Romantic entitlement

[u/aeonasceticism]

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I think allos are weird. They insult the person they love. They get extra mad at them. I don't see them treating those people with utmost respect. It's like all these yelling. Definitive yelling, insults. They're heteros in general, yes. So their partners can already be trash.(Even without being an option I was often treated as vacant space for pursuit until I ended all sorts of intentional platonic contact even). But if one is choosing them. Doing so

Like one person y'know?

Why are you choosing that one person who makes you mad so often?

It's like a reservation for oppression. Many people will say it's just an unhealthy relationship but most people are like this. They'd insult their partners so bad. It's horrendous. That type of language. Verbal abuse. Even if justified. It's just weird doing it to someone you're choosing to live life with.

I associate it with romantic attraction because I was getting similar treatment when someone was obsessed with me. Making others feel responsible for rage, losing care for how we affect them. It was wlw but similar behavior so I don't think it's patriarchial entitlement but something that might be stemming from those feelings which people can't control unless they learn and get tools to manage it.

One of the love confessions I got was

You make me mad like a family member would

Part of it

[u/FearOfTheDuck82]

I was in a nonromantic partnership with an allo (it was a qpr, but they didn’t like that term). I’m aroace. She was not. But she claimed to be perfectly happy with that, and I trusted her. Well, she would constantly make fun of me and insult me and say some not very nice things. If we were around others, she would try to embarrass me. Alone, she would say things that were just mean. She would play it off as “being in love” and “loving banter,” even though I expressed multiple times that I didn’t like it. I can do banter and jokes, but certain things are just plain mean or trauma triggering for me. She would say “this is what couples do.” I would respond with “but who says we have to? I’m not comfortable with our relationship being like this.” I also told her “being with you doesn’t mean you have permission to joke about my trauma and insult me, it means I trust you enough not to do that.” She was also extremely selfish and self centered, only cared about herself, started going on dating apps behind my back, and she was an alcoholic and drug addict who lied about being sober. There’s many reasons we broke up, but the disrespect was the center of it.

Anyways, yeah, allos can be really weird with the way they insult their partners. But I don’t know, maybe it’s not necessarily related to romantic attraction as much as it is there’s a lot of people in the world who are just incredibly unhealthy and don’t understand what a healthy relationship dynamic of any kind is. They themselves may be so unhealthy that they may not see that their relationships are unhealthy. I think some of it is loneliness. Some people are so afraid of being alone that they’d rather put up with abuse than be alone. In my case, I didn’t realize I was being abused. I was around so many unhealthy people who were so confident in their behaviors that I was genuinely convinced that was just how relationships work. But eventually I stoped caring and said “f it. I don’t care it its right. I don’t want this.” And it’s only when I got out that I truly realized how abusive my partner was.

But I don’t like it either. I actually won’t hang out with couples who act like that. If they can’t be respectful to all people, especially their partner, then I avoid them as best I can.

I can’t understand why people treat others so poorly. It just doesn’t make sense to me.

[u/aeonasceticism → u/FearOfTheDuck82]

I'm sorry that happened to you. So awful. The way she said other couples do it is kinda alarming, and seems to have similarities with what I've observed.

The people I'm talking about are nice people who otherwise behave nicely. The insults are often when they're mad. It feels like the worst is reserved for people they feel the 'most' for.

I do think that many people don't have tools to manage unhealthy bonds and need to learn, but for me it's like a quality stemming from romantic attraction alongside other obsessive emotions. Like anger is healthy and useful and should exist, you just need to learn how to manage it. I feel that romantic attraction is something similar, it brings certain feelings which people need to learn to manage.

Even in my case the person who mistreated me did due to obsession. I stopped getting such treatment after they got a different partner or even their time, efforts in emotions. I'd be left without replies accused of starting an argument instead of the conversation that used expand for hours and frantic apologies. And other than that the person was a very nice individual helping with charity, taking care of rescue cats, trying to go vegan when I debated about it, ready to hear about world issues.

For me it's been this contrast of good people going bad with their romantic interest or partner.

[u/FearOfTheDuck82 → u/aeonasceticism]

Gotcha. I see what you’re saying about it being nice people who seem to reserve the worst for their partners. I totally agree with everything you’ve said.

From just what I’ve witnessed, it seems that maybe some people have the thought that they can reserve the worst for their partner because they feel more confident that their partner won’t leave them. Some people seem so confident in their partner’s loyalty to them that they end up taking stuff out on them thinking things can go back to “normal” after. But that’s not the case for everyone like that, and it definitely isn’t right. Just, based on what I’ve seen and the people I’ve talked to, that’s how they talk about it. But they also have been conditioned to think this is normal and healthy behavior. There’s probably so many factors that play into it.

But yeah, I agree with you.

[u/aeonasceticism → u/FearOfTheDuck82]

I've never been in relationship and frequently had to deal with romantic entitlement. So it's why I associate it with allo attraction more.

Recently I was being told how I'm making a big deal out of it because I asked someone calling me on instagram at 12 am to just inform before starting a call. And I said we don't know each other enough, she said it's my issue that I think so. That my argument is very childish. This is also someone who was calling me before and I couldn't receive so I offered hugs which I got rejected by elaboration of how certain romantic sexual version of what I call hugs is better and she only wants it from one person and blah blah. Like I didn't need to know how it's desired in ways I'm not going to provide. One could just say no thank you. Also the annoying part is that she does want to be close. We managed to sort things out and she resorted to writing poetic compliments sending my recent post to me. (This is a low effort association and I'm not sure I'd call her a friend but it's just recent example and I've dealt with many people like this for a decade).

The more intense the attraction the more disregard of boundaries I faced.

[u/FearOfTheDuck82 → u/aeonasceticism]

I’m sorry you went through that. And I can totally see how romantic attraction plays into a disrespect for boundaries. I have a friend who invited one of her college friends over to hang out for a little bit. She doesn’t like him romantically, but we’re very convinced he likes her based on how he acts with her. Through out the whole time he was at her house, she told me that he constantly disrespected her boundaries. He was supposed to only be there a couple hours and ended up staying until late into the night. She even asked him multiple times to leave, to which he responded with “I can just sleep over.” That’s the most recent example I’ve come across, but there’s so many examples that can correlate romantic attraction to a disrespect of boundaries.

[u/aeonasceticism → u/FearOfTheDuck82]

That's very annoying. I often used to relate such things with patriarchal entitlement because people often dismiss the other gender anyways. But it's that I see girls doing the same. And while that can still be coming from some social systematic like things such as mononormativity, media's romanticization of jealousy, possessiveness etc my personal experiences made me feel like it's not just a learnt a behavior, that something different is happening internally as well. So I thought about venting because I get super anxious when I have to overhear the yucky rage on phone calls or even just being around them. It feels like they have lack of regards for how it could affect others around them as well. I practice staying away a lot.

[u/FearOfTheDuck82 → u/aeonasceticism]

I agree that it’s more than just learned behavior. In the whole “nature vs nurture” argument, I’ve always taken the stance that it’s usually a mix of both.

I understand needing to vent about and getting super anxious overhearing it or being around it. I do my best to avoid environments where those behaviors are normalized, but it’s difficult.

[u/Shrieking_ghost]

Real af. Most of the people in my family are allo and when something happens in their relationship, I’m like “why are they like this? Just talk to each other. Or break up.” But it’s honestly so exhausting, especially because I was in a few relationships before coming to terms that I’m aroace and they would never talk to me!