apothiplatonic

(i am asking this in good faith and i really want to understand- i'm aro myself, and i'm sure your experiences are real, i don't want to gatekeep or anything, i'm just genuinely confused & want to understand!)

you're fine, don't worry! this is actually the first ask i've ever received here. and i'm sorry if you sent this a while ago; i use tumblr on my phone's web browser and have to manually check for asks.

i think the biggest gaps in our respective understandings of “aplatonic”, just based on your message, are:

0. some aplatonic people have friends, or want friends, and use the term because they don't feel platonic attraction and/or they struggle to form friendships. most modern definitions of aplatonic will point to those two things, after all! a lot of these friending apls have found aplatonic terms useful for explaining their complicated feelings about platonic relationships, and helpful for navigating their friendships. this only applies to some aplatonic people, and it's often used as our only defense, so i'll focus on other things here, but i would be leaving out a lot of apls – maybe even the majority – if i didn't at least mention this.

1. friendship is not the only way of interacting with, and connecting with, other humans. i'm on the aro and ace spectrums, but i have a long-term partner i live with, and family members and coworkers who i interact with. lots of nonfriending aplatonic people will still seek out social interaction, often in groups that talk about topics they're interested in. one of the reasons i use the word “aplatonic”, and post here at all, is to push against the idea of friendship as a default human connection, or something that happens automatically when you're around someone enough.

2. even if someone is very isolated, and doesn't want any sustained human connection at all...i think that's fine, and it has historical precedent. hermits, anchorites, stylites, partially-eremetic monks, and all kinds of other recluses...through much of our recorded history, for a variety of reasons, some people have lived alone. many of these people lived in a much more complete solitude than nonfriending apls today – and even then, few of them managed to have absolutely no social interaction. some would have visitors, or people who brought them meals, or shopkeepers they met when they went into town for supplies. something happening frequently in the past doesn't mean it's good, but in this case it does suggest there's a kind of natural tendency towards it in some humans.

3. i don't think we should put too much weight on what psychology and the social sciences say is “normal”, anyway. there's a huge replication crisis in scientific research, especially in those fields. there are also studies showing people in romantic relationships are, generally, happier...and that obviously isn't true for a lot of aros! there are nearly always outliers in studies like that, even in the most well-done and rigorous ones. i completely believe social isolation is harmful for most humans, but the keyword here is most. and the kind of studies you describe usually focus on involuntary solitude; chosen solitude is much different. most apls aren't very isolated at all, so this point might not be as important...but if there's an aplatonic hermit somewhere in the woods who hasn't talked to another person in years, i support them.

4. there is “something wrong” with a lot of us, and that's fine. the term “aplatonic” was coined in 2012 by an alloromantic ace who theorized his experiences were caused by parental abuse, so that sort of thing has been woven into aplatonicism since day one. some people attribute their aromanticism to neurodivergence and/or trauma, too; for many aroapls, both of those identities will be tied up in it. i'm traumatized, and i'm schizoid, and both of these things interact with my aplatonicism. someone's self-concept, and their words for themself, can very often be tied up in their unusual experiences and their suffering. i don't think that makes any identity illegitimate.

sometimes others think being aplatonic, especially non-friending, means i hate other people. and, i mean, i’m sure that’s in the range of aplatonic experiences! but this is not my experience.

i feel vaguely positive towards people-as-a-group, and towards any other existences having experiences. in a diffuse way, i hope that they don’t suffer.

and some of them can be very interesting to me. if someone is interesting to me, i like to read what they write, and try to understand their world and how they understand it.

but even this has a very strong effect on me. “parasocial” is overused on here, but observation-without-interacting is the most comfortable way to fulfil this interest. i’ve talked about how porous i am, in social situations, how i am so sensitive-to and influenced-by others that even normal and well-meaning friendship-acts can hurt. and this is actually made worse with those i am very interested in. incidental socializing with coworkers from behind my work-mask is fine, even if they’re thoughtful and unique and i’m noticeably awkward at it; interacting with someone i’m very interested in is different.

i also worry about hurting the object of this interest through interaction. i don’t want to corrupt them or infect them with any part of me. i don’t want their uniqueness to be compromised by my own thoughts coming into contact with them. i’m also exceedingly bad at friendship anyway, pulling away in damaging and cruel ways, so i would also just...mundanely harm them. i’ve done it before.

it’s enough of a responsibility to have a bad low-resolution copy of them in my head! and i mean this not in a plural way, although i am plural. i mean the little model of someone that is almost inevitably created when reading text written by them, by seeing or hearing or feeling ⠋⠑⠑⠇⠬ their words. this is an idea that has always bothered me—that someone could have an incomplete instance of me in their head, that persists even years after last contact, a copy that could be tortured on purpose or by accident, that i can’t save or reach out to—that i was doing the same to any other entity i encountered.

i could go on about something i’ve seen brought up about uploaded minds, about cryonics: how true-to-the-original, how close to you another intelligence has to be to consider it “yourself”. a continuum from a perfect copy, a colorblind copy, a right-handed copy, a copy with memories missing, a copy of your younger self...and out even further to an identical twin, to your child, to someone with very similar beliefs and interests and values to you...out to considering everything yourself, ideas of a subject or substance that is everything, that is you, whatever you call it, the ainsaiwalist wandering soul and the one we will become, etc...but i won’t!

it's no problem at all! i've wanted to cover this for a while, and a few anons have asked how having a partner works for me, but...i wasn't sure what angle to talk about it from, and i kind of tied myself in knots on-and-off for months, trying to explain anything anyone could possibly be confused about. so i'm going to answer this anon first, in the context of my own idiosyncratic type of platonic repulsion.

one reason friendships are so distressing to me is that it's normal to become friends without realizing it, but romantic and/or sexual relationships are something that others are expected to ask you about. even if there's social pressure to accept them, at least it's not common to end up in one without even a chance to refuse it, like friendships. this is the reason i talked about in my post about my platonic repulsion. this part is pretty straightforward; it's an obvious difference between the social norms for those types of relationships.

now, another reason i'm repulsed by friendship is that...i'm very, very vulnerable to social connection. i'm sensitive to both the intrusion of others into my self, and the intrusion of my self into others. it feels like i'm hurting them, of course, but also like i'm handing miniature versions of me over for them to unknowingly torture. i won't go into too much detail here, because i've talked about this a lot; how my friendships would be me as a soulless minion to a more forceful kid, my own self and interests being overwritten by theirs. if i'm guessing right, i think this is why anon is confused. if i see even friendship as a painful soul-invasion, then how can i have a partner i've lived with for years?

the answer here ties back into my first reason. because of the “oops! you're friends with all these people now” friendship norms of my childhood and adolescence, my limited capacity for social connection was forcefully scattered across a lot of people i wasn't drawn to at all, and who i felt consumed and controlled by. it was as if my personality was being eaten up and replaced by theirs. i couldn't even tell who was eating what parts of me. but i chose my partner because i was drawn to them, and i trust them with that little piece of my soul, and i do my best to take care of theirs. they're a welcome guest in my heart. of course i've been influenced and changed by being with them, but i love them, so it's nice to have part of them with me like that. i can tell which of my mannerisms and interests were influenced by them, and i can tell what's just me, and i can tell what's a combination.

now, wait – doesn't that mean i could get around my friendship repulsion by just...choosing friends based on who i'm drawn to and trust? well, this is where the “aplatonic” part comes in. i don't feel that pull to become friends with someone, i have no drive to maintain a friendship, and i feel trapped within the set of activities that are deemed “platonic”. the amount of friendships i would consensually enter into is zero. i do things with my partner that might look like what friends would do, too, but our relationship isn't locked into just “platonic” actions. i'm not being suffocated or constrained like i would be in a friendship.