I want us to be compatible in sexuality, personality, values, communication, life situation, and overall life goals. In other words, I want anyone who I can make a relationship work with.

I don’t believe in defining rigid categories so much because it neglects so many edge cases. I would prefer to evaluate each situation on a case-by-case basis. For example, if I said that I only wanted to date introverts, I’m filtering out ambiverts or even some extroverts who I could be compatible with. I just need someone who I can create a balanced relationship with, not someone who passes dozens of logical heuristics. I’d rather see if we have chemistry and compatible lives and go from there.

The central miscommunication of this post, as evidenced by the comments section, is that I was posting vibes hoping that others could relate to them, whereas others, perhaps more analytically-minded, interpreted my words more literally as a blueprint for a real relationship, rather than what I intended for them to be: a freeform expression of romantic interest, disconnected from any of the implementation details.

I’m not ready for a relationship. I have no plan yet. I’m just excited to figure out how to make one happen in the future. That’s what this post was actually meant to be about: feelings, not practicalities.

But I will say that, while my post came across as obsessive and manic, most of the time, I imagine us leaving each other alone and quietly doing our own things. We’d only briefly interact a few times a day for a few minutes at a time. Those narrow time windows are where the actual emotional intensity is, and that’s what my brain zooms into and talks about, as if the whole relationship looks like that, when they are really just the absolute peak highlights.

I think I could definitely spend less time daydreaming and more time going outside for sure. In fact, that’s kind of the point of the daydreaming: to figure out what appeals to me romantically and how I wish to conduct myself as a friend and partner.

I’m not keen on having some kind of imaginary friend, and I’m definitely not keen on being in-your-face hyper-emotional towards others because I literally can’t do that. I am just way too introverted and it goes against every instinct in my body. This whole post is an extreme exaggeration because it’s made to be more abstract and artistic, made to capture the intensity of feeling; it isn’t meant to convey what the relationship is literally like. Clearly, this is not how most people read text, and I should probably have realized that sooner.

I imagine the actual relationship to be slow and easygoing where we actually leave each other alone for most of the day. We would only interact a few times a day in moments lasting from a few seconds to a few minutes. We might also spend time together in quiet ways, like reading books in the same room. What I have done in this post is blow up those very small time windows and made them seem like that’s what the whole relationship looks like. It’s not. I don’t think love will free me from having a social battery.

If I learned anything from this thread, it’s that I am so glad that I never became active or had a decent following on mainstream social media. I couldn’t imagine what a mistake like this on a site like Twitter would do to my mind back when I was younger. At least here and in real life, your mistakes are confined to a relatively small group.

I just struggle to comprehend what those issues actually could be in concrete terms. I sort of exaggerated my speech on purpose just for fun, so that’s probably where a lot of the “crazy” impression comes from. And I’ve never actually been in a relationship, so there’s nothing to go off of there. Am I ACTUALLY overly attached and clingy? Or am I just bad at writing and my post just made a bad impression? We don’t know.

Like sure, I probably come across as weird and could do more to think about the actual nitty-gritty of a relationship rather than embellishing raw feelings, but other than that, I don’t know what the actual problem is other than “This guy sounds weird.”

Maybe because of the way I came across, people perceive everything I say to have a double-meaning, where caring for someone means wanting to control them and wanting to show kindness means wanting to lure people in. Maybe a lot of what I said isn’t bad in principle, but because I said them weirdly, I look like some kind of serial killer psychopath or creepy incel freak. I’m just too uncanny valley to be a “normal” person, so EVERYTHING I said loses its innocence and gets tainted with “What does he REALLY mean by that?”

Because if I were to tell someone what my feelings were, I’d say that I want to be a romantic partner for someone, to care and be cared for, to work together and make decisions as a team, and to continually improve myself so that I can best fulfill my duty as a partner. Sure, I may feel strongly about those feelings from time to time, but that’s ultimately what they are. Is that bad? Is that something I should go to therapy for? Or have I simply expressed these feelings in a way so unconventional and distorted that it comes across as creepy?

Either way, this has been a fascinating and unexpected exploration of “What happens when I miscommunicate or misrepresent myself in a horribly disastrous fashion?”

I write a lot because I have a lot of ideas that I want to express. I try to do some trimming, but I don’t like to dilute my ideas too much. But I could definitely be more mindful about how much the audience cares to read and throw more of this in my own private journal.

I exaggerated what I said on purpose because I thought it’d fun to try expressing myself differently and not being so restrained, but clearly that style is reminiscent of the overly-attached girlfriend meme lmao. So, I’m gonna definitely keep that feedback in mind.

I experience strong emotions in general, and that’s something that I need to learn how to manage—when to be more emotionally restrained versus when to be more expressive. Clearly here I just splattered raw emotions all over the page, which ends up being fantastical and disconnected from reality compared to what a relationship actually looks like.

I have a duty to my future partner to manage my emotions in a way that upholds a stable relationship, or leave if it’s not going to work out, which means that it is most certainly against my self-interest to actually come across how I did here.

So then why did I make this post in the first place? Idk, it was kinda fun to write, even if it’s suuuper exaggerated. Just kind of my own form of artistic expression to look back on and say “Wow, I was so weird and whimsical in my early 20s. How cute.”

That’s fair. I sort of shoved all of the intense feelings into this post and downplayed the boring stuff because my brain leans on the idealistic side.

Here I describe all of the raw feelings I feel all at once, which gives the impression of something overly intense and disconnected from tempered, pragmatic reality.

But you need all of the boring pragmatic stuff, because that’s how you make anything actually work. Ideals are something that have to be built towards with the building blocks of realism, otherwise you can’t actually build anything.

Thanks for your feedback. It helps me get a better grasp on things, even if not every comment is positive lol.

So I’m guessing that all of the sentimentality at once comes across as super clingy?

That might be an aforementioned blind spot that I have to look out for. Consciously, I think controlling behavior like that is super gross, and the idea of being attached to someone who doesn’t reciprocate or isn’t comfortable with that level of affection feels super counterproductive; why invest in painful, unreciprocated relationships when I can just find someone else? If I have attachment issues, why not go to therapy and work through them, then try again with someone else?

I guess this post gives the impression that I would get WAY too into someone too quickly, and then find myself unwilling to leave because of a scarcity mindset. I was hoping that the metaphor of slowly nurturing a seedling until it grows until a flower would give the impression that I would develop the relationship in a careful, thoughtful manner, but eh, it is what it is.

But, assuming that’s your point, I appreciate you bringing it to my attention, because even if I’m not the crazy psycho overly-attached girlfriend/boyfriend meme, I think individual agency is something that I could be thinking about more, not just for relationships, but also for friendships.

Ultimately, I’m just trying to be a good person. And maybe dumping a bunch of feelings on the Internet at once makes me look crazy. Heck, maybe I AM a little crazy. But as long as I accept that I’m imperfect and that my understanding will never be complete, I can continually improve by observing what effects my behavior has on others and adjust accordingly.

So yeah, NOT dumping all of my feelings on someone at once is a good idea lol.

Genuinely curious how this is a “yikes”?

Is it because I sound like some overly idealistic person who will have his dreams crushed?

Or because I sound so ridiculously overly sentimental compared to the jaded cynicism that pervades the entire Internet?

Or do I sound like I’d get psychotically attached to someone because most people show more restraint when they talk about romantic feelings?

I don’t know how to interpret this comment otherwise.

Thanks! (I feel so dumb now lol)

Definitely wouldn’t be the first time I immediately jumped to scripting instead of finding an easier way to do something!