I discovered this morning that undisclosed third parties have been pestering my mother about why neither I nor my sister are dating. At the respective ages of 23 and 19, so the logic goes, we MUST surely desire romantic relationships (and by extension, sex). And since these people are seeing no evidence that we’ve pursued such relationships, they feel inclined–even duty bound–to find out what’s wrong.
There are a number of things wrong in this situation, and none of them have to do with my own and my sister’s choices not to date at this time. First, there’s the presumption that everyone should or would know about our relationship statuses, which strikes me as a bit invasive, not to mention heteronormative. (I believe that some of these questions are from extended family members whose only information comes from our answers to the “met any nice boys lately?” question, which doesn’t necessarily rule out us dating non-boys.) But more to the point, it’s incredibly amatonormative. What exactly is wrong with a nonamorous lifestyle? Why should anyone be that concerned about whether or not I date? Yet the mere thought that I might simply choose not to date anyone throws people into a tizzy.
My mother assures us that she tells people “It’s not that they’re not interested, they’re just too busy with their education.” She’s trying to be kind with that. I suspect she’s also protecting herself from the too-bizarre possibility that maybe we just don’t want to. I’ve said that I’m not that interested, but I still don’t think she gets it–she thinks I just don’t want the difficulty and the drama. Which, I suppose, is true, and a perfectly valid reason for nonamory. But it’s conversations like these that remind me that one of these days I’ll have to have a second coming-out if I don’t want to be hounded to death about my lack of relationship prospects. My parents know I’m bi. My mother still expects me to date men. They don’t know that I’m on the aro and ace spectra, or even what those things are. And that conversation will be hard enough without distant relatives and family friends concern-trolling my parents about my life choices.
Have you had trouble with people’s reactions to your relationship status and history? How do you prefer to deal with them? Tell me about it in the comments!
Most of my experience with other peoples’ expectations actually comes around in the context of the age old ‘who do you like?’ discussion. I’ve been told that it’s okay to be a lesbian so many times, when really I’ve just never experienced a crush on someone. It got to the point where I googled what sexual attraction, romance, and love felt like, for fear I’d been missing them! At least my mom wants me to ‘wait’ till after college to date, haha. Don’t think that’ll be an issue. 😉
Wow, I haven’t gotten the “who do you like” question in ages! I get the occasional crush or squish, some of them on men, so I think that’s been enough that people don’t assume I’m a lesbian. Or maybe they do, and just don’t say anything to me? I generally don’t think much about people’s opinions unless they force me to, haha.
Ahh, I’m seventeen so it comes up a bit more often. Mostly I just ignore people or laugh, let them make their own deductions.
Yeah, that particular one leaves off after a while, to be replaced by the occasional “Are you seeing anyone?”
Hi. One month ago I wrote something that could be interesting for you if you understand german: http://fructusdulces.blogsport.de/2014/08/24/herz-as-in-der-zwinge/ Some of my experiences are similar to yours. Can’t write more in english…
Thanks! Unfortunately I don’t know German (just English, French, and Irish so far), but I appreciate the link, and I’ll keep it bookmarked for when I can maybe get a friend to explain it to me.