be a "no, I don't actually have feelings for you" sort of thing.

Or something.

~Sor

Telling All

[dhs.livejournal.com]

I don't think that saying (and meaning) "I'm perfectly cool with it if you're not interested" needs to mean that if they are not interested, you have to lose all interest. You simply have to be cool with the scope of what you can share being different from what you had hoped for.

[londo.livejournal.com]

It turns out that watching someone I'm hot for try on bras, when they don't know I'm hot for them, makes me hella uncomfortable. Which makes this problem much easier to solve. Not trivial, to be sure, but easier.

[londo.livejournal.com]

Also hi.

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

Hi!

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

I think that's because you're a decent human being. I talk a good game, but I suspect I would be hella uncomfortable as well.

~Sor

[londo.livejournal.com]

Excellent, my disguise is working.