I Don't Think I Ever Had a Genuine Crush

[robot_chick]

Every time someone describes how they felt like when they had a crush on someone, I feel incredibly alienated. Everyone's always described it as this overwhelming, all-consuming feeling which affects them all the time. They can't turn it off or ignore it and it's always there. They describe the feeling as terrible and great. And whenever I see my friend with crushes, they always have their phone wallpapers and icon pictures of their crushes, and have merchandise of them if they're a famous person. But, those haven't been how I felt when I have 'crushes' (if what I felt even were crushes). Like, when I have what I think is a crush, I tend to feel happy about it for a while (in a 'yes! I'm feeling something normally!' sort of way, admittedly.) But it doesn't feel overwhelming or terrible and it doesn't affect my whole life. I don't see the world through a rose-tinted lens. In fact, I had to force myself to think about a person in a desirable light, think about how a writer would describe them in a romantic novel, to even feel anything near that crush feeling.

The only reason why I think I'm bisexual is because I think that I can find sex with someone from every gender pleasurable, so long as it's consensual. It almost feels like I'm 'horny', but I don't have a specific person to think about or fantasize about. For the most part, I had been exploring my sexuality through reading explicit fanfiction and fantasizing about anime and cartoon characters. I might possibly be aromantic, but I don't know about that, because I don't mind doing romantic things with a potential partner. I'm also autistic, and I think that might affect the way I view relationships. I feel 'in-control' of my emotions, so to speak, but everyone else doesn't seem to have that same control. They just 'feel'. So I wonder if I need to have less control over my emotions and the way I feel just so that what I'm feeling can qualify as a crush.

[Siân]

Hi robot-chick!

I don't think that crushes feel the same for everyone, you know? In fact, having crushes so huge that they prevent you from thinking about anything else actually doesn't sound like much fun! It's perfectly okay to just notice that someone makes you smile, or you feel good around them without it having to be "overwhelming or terrible". Honestly, only you get to decide if what you're feeling is a crush or not, and speaking as someone who never really had massive crushes growing up I can tell you that it really isn't a big problem to not feel those things - and it doesn't mean you'll never meet anyone you're interested in dating.

Why is it important to you to feel like you're having crushes? Fantasy is a totally legitimate way to begin exploring your sexuality, particularly when you're not meeting people that you feel sexually attracted to. In fact, the only thing in your post that worried me a bit was where you said you had to "force yourself to think about a person in a desirable light". What made you do that, rather than just deciding that no, they're not the one for you, and that's okay?

[robot_chick]

Sorry for the late reply, but the past couple of days had been busy and I also needed to think about my answer. But I finally have the time to reply.

I guess I wanted to experience what everyone else seems to be going through. For most of my life, I feel like I'd been 'locked out' of the experiences of the majority, and it made it harder to connect with people. So I guess knowing that I'm 'locked out' of another experience that people commonly go through, well, I guess I just wanted to experience something normally. So, I tried to act normal. That was the main motivation behind me trying to force myself to find people attractive.

[Heather]

I'm sorry that you've felt that way, robot_chick. That sounds very isolating, and I can certainly understand your desire to be less isolated!

Can I ask if you have any friends, family or other community who are Autistic? It sounds like some of the isolation here might have something to do with being mostly or only around neurotypical people?

[robot_chick]

Well, my family is basically made up of autistics. Both my parents are on the spectrum, as is my brother. But it’s a little weird to talk to your little brother about love and whatnot. He comes to me for advice, and I don’t think it should be the other way around. And honestly, I don’t feel all that comfortable talking to my Mom about romantic love or crushes. I’m still very much in the closet in real life, and part of the reason why is because I don’t think my Mom even knows that bisexuality is a thing. (I’m a cis AFAB, so I think my mom might be more comfortable talking to me about this than my dad.) Although once when I tried to explain to my Mom that I don’t get crushes, she said that she’s the same way. It didn’t really make me feel better about myself.

I don’t really have that many close friends who I’m comfortable talking about sex with either. I’m mostly close friends with boys, and I don’t think most boys my age are particularly comfortable talking to girls about love and sex if they aren’t going to have it with them. So to be honest, the most I hear about is girls my age talking about the k-pop singer they’re in love with, or the movie star who looks cute, or whatever. They don’t really go in-dept beyond saying that they find them attractive and they would like to do romantic things with them. As far as I know, a lot of the girls I know aren’t autistic either. So, there’s that.

It kind of sucks. I wish that I could get a real crush so that I don’t have to worry about being unable to relate to a good chunk of the world. In the past, I’d gotten a reputation for being stoic, weird, unpredictable, many things which denoted me as being different from other people. And honestly, even though in some ways I’d started to be proud of my weirdness, in other ways I wished I wasn’t such an alien. Because I really do want to connect with people, and I hate how removed I am from it all.

I’ll be 18 in less than a year, and I still don’t really have much of a clue what I want out of a relationship. I don’t know what sort of person I would be attracted to, or what sort of things I want to try. Despite attempts to explore through fiction, it’s not been all that successful. I have a vague idea about who I am, such as having a preference towards men, but I don’t even know what other physical or personality traits I’m attracted to. It’s kind of sad, because I don’t want to die a virgin/alone, but I don’t know what I want specifically. Especially since almost everyone seems to have their tastes figured out (they like good dancers, or people who are smart, or they find someone who wears glasses or has short hair cute). But they all seem to be lightyears ahead of me. And I hate that I’m probably going to just go for the first person who’ll show interest in me and who I can safely date in my current environment (at this point, those are the only two things I really care about) regardless of my personal feelings about them. And I hate lying to people that I have crushes. And I hate trying to force myself to develop a taste for something, only to come out empty-handed. And I hate feeling this way, because it feels like I’d been cheated. Like, I should be having butterflies in my stomach and feeling my heart flutter when someone does something. But I don’t. Not like everyone else does.

[Sam W]

Hi robot_chick,

There are a few things that jumped out at me in your response. One really basic one is: beyond your mom, have you ever read or listened to other autistic people's experiences with romance or attraction? If not, is that something you think it might be helpful to explore?

It makes a lot of sense that, if you already have times where you feel like how you experience the world is weird compared to other people, not getting crushes in the way other people describe might feel like one more dang thing that sets you apart. You mention that you do really want to connect with people. Do you feel like you have an equally hard time creating non-romantic connections, like friendships?

When it comes to feeling like everyone else has their attraction figured out, something that may help to remember is that attraction usually shifts or adjusts over time. What someone finds attractive at 17 may be very different than what they find attractive at 30 (even if some pieces remain constant). Those changes happen because, as we go through life, we get new information about what we do and do not like in a partner. You're going to be getting new information about your preferences as you move into adulthood, just like your peers are. So it may help to think of it less as being "behind them" and more that you're moving through that journey of information gathering in different ways.

Something else I want to give you permission to do is not force yourself to try to develop crushes or say that you have them when you don't. I get where that instinct comes from, given how frustrated you are with not being able to access a kind of emotion that feels so ubiquitous. But the more you allow yourself to let go of the "gotta feel a crush" mindset, the easier it might become to spot a crush when it does arise, because you're not stuck wondering if the feelings are genuine or if they're the result of you feeling like you "should" have a crush a that person.

Too, practicing being okay with not having a romantic timeline that matches with other people's will make it easier to avoid that scenario you're afraid of where you date the first person who shows interest in you. You deserve the time and space to figure out what you want from a partner, even if that's as basic as "they make me feel safe, happy, and I like talking to them"," rather than feeling like you have to take the first partner who comes along out of a fear of being alone.