Points of Contact

[azurelunatic]

When I'm getting to know you, this is how I am.

At first, I really want to get to know you. This is because I don't know you as well as I ought to. I will proceed to get to know you.

At a certain point, whether this is an hour after we've met, two days, two weeks, a month... I will reach a decision point.

Either you are a person that I am interested in getting to know further, much more deeply, or you are a person I am content to remain at this level of knowledge of, or you are a person that I should not know this well.

Based on this, different things will happen.

If I am interested in getting to know you further, I will continue to pursue deeper knowledge of you, sharing deeper information of myself. If I am content to let things remain as they are, I will remain cordial, but further in-depth information about me will not be forthcoming, and I will cease efforts at getting to know you better. If I don't wish to know you that well, I will be actively cool and actively discourage efforts on your part to continue to know me.

(Sadly, some people I don't know that well who I have no interest in knowing further but do wish to maintain contact with may interpret my cessation of getting-to-know-you-better activities as active discouragement of further contact. I'll be working on how to make my actions not as easily misinterpreted in the future.)

But, if I am in a romantic-type relationship with someone, and have no wish to know them further... that relationship is Doomed. Not because I am not giving them a chance, but because they have completed the period of initial testing, and I am just not interested in getting to know them more deeply.

That's not to say that I don't get to know friends-I-don't-need-to-know-more-about deeply. It's just not a drive. If it happens, it happens, but that sort of thing accretes through continued contact, rather than being actively pursued by all parties.

I have never been able to continue a romantic relationship with someone that I don't wish to know any better. No fault of theirs: I'm just not interested. Fuckbuddies, fine. Dating, no. But the spark usually goes out of the sex...

Comments

[pggmilltn.livejournal.com]

What happened to "courting" a young woman to win her affection, and taking things slow, and those round straw hatspeople used to wear in political campaigns?

[azurelunatic]

Well, I hope the first two aren't lost.

[redshoeson.livejournal.com]

Are we talking just men here, or all friends in general?

[azurelunatic]

Most in general.

It most normally takes this form with people who were only friends with no romance intended:

I really wanna know you!
I really wanna know you!
Ok, I know you.
You're nice to know.
You're nice to know.
You're nice to know.
You're nice to know.
You're nice to know.
.
.
.

[azurelunatic]

...though there is a distinct difference in the two sorts of people I don't want to date but don't actively want them to leave.

The most common sort is those people who are all right to chat with, but I honestly might not notice if they vanished off the face of the earth. They are pleasant, but they are not friends. Far rarer are friends.

You would be a friend.

[redshoeson.livejournal.com]

That's the nicest thing anyone's said to me all day. ^_^ ::hugs::

[azurelunatic]

:) Hugs.