#our society is screwed up and you're actually responding normally

[crymeariveronceagain]

Ah this is awkward. Um.

You're like, gray aroace right? I'm pretty sure I'm fully aroace (as in has never had a crush sexually or romantically) and idk if I wil at some point but whatever.

Anyway, so like, I was talking w my friend - and like, I have two people I really consider 'friends', who I'd always like... kind of imagined spending my life with ig? Like not romantically, but in a 'you're my best friend and how can I ever stop caring about you' way. And so my friend was talking about how they really want to find love and get married and like...

My other friend also talks about finding a gf and all that and basically the point is they both talk about how they're so scared they'll never find 'love' and 'move on'. And the thing that terrifies me is they're like moving on from when, other than familialy, our platonic relationships were ig most important? Like, they will never value these bonds as much as I do. They'll leave me behind for romantic partners and I'm so scared I'll have to force myself into loving someone that way just so I don't get left behind. It's hard enough with my parents, and I'm so scared of losing them, but I'm going to because I'll never matter as much to them as they do to me.

I think that was the moment it really clicked for me 'I'm different' and I don't know what to do.

Hi darling!!!!

First of all, I don't identify as any manner of ace or aro. They're not comfortable terms to me, and it's taken me a long while to get to a place where I can actually, like. Write that? I used to identify as ace, but I don't anymore. Primarily because it became such a huge anxiety trigger for me. And, honestly, it still kind of is. The entire question of my sexuality makes me feel like throwing up, a little. Not mad about it or anything, and not offended either(you can assume whatever you want about me) but, anyways. I love you <3

So, like. I'd like to start off with saying a couple things.

First and foremost, your perception of friendships is completely normal, actually. So many people today, and I mean this honestly, have a disordered perception of the value of relationships. So often they set friendships on back burner, and instead focus on romantic relationships. And, actually. I'll tell you why.

Friendships are so, so, so valuable.

With any luck, any person can find a lover. In fact, most people without much work can swipe right a few times and get everything they want out of that situation.

But a friendship? A real, whole, true one?

Stars, you're lucky if you get one in your whole life.

There is something beautiful, soul-quenchingly holy and wonderful about true friendships, about kindred spirits. There is something so endlessly pure about loving a person not even for some kind of romantic pursuit, but just for the hell of it. For the hell of loving. For the hell of living. For the hell of understanding, for the hell of breathing, for the hell of sharing. There's something so infinitely beautiful, and there's something scary.

Because true friendship doesn't ask for anything but companionship and patience, for the mutual care of someone. That's all it wants, and that's its end. That's the goal of friendship. Mutual care. Patience. Companionship.

Romance asks for more than that.

But true friendship is one of the most pure loves.

The ancient Greeks called it Philia.

C. S. Lewis said, about it, in his book The Four Loves(100% recommend you read this at some point.) "“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art.... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.”

That's a beautiful, amazing thing right there. It's like philosophy, it's like art. It's brilliant. It's lovely.

Now, all that to say, that if friendship is like art, you are not different or new to value it as you do. It means you have a natural predilection, maybe, to value it as you do, just as some people are naturally disposed to art or philosophy, or even to romance.

On to the specifics about your friends. If your friends don't value you like you value them, they're kind of crappy friends.

Because even a desire for a relationship should not change the love they have for you. Even being in a relationship should not decrease their care for you.

It took me a while to learn this, and in fact it's through the love of my best friend that I have learned this. I had friends, when I was in high school, who abandoned me, repeatedly, for each other. They treated me like I was disposable. Like my existence didn't matter. I'd have died for them. They wouldn't have died for me.

But then, I met the girl I'd call my "bosom friend--an intimate friend, you know--a really kindred spirit to whom I can confide my innermost soul. I've dreamed of meeting her all my life. I never really supposed I would, but so many of my loveliest dreams have come true all at once that perhaps this one will, too. Do you think it's possible?"(Anne Of Green Gables, by L. M. Montgomery)

She's in a relationship, set to be married, actually, now.

But the thing is, I have never once questioned her love for me. I've never once had to. She's never made me feel like I didn't matter to her. I even brought it up, once. That I would always expect to be second to her husband-to-be, and she said we weren't on the same playing field, so to speak. I don't remember exactly what she said, but it's settled, deeply in my soul. It was something along the lines of, He's my boyfriend, but you're my best friend. It made me cry, nearly.

She's my best friend, and she values me like I value her.

So, I've got to tell you.

If they do not love you like you love them.

They're not the people you want to line your dreams up with.

Believe me. If you believe nothing else I say, believe me on this.

You want people who love you just as fiercely as you love them.

They should value the bond as much as you do. Don't settle for less. Find friends who will fight and die for you. If they won't, you can do better. Find friends who are willing to love you. Find friends who want you in their futures.

Really, dearest, this has very little to do with sexuality.

Ik it sounds dumb, because why wouldn't it?

But this is about friendship. It's about this stupid world we live in refusing to place emphasis on friendship. Stars, compare it to art! How would you feel if people went "Art is kind of stupid, we don't need it to live, so there's very little point to maintaining it or making more or making the stuff that sticks in your ribs and makes breathing hard." Like, that's what society has said about friendship!

It's been so greatly reduced, so greatly destroyed, so corrupted by the media and by hook up culture and by the concept even that friendship doesn't matter unless you're gonna date eventually.

Literally, what the heck is up with that?

It's so stupid and pointless you don't understand.

We live in a world that destroys and degrades friendship on an altar of romance.

My best friend's brother once heard her tell me she loved me and he called us gay. That's how estranged we are from a world that respects friendship. Brothers crack jokes that burn and make you wonder if you're doing something wrong by expressing something so simple as love.

I still tell her I love her. I call her beautiful. Lovely. She does the same for me.

We lift each other up, point each other towards where we want to go.

And there is so much hope for our futures in our lives. I'm going to be in her wedding next summer. I want to meet her husband. I want her to meet my future spouse, whoever they are. I want to meet her kids. I want her to meet mine. I want to go to movies with her. I want to eat dinner in her house. I want to meet up for a glass of wine and sit as grandmothers on the same front porch and talk like there's an endless life before us.

My friend wants the same things.

Look.

Darling, dearest anon.

If your friends want to move on from your friendship, they're not the kind of people you want as friends.

Because you deserve to be valued as you value others.

That's just a fact of human existence.

And if these friends want to move on, to step out into the world and leave you behind, to cast aside your friendship for romance, pretend like that's some sort of mutually exclusive relationship, pretend, for even a moment like love is some sort of finite resource, and that they're willing to cast you off like you don't matter in exchange for it.

Not only are they wrong, it's highkey cruel of them.

If they're thinking the friendship is limited, that it's conditional, that it's doomed, or that it's fading, or whatever kind of hula hoops they're jumping through in their heads, that's what it's going to be, because they're striking a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It has nothing to do with you.

You honestly sound like you're the normal, functioning person here.

They sound like they're the ones who are different.

Sure, a point could be argued, I suppose, that in this culture an emphasis on friendship and a platonic love of others is different.

Sure. You could say that you're different because you want to be loved and valued in return. That you love intensely and deeply.

But stars.

Lovely, most beloved anon.

Find new friends.

Ditch these people. I know it's gonna hurt. Friendship breakups hurt more than heartbreaks(I've experienced both, I can attest to this) but if they're not going to love you as you deserve. You are worthy of so much more than this hovering feeling of impending doom. You're worth more than listening to them talk about the romance they want to leave you behind for. You're worth endlessly more than them underappreciating and undervaluing your friendship.

Just walk away.

It's not worth it to love like that. It's unrequited. It's undervalued.

There's a best friend out there for you, I'm sure of it.

Someone who will value you just as much as you value them.

And maybe it will take a while to find them. Maybe you'll have to go through more friendships that aren't valuable enough to the other party.

Who cares.

True friendship exists. True filial love exists. You can find it.

The world probably feels really small, right now. It is not small.

The world is huge. It is full of people.

And you don't need a lot of people. That's another lie.

All you need is one good friend. All you need is one. And you'll be okay.

I never thought I would make friends who actually loved me. And then, I did.

So if a wreck like me can find legitimate friends who love and value me as much as I love and value them, you'll have no problems, dearest.

There are people out there waiting.

There are friendships in the world that you can make.

These two people are not the only two you get.

I swear it to you.