Hi hi! Just read some of the pinned things (lovely formatting by the way, genuinely a super fun read) and I had a couple questions ^^
1. What would you consider being parasocial towards you? I assume this means considering you ones friend without asking or assuming one knows you when they don’t but I’m curious on what the boundaries are there
2. What are your experiences being aplatonic-spec? We recently found that most of our system is likely friending aplatonic-spec (if that’s the right term) and would really love to hear another perspective on it
Don’t feel pressured to answer both or either question, it’s mostly just our own curiosity rather than clarification purposes ^^ sending lots of good wishes either way !
for question 1: considering us to be one's friend without asking or assuming one knows us when one doesn't is a big part of it yeah, but there is more. it's also things like putting us on a pedestal as someone who can do no wrong and thus defending us even when we do fuck up, it's also things like expecting perfection or near-perfection from us and then getting super hostile when we can't meet those standards
calling us slurs even in a joking way {this is something we sometimes do with friends but it is not at all appropriate for a stranger or acquaintance on Tumblr to say to us!!}, putting words into our mouth. just generally treating us like we're an idea or concept, or expecting us to be infallible and take consistent cruelty with grace. forgetting that, hey, we're a person behind the screen, a person with a life outside of this, a person with a history and experiences that y'all don't know and aren't entitled to know. that's another one, acting entitled to our thoughts, or experiences, or attention
for question 2, while we call ourselfves just 'aplatonic' a lot for ease, a more detailed and more accurate description of our collective platonic orientation is that we're grayplatonic, neuroplatonic largely because of our NPD {though we haven't found a more specific term for that yet, we'll do it. eventually.}, and platonic non-conforming. still figuring out what our collective platonic stance is, if we have one lol
platonic attraction is uncommon for us, but we do experience it! when we do experience it, it's usually in a way that relates to our NPD, because it's experienced towards someone that we consider to be equal to us, superior to us, or almost to our level
as an aside, while we don't have one collective way of experiencing the internal hierarchy NPD thing, the majority of us experience it in a way that's... it's not that other people are bad, it's that we're simply better. we rarely will mentally sort someone into like, negative numbers i guess, we just usually sort ourself into a higher number than basically all others unless we're having a narc crash. anyone who gets mentally assigned a higher score than we give to ourselfves {outside of narc crashes} tends to become an FP. but. that's a tangent lol
so, back on topic. our view of friendship is that it's a commitment, and that agreeing to be friends with someone means there's responsibility on us. being friends with someone is, to us, unrelated to enjoying their company, or the way they think, or speaking to them regularly. if we're someone's friend, it means we have a responsibility to check up on them, learn and better keep track of their personal needs and what's going on in their life, and be there for them even when we don't want to. because we made a commitment, and we'll honour it
we don't need platonic attraction to have a friendship, and we have friends that we aren't platonically attracted to, but having platonic attraction towards someone means that we actively want to have a friendship with them, we actively want to make that commitment. not, "i'd say yes if asked, but i don't mind if it doesn't happen", not "i feel obligated to perform these duties", not "i'd say yes to a friendship with them if i thought it would benefit me", but desiring a friendship with them because of our own emotions towards them
uhhh this is a long ramble as it is and i started getting into like... our asociality and self-centeredness before realizing oh!! that's another topic pretty much entirely huh!! mayhaps at some point i will talk about it anyway... we worry about annoying people by talking about ourselfves and our experiences too much but given we've had several asks about the new pinneds saying it's really nice to know more about us, and that poll we did got a ton of people saying they do want to see more experiences posts {as well as the other stuff!!}, shrugs!!!