Something I've Noticed In Recent Years Is My Habit Of Rationing Out The Things I Enjoy. I Take Each Bite

I've spent a lot of my life depressed for reasons unrelated to my identity. Life has a unique talent for beating the unprepared harder, and while my lot was not the hardest, I was certainly ill fit to bear its weight. When I eventually dragged myself, cold and wet, from its grasp I found myself wishing to be numb again and wishing I knew what it was like to truly care about something.

In that vein, I've always had a fascination with love and romantic affection. A combination of being denied tenderness for the half of my life I could still remember and a genuine desire to study what I didn't understand left me with an insatiable desire to consume tender, romantic media.

The idea of the thing appealed to me like the willpower of a warrior training, or the righteous anger of a hero who has lost their home. Something that gave you just a taste of what they were feeling just by watching them feel it, but whose scale you probably could not emulate. Those emotions are for characters in stories, as fictional as the magics or demons they face.

Did you know that there are special nerves in your skin that are designed for social touch? They have a direct line to the serotonin response and take 3 real world seconds to get there. This is the nerve that causes/cures touch starvation, the reason why characters can feel the lips of a lovers kiss for seconds afterward as their lips tingle electrically, the reason why a character can be wrapped in a hug in shock for a few seconds before they break down crying in grief.

All of these I thought were artistic fiction. Like someone with aphantasia learning that others really do visualize things, or me realizing other people store memories in video. It also brought up a question I posed to my therapist: "why, if I've been without social contact for most of my life, am I not touch starved?'

She answered in two options:

1 - everyone is different, and some people have more or less of certain needs.

2 - how do you know you're not?

Oooh baby that's a working York rig

Just finished this awesome group piece of a D&D party for an amazing client :) with a cameo from our dear lich friend Acererak

heard they’re making it easier tomorrow. not sure if it’s true, but don’t you wanna find out?

Y'know, I don't think I appreciate my folks enough. I have never had an S/O and, unless some of that fluidity hits me in the next few years, prolly will not ever. And it occured to me about a week ago, that not once have I been asked?

Like, there was teasing, obviously, but other than a few confused bites at the apple I had when I was real small, I never brought home news of the warfront and they didn't ask.

To be fair, should they have been more involved, probably, but in terms of identity, it's weird to tell someone 'thanks for never giving a shit enough to hound me about something outside of my control.'

When I told my father how I was grateful, he said "...do you want me to ask?" Because parents totally listen like normal people, but hey, he's trying.

I feel like if I were getting hounded to get out there and find someone, I'd have gotten into a lot of bad relationships and would be much the worse for wear. Sometimes treating someone as normal is support, y'know?

Sometimes I have to question my brain's idea of who I should be. Like, these cotton gloves feel more like 'me' than my hands do. Girl, is this some kinda a self image issue? What do you want from me? Get better hands?

In short, I'm wearing gloves for now. When it starts getting warm again, I'll hope this isn't still an issue. ¯\_(= ͢ =)_/¯

Weird post, nobody asked, but I think I just... Do Not pay attention to the appearances of others. I'm very keen on noticing clothing and habits but not, like, the stuff that doesn't change. My friends inform me that I am approaching 'Dave with a haircut?' levels of oblivious.

So, apparently, I have been wrong about the ethnicities of most of my friends. It doesn't matter, but it feels weird to not have had that data already, when I've been friends with them for half a damn decade, and I've met their parents. Just sort of inexcusable to not notice.

On top of this, something I have known is that I am a bad judge of at-a-glance gender presentation detection. I have asked people their gender for years, to the point I don't even think about it not being a typical question where I live.

And not only am I bad, I'm like, fuckin horrible. Part of why I acclimated to fast to the concept of gender identity when I was young was being genuinely unable to determine any feminine or masculine traits from any person with hair. Asking was so easy. So clear cut. Still is. Maybe this is some kinda Neuro-nontypicality, but I ain't no governmence scientician.

I think this might be a side effect of being my specific brand of aroace, but I have a hard time thinking of someone as handsome or beautiful, and kinda just feel nothing about the normally heavily scrutinized features most people attribute to attractiveness.

Maybe synergizing my Class Passive [Aroace disinterest] with my [Poor Memory] debuff has resulted in the Trait [Retroactive Face Blindness] being applied to me.

BRO THIS IS NOT BASKETBALL

The question of 'is it something you like or does it just replace something you don't?' haunts every single one of my preferences and opinions.