askanallo

[askanallo]

Why is it so forbidden to date the ex partner of a friend? Like, they're not together anymore, it's not like cheating or something.

If the relationship your friend had with their ex ended badly, you're now dating someone that caused a lot of pain to your friend. Many people don't want to talk to their exes anymore, so it becomes extremely awkward when the asshole that cheated on you is now dating someone you care about and you have to keep interacting with them and being polite/friendly to them. It's just a really bad situation for both the friend and the ex, and there's also the "don't you care about what they did to me? why are you dating them?" thing that's kind of hard to move past.

If the relationship was good, but ended due to some sort of incompatibility/circumstance/your friend's fuck up, moving past that ex might have been pretty difficult for your friend. Now this does depend on how much time has passed and how well your friend has coped, but many people have the "the one that got away" mentality, and it can reopen old wounds.

Of course, some people stay friends with their exes and genuinely don't mind, some relationships are old and inconsequential, some relationship end with a mutual agreement where neither party is hurt much, etc. It's not something that applies always, though it does most of the time.

Tl;dr: It would likely be very uncomfortable or even painful for said friend.

#relationship #romance #friendship #break up #break ups

[askanallo]

How would you define romance? If I look it up it states having a deep emotional connection with someone but I feel like that’s subjective.

I’ve done and felt everything “romantic” yet to me it’s just platonic.

Well, it is very subjective. I don't think I can come up with a good non-circular definition. Relationships and feelings are just too complex for that. I can try to describe how it feels, I suppose, but that's very far from an objective definition lol

#romance

[askanallo]

if you played fuck/marry/kill, and you had to choose something for your friend, what could it be?

I'm asking because I saw several times people hesitating to choose marry, though to me it looks like a fine answer, especially when other choices are death and something you don't really want with them. Even if this game implies that you can't divorce... why might it be so bad?

I have no idea, you'd have to ask them probably. Do people actually take that game seriously?

[askanallo]

would romantic vs platonic love be similar to idk… color saturation? Like there’s shade/tint, connected to how strong the emotion is, but there’s also the brightness. Or is it more like different hues?

sorry if im nonsensical

I swear I'm not trying to be an asshole, but this far too abstract of a metaphor for me to able to answer the question. I don't really see love as colors, or as comparable to it.

If anything, I'd say romantic love is like platonic love + an extra element? Maybe? But trying to describe feelings like this is near impossible, I'm not 100% on that description.

#romantic love #platonic love #love

[askanallo]

In a recent post, you said that as a relationship goes on, infatuation subsides and new feelings emerge. Do you think there could be a difference between romantic attraction and romantic love?

Well yeah, there's some pretty big ones. A long term relationship and a crush aren't comparable at all. Just the intensity of the feeling - most people would sacrifice a lot for someone they love, but would probably sacrifice way less for a random person they thought was cute. I'm not sure if this was a yes/no question or you wanted me to elaborate, feel free to send a follow-up ask.

#attraction #romantic attraction #romance #romantic love #love

[askanallo]

How does having a romantic relationship when you’re young, going into adulthood, be a cause for not knowing yourself without them? How is that different compared to having friends and still knowing yourself?

I don't know, and I feel like this is somewhat bullshit advice.

Sometimes, young couples find themselves very... enmeshed, I suppose? Where they have the same friends, spend all their time together, basically if they broke up they wouldn't have anything left. And that's obviously bad, but maybe warning against that instead of this weird overly general advice would be better.

The one area in which this maybe holds some water is dating - knowing what kind of person you prefer to date, trying out being single and finding out whether you enjoy that better than being in a relationship. (And trying out sex with different people.) But there's no reason that can't wait if the current relationship ends up falling apart. And it might not, anyways. There are some people who get together fairly early on and stay together until death.

Maybe I'll have a different viewpoint on this once I'm 40... but these are my current thoughts.

#relationship #friendship #sex mention

[askanallo]

is it truly painful to hang out with a good friend if you are into them and know 100% that they only like you platonically?

because in a bunch of books and dramas and stuff they keep talking like it's a torture or something and that has....always appeared so weird to me? like, you guys are still friends, right? so why? or is this another case of exaggeration

It depends on the person, and how strong the crush is. It wouldn't be painful for me personally at all, but I know some people for whom it was.

The reason it can be so painful is that a friendship and romance are pretty different, especially in the later stages. If you really desire a romantic relationship with someone, a friendship isn't going to satisfy you. The knowledge that your feelings aren't reciprocated can be pretty painful all by itself.

#relationship #romance #romantic attraction #friendship #attraction #crush

[askanallo]

I mean, platonic and romantic attraction are just words made up by one person a decade and a half ago (or two decades now?). You can use them however you want to - it's very possible that the descriptions and feelings overlap. Or maybe we are feeling completely different things and just use similar things to describe them. It's impossible to know.

im scrolling through your blog because im certain youve answered this before - how do you know the difference between being friends and romantic attraction?

I should probably begin with saying that these are far from mutually exclusive. I can be friends with someone while being romantically attracted to them - it's honestly not that uncommon for me.

A friendship is just a platonic relationship. If I'm meeting up with someone fairly regularly for a period of time, know a bunch of stuff about them, and we're texting each other outside of work stuff, that's a friend. Basically, if I'd care if they left my life, they're a friend.

Romantic attraction (well.. I don't use the split attraction model, I can't separate my attraction into romantic and sexual) is a sort of feeling that I'd probably compare to being around someone you really admire, like your favorite celebrity or artist. The person I'm attracted to starts seeming more attractive (like, they're prettier), I want to spend more time with them than I otherwise would, I want to impress them and feel nervous around them. Which is pretty similar to how it feels when you idolize someone, just with the end goal being a romantic relationship.

#attraction

[askanallo]

I've heard people say before that once you're in a long-term relationship that the initial feelings subside (like, the initial crush you have when just starting to date them) but was always confused by that because then that just sounds the same as any long-term committed friendship (plus sex ig — but alloace people exist and have partners so that can't be the only difference)

so i guess what I'm asking is, what actually makes the difference between a long-term romantic partner to you versus a close friend? or is that thing I've heard about initial attraction fading away not really accurate for everyone?

I mean, the initial feelings of anxiety and infatuation subside, but new feelings emerge. I still feel.. different around my long-term boyfriend (we've been dating for multiple years). There's still the extreme closeness and longing for touch, and sometimes I have these moments where I just kinda think about how pretty he is. It's very difficult to describe, but there's just a love that is more .. intense, I guess? than love for my friends. And a sense of closeness. I don't think I'd want to spend as much time with my friends as my do with my bf. I definitely wouldn't want to sleep in the same bed as them for a long-term arrangement.

#romance #romantic love #friendship

[askanallo]

im scrolling through your blog because im certain youve answered this before - how do you know the difference between being friends and romantic attraction?

I should probably begin with saying that these are far from mutually exclusive. I can be friends with someone while being romantically attracted to them - it's honestly not that uncommon for me.

A friendship is just a platonic relationship. If I'm meeting up with someone fairly regularly for a period of time, know a bunch of stuff about them, and we're texting each other outside of work stuff, that's a friend. Basically, if I'd care if they left my life, they're a friend.

Romantic attraction (well.. I don't use the split attraction model, I can't separate my attraction into romantic and sexual) is a sort of feeling that I'd probably compare to being around someone you really admire, like your favorite celebrity or artist. The person I'm attracted to starts seeming more attractive (like, they're prettier), I want to spend more time with them than I otherwise would, I want to impress them and feel nervous around them. Which is pretty similar to how it feels when you idolize someone, just with the end goal being a romantic relationship.

#friendship #romantic attraction #attraction

[askanallo]

what the joke surronding "69"? i heard something about i being about sex positions but i dont understand how it would work

Yeah, it's a sex position. If you don't want a description of it, um. Don't read the next paragraph.

The "bellies" of the numbers are the heads of the people involved and the "tails" are the rest of their bodies. Basically person A lays down on their back, and person B kinda lays down on top of them, with their head being near person A's genitals and their genitals being near person A's face (so their knees would be like on either side of person A's head). And then both people do oral sex to the other person. That's it lol

#sex mention #sex #i guess this is a sex education blog now as well lmao

[askanallo]

Inbox is empty btw - this blog is still active

#not an ask

[askanallo]

I think that it's quite difficult to decide whether you're happy with someone, sometimes. No one is ever perfect, so there will be things that annoy you about them, and you have to compromise.

There's a few situations I feel like you're talking about here.

Some people stay in relationships where they know they are unhappy, but they don't believe they can find another person that would love them, and that being single would make them more unhappy.

Some people still love the other person but feel the need to move on for whatever reason - this one is particularly tricky. If you aren't aplatonic, imagine completely breaking off a friend you still care about. It hurts.

Sometimes people have just been together for years, and they aren't particularly unhappy, but they aren't particularly happy either. This is super common with married couples with kids, where they're barely in a romantic relationship together, but they stay together because of inertia and because a divorce would be very tricky. (That usually ends when the kids become adults.)

There's many situations like these, impossible to name all of them. If you have any follow-up questions, feel free to send in an ask!

Soooooo

I was talking to my therapist and for some reason the conversion shifted to me talking about how I think more people should get divorced and break up or saying “why would anyone want to live in the same house and bed and see someone every single day, that sounds like shit.” than half way through my rant she was like

“Well people who love each other find it difficult to break away from each other”

Than I said “why cant they just be friends or something?”

Tha n she started to explain to me that people get obsessed with other people in the same way i get obsessed with things like Sherlock Holmes or Good Omens

That is fucking wild.

Allosexuals, help me out, what?? Why the fuck wouldn’t you just stop being with someone if you aren’t happy??

Im so confused

Im either very Aromantic or just not yet at that stage in my life

#romance #relationship #divorce

[askanallo]

Do people fall in love "against their will", so to speak? Can you be in a happy relationship and randomly fall in love with someone else? If so, does it mess things up in your relationship?

Hmm, I'm not sure you can fall in love against your will really. Falling in love with someone generally requires spending at least a bit of time with them, and you can cut that off pretty early on. Maybe it depends on what definition of "falling in love" you use (some people use it as a synonym for getting a crush), but if you mean romantic love, then that's not really something that just happens. Kind of like you don't just start feeling platonic love towards some rando, you have to tgo out of your way to develop a friendship with them first.

You can become attracted/infatuated/get a crush on someone else while being in a relationship, and that's pretty common. It's happened to me a bunch. I don't tell my boyfriend about it (or anyone else), so it doesn't harm my relationship, and these crushes go away after a few months or so anyway. It's normal to get attracted to people other than my boyfriend (it's not like that part of my brain just shuts off after entering a committed relationship), but I never get the urge to act on it. Might be worth mentioning that my feelings for whoever my partner at the time was were always significantly stronger than these crushes on other guys.

#attraction #crush #relationship #love #romantic love

[askanallo]

(sex as a need anon again, feel free to leave this on the backburner if you want to get to other asks first! i wont be offended!) thank you to you and that other blog (i cant remember their url and i cant check cause im on mobile sowwy) for trying to explain, I think it's just one of those things I'll never understand. but I am curious, you said that you might feel the urge to cheat in that situation, and that confused me even more. even if what you say is true and a lack of regular sex would completely ruin a relationship, are the only options really cheating or breaking up? why don't more allos explore polyamory or just open relationships? to me, cheating is the worst thing someone can do to their partner, is the urge to have sex really that strong for allos, that they cant even wait a week or two to discuss either breaking up or opening up the relationship?? that they have to go behind their partners back because the need to get their fix is that strong??

I don't think that most people would cheat after two weeks of no sex - this is a several months to years type of timeframe. Not to mention that feeling an urge doesn't mean you'll go do it immediately. The urge to cheat is just a pretty good sign that the relationship is in a crisis and needs to be fixed or needs to be put down.

A lot of the relationships you're talking about have kids and other responsibilities that don't make leaving very easy. Polyamory/opening a relationship is significantly more niche than you say it is, it's not something most people would agree to. And if one partner decides by themselves to do poly, well that is just cheating again lol. I feel like a year long relationship with no sex and few commitments would just end most of the time.

A lot of people also take the easy way out. Cheating is easier than a messy divorce, and people are far from morally perfect. I think that it's very easy for me to say that I wouldn't ever cheat (though I do think that about myself), but I've never been put in a situation where a divorce would mean that I get to see my kids significantly less often and lose my house. Or a situation where I'd be single again after 10 years of marriage. I'd like to think that I'd do the right thing in these situations as well, but it's hard to know for sure.

#sex #sex mention #relationship #response #experimenting with putting this in the queue

[askanallo]

What is the feeling for when your lower stomach gets like a feeling like pushing on a bruise (NOT "butterflies) when thinking about, being too close to or accidentally touching a person? There is NO increased heartrate, <<neither>> is there a "tingling?" in the genitals. (I point those out bc I've heard those being what being romantic/sexual feelings towards someone feels like)

It almost feels like being jumpscared/spooked?

I think that's just anxiety/discomfort, though it's difficult to be sure just based on a description.

#feelings

[askanallo]

Every time I've had a crush it's gone away the instant I found out they were seeing someone or just not into the gender I present as.

I take it this isn't very allo? What do you guys do?

I mean, I'm not sure why it wouldn't be allo. I don't feel particularly torn up about my crushes not being reciprocated, and this just feels like a version of that, just more (or maybe less? idk words hard) extreme. I obviously don't know your experiences in detail so maybe it's not an allo experience for you, but idk doesn't seem particularly out of the ordinary for me.

#crush #attraction