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It's a horrible day on the Internet, and you are a lovely geuse.

Adult - Plants-liking queer menace - Front-desk worker of a plural system - Unapologetic low-effort poster

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Three pixel stamps: a breaking chain icon in trans colors against a red background, an image of someone being booted out reading "This user is UNWELCOME at the university", and a darkened lamppost.(fallen london stamps by @vagorsol)



I feel like it says things about me that the biggest thing keeping me from reblogging this silly ask game is not the "can we kiss" or "we should have gay sex" parts but the "I want to be your friend :eggbug-pleading:"

LIKE I LEGIT WOULD NOT KNOW HOW TO RESPOND TO THAT... like it is still awkward but more Socially Understandable, I think, to respond to "we should kiss" or "we should fuck" with "I'd rather not but I'm flattered!" it is less so to respond to a Genuine Overture To Be Friends that way. I think bc like it is More Commonly Understood that not everyone is gonna want to smooch or fuck (and it's nothing personal) but less so that not everyone is going to want to be friends (even though it's still nothing personal)

A large part of this is probably because "friend" has certain weighty connotations to me that it doesn't for everyone - I'll sometimes use the word casually, but when I think about it in the context of like, "are we friends?", the word "friend" carries connotations of ongoing commitment and prioritization. a friend is not just someone I'm friendly towards and enjoy hanging out with. a friend is someone I have, to some degree or another, committed a portion of my ever-diminishing time and energy towards being present for.

this can mean like.... someone I'll hear out in my DMs after a rough day. this can also mean someone who I'll help through a years-long stalker situation; someone who I'll stay on the phone with while they try to figure out how to handle another friend having a psychotic break; someone whose medical bills I will pay in full, out of my own pocket, with no expectation of repayment. these are all things I have done for those I call my friends. (as opposed to pals, or acquaintances, or friends (casual, slang))

and obviously, not everyone uses the word this way, so that's not what they mean when they're like, hey, wanna be friends? but I freeze like a deer in headlights every time. it's not even "I don't want to be friends with you" - it's that my autistic brain goes "you can't just ASK me to make that COMMITMENT"


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in reply to @bazelgeuse-apologist's post:

honestly i've seen MULTIPLE people with the exact same issue with it as you.

for my part, i ended up having to un share it because like the tag games that were going around a few weeks back, something about this type of game sets off my insecurities furiously. i know its a "me" problem but !

One would hope that anyone expressing a desire to befriend/kiss/fuck you via Ask Games does not expect any of these desires to be taken seriously. I think I have always assumed that these were....parasocial fun times? A way of flattering and be flattered. Though the element "Of hahah, of course this is just silly fun games.....unless?" confuses my brain enough that I don't ever do these kind of games. Also I find it weird to tell people that I don't know well "yeah, I think you're pretty fuckable/kissable/friendable!" Like, buddy, if you want to be my friend, start by talking to me. Informing me that you wish to apply for Friendship status via Ask Game doesn't let you skip the early stages of actually getting to know me and letting me get to know you. (Am too ace for the other two, but I assume talking to someone like a real person that you want to get to know is a good way to get to those goals too)

I didn't even make it out of high school before someone pointed out to me that USAmerican English has a breathtaking lack of words for varying degrees of friendship/closeness, and it's never really left my mind.

I can't even say if I use the term the same way(s) you do here, just, I read the first paragraph and started nodding. The fact that the word has to cover everything from "people not trying to kill me right now" to "my favorite person in the entire world" is going to lead to terminology mismatches sometimes!