Dating Survey

Lol, ok, so I missed writing about things other than politics, and I've been meaning to finish a post on romance for like ever. (Please forgive this paragraph, I promise I won't be talking like this the whole time!) Before I delve into the specifics of the sex and dating survey I did last year, I thought I would try to answer some of those questions myself, since I chose not to formally submit my own survey...

Demographics:
- 21 yr old, Upper Middle Class, Multi-ethnic female, (mostly) heterosexual (to be honest, I score about a 2.5-3 on the Kinsey scale, actually... Right smack dab in the middle. Mostly because I don't really care, I'm just not that interested.) and not in a committed relationship.
- Currently single, & the line "she says she doesn't want a boyfriend; she's better off with friends" is exactly how I feel about that. Really wouldn't mind either way, but I'm just fine without one.)
- Not in a relationship of any sort Why? Because I tried getting into thinking about that whole "dating" thing, both offline and on, and it's just not for me. Couldn't stay interested long enough, and I guess I just don't like people. :-D (No, I'm just picky about who I associate with... I can tell within a minute or two of talking to someone whether or not we'll get along or if I want to get to know them. A lot of my closest friends are the same way... So very weird.)
- What is dating? Let's not go there again. I think it could be an event or a state/process. Just don't get me started on stupid societal norms... (I know, I know, there's a reason for it and all, but I don't see why there has to be so much pressure on people to date and get married... It's not that big of a deal anymore, being married or not... Oh look, I answered 3 more questions already.)

Alright, that's enough of that.

Those who know me may know 2 things about me- 1. I don't trust anyone; and 2. I don't want to fall in love. I'd say even fewer really know why. (Contrary to popular belief, it's not because of things that happened in the past. Well, not directly or entirely. Has some influence on how I go about things, but other than that, it doesn't mean anything anymore.) It's a combination of feelings for me, this "love" thing -- at first, happiness... then feeling so stupid for feeling happy or even having such thoughts... I've put so much emphasis on keeping my mind in control. It's complicated... I hear the songs and see the places that remind me of everything and anything, including recent experiences, media, and how I'm told things are "supposed" to be. And I don't know how to feel anymore. It's dizzying, like I don't know what to think or like anymore, because the confusion and feelings are so overwhelming that I get lost trying to fight back memories and impositions on the way I live my life. So yes, I resist "love" and things related to it (with the exception of infatuation... That never goes anywhere anyway.)
I've been reading all these stories over the years, in various books and manga. Though one particularly stood out to me... It was about two 15 yr olds, a boy and a girl, who grew up together. I'm sure you can guess where it was going. As I was reading, I couldn't help but think how awkward it must be - how awkward it was. To wake up one morning and the boy you always thought of as a brother suddenly looks... different. You're suddenly jealous when you see him talking to other girls, even though he's been friends with them as long as you have. Your hands accidentally brush together, and you both blush. Suddenly you care if he sees you in your bathing suit. Your parent's brush it off as "adolescence" and "teenage hormones." You don't know what it is. Your heart beats faster, your breath catches in your throat... It certainly seems like something weird is going on. Your friends tell it you it's just "love."

(EDIT: On second thought, I think it's best that this story dies tonight... Fate is scary as hell. I'd like for things like this to stop happening, thanks. The Cosmos likes to play cruel jokes on me...)

I've been told that love is not a feeling, but an action. I don't actually agree with that, to be honest. It's more of... an interpretation of feelings. I think it's about feelings of attachment and connection. I think that the things we do may be out of love, or because we love someone, but the actions themselves are not love. Expressions of love, but not love. Chemical changes in the brain cause various psychological and physiological reactions that we interpret as emotion. How we feel influences how we act. I said last time I discussed this stuff that I don't really believe in dating-- the initial stages, at least. It's not something I would be interested in pursuing at this time in my life... I guess it just doesn't seem as natural as relationships should be. I believe in logic and lust and attachment, not so much heart-throbbing passion. In evolution, there's no need for "love," so is it even real? Isn't it more likely to be an offshoot of lust, empathy, attachment? It's so confusing- both in definition and in experience.

It turns out, I'm not the only one who has trouble defining love or dating. The actual paper is insanely long, but I created a shorter version for you. If you participated, I want to thank you again for helping me out! It was really fun, actually... And learning about this side of my friends was quite interesting. We don't talk about these things often. So here they are, the results of my dating & sex survey! (If you want to download a copy, see me for a different link.)

Dating Survey Report

Rules of Attraction - Class Rules

So I'm not exactly thrilled that I'm turning this into a "relationships" blog, because there are so many of them & it's such a subjective experience, but... You do what you can. And I can't say that my class isn't contributing to this - apparently "dating & relationships" is the current stage of my life. It's like everything revolves around it, from my conversations with friends to my phone calls to my classes... Everything.

Anyway, I had a point to make before I started rambling. (What else is new?) I'm in the midst of doing a dating survey for class, and the answers I'm getting (you know, provided people ever get back to me lol...) are interesting so far. But the general consensus I'm getting from everyone & that I'm realizing myself - it's so complicated to even define. What does any of this even mean? Why do we do it? And these stupid rules we have - why do they exist? They just make things more complicated than they need to be. Here's where I come in - I'm the n00b when it comes to this. Yes, I did swear off men (even though somehow I still ended up falling in love and leaving heartbroken... Somewhere in that is a major fail. Where I don't know. Probably the letting myself be in love but unable to act on it... Yea, let's go with that.) and I'm realizing now that was probably a stupid move on my part because I'm "behind" the curve on that (though I prefer to do things at my own pace. I will forever be a "child," thank you. Fuck you and your stupid norms :-D) So in the last (yikes) month, I've been chatting with one person in particular, & it's really made me question myself yet again. I don't know the rules of how this works, but what I've been doing so far seems to be ok (until he asked a really stupid question). But just the fact that I brought that up makes me wonder. My own personal rules, as compared to others' rules - what's the point? Where did these rules even come from? It seems like it's all about how we look to everyone else - the appearance of not seeming too desperate, too slutty, too... The list goes on forever.

And then there's Social Theory - the class that makes me realize just how much of a stuck up upper middle class bitch I really am. And that is where I will always be, because it is the lifestyle I am accustomed to, the life I've been prepared to lead. How has that played a role in my own dating behaviors? I realize now that it's been a huge factor in everything I've ever done. I see the guys who are enrolled at a community college, and I cringe. My mother would have KILLED me had I not gotten into a "decent" school - I wasn't allowed to not go to college either. I would never get a good job otherwise (her words, not mine. I don't want a career. I would be great at it, I'm sure, but miserable.) Community college has such a negative stigma, yet many of my friends went to one after high school. Why does my father's salary (which is really what it was) control who I befriend and who I later choose to marry? We like who we're used to. I grew up with the upper middle class, therefore I've been taught that it's where I belong... What sense does that make???

"I Love You..." 2!

(Forgive the lame pun, it was not intended... or was it?)

So as I said before, I want to continue the previous topic... I guess my new job has made me a little more impulsive than usual, but a few weeks ago I decided to join a new website... Tickle is gone, and this site has really interesting quizzes (and the only way to save your answers, is, duh, to sign up for the site!) I kind of forgot that the site is also [cough & blush] a dating site... Needless to say, I freaked out for the first few hours, but made sure to list that I was just there for the quizzes & maybe make a few new FRIENDS. It's been what, a few weeks tops, and I have at least 4 AIM screennames, 30 personal messages, a bunch of "winks," too many hits to keep track of, and apparently the site says that my quiz answers have "caused a commotion in the system" and I'm popular (though I'm sure that's just a marketing statement... ha! me, popular! & on a "dating site"...). Though (yay, ego boost!) 6 guys (most of them quite cute ^^") rated me as a 4 or 5 (out of 5) [pats self on back - good photography & random 3-am profile!] Enough about me though, back to the topic! (Oh, 1 more thing - enough of the 38-yr olds! EW! Old enough to be my father- I don't even want to think about that....)

So anyway, today I wanted to cover 3 topics - internet dating, v-cards, and fetishes. Yea, I know, HUGE jump from last week, but it's come up more than a few times in the past month, so... here we go!
So has anyone read the latest Cosmo??? The one with VIRGINS IN COSMO! on the cover? Guess which article I want to talk about... As I was reading through, I was kind of insulted by the way it was initially presented - in huge letters "VIRGINS IN COSMO! (We thought this day would never come!)" like it's something so rare (well, ok, it is. 20% of college graduates, by the stats listed in the article. But 20% is still a lot!) and mysterious.What's so horriffic about being a virgin at my age? Yes, it's rare nowadays, but what's so wrong about it that Cosmo has to pick on us? The first few paragraphs really made it seem like there's something wrong with it, like virgins shouldn't be reading Cosmo - until I continued reading. The article is an interesting read, and I'm actually glad they brought it up. In America, it really is rare to find virgins over the age of 19, even in many religious communities. Sex partners are so (well...) easily accessible, that anyone can get what they want. Abstaining is a choice, not an expectation or something to be frowned upon. (Yes, even "unattractive" people can "get laid," so quit your moping and find yourself some company if you want it!) For something still so taboo, sex has become such a major facet of our society- how we dress, how we interact, the foods we choose to eat, in our music/TV/books-- that sometimes we don't even notice it.

Most people are aware that, out of all of my female friends, I'm the last with a v-card and not likely to lose it anytime soon. Why? I'm not in the least bit religious, so scratch that out. I don't care either way about "waiting til marriage." I'm basically a (slightly more conservative) hippie - peace, free love, & all that jazz. And contrary to popular belief, I'm not a total prude (nor am I gay. Just putting that out there... since so many people, including my mother, seem to think otherwise -_-". Like I've said before, yuri just doesn't cut it for me.). So what sets me apart from everyone else?

I couldn't explain it at the time, but it really bothered me to be the last. I was worried that it would be like the dating conversations, where I would just be insanely annoyed, left out, or pressured to do the same. I wasn't planning on joining them any time soon, and I'm not really one to give into peer pressure. I figured I would simply be left out of conversations and activities - again. When talking with a liberal guy friend, I realized that I was just worried about what they would think about me. It was like high school all over again for me- I hadn't dealt with how I felt about it then, so I didn't know how to deal with it now (damn you psychology...).

Sometime a while back, two of my guy friends and I were talking about all of this. I consider them both to be really close friends, and we talk about a lot of things, so it wasn't too awkward to discuss this for once. One is really conservative, but I know that he's dated a few girls before. The other is pretty liberal, but also a v-card holder. When talking to the guys, I wasn't all too surprised to hear that they both had similar but completely opposite answers. Liberal guy is looking forward to it, conservative guy doesn't care either way. But overall, we kind of feel the same way. Like most of the girls interviewed in the Cosmo article, we're waiting for someone we think is worth it. I don't think it's all that special of an experience, but I would still rather experience it with someone I like and trust than some random, dirty guy I'll never talk to again. (Sorry, Virgo = germaphobe... Other people are dirty... Blech...) I don't want to regret it, or "get it over with," or whatever. It doesn't matter enough to me to have to think of it in that way, nor do I feel like it's something I "need to have" to be happy. I have more self-control than that-- though this is why I was so bothered to hear about everyone else. We were raised in similar circumstances, for the most part, and it's not like I've never been in a situation that would've lead to... [coughs - though I guess technically ANY situation can lead to sex... but again, self-control!] If I have self control, does that mean they don't? I don't know how to answer that...

Most people are surprised to learn that, although I'm a virgin, I'm into light BDSM (Wikipedia!) and will freely admit to that (LOL... Yes, virgins can have fetishes too! We may not always know for sure until we try it out, but I t believe it's important to have an opinion of such things BEFORE you get into those situations. I think the idea of it just sounds amusing... I must've been kidnapped as a child, haha. Damn you, Freud.) So what about other fetishes? What comes to mind when you hear the word? Chains? Schoolgirls? Defecation? Yea, not a big fan of that last one... But if someone suggested it to you, does that really make them a freak? In the psych world, many fetishes (or paraphilia, as they are known in the DSM), are considered to be serious disorders, requiring treatment (and let's just say you don't want to know what kind of treatment. Guys, please go cringe in a corner so the girls can talk... Believe me, you'll be grateful.) Then again, half the "disorders" in the DSM were made up by a bunch of old guys who tortured children and monkeys for a living, or were seriously fucked up in the head and thought everyone was like that. What was I talking about again?

Oh, right. It's interesting that these are considered to be "perversions," still considered immoral even in today's (more) liberal society. See the problem with that statement, though? "Immoral" - yes, many people are religious, but who the fuck gave them the right to judge others? If you're religious, you'd know that God/Allah/whomever-you-believe-in is the only one with that power.

Many types of fetish play sites and pornographies have been banned or discounted because they are thought to "normalize violence," especially against women. First of all, violence, unfortunately, is normal for most of us. Yes, some people are stupid enough to imitate what they see on TV. But here's the thing - serial killers and rapists aren't doing it for the sex. It's power and control that they seek. Stupid people who do it generally have some sort of mental issue to begin with. And it's possible that those who seek out violent porn have issues to begin with. Or not. Either way, limiting access to it and calling fetishists "perverts" isn't going to solve anything. Some people will get their fix any way they can, and if doing it in real life is what it takes, then... bring on the internet porn.

Anyway, whether you're into fetishes or not, at least respect others' interests. So your new guy is into furries. (Good luck with that!) Well, you'll never know until you try, right? As long as it's consentual (including rape-play! Even though that kind of defeats the purpose, lol...) then as far as I care, anything goes.

Ok, so I'm all over the place right now. I've been trapped in the world of Wikipedia for I don't even know how long, but I found something very interesting for my next post... I'm sure you'll find it amusing!